Protest

Take a deep breath.

There’s One Who knows, can help, lead, protect, hold, guide in best ways (and all-ways).

Ask Him. He knows.

And while you wait for the opportunity to present,

Enjoy, love, savor the life that surrounds (fills… makes… creates…. begets, improves, enlivens, radiates, heals, raises, feeds, clothes, provides-in-full for).

And it’s fun to think about that while we hold our breath a little, the earth seems to be taking a much needed one: the earth is quieting, the pollution has dissipated some, heck, I’ve had opportunity to slow, breathe, see, listen to the life that surrounds. Gotten to wait for it to present to me instead of me trying to catch up with it.

What a relief and blessing to be listener… and have the room to say as much, be as much. Thank You, Lord.

Advertisement

Pluck

Pluck up and start

Greet it all

Expansive, ready, open and willing

– Though terrifying –

You Are trustworthy

To hold, filter, remedy, REDEEM,

Hold, sustain, MOVE,

Delight enrich,

BE.

Praise and thanks to You, rest God, that You Are and

SO.

Good

That there’s good. That there’s love. Isn’t this enough and more than enough? Yes.

THIS – this good – This is what needs not only remembered (its own challenge!), but insisted on.

Keeping good things in our line of sight may not always be an immediately practical matter: God knows that there is plenty wrong in the world and that it clamors loud and noxious to distract and despair.

But no matter what, no matter how ugly the ugliness presents, it does not win in the end. Therefore, our challenge is to embrace, exalt, insist upon the truth that is:

that those who love, who believe in the One Who shines brighter, have constant, glorious opportunity to thwart the dark.

He reigns supreme and glorious; GOOD. Hallelujah, it’s a thing! THE thing! Always present, always possible, GOOD.

Praise and thanks that it’s so, great God. Make us strong and courageous, excellent rememberers, effective insisters. You are glorious… and GOOD.

Revolutionary

Remember, my soul,

– All souls –

Where to go:

Respite is He.

Yes and Amen.

Return, return, return,

Bow low, seek, praise.

Caught up a little in

You as Other and You within.

Both seem scandalous on either front – any front.

That it’d be so at all,

That You’d be so (much less at all!).

– And yet –

Willingness to accept (You) – see You –

Is the most revolutionary thing possible.

(See Jesus.)

And praise His Name, see Jesus!

A psalm

45 years old and I’m still wasting time.

Waiting (in vain) for some life to start: waiting for more than just getting through, just finding something to look forward to, just distracting enough to fill moments with meager amusements only to find that it’s all ash and dust, leaving me more hollow, bereft, and with less time to fill, with the quality I crave, than when I started.

What if I – we all – were just honest with Him?

Remembered this terrible plight, admitted our utter inability to be different than we are – (by our own hands and efforts) and held up all these teeny lives for His loving scrutiny, His healing care?

What if I allowed Him to crispify the ugliness, the complete folly and sin of all this wastefulness and trusted Him to transform the ashes to beauty?

What if I were honest? What if I trusted the Life that’s there to be the Life it is and simply let It Be? Simply enjoyed and celebrated that He Is So?

What if I just handed over all-that’s-wrong to All-His-Right?

What if I remembered to celebrate the Life more than I bemoaned the death?

It would not be wasteful. It would not be in vain. It would not be disappointing, hopeless, a dead end, a new regret, or just another guilt infusing pursuit.

The only ashes would be turned beautiful. There would be no more hollows or scramblings, guilt, regret or lost time.

There would be – because there is if we’ll have it – living water brimming up and spilling over.

There would be fullness and it would well up by virtue of its generosity, its very inability to atrophy, and spread more goodness.

Like spring in the light and the warmth, the pulse of this great sleepy life would quicken and enliven to its Creator, by its Creator, because of and in response to His Life in it.

Praise and thanks, great God, for fresh starts, new seasons, and most of all that You Are and So.

Intercession

Be my love.

May Your tidal wave

Crash over them

Like so much soothing balm

Warm oil

Penetrating

Rolling over, through, saturating.

Thank You that I can – may – ask it

You-Who-Are-All-Needful-Things-

And Beyond

What I – or any of us- can or may put words to

Oh, Gracious One, please look past

What we aren’t – You

And be You anyway

(I know, as You’ve done all along & before and continue)

In wretchedness, as we are, as I am

I know I’m not enough

But know that You Are

And hope that is.

