I need some
quiet...
the kind of
silence
that
penetrates
deep
beneath the
self
beneath
the one you see,
beyond
the one
that
screams and claws
for
a voice,
attention,
recognition...
I need to put her
in time out
to edge her into the
penumbral shadows of
a softer light,
to gently hold
her there,
and
not give in...
because the
true me,
the me that knows there
is no
real answer
but the
one that comes
from within...
from within
the
silence of a silent
heart....
needs...
not wants,
wishes for,
imagines,
or hopes...but needs
to be quiet
needs to
cast off from
the
familiarity of
her own
"voice"
and drift into
the middle,
the core,
the center of
her stillness...
she needs to
be quiet...
really,
really
quiet...
sshh....
you can do this...
"seek My face.
continually..."
- God
but who are You?
I just need to know...
really,
who are You...
to me?
here in this
moment, where
i feel so
small and human,
so pushed around by
the ego's
taunting,
who are You?
how will I know You,
where should i find You,
what does Your face look like?
just tell me, and I will
never sleep
I will spend every moment,
of every day
seeking You,
celebrating You,
calling attention to You -
Your power,
Your beauty,
Your glory...
but where?
where are You...
my dear child:
I am first,
and foremost,
within your good heart...
the place where you
question your motives,
step right over your fears to
help a stranger,
leap at the call of Love to
chart a new course...
My face is his face, and
her face,
and the face of those you have
yet to meet...
The child who sits quietly
with one
who no longer remembers where
she lives, or what year it is...
only that she loves the sea, and
wants fresh, warm blueberries for
dinner.
My face is the face of
a father who tosses newspapers from the
window of an old station wagon
before dawn,
before going in to work at his "real job,"
so that his children
have shoes,
and his wife can
meet them
at the
door at the end of
the school day
My face is in the
face of the water,
at the edge of the Ganges River
where thousands
gather to pray,
to wash saris,
to bathe their babes amidst the
ashes of saints
and the
hopes for their
children...
My face is in the face of
the murderer,
a prostititute,
the poor and the weary,
the rich and the
disillusioned....
all those
who hope to find
in your face,
My face...
the face
of
mercy,
the face of
forgiveness...
eyes full
of compassion
the
tenderness that
comes,
of
grace...
today...
"I am,
that I am..."
― God
"I want nothing,
I long for nothing,
I hum gently
the sounds of childhood..."
- H. Hesse
there was a time...
before we
rushed to
close our windows
to the sweltering
heat
of dog day
afternoons...
a time
when summer
had a
sound...
you could hear the
end of spring
as clearly
as
the call of a loon
or the
voice of
angels
on night of
a Savior's
birth...
there was a time when
summer was
noisy with the
thwack of a screen door
and the laughter of
children punctuating the easy
staccato
rhythm of
a lawn sprinkler
cycling back and forth
across the back
yard
just beyond the
kitchen
window
where mother
stood
listening
for the
first "i'm hungry"
from the lips of
grass-stained
babes
ready for
an
afternoon
nap
summer sounded like
the whirr of an oscillating fan,
the tinkle of ice cubes
melting in a
tall glass of sweet tea,
the soft whisper of
a butterfly's
wings against
the petals
of a
rose
evenings were
rich with a sound as
heavy as honey
falling from the comb
and as
gentle as the breathing of a
younger
child in the
arms of her sister
stretched out lazily
on the old porch swing,
while
the little boys
chased fireflies
under the
sliver of moonlight,
living lightning
that bumped against the
glass of a
mason jars,
till
dawn
breaks like
silence
in the
east...
remember when
summer had a sound
and windows were
open to the
buzzing of flies,
the hum of a lawn mower,
the song of whippoorwills,
and the lapping of
water against
a wooden sailboat
as it bumped into the
weathered dock at the
water's edge...
remember
when summer
had
a
sound that
softened the
lines between morning and
evening and
sweetened our memories
with the
music of yesterday...
today...
To think nothing,
to know nothing,
only to breathe,
only to feel...”
― H. Hesse
"Tell me,
what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
- M. Oliver
so where
will you go
when you have this
imagined
freedom,
those elusive resources,
that opportunity...
the
"if only..."
whatever
you believe
you
have been
waiting for?
who do
you think you
will be?
where will you go...
what spot
on the
map of your
dreaming
will you
be free to
slip
away
to?
will it be the place you have
imagined
for so long...
so long
that the once-freshly painted
and squarely-hung shutters are
dripping from the
peeling clapboards,
and
the porch
steps sagging against the
crumbling foundation of
your
dreams
where will you go,
and who
will you be
once
you
get
"there"
and
with
all your
wishing,
your getting,
your
finally...at lasts
will
you have
lost the ones
who could
have joined you in the dance...
will they
have
left the room
while you
stared out the window
gazing into the far off
distance
of "someday when"
would they still be
with you,
if only you
hadn't been
hiding behind the gray
veil of
your wanting,
the dark clouds of
your despair over
what you did not
get to be,
where you did not get to live,
who you think
did
not love
you
quite
enough,
when
"if only"
occupies more space
than the
children you
could
have played with,
the sunrises you would have
greeted,
the laughter you
might have
shared...
where will you be when this freedom
finally comes?
will you
be wishing
you could
return to that
time
before
regret
return
to bygone days
when your
babies' hands were pudgy, and
sticky with
the sweetness of
summer days,
and popsicles
dripping from
soft,
dimpled elbows,
pink cheeks stained with
the sun's kisses...
will
you wish you could
return to
the nights when
dreaming
wasn't an escape from
what you
thought you did not
have...
perhaps it
is time to ask
a different
question:
what will you do with
the freedom
you
have
to
live
fully,
today...
