When Pappy died

When Pappy started dying, my mother’s world stopped

Though life went on around her, like those scenes in a movie

A whirl pool of color and sound with her and Pappy, an island in the center

Her days were filled with bag changes, bandage changes, nurse changes, diaper changes

Yet nothing changed. Every day was the same. She was solid, we phased in and out like ghosts

On the day Pappy died, I was on the way to her house. I knew I was late. I felt the change. I tried calling. No answer

My sister called me as I pulled off the interstate. ” He’s gone” she said.

I pulled into the driveway two minutes later. I ran inside. My mother was holding his hand as the nurse worked around her.

She held and patted his hand, smiling down on him. Holding on to the island even as the sea pulled her out to the whirlpool again

I left when his children came. I left to give them time alone with their father’s body. And then, after the funeral, they left our lives

Out into the whirlpool, lost to the swirls

When Pappy died the pretense of family was dropped. Years of get togethers and invitations discarded and washed out to sea

Life has moved on. We leave trinkets of affection where his ashes are laid

I stopped writing emails to his children. My messages in a bottle. I don’t want to push it

It is ok. I know we were always trespassers in their eyes

Still, it’s strange how everything changes when a life ends. So much ends with it, yet so much begins

At least that how it happened on the day when Pappy died.

Metanoia

Just for a moment after this, I am completely restored.

There is nothing I lack. There is nothing to want anymore.

Then, to be closer to you in this lover’s bliss.

Eyelash to eyelash. God’s butterfly kiss.

Ocean waves in and ocean waves out.

Our breath and our heartbeats joined as one.

Wrapped in the center of  Trinitarian love.

Father to Spirit, Spirit to Son.

Jesus my Lord, God of all, let me stay here with you forever more.

In this grotto of joy in the depths of the sea.

Salty and echoing with your love for me.

For as I delight in you, Adoni, you  are delighted in me.

Butterfly kisses from you and from me.

Love freely given, I will receive.

Redeem

I wish to forge a new path for you

One not to be tread by feet, but with your hearts

I would lay my life down on the way to lead you there

For it is not fair that one as wretched as I should know so rich a love as His

While you all, more saintly than I can hope to be, would lanquish in unconscionable ignorance

But there is a Way, there is a Truth, and if I can be a light

Then you might follow me along The Way

And I will lead you to The Door.

Dear SAIL

When I was 15 years old, I experienced terrible trauma. Afterward, I was betrayed by my closest friends, threatened, and completely ousted for telling the truth about it all. I was gutted, empty, and lost. After having to change high schools, I became very rebellious and got into trouble and lost interest in school and most other things. Then I heard about a different kind of high school. This was supposed to be a place where you were accepted as you were. Where geeks and freaks ruled. I wanted in. I told my parents to get me in there, or I would kill myself. Whether it was the threat on my life or just desperation to see a positive change, I don’t know,  but I got in. I can not say that I took full advantage of this opportunity at the time. I was too broken. But I can say that healing began to occur on many levels, and I was able to graduate on time and alive. Something that may not have happened otherwise. Most importantly,  this school in Tallahassee that we may never have heard of in the backwoods of Wakulla became the high school for the rest of my three siblings. They did take advantage of it and graduated with honors and lifelong friendships. If I had not gone through what I had, this may never have occurred. Now my daughter attends SAIL. She is an honor roll student, an accomplished artist, and, most importantly, a kind,  compassionate, and loving human being. Everything I went through is worth that a million times over. God, a School for Applied, Individual Learning, and the support of my family saved my life in many ways, and I am forever grateful.

You took my broken heart and helped it learn to heal

You taught me that I could be loved and friendships could be real

You accepted me just as I was, even when what I was was a pain

You inspired me to see things through and learn to live again

Rainbows, warm muffins, graveyards, and Bowie

Guitars and drag queens, painting and poet-trees

I stumbled on through it, forging a path through the tears

And that path made a road my family traveled for years

All the pain, the trauma, and the heartache I knew

I would go through it again just to lead them to you

You weren’t just a school. You were a guiding star in the night

And you led me to peace, and you helped change my life

For Joshua

-I had a dream about my brother-in-law who died in a car crash in November.  He was with me on a mountain and was telling me about where he was now. He wanted me to write a poem to let his family know how beautiful it was and how he was in peace.  I told him I didn’t think I could do a very good job, but he said it was just for his family,  so it didn’t need to be fancy. It could just be simple  😌.