Hoping the crumb reaches You

And praise You that it ever has.

niche-less

Niche: 1. a recess or hollow in a wall, as for a statue, bust, or vase 2. a place or position particularly suitable to the person or thing in it 3. any small, specialized business market 4.b) the specific space occupied by an organism within its habitat

Niche-less.

That’s right and now I’ve said it.

“Arriving” is the lie, isn’t it?

Maybe all kinds of honest floundering is where it’s at.

Maybe it’s “lucky” for me that me and my ways aren’t beautiful

In an in-crowd, pretty and put-together kind of way.

I have been unsuccessful at stuffing in neat and tidy boxes.

I’m sort of a mess.

(So I guess I have arrived somewhere. See “mess.”)

Maybe it’s its own niche,

But I don’t think so.

‘Cause really, none of us has “arrived.”

Leastways not with any permanence.

(Not yet.)

Gettin’ er done? No, not really.

Floundering around under the illusion of control?

All of us: no matter how well the illusion paints otherwise.

So why not be an honest – to goodness? – mess?

Maybe this is where the progress is.

Not in a drowning sort of way, but in a

stop-trying-to-keep-up-and-compare-to

kind of way that admits need and begs help and seeks direction

and admits not-knowing and looks and believes

that healing inward to healthy outward means looking upward.

Anyways, niche-less does preclude collecting dust.

(And I really hate dusting.)

Messy, yes.

Dependent on the direction of Another, yes.

But for whatever reason, He seems not to want any

Do Not Touch signs.

Light of the World, Remember!

Floating through

Dragging my feet

Languishing and lazy

‘Til everyday feels like Saturday

With all its special gone.

Seeped and stuck in the sameness (and horror) of “status quo”

I settle.

Where’s my urgency?

Fight? (Not to mention “good fight”?)

Excellence-insistence?

Remembering – and repenting – paves for rallying*

(*rally – to rouse or recover from inactivity)

Takes energy, light.

Where the dark would have me still, stagnate, die off, smother, forget

Light’s instead remarkable: emitting only when electric’s current quickens the matter.

All these particles’ radiation could electrify, could be magnetic,

Push back the dark.

But only would I plug into life’s – light’s – Source

Oh, Lord, may it be so.

Only then will the scales fall

And dark and light’s difference recognized.

It’s there I’ll recognize Him:

There in Him where the real living is.

Where all the dark of wasted (death) days is forgotten and

Right remembrance and good days – enlivening, rich, beautiful, vital, and vibrant life-days are restored.

Like Paul, a blaze of light’s what’s needed, and now given.

Thank You.
Acts 26:12-18, Matthew 5:14

Mother’s Day: In Celebration

I waited.
A rare Sunday morning at home amp’d up by the knowledge that there was something special about the day, I waited. The question of going to church put to rest ’cause of health issues, I tried basking in the glow of a blissful morning in bed with no immediate requirements for getting up, a cup of coffee waiting on the bedside table graciously brought to me by my husband. 

Then, the sound of light exuberant footsteps down the hall, the eight year old (and only boy) in his Spider-Man jammies appeared around the corner waving a piece of paper. “Happy Mother’s Day!” He cheerfully said and handed me his card. And for a few minutes, I felt full with the acknowledgment of my self, my purpose, my vocation. Oohs and aahs uttered and every nook and cranny inspected, studied, discussed, and celebrated, the boy left, and the waiting resumed. Coffee sipped and returned to its bedside post, I think I may have actually folded my hands and pursed my lips, maintaining my station like some frozen, bitter, thin-lipped spinster.

See, I’m the mom here.
 There are five children in my care aged 8 to 17. I stay at home to care for and educate the younger ones, though my specs matter less than the role that ‘Mother’ does on this day. If you’ve acted as mother, been one, longed for one, longed to be one, need a gift for one, are wrestling with your thoughts towards one, Mother’s Day feels big. And for a few smug, lonely, self-righteous moments this morning, I felt cheated out of what I was owed. As though my title is what ought to have earned me accolades instead of my merit.