"“I wish
I could freeze this moment,
right here,
right now,
and live in it forever.”
― S. Collins
“Disturb us, Lord,
to dare more boldly,
to venture on wider seas,
where storms will show Your mastery,
where losing sight of land,
we shall find the stars. ..."
-F. Drake
I thought I
was making
headway in the
vastness of
it all
when a wave of
sorrow,
a swell of doubt
broke over
the bow of my
calm
and threatened to capsize
my peace...
but I am
a salt-soaked
wayfarer
on this roiling ocean
I call
my life
I am a woman with
sea-legs,
ready to adapt
to the
shifting
angles and
slippery security
of a
creative life,
a day of wonder,
a moment's
pause to capture
serenity at
the expense of
knowing how deep the keel,
or just where the
next
harbor lies...
I am a sea child,
a mermaid,
a sun-leathered
wind-whipped
siren of the deep...
my eyes have
taken on the color of
a slice sky between the cracking sheets...
the shade of blue,
and slate,
and something deeper than
the night...the color of the sea
just before
a nor'easter sends
curtains of
rain
sideways
into
the face of uncertainty,
and I roar with
pleasure,
as saltwater
pools in the creases of
my oilskins
and I stare into the
eyes of
Neptune's
fury
off the bow...
i will bow only to
the One who
holds the tiller of
my life
I will take
orders only from the
Captain of
my
days
I will navigate this
storm at
His command,
listening only
for His
voice
rising above
the shrieking voices
of
despair....
I am a sea-worthy
vessel,
a captain's daughter,
a fearless
mate,
a girl who
roars in
the face of
fear,
a child
who's kisses taste of salt
and sun,
a woman who tightens the
halyards
with
eager
hands...
"Oh Captain,
my Captain..."
- W. Whitman
“Nothing could have prepared
your heart to open like this...
Once it began,
you were no longer your own.
Never
have you traveled
farther inward..."
- J. O'Donohue
my mother likes to
type everything in
all
CAPS
she is the queen of
mixed metaphors and
double entendres
she can be infuriating,
endearing,
complex,
subtle, and
silly...all-at-once
she is funny, but
not because she tries to be...
but just because
she is
my mother can
arrange
a toddler-gathered,
fist-weary
bouquet of
weeds and wildflowers
into something
a bride would
love to
carry
and she never
remembers
that I
am not the
last name in the
list of eight
she chose
so carefully
as each of
us were
a
promise
waiting
to
be seen...
my mother loves the color blue...but
only the "right" shades
of blue...
the ones that
remind you of the ocean,
sea glass,
storm clouds over
the mountains in Colorado,
a deep lake,
bottles dug from the ancient dust and
red rocks of a ghost town,
Antero-mined
aquamarines...
a baby's eyes
my mother
is too embarrassed to
sing out loud
in public,
because she never noticed
that her voice
was always our favorite sound...
my mother
likes pickle and peanut butter
sandwiches,
strong English tea,
and anything
made of
mud,
sprinkled with
grass, and
served
on
child-sized plates
by our
"own two hands"
my mother
covers her mouth
when she
smiles,
crosses her arms
across her
chest,
and deflects
compliments with the
stealth of
a
navy seal...
my mother
is peculiarly,
oddly,
strangely,
so
like
me....
except for the
peanut butter and pickles...
and the
CAPS...
"In search
of my mother's garden,
I found my own..."
- Alice Walker
[photos: Lila June Jones 2012 and 2008]
“Did you ever
walk through a room
that's packed with people,
and feel so lonely
you can hardly take
the
next
step?”
- J. P.
she was
small and
frail...
like a baby bird with
tufts instead of
feathers,
the new girl in the class,
her dress spotless,
crisply ironed
with the scent of
scorched cotton
softly lingering
like
perfume...
her shoes polished,
but sole-weary
the rest of the class
had gone
to recess
and she'd remained
hanging back
blindly searching for a
thin coat with frayed
cuffs,
mis-matched buttons,
and a worn collar...
"miss..."
she whispered
as I gathered my things
and dreamed of
the few moments of
quiet I'd now
have...
"miss..."
was all she could get out
before tears as
hot and
heavy as honey
pooled above
her lashes
"i am that girl,
the one in the book,
the one
who has no friends..."
she barely
lisped before
wracking sobs
shook her thin shoulders and
she slipped
within herself again...
i silently crossed
the room...
as
both the teacher,
and
the once-upon-a-time
new girl
who
was never "there"
long enough to
make a
friend...
I slid to the floor
beside her,
and let us cry
a bit...
then we played
chess...
while I
gave thanks,
that
i understood,
and
and
didn't say
I did..
“I wish I could show you
when you are lonely
or in darkness
the astonishing light
of your own being.”
― Hafiz
"My heart is capable of every form:
a pasture for gazelles,
a monastery for monks,
an abode for idols,
and a holy shrine for pilgrims.
In my heart,
both the tablets of the Torah,
and the Holy Qur'an are to be found.
My faith and religion is Love...
wherever it beckons me,
I follow."
- ibn al-'Arabi
i bow myself to
the ground where
his
dust-caked feet,
walked
between villages
his tender fingers,
wrote a blessing
his
hot tears,
fell in
"silent benediction"
i lift my hands
to the heavens where
clouds dance and
shift
along a soft
horizon,
rain peppers a blue canvas
with the translucent
tears of
angels
and
the air sounds like
a sacred sigh
exhaled in
child pose...
I stretch my arm
and bend my heart,
twist myself
into an underlying,
overlying,
and encompassing
spiral of
surrender...
and still I long to
know
my shape,
find my purpose,
reach my potential,
discover my voice...
when all along
I am a
pasture for
gazelle
and a temple
for the
holy
ghost...