You can’t imagine the beauty I have seen here

Here, where my heart has been washed clean

You don’t know how dark a heart truly is

Until all the dirt’s been washed away

You are left there pure and shining

When all the dirt’s been washed away

The very darkest parts of me

The sadness I hid and wouldn’t let you see.

It has all been purged from me

It has all been washed away

I believed that in my brokenness

I should hide some parts of me

But now here, here where I am free

I am freed of all my shame

In His light, I am made whole and  holy

I am freed of all my shame

I am His, and in this light forever, will I stay

In this light, in His light, forever will I stay

Darkly we see

Darkly through the veil, we see

Dimmed eyes strain for foggy imagery

A sense of all, just out of reach

A yearning for the more

Break me, shape me, make me yours

Heal me, seal me, I am yours

Make a chalice of my heart

Make a chalice of my heart

A chalice bright of beaten gold

And around it I will bring

All the promptings of my soul

Violet, purple,  scarlet stuff

Fragent incense, spices, oils

All things precious to behold

Make a chalice of my heart

Pour your mercy into me

Then pour me out to thirsting souls

Help me set this people free

Veiled and sacred will be this space

Set apart for only you

Made holy by your loving grace

Purified by fire too

Make a chalice of my heart

Make an offering of me

Consecrate my entire being

Help me set your people free

Hallowed

Death, you have truly lost your sting.

Hell, you have no victory now.

This I know, and I know it fully, without a shadow of a doubt.

Oh, but how this ache without you burns! How this sorrow rips and tears!

Consuming me in my own pain – blinding me in tears.

There is a pull of empty space beneath my breasts. The gnawing loss will not be appeased.

Creating a vacuum there that steals my breath and brings me to my knees.

And though I know Christ is victorious and thus his soul will not be bound.

Though I know he has been marked and claimed and offered up, hurt is all I feel right now.

If I could just see him in your kingdom. If I could just know that he’s okay.

If I could see, if I could know, then I know, yes, I know-that is not truly faith.

But if I were Holy, if I were good, if I could be a saint

Would my fervent prayers rise like incense then and carry glory’s weight?

So now my final plea is this

Here all my hopes are placed.

All the me that I may be may be gathered and erased.

For if there is sanctity in both love and loss, perhaps shalom may be found

Fill this void of me with who you are, and shalom will be found.

And then there in the hollow space, I might be hallowed by You now.

Soulmates

In the end, I don’t think it was ever about finding the perfect person at all.

I believe it has always been about finding a person you want to love and to be loved by and then learning across a lifetime-how to love them perfectly.

Ezekiel Recapitulated

This world creates such hearts of stone

Hammered and deformed, each blow gives shape to self idolatry

We who could contain a universe within, we who might affect a universe without

Instead revolve around ourselves

Our pain becomes a center and we like little moons

We whirl so fast around our own egos, the faces around us become a blur

We cannot see the personhood clearly anymore and so we create them into characters of our own imaginings

Our antagonists and protagonists

Rotating roles as we see fit

And always ourselves at the heart of the drama

Misunderstood as we misunderstand, persecuted as we persecute, villains fighting our supposed foes

It would be a dark comedy if it were not so awfully sad

It would be the worst tragedy if this were the end of the show

But there is still time

We can call an intermission

We can burn the props and start anew

We can let Him make the deeper cut and pull those hearts of stone from our bleeding chests

And we will have new hearts and a new spirit and see clearly our brothers and sisters, and even ourselves with unscaled eyes

Then will the curtain rise anew as the great Theodrama begins

And as we take our rightful places upon the stage for what will be the most beautiful act of all

The former, that great and secret show will pass away

And we will be revolutionized

Becoming we we really are, who we were meant to be all along

No spotlight needed now, no curtain calls

We are no longer actors in a puesdo play, no longer endlessly rolling stones up hills, but full participants in the Real

For we will have become the living stones- building a spiritual house of ourselves, building up the city of New Jerusalem, building up our home.