 They’re not here right now. That’s big all by itself. I’ve joked the handful of times that the library or bank ladies have pointed out my lack of children-presence that, “I don’t know what to think about!” when the kids aren’t with me. I joke, but it’s true. And just now, with no one to think about, no one to consider but me as I’m hungry and in need of a meal, what in the heck would I do were I to sustain continuous days of such a lack of consideration? What would I think about were my thinking not continuously interrupted by a smaller, younger, newer person inevitably in need of something whether it was a meal, or a word, direction, or instruction? What would I produce were I left to think about anything I wanted for an unchecked length of time? I don’t know. And frankly? (I realized to my utter surprise and joy) I don’t care.
 Because it’s not time for that. Right now, I have the rare and blessed privilege of caring for others. It’s not optional (which is probably the only reason I’m still doing it). If I don’t show up, if I don’t figure out the meal, the schoolwork, yeah, maybe someone else could step in, but there’s only one me. There’s only one me who knows these children quite the way I do. And that’s pretty darn cool.

 I keep a journal for each of my children, and though I don’t write nearly as often as maybe I originally intended, I try and write at least once a year as a way of “checking in.” I’d planned to record in words all that I inevitably wouldn’t record in keepsakes or photos. Like all things motherhood (caring-for-anotherhood), it was an easier thing to think about than it was an actual keeping-up-with-in-real-life thing. But it turns out that as I write, I know things about these people in my care. If being a mom wasn’t so terribly humbling for all the mistakes, it might be terribly heady as a power trip. You know some things about some people. And if you don’t, you should. 

Maybe that’s the lesson. Mom’s? Celebrate knowing some things about some folks and in that, use that knowledge to build up and empower them in a way no one else on earth can do. Mom’s? Or those-acting-in-as-mom’s? Think about how much you know about those in your care. If there are some gaps, celebrate this Mother’s Day by getting closer… ‘Cause there ain’t no replacement for a mother’s love; unless it’s a damn fine substitute. Earn your “Happy Mother’s Day!”

‘Cause that’s all our opportunity. To be the thing-that-no-other’s-willing-to-be to another human being. A love that sets aside all its own agenda for the sake of another. Mom’s? Celebrate the opportunity. Mom’s? Celebrate looking forward to doing better. Not a mom but aware of Mom-Power? Celebrate getting to be a damn fine substitute. 
Ain’t nothing like a mother, people. Ain’t nothin’ like love. And if the two aren’t synonymous for you, they ought to be. Love like a mother. Love like you wanna be loved, wish you’d been loved, imagine being loved. And if you’re the mom wanting celebrated? Be celebration-worthy.

My kids are awesome. Did they deliver what I wanted? Maybe not in the way I wanted, but love isn’t about what we get. It’s about what we can give. 

A good mom celebrates what she can give. Not what she gets.

Enough

A kitchen clean up diatribe and its aftermath
Reminds me why flesh – mine or any other’s –

Is only good as far as it goes (which isn’t very far and not necessarily good).

Even if one who’d listen is faithful for a moment,

There’s loneliness at the end of the day.

But-

This may be the best news there is.

When I stop putting faith in these who are limited

I’m left with still needing to have faith in something.

All laid bare and unattached and independent

I’m left with You.

You who ought to have been sought outright and first.
First and last and always, YOU.

But there’s also you… and you… and you… and you… and you and

You, darling, loving husband.

And you too, there on the fringes and who-knows-in-what-form-of-needy needing helping.

There’re all these, Lord,

Who You seem to think I’m fit to care for, and who

I expect You’d like very much for me to care for like You care for me.

I don’t get it, and I’m so inadequate to the whole crazy thing

(Which [see Moses] means nothing in the world of God’s capable Providence).

I fail you both: You up there and heavenly, and you down here so searching and lovely and trying and earthy still with all your own heavenly potential.

You – none of you – need me, I know.

And yet, here you all are, and I’m in your midst.

It occurs to me to stop wondering at this position I’m in and whether I’m up for it

And instead,

Just meet the whole damn thing:

Pray and try and fail and repent and pray and try again and repeat.

Empowered in the power of being and present and loved and capable of choosing all these as enough and more than enough because You are.

You are good and enough.

Enough for light and love and life.
Enough and more than enough for them and me and here and there and everywhere…

Enough for all this.
Enough for light and love and life.

Enough and more than enough for them and me and here and there and everywhere…