"There are
hundreds of ways
to kneel,
and kiss the ground..."
― Rumi
"Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt...
that I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs and sweet honey
from my old failures...."
- A. Machado
there is a constant
humming
a thrumming,
a strumming
i feel
within me
it is
Life asserting itself
reminding me
that I am never
in stasis,
never on hold,
always animated by
a divine
resonance
as true to my tuning
as the
sound of a
queen's
calling to
the body of her colony...
it is a droning
a rhythm
a collective pulsing of
purpose,
vision,
art...
the drumming
that
moves
me involuntarily
towards
the steps of
a dance,
the words of a
song,
the lines of a
poem...
the voicing of
grace...
poised
for a bee dance
within
"Last night as I slept,
I dreamt...
that it was God I had
here inside my heart..."
― A. Machado
“In the beginning, God..."
― Genesis
how many times
do I
need to begin...
once a lifetime?
once a day?
once every morning?
or
do I need to
begin
again,
and again,
each time
the mist of self rises
from
the dust another
story
and
I am confused about
what role to play,
who to be,
whom to trust,
and
why...
why my Father,
who
I know
loves me,
and has all the power
in the universe....
would ever
create good and evil
and then
leave me to my
own
devices...
it doesn't make
sense
i know...
I have children
and I love them,
and
I would never put good and evil
in front of them
and then turn my back and
leave them to decide...
and neither does He...
it is a lie
and
it isn't a lie about a truth,
or a truth about a lie
it is just a lie...
period.
so,
I start
again,
at the beginning...
over,
and over
and over
again...
I start
where
there is only God...
and
at the end of
each activity,
at the close of each
thought,
at the summation of
each argument,
at the conclusion
of each
story....
there is
nothing else
only
God...
and
every thing in
the middle
is a story
where,
if do it right
and
start correctly,
I will
end correctly
in his story...
He's always,
the
main
character,
the
protagonist,
the
Hero...
shattering the
darkness,
like dawn breaking through
the mist...
a story
that starts
and
ends
and always
starts again,
with Him
in this story there is
no other might...
possibility
or power
there is nothing else
that might
happen
only Him
always Him...
"The starting point
of divine Science is
that God, Spirit,
is All-in-all,
and there is no other
might, nor Mind..."
― Mary Baker Eddy
“And behold,
a woman of Canaan..."
― Matthew 15
"Have mercy on me,
O Lord, thou son of David..."
and he
answered her
not a
word...
"send her away.."
they implore him
she is not one of us
she is not who we serve
perhaps
this is true
perhaps it is
my destiny...
"I am not come, but
unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel..."
but she will not be
dismissed
there is a love in her heart
that has sent her here
and she will
stand her ground...
even his followers
cannot protect him
from the
legacy written
on his heart....
so she speaks:
I know who they think
you are,
and who you may becoming
the promised Saviour,
the Messiah,
the one who will defend
Israel's right to the promised land,
to be the
chosen people...
but I also know Father...
have you forgotten
that
He loves my daughter
as much as
He loves you...
Your Father doesn't
sort his children
into
hierarchies of
geography,
ethnicity,
history,
religion,
race....species
he loves us all
even the dogs
are worthy of the
crumbs that fall from
His table...
sir,
you have a choice
you can be a nationalistic leader --
a Messiah
who defends the specialness
of "a people,"
the rights of
"the chosen ones"
one
sees only the
innocence,
the worthiness,
the hope of "the lost
sheep" of his own flock...
or you can
heal...
heal
universally,
impartially,
unconditionally...
which will it be?
for behold,
I am a woman of Canaan,
and I know your
Father
and I
now
know that I
have been sent to help
you
find
your way
to
who you
really
are...
a political leader
with a constituency
you must
defend,
answer to,
stand with,
get approval from...
or,
a healer
I don't think
you can
be both...
"O woman..."
― Jesus
““A mother's body
remembers her babies.... ”
― B. Kingsolver
ask me what
happened on the day
you were born
and I will not be able
to tell you
all the things
that only
she can recall
i do not have memories of
water breaking or
waves of labor...
and
for these things that
are hers alone
to
tell you of,
I am
infinitely grateful
but I can tell you
that my heart broke open
wide and swallowed
the selfishness of
my life before you...
I can tell you of confused tears...
sorrow for her pain,
joy to see your face, to hold your
tiny fingers in my own,
the agony of watching her
be brave,
the heartache in your
cries
as her voice
became
your
fondest
memory,
but
not
the
sound
you
would
wake
to
each morning,
or hear
at the
close
of
every
day...
i can tell you how the sun
looked coming through the
hospital window
that morning when they
brought you to her
bedside
i can tell you how her eyes
watched your chest rising and falling
with each small breath, and
how many tears fell
before she
realized,
and wiped
them away
hoping we hadn't seen...
seven,
there were
seven
i can tell you how
my knees buckled with love
the first moment i
looked down into your face,
and then your sisters
and it was
like falling in love
over,
and over,
and over again
in waves of
joy and sorrow
ebbing and fading
like
a sea that
can't remember what to leave
upon the beach
and what to take away
I can tell you that your
eyes were the
color of water, that
your hair felt like spun silk
and your fingernails were as small
as the tiny moonshells
we'd find
on a nearby beach when you
were five and
we went back to
that place
near the sea where you
were born
and
she held
you
once again
and
taught you
all about
summer,
and beach glass,
and
growing up
near the
sea
i can't tell you of
how it felt to have you move
beneath my hands,
beneath my shirt,
beneath my skin...but she
can
I can tell you
that I am grateful every day
for the gift that
is you...
and
I can tell her that I will never be
able to say all that is
in my heart
about what it has meant to
be your mom...
with her...
sharing you
was the greatest gift
anyone
has
ever
given me...
or ever will...
i love you
all
three
of
you...
because, you see,
on the day you were born...
she
joined our family
forever,
too...
