Tag Archives: redemption

Eulogizing Joe

Posted on by
Reply

Methuselah lived 969 years, which means that at just over 100, my grandfather was a spring chicken, as lifespans go. That notwithstanding he got a lot done. Married, participated in at least three wars, fathered children, buried some. Lost a wife, found another, called me his oldest unmarried granddaughter for as long as it applied.

I loved him in all his iterations, in all his familiar imperfections, but I know Someone who loves him more.

The One who is the Road

The All and Only

Road Home.

Psalm 116

My anger dog, my anger cat

Posted on by
Reply

This morning I contemplated creating (Galatea-style), a metaphorical anger mascot.

Something with breathable fake fur and big flappy hands.

But I realized I have real pets who fit the bill–

An anger dog, an anger cat.

She rolls on her belly so I can pet her, but barks mercilessly at her compatriot

He snuggles close, however briefly, attempts his most disingenuous

Resting cat face

But I know I cannot

Let them

Run free.

The Supine Condition

Posted on by
Reply

It helps me sometimes, to picture all of us in our sheep costumes, thin elastic chin straps, holding on our faces.

Helps me to remember

We are all sheep

If you don’t count the wolves among us

And all we, like sheep have gone astray

So you will not be the one to forgive my helpless anger

At all the lambs lost to slaughter

While the Shepherd was away.

Carried Over

Posted on by
Reply

We are collectively surprised at how ephemeral the boat is, balloonish, easily punctured. As are we. I wonder if the others have drawn the same conclusions-we have become ghosts in our erstwhile stories, still haunted by the house, by the spouse, by the hope we left behind.

Only Lazarus whistles a chipper tune. Why is he so happy? Because nothing is a cool hand to lose.

Words for thirsty

Posted on by
Reply

We sit in the shade, it is all shade here, so incorporeal, so many of us, all waiting for a voice, for a light, for The Before The After, the now and forever, we talk of sunsets, the way the sun might send one last piercing shaft of light up through the darkening sky, faith-hope-love coming for us, they say, these men who have seen the-greatest-of-these-is-love

But when? How long until

We are irrevocably

Called to life.

Anger at the heart of love

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t know why they came then, at the heart of the hardest season of our lives, but we took them to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. He sat in the back of the van with me and I made him do a Bible study about Jesus inhabiting hearts like they were houses, a Chinese box filled with simile and indelible pain. If I would write our story as a clever fiction I would insert a frumpy birdwatching stranger and I would accost her with my incoherent grief-

Anger is at the heart of love

overturning tables in the temple

In the house of God

The Bear in the Woods

Posted on by
Reply

The day that Miracle died we walked in the mountains. Two bears walked ahead of us and their presence seemed ordained, magical.

It was magical I tell myself even though she died.

Sometimes I feel like I am out of mantras, out of coins for the machine, no longer capable of telling myself to believe it will all be ok.

Then Casey Hathaway tells us all about the bear who kept him company in the woods we have all got lost in and

I go there to find Him too, lean into his ursine chest, sob a little.

Believe He is real, despite the feat in our eyes.