Tag: relationships

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…

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Vulnerable and Married: together at last

Maybe my reluctance towards intimacy
Is an innate refusal to be possessed

Maybe I’ve bought the wrong lines

Regarding sacred union

Maybe I’ve perceived all the wrong sacrificial requirements

Maybe I’ve seen love (inadequately, tragically, falsely)

As an all “giving up”

Instead of following that gift through

To its more accurately and absolutely “all getting” 

I have kept you over there – arm’s length

(A safer distance, I thought)

Instead of drawing closer

(In desperate self-protection, I think)

And here, instead of “Impressive Impenetrable Fortress”

As my welcome mat

I have “Lonelier Than Ever”

Starving in this false autonomy

I’m sorry, my lover, my darling, and

(I mean it and vow to grow into all those designations)

I will try…

…No.

I will welcome you.

I will be patient

I will be gentle 

I will surrender in right ways

I will treat this ground and the one who shares it with me as sacred.

I will stop fearing the inadequacy of my own self possession

Stop seeing an enemy where there is you:

Welcome guest, honored, cherished, trusted, (wildly patient!) invited friend and lover.

Turn (to the light)


What’s all this angst that rises to the surface?

This right to be vexed?

Are they sourced in these irritations that challenge

my (snotty and ridiculous) sensibilities?

No.
These children, these demands, these challenges,

circumstances, inconveniences, or others’ bad behavior

Are not the cause of my reactionary ugliness.
No.
Just the me’s to blame.
But thrillingly, that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
In a signature moment of said angst and growing irritation

– just another day together during life and learning –

An unexpected choice was made.

A lightening bolt epiphany supernaturally

(how else would I have chosen well?)

Suggested I laugh instead.
Laugh instead of explode, fume, brood, resent, chafe,

offend.

I could just laugh out loud at that dark power that was

ready to steal our joy and erect more walls.

So I did.

I laughed out loud

At all this wretched humanness.

And then they did.

And our communal laughter

Tsunamied over all the filth and

Diffused all that impossible tension and

Revealed a clean place.

A brighter place.

A start-over place.

And the tone and the magic and the potential of an entire day

Re-upped.

Sweet redemption

In its mind blowing everything-changing way

Prodigiously entered the room and

Effortlessly swept away the (now) silly-small vice.

In its wake an entire room’s climate and

all the relationships in proximity to it

Were enabled to shift and turn to a better way.

All ’cause in a solitary moment

One soul turned to the light

Instead of bowing to the dark.

The ripple effect

Enabled us upright and

Drew us together

In light and in love.
Thank You.

Thanksgiving

 Hard things turned sweet

Lap around my edges

What’s true and good

Trumping the dark and the hard

Life is everything I feared

And everything I hoped

And more still

Coming into my own

Even more momentous than I thought

This little voice in the wilderness

Is louder and clearer than I expected

My mouse squeak carries through the noise

My fibers pulse with lion strains

Hope doesn’t just rise

It travels ahead

And should I follow

Should I meet this melody

And sing strong with this (His) voice all intact

Other noises will continue to quiet

And take lovelier shapes

No longer fit just for silencing mine

Will sweeten in deference to the love song

Written and sung by the most unexpected and perfect and dependable

Of lovers…

Jesus, Lover of my soul

my Lion

my Song

my Savior

Culmination and realization of all the hopes and dreams of 

A world gone sour

– But that still longs to sing –

Can.

The evidence in a tiny voice finding its voice 

Clear and strong and Found

Thank You.