"A child
is your own
best food forward"
― B. Kingsolver
[photo and inspiration by friend...and remarkable artist...jacqueline Janecke]
“If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up
rooted, like trees. ”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
she sent the photo
one summer when all the
days were
dry with august heat and dust
and hope-filled dreams
of lullabies, and rain, and evening
breezes off the
coast of
Maine
I'd long
loved her whimsy,
her colors,
her ability to make me
want to sit on a dock and
sing to the stars
surrounded by a long lake
and the call of
loons...
she sent the photo
with a family of
small paintings...
magical dancing shapes,
a swirl of periwinkle
a magenta moon in a sky of
pear green
small summer moments captured
in watercolor
and laughter...
each one a treasure
but it was the photo
on which she wrote a
simple note that
I first framed...
a photo of a writing desk,
a wooden chair,
an orchard...
a place for
listening
a place where apple blossoms
fluttered around my
thoughts like
butterflies and poems
gathered in
the branches like
sparrows, while
honeybees
brought the future
to kiss each
deep-throated
bud with
the promise of
liquid gold
and life..
an orchard of silent,
gnarled,
ancient
crones who
still loved wearing
flowers in their hair
each spring
and whispering encouragement
to nestlings
perched along their branches
seeking courage
for a
maiden flight...
each night I'd ease myself
into the space
within the simple frame...
I pick my way through
tall grass towards
the slender chair,
where
i'd tuck barefeet
beneath me as I waited for another
stanza to filter through the
branches and fall lightly
on a weathered desktop
there, beneath the dappled
light of orchard days
I gently gather them
into my hands
and lifting them close
breathe deeply
perfumed words as
delicate as the colors of
a memory in
sepia...
an orchard,
a wooden chair,
and a writing desk...
a private
retreat...
an artist's
sanctuary
shared with
love...
"...her deep roots
are not reached
by the frost."
― J. R. R. Tolkein
[photo and inspiration by friend...and remarkable artist...jacqueline Janecke]
“I had been chipping at the world idly,
and had by accident
uncovered vast
and labyrinthine further worlds
within it.”
― Annie Dillard
i sat in the
dust that day
surrounded by
the strata-laced
cliffs of
human history...
a wilderness
of loves lost,
and loves found...
proud moments,
the darkest nights,
the wrongest wrongs and
the rightest rights...
and towering on either side
a sandstone
autobiography of
all I'd done
and all I thought I'd never be...
but was
I chipped away
at one layer and then
another,
but the vein of
hurt went too deeply
and all my tools,
too fragile for the
job at hand
lay discarded around me
like
the treasures found in
pyramids of
pharaohs
a sword,
a stave,
an amulet of myrrh
a toolbox for the nether world
to chase away the
demons of
the past
mine were
not so handy...
books on how to help myself,
aphorisms,
and all I'd learned
but they lay bent and
broken and
my fingertips were
raw from
chipping,
scratching,
clawing away at the
stony face of
who I'd been...
until,
tired and aching with
frustration and
regret
a curled against the wall
of blood red
sand and dust and
soft sobs
leaked from
my broken heart in
trickles of
humility...
a rivulet of hope...
and suddenly
as quiet as a dove's
ascent
beneath my
heaving breast
the rock began to
crumble,
fracture,
dissolve
under the tender
touch of
a tear...
deeper and deeper
it fell away...
until
the stream of tears
found
a wellspring of
innocence,
purity,
and
"all things new"
waters sweet with
promise,
rushed up to
bathe my
eyes with holiness
my heart with
grace
and I was
saved...
"and behold,
angels came and ministered unto him..."
― Matthew 4: 11
“The sky grew darker,
painted blue on blue,
one stroke at a time,
into deeper and deeper shades of night.”
― H. Murakami isn't this
the way it is
with
grace...
layers of blue
upon
blue,
songs of
sorrow and
sympathy
sung by voices that
have felt the
pain of
loss and
resurrection and
rise up
singing
there is a blue
that
whispers twilight
the soft
dusky ache of
a summer's day
as it falls
into the horizon and
spreads like
spilled ink along the
edges of tomorrow's promise
a blue that blurs the
line of
sky and sea
giving the heart a
place to
sort the treasures of the day
bits of shell
and sea glass
a speckled egg and the
feather of a
tern who called us follow
her delicate footsteps
in the sand...
there is a bewitching shade
of
blue
that pulls me
under its spell and into
a sacred shade of
stillness,
a sanctuary blue that
spills along the periphery of
my dreams and
floats like vapor above
the dark river of
tears
tears
that eddy within the
twisted roots and
trapped stories of a thousand
shades of
gray...
there are
blues that cause my eyes to
water and
ache with memory,
blues that
hold a scent long after the
heady days of
lilacs and lavender have
given way to the
shimmering heat of august's
pale sky and the
bitter icy blue of
december's
frozen
stream
there are blues that
skip, and
blues that comfort,
blue paint, and blue fruit
that tastes like
july in Maine...
my life is a layering
of blue, upon
blue
shades pale and
distant,
deep and
rich,
evocative and
hopeful...
a blueberry door
on a butter yellow farmhouse,
periwinkle pots
filled with
blushing poppies,
the fragile blue of a quail's
egg,
the strong blue of
my sister's eyes...
a denim blue that
smells of hay and sunshine
salt and tears,
the blue of heavy-headed
hyacinths and the
breast of
an
oriole
i dream in shades
of blue...
layers of
grace
upon grace...
upon grace
until
the sky
is ready to
hold the
moon
so
she can turn
her face
to catch
the
blue of
dawn...
"I lie in the dark
wondering if this quiet in me now
is a beginning or an end...”
― J. Gilbert
"there is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down,
that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof
will not cease...."
- Job
just when I
thought I'd given myself
permission
to walk away from
my barren hopes,
ungraspable dreams,
my aching, longing, yearning
for
something I couldn't even
fully imagine...
but felt
felt
deeply
felt,
like a yawning
space
in the
deepest part of me
a pulling
a calling
a thirst...
yes,
that is how it
feels
a parched want,
the desert of my longings,
a thirst for
what I think is
living water,
but can't help thinking
is just an illusive taunting,
a shimmering mirage
in the distance...
but I feel its pull,
i know its perfume...
it is
a wellspring
that
quenches all
the
emptiness I once tried
to avoid...
that was until
I couldn't
until I
realized that
it was the thirst
itself
I
wanted
more than
the stranger's
goatskin,
or the oasis
from
all longing
yes,
it was the thirst
to know that I
am that space
in
which the puzzle piece fits perfectly,
I am
the aching
breasts that
flow at the sound of an
infant's cry,
the toddler's incessant
questioning,
always
wanting
something more...
why,
why,
but...why...
it is a perfume so
delicate and
sweet that
it
pulls my
heart to remember
what
I thought I'd
turned from
forever....
I want
to feel this thirst
is to be alive
it is
the blind man's
demand for
"my sight,"
when he has never
seen,
the slave's
ache for a freedom
his ancestors only dreamed of,
it is a vision
I cannot see,
a something that
I cannot even
imagine, but know I can
no longer live without...
it is
a love for the
thirst itself...
the thirst that
pulls me,
draws me,
calls me
to the
spring,
taunts me to come closer to
the river's edge,
the trickling,
seeping,
wetness
between the rocks
to seek
the
source, the
place of
its
springing
where
I see
the face of
God
reflected
in
a tiny
drop of
stillness
and something in me
burst into
awakening
I feel it
in my soul,
this thirst
for the scent of
water,
the gift of
longing
called
grace...
"...through the scent of water
it will bud,
and bring forth boughs...."
- Job
[photo credit: Ashley Bay 2012]
he was waiting by the side of the highway,
just beyond Jericho's holy gates, that foolish
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus...blind and
foolish, begging...always begging....what will
the master think? a blind beggar his last
memory of our sacred walls...
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me...
"mercy," what is he thinking, he has gone too
far. the Rabbi does not know his sins, or his
parents', that he can judge his failings and
mete out mercy...what insanity, what boldness...
i know what i know...that this is a beggar, that is
what I know...a beggar who bothers our visitors
and annoys our noble men...day after day he
sits on that bench, and asks for more...always more...
what mercy does he deserve...
but wait, he stops...the master stops, and calls him
to come to him...will his rebuke be fierce, will he
finally tell him to stop his begging....it is such an
embarassment to his family...a good family,
I know them well, they don't desrve this...
oh no... now, he is taking off his clothes and
running naked towards the teacher...
"what do you want me to do," the master asks with
such love in his eyes...that it takes my breath away...
"that I might receive my sight," he answers with
a heart full of hope and expectation and dignity...
standing naked...he has honor...and faith...oh, what faith...
and it is this faith, that the master sees beyond my
blindness, it is this faith that opens my own eyes to the
blindness of my heart...it radiates from Bartimaeus
like the sun...he is whole...he is His...and he leaves
it all behind him...the blindness, the begging, the
darkness...and follows his faith...and opens my eyes
to the greatest light of all...
"For me,
the sweetest contact with God has no form.
I close my eyes, look within,
and enter a deep soft silence.
The infinity of God's creation embraces me..."
- M. Jackson
cracking open
the fragile shell of
who I think
I might
be
and laying in the womb
of my own
becoming
I discover that my
journey
is just beginning...
again
another shell,
another
story...
but this one is smaller
and I am almost
eager for the
hollow sound of my
own
isolation as I
toss and turn,
and breathe and stretch within
the narrow limits
of another
womb...
I am not afraid this time
nor am I in a hurry
to hear the
first
fissure form
a countless number of
stories will
try to
keep me from
the fullness of infinity
the free air
and endless sky,
the horizonless vista of
who I am
I am
an invincible summer,
I am
wordless promise,
I am
a deep drawn
breath of dew-soaked
morning air,
the silent echo of
a house at night while
children sleep in
slender beds
beneath quilts of
butter yellow
and and
periwinkle,
I am awareness of beauty,
the awakened heart,
I am aspen leaves dancing in
september's first
hint of resurrection...
I am the
consciousness of
what lies within this shell
and yet cannot
be contained...
I am all the thoughts that
keep me company
when there is
nothing
but the blue of
dawn to
greet me as the
fissure
begins and
light
breaks through....
“In the depth of winter,
I finally learned
that within me
there lay an invincible summer..."
- A. Camus
"“the strange sensation
of weeping under water... "
- R. A. Dickey
i let my arms and
legs go slack
as I struggle against the current,
an undertow pulling
me further and further from
shore...
I am tired
and cannot fight the
inevitable
I will not reach my destination,
I will not win this
battle with
the past to
drag me backwards...
I feel myself sinking
like lead
and for the first time I do
not think I can do it...
I can't win,
I cannot overcome what
grips the
sodden graveclothes of my mistakes,
the choices
I have made, the
injuries
of another's
touch upon my soul...
I have nothing left
but this last breath drawn
and it escapes me
like the sad, soft mewing of
a starving child
belly inflated with the
emptiness of
hope,
the hunger for
salvation
and then I feel them...
hot tears
they are so different from the cold,
damp, angry
fingers of the undertow...
they are warm and
stay close to my face
they are not quick to melt into the
brackish darkness that
reaches for more
of my heart
they are mine,
and because
they are mine and mine alone...
I know that I have lived
I know that I have felt
I know that I have loved...
and want to love again..
and in that moment,
the heaviness of my leaden limbs
turns to gold...
and instead of sinking,
I reach deeper for the
bedrock of my being
my right to love...
my right to
try...
again.
weeping under water
hot tears
coax my heart to push off
from the black
shale, and
sharp granite,
to reach for air and
seek the light
and
as I burst through the
surface of
my wetted sepulchre
I see my life
before
me warmed by an inner
something,
a presence
deeper than the
cold tunnel vision of
my
empty
past...
it is the swelling
song of compassion
the rich heartbeat of a living
love....
it is the deep drawn
breath of one who knows
that the past can no longer
drown her in
despair,
and with
that new breath,
I rise
from the darkness
lifted by the
buoying waters of
a billion tears...
“the dark domain of
pain and sin,
surrenders,
love doth enter in...”
― M. B. Eddy
"“Your pain
is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding... "
- Kahlil Gibran
I woke within a dream
to find myself
gazing up at
hairline cracks in
a tiffany blue sky
clouds
that once shifted in shape
before my eyes
were shredding,
and
peeling from the
canopy
like gossamer sheets of paint
falling from a
false ceiling beyond my reach
and below me, beneath me,
around my naked,
scarred body,
a soft sea rocked and
buoyed me,
gently
lifting me higher and higher
towards the
crack in the sky...
I stretch my arms
out,
my body no
longer rigid, but
easy and pliant in the
rhythm of the sea
its pulsing silence
filling my ears with serenity's song...
"come out
please,"
they call to me from
a vanishing shore
but I cannot
tears are
all the words I have left,
and
they fill this self-sea with
the poetry of silence
an echo of forgiveness, and
a whispered mercy...
each tear causes the sea of compassion
to rise higher and
higher beneath me
and I discover that with
each teardrop,
I am closer to the fissure in
the shattered sky...
The salt-soaked waters
cleanse and heal my
open wounds,
sorrows once buried
rise to the surface like bubbles of
escaped sulphur from
a brimstone
past
I smile with
compassion on this
once-upon-a-story
self
whose sharp edges
dissolve within the saline
sea of tears
I weep...
higher and higher it lifts me
towards the crack in my world of
soft blue delusion, of all
I thought I was
and
discover I am not...
with each
tear,
thought soars,
and I come closer to emerging
from this
fragile orb
of self
to find I am
alive in the
warm
hollow of His
hand...
enraptured,
featherless,
and free...
“Emerge gently
from matter into Spirit. Think not
to thwart the ultimate of all things...”
― M. B. Eddy
"loose him,
and let him go..."
- Jesus
loose me,
please...
loose me,
let me go
somewhere
you cannot re-wind
me in the graveclothes
of the past
or entomb me in the
rock-ribbed
darkness of your culture,
your creeds,
my heart is new
can't you see
that I am not
"there"
I am not in that place
where I once was,
and who
you think I still am
loose me
let me go
let me be free
of the
bindings of
opinions,
judgments,
the myopathy of what
you can't
imagine
I no longer live
within the
tattered memory of
what I have shrunken from
the shell shape
of my once-upon-a-time ego
reduced,
withered,
dissolved
within
the
shattered emptiness
of my own
undoing
no longer puffed up
with selfish pride
or sad ambition...
no longer building something
I thought would house
a legacy...
what you think you see
is just a name,
a body,
a history you believe I
live in,
your story of my life
projected on
an empty
screen
but I am not there
loose me
and let me go....
please
“What is it
that seems a stone
between us and the
resurrection morning?”
― M. B. Eddy
"at present,
mortals progress slowly
for fear of being thought ridiculous..."
- M. B. Eddy
ridculous
I can handle...
I like ridiculous...
silly,
fun,
a bit quirky,
but what about
just
plain
wrong...
immoral,
arrogant,
the son of Beelzebub,
a cultural outlaw,
this I do not
think that
I can do
dear Father...
why would
You ask me
to
heal the sick
on the Sabbath day,
preach Your message
of hope and
salvation to Samaritans and
strangers...
eat with sinners,
let a women "with an
issue of blood" touch me
in a crowd...
raise the dead
celebrate the tears of a
harlot,
turn aside from
raising the Pharisee's daughter to
help a Centurion's servant
feed five thousand men,
as well as the
women and children
beside them
save the adulteress
from being stoned
step onto the sea,
rebuke church leaders...
welcome Greeks and Romans
to the passover feast...
flip tables in the temple
and disobey my
parents,
deny my mother,
wash the feet of my followers,
kiss my betrayer,
forgive...
“...be it unto me
according to Thy will...”
― Luke
"brood oer' us
with thy sheltering wing,
neath which our spirits blend..."
- M. B. Eddy
spring came early
this year...
warm sunlight
bathed the porch in
liquid gold,
pooling against the
clapboards,
and lingering in
dappled waves of
summer's promise,
tucked softly
under the
eaves...
before I could
strip the window boxes
of December's pine boughs and
holly,
she came and
feathered
a secret cache...
last year's
brittle grass
and bits of
ribbon...
strands of silver
and the raffia she'd
unlaced from
a wreath
made in
november when the
air was filled with
burning leaves
and
overripe fruit
dripped from
branches
heavy with the
scent of
something already
sleeping
before the snow...
but,
she
was eager to
prepare for their arrival...
our window boxes
now
her
manger
claimed before the
first crocuses of spring
reached
slender
arms above the
loamy
earth
to touch a
daystar
as it coursed across
the sky
back and forth
she flew
with tiny flecks of
lint and
wool
to soften a
cradle
made of
straw
will a
star
rise in the
east
the day that
they are
born...
who can know
the form
of Love
when eagles
bow
to
a sparrow's
child...
and
women
bring gifts
to crown
the
daughters
of a
morning
dove...
“...fed by Thy love, divine,
we live,
for love alone is Life...”
― M. B. Eddy
"One should lie empty, open,
choiceless as a beach --
waiting for a gift from the sea."
- A. M. Lindbergh
choiceless
as a beach...
i wait
for You to
fill my
heart with
small treasures...
I am not picky
in fact,
i have lost the will
to choose for
myself...
it has always left me
empty-handed,
fragile hope-shells crushed
between fingers too
tightly curled,
always
grasping for
something that
eventually
falls through the cracks,
like grains of sand
returning to
the sea...
reaching for the shiny shard of glass
not yet softened to
a pale hue by the pounding
waves and
salted air of a perfect storm...
ready for a child's palm
or a widow's
nightstand...
the wind has blown me
free of wanting
what I cannot see...
I will wait
and wait...and
wait until
from the depths
of the unseen
a single word
teases itself
onto my waiting
shores...
a single word that
leads me forward...
one more step...
on this
journey of meaning,
I will wait
for a feeling
one that leaves me
longing,
aching for
the whisper of
Your message at
my ankles,
Your touch
upon my heart,
and when I
am almost ready
to cross the dunes and
mount the salt-weathered steps
that lead my back to
society and
schedules,
perhaps I will catch
a glimmer of
something
serendipitous upon the
sand,
surf-polished
and no longer a
discarded shard of glass,
but now
a jewell...
a simple transparent
gem of
vision,
truth,
hope....
a beautiful as
smoke in a bottle...
a secret
held in an open
hand
so,
I will stay here
open as
the beach,
willing to be taken in
and out,
in and out,
one
grain at a
time
back into the depths of
Your infinity
then
warmed,
softened,
bleached white
as snow beneath the
heat of your
purifying
Love...
where
I wait
for a gift
from the sea...within
“Patience,
must have her perfect work...”
― M. B. Eddy
“I see the sea, the utterly calm sea.
I see the coast, the utterly calm coast.
When this utterly calm sea
meets the utterly still coast,
huge breakers are suddenly thrown up.
Two sorts of stillness touch one and other
and explode into a song of roar and foam.”
― S. Lindqvist
theirs is
an unexpected
alchemy
an irrational
concrescence
there is
nothing predictable
about the
way
they touch,
and dance,
and change each other....
"oh, no"
they whisper in
the public square,
"...she is
not for him...too
quiet,
reserved,
almost as still
as a fawn in the forest...
"...not enough
of what is missing,
to bring out
his inner something,
all that's
hidden,
and buried
beneath the
surface
"...don't you
see,
they are too
much alike...
"...both seeking silence
over society,
solitude
before all else,
such introverts.
"...he needs someone
more outgoing,
funny,
quick on her feet...
"...opposites
attract...right?"
what what they do not
know
is that in the
edge foam of their
shared quiet,
there is laughter,
joy,
something richer,
deeper,
a song much sweeter
than either of them
could have
known
from the sweet
silence of their
separateness
her calm giving
context to
the texture of his
unruffled
poise...and on the
sands of
her windswept,
linen-colored soul,
the beauty
of his alabaster
heart
shines...
the shapes and shades of
their
days are punctuated,
not by
a vast color pallet,
but by the
soft shadows cast in
the changing light of another
changeless day...
their shared solitude
breaking, like
waves upon
a colorless
shore...
and in the
surf,
there is
laughter...and
a rich
love
only
dreamed of...
a sea song
that
draws
us
in
“Kindred tastes,
motives, and aspirations.
are necessary to the formation of
and permanent companionship”
― M. B. Eddy
“I do not hope to bind the wind,
or set a fetter on the sea --
It is enough to feel His love
blow by, like music, over me.”
― Sara Teasdale
a million
stars
a billion
grains of sand
more drops of water
in the sea
than
can be counted
by the gods
of men,
drops
that
rise,
and fall, and
rise again,
as Love
to form the cloud,
then drop
a blessing on each
arid desert place,
to send a prayer
into
the waiting
lips of
a thirsty
child...
an errant dream,
a
strong desire,
more impulses than
a priest could
hold
at bay,
mere human will
can never
chase
the winds of passion
to the
four corners
of
the globe,
or
take the reins of
uncertainty...
however strong...
to hold
one crime in check...
Who then?
Who takes
control when
chaos
screams and bitterness
urges anger's unrestraint
to the surface of
a seething
sea,
a roiling
ocean of mistrust and
hurt
it is Love...
it rises like
the strong
arching spine of
an ancient
creature....
it slices through the
crashing of the surf,
and penetrates the
pounding pulse of pain's relentless
voice...
it quiets
all that
cannot be stilled by
skilled hands
or well-meaning words...
it is Love that
carves a path of moonlight
for the wayward,
lonely
mariner...
it is Love that
brings the
mermaid home to rest
beneath a
poet's
pier...
it is Love,
simply Love
that breathes a song
through
the throat of
an empty nautilus,
the sun-soaked
conch,
each blade of sea grass
and calls
us
gently
home...
stills our
sorrow...
and
dries the
heavy
tear...
“And may Thy Word,
enrich the affections
of all mankind,
and govern them.”
― M. B. Eddy
“...but only great,
as I am good..."
― Shakespeare
great...
there was a time
when "great" was the goal...
good wasn't enough
a day,
a poem,
a me....
was only as
good,
as it was
great....
"have a great day"
"that was a great meal"
"you're a great...."
but I wasn't
i wasn't great,
no matter how hard
i tried
and then I stopped
trying to be
great
I discovered the
joy of being
me,
and me
was
"just good"
right away,
my days were
filled with
peace
I was filled with
peace
"today was good."
it was enough
"you are a good mom..."
I am enough
something shifted and
the hours were
sweeter
somehow
every day
good,
not great,
just good...
it doesn't get
any better
than
good,
just good...
“And God
saw everything that He had made,
and behold,
it was very good.”
― Genesis
“If thou could'st empty
all thyself
of self,
like to a shell dishabited,
then might He find thee
on the ocean shelf,
and say, "This is not dead..."
and fill thee with Himself instead."
― Madeleine L'Engle
an empty shell
bleached by
the salt and sun of
a storm-tossed
sea
He finds you
tossed upon the vastness of
a windswept
beach
all the half truths,
every compromise,
each word that spilled from
lips afraid to speak
the truth....
are washed to sea...
and with it,
the small frightened
creature that
hid within the
darkness of her
shiny shell
she was never you..
she was not the real substance,
she was not the beating heart,
she was not the being who would
turn that shell into
something
chosen,
precious,
treasured...
something sought out and
cherished,
held like a jewel,
used to illustrated His
sacred plan,
a metaphor of humility,
surrender,
grace...
"i feel like
an empty shell"
she whispers
in a voice more true than
who she thought she was, and
what now speaks
is free
of all she once filled with
names,
and roles,
offices and addresses,
titles and
accomplishments...
in the whispered
voice of her
sea-washed
emptiness
she sings a song
so sweet,
and
in a tone so true,
that
volume
seems
grotesque and
clumsy
coming from the
perfect
emptiness of
her
singular
truth,
her whole truth,
and
nothing
more..
she is singing
to Him,
with Him,
for Him,
sne is
singing out
from Him,
from where He
lives at the core
of her
outward
curving...
the
reaching,
growing.
expanding
chambers of
her
purest self...
and because He is
so infinitely
near...
so close...
at the very
center of what is
left...
a whisper
is
enough...
more than
enough...
for an
empty shell
to sing...
and
be chosen
by One
who
hears...
“All of it,
filling her up
like the first breath she'd ever taken.
And never had she loved life more.”
― V. Rossi
“Love one another,
but make not a bond of love...
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.”
― Kahlil Gibran
there is a sea
that shifts and moves
between us
it ebbs and
flows like a living,
moving,
breathing
being that draws its
strength from
the sound of the moon
and the
silence of the
sun....
what fills the
heavy waters,
what stretches between
the shores of
our souls...
are there memories
that sound their echoes
back and forth
like sonar
voices
only we can
hear...
are there dreams filled with
the phosphorous
promise of "someday when" and
"one day soon"
memories
that swim in silence
along the
currents of the ordinary,
the day-to-day,
the
one-foot-in-front-of-the-other
moments
where
nothing changes and
still the sea
dances
singing its song of
love
and what about the
shifting sands of sorrows
felt and
shared,
the tears that fill this
ocean of hopes
we might
drown in
if we give up...
but
we
won't
there is a sea
between us
a constancy that buoys, and
crashes, and sighs
to
shape the
hardest heart, to
hone the
sharpest glass...
softening edges, and carving a
hollow place
we've fill with
tears,
and stillness,
and laughter...
a pool for
bathing
baptizing,
blessing
the
love
that
moves between
us...
a living thing...
“The breaking of a wave
cannot explain the whole sea.”
― Vladimir Nabokov
“There is no greater agony
than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou
i didn't know it
would be this hard...
or this freeing.
managing other people's
perceptions,
impressions,
their "take aways"
about me
had become
a full time job,
with full
time
anxiety...
what do they
think,
what do they know,
what do they think
they know,
what do I think
I know
about what
they think
about me,
based on what
I think they know...or
don't know...
like i said
full-time terror
no trust in a merciful
God,
or a kind universe...
just fear,
all the time
fear of rejection,
fear of judgment,
fear of being seen for
what I'd done
the mistakes I'd made,
attached to past deeds,
rather than the
good I could be doing...
but what I was doing
as I hid behind the false face of
perfectionism,
was not trusting,
being afraid,
tippy toeing around
on eggshells
of pretense,
an impression of
"never better" that was only
a misstep
away from
shattering...
and then it
happened...
and I was the one
to crush
that fragile shell of false
impressions,
of
how I thought
I wanted to
be seen
i did it..
I was the one to
rend the veil of anonymity,
and walk into the
light
no one else...
just me.
I said it
I told my story
in all its messiness and
sharp edges,
with every blemish
and mistake
uncovered,
exposed,
free of spin,
embellishment
or
touch up
just the truth
just my truth...
"The spiritual sense of
truth must be gained, before
Truth can be understood."
- M. B. Eddy
And oh,
how I wanted to understand
the Truth
of my truth...
so I stood,
and I told
the
untold...
I'd been afraid,
I'd doubted,
wondered, fallen
gotten up,
fallen again,
cried,
failed,
prayed,
hoped,
begged,
bargained,
pleaded,
fallen apart,
tried again,
and again,
and again...
found a thread of faith,
clung to a glimmer of hope,
glimpse a shred of light,
lost it,
held on,
given up,
given in,
given Him all
and
felt His
love...
ransomed,
healed,
restored,
forgiven...
it was my story
no,
it was His story....
telling His story
was like giving birth to
the babe of
Life within me
rending the veil of
mortality and
walking into the arms
of The
Beloved..
He is my only
Author
and His story is
the only version of my
being...
bearing His story is
pure freedom,
pure joy...
"I love to tell
the story...”
― K. Hankey
I need some
