Only this: That I am thinking of each of us as God's poems, that I am speaking of a spirit that must make, must touch, must express.
That I will try to do a better job of simply listening to the dream rather than thinking I have the breath to lift it. That is His place, pneuma.
And I am reliving: that when someone says, "I don't like it," we put it away and find something else to do, trying once again to please. Hating the gift. Doubting that we can make do.
SO: I am not going to find something else to do. (I was the one. I was the one whispering in the corner, "I don't like it." The voice of the liar. And, listen here, liar: I resist you.)
I don't just like it, I love it. Completely. Because it is a part of the poem that has only just been written in me by Him. And what I love of myself is all that He has made. The rest: vanity, fear, doubt. Such lies.
This is a person making something, and this is a person resisting. I stand there.
"Do not go gentle into that good night..."
Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
'Night
I hope it's okay to just appear for a second here to say this old gal is plum tuckered, so goodnight good friends.
Just knowing you folks are out there doing things that also make you tired is pretty reassuring to me.
Just knowing you folks are out there doing things that also make you tired is pretty reassuring to me.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Prayer
"No one’s so important that several times a day, even for a few moments, she can’t become small, invisible, in prayer."
--Ann Voskamp
Putting it down here to remember, in the repetition, that I need this invisibility, feel truly safe there.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Happy Birthday
We spoke of the 'Secret Garden' today, that place we all go to that only we know of--and God. Isn't He the one who built its walls, gave us the key, the one we're hoping will find us there?
Meet me in the alfalfa field when the moon enters and exits through velvet-lit clouds, some shy white eye. I'll be the one wearing purple flowers and baling twine.
I am grown in the quiet hour "stolen" from sleep--the place entered secretly so far from the world but somehow still in the world, made for each of us, the gift (if we will receive it and even if we don't) of our very particular and good life, so good we could not afford to spend one cent of it at The Dream Store. So particular that no pawn shop would know what to call it.
Tonight I receive (how I am beginning to see what is at stake when I refuse it):
the gift of such good work: mother, teacher, gardener, reader. (The ones I wasn't shy to say out loud) and the others, those things I am that I could not speak yet to you about. That I whisper to Him in the field. ("If it's so deep, you don't think that you could speak about it...just wait and see. Someone will come to help you.")
The blushing, rushing. And I did speak about it. I did. Let me pass along those words that comfort, hold, heal. The warm breath in a palm pressed against the wet face, chewing the orange twine that bound you: erasing, recognizing. Can't you see in all of this, I love you?
I have refused the gift before. It's too ugly, too hard, too big, too tight, too boring. I like what you gave someone else better. But now, somehow, through the fellowship that does not fail, I am seeing it for what it really is and it is none of these things. Of course, wouldn't the one who made me know exactly what to give me for my birthday, which occurs daily and even in the night in an hour that does not exist?
Meet me in the alfalfa field when the moon enters and exits through velvet-lit clouds, some shy white eye. I'll be the one wearing purple flowers and baling twine.
I am grown in the quiet hour "stolen" from sleep--the place entered secretly so far from the world but somehow still in the world, made for each of us, the gift (if we will receive it and even if we don't) of our very particular and good life, so good we could not afford to spend one cent of it at The Dream Store. So particular that no pawn shop would know what to call it.
Tonight I receive (how I am beginning to see what is at stake when I refuse it):
the gift of such good work: mother, teacher, gardener, reader. (The ones I wasn't shy to say out loud) and the others, those things I am that I could not speak yet to you about. That I whisper to Him in the field. ("If it's so deep, you don't think that you could speak about it...just wait and see. Someone will come to help you.")
The blushing, rushing. And I did speak about it. I did. Let me pass along those words that comfort, hold, heal. The warm breath in a palm pressed against the wet face, chewing the orange twine that bound you: erasing, recognizing. Can't you see in all of this, I love you?
I have refused the gift before. It's too ugly, too hard, too big, too tight, too boring. I like what you gave someone else better. But now, somehow, through the fellowship that does not fail, I am seeing it for what it really is and it is none of these things. Of course, wouldn't the one who made me know exactly what to give me for my birthday, which occurs daily and even in the night in an hour that does not exist?
Monday, January 17, 2011
Beyond vulnerability is the gift received.
I want to receive each moment-- a gift.
This one.
This one.
This...
A bit shy. But willing.
A bit unsure. But going to anyway.
Thank you, Dearest One.
Let me never say that I judged the gift, only that I took it with all my heart open and was made whole, filled with its goodness. There is nothing I could ever need but what You give me. Teach me how to receive it and what it is I should do with it, something that would please You.
This one.
This one.
This...
A bit shy. But willing.
A bit unsure. But going to anyway.
Thank you, Dearest One.
Let me never say that I judged the gift, only that I took it with all my heart open and was made whole, filled with its goodness. There is nothing I could ever need but what You give me. Teach me how to receive it and what it is I should do with it, something that would please You.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Where I Was Never Giving Up
If you look closely at my hands while they tie a shoe, hope will be there.
If you see me scraping the burnt meatloaf from the glass pan, you will see a little hope there, too.
The page and the pen I came to, there lies my hope, my love.
In the kiss, planted in passing across gold field of hair, hope.
The fact that all the socks in our drawers match: hope.
The seed catalogs, the balls of yarn, the basket of mending, the frozen tomatoes clicking like pool balls in the deep freeze, the books on my shelves I haven't read yet, the little notes I write to friends here and there, the deep breath I take before I enter the room, new packages of guitar strings, dirt in the pots, a broom that encounters every inch of the house again and again, the straw fingers of a domestic lover: hope.
The index cards filling with finds for our "basket of tricks" and the slips of paper in my Blessing Jar, the prayer written and taped beneath the kitchen table, under the bed mattress, that the laundry is done every Monday, the dishes at the end of the day, that it will take two years to read the Word in its entirety: hope.
Shoes paired and stacked on the rack in the closet, walk together in hope.
That the sunset then held me to the floor, but lifts me now.
And I can hear the crickets, in frozen January night dreaming of themselves in July.
If you see me scraping the burnt meatloaf from the glass pan, you will see a little hope there, too.
The page and the pen I came to, there lies my hope, my love.
In the kiss, planted in passing across gold field of hair, hope.
The fact that all the socks in our drawers match: hope.
The seed catalogs, the balls of yarn, the basket of mending, the frozen tomatoes clicking like pool balls in the deep freeze, the books on my shelves I haven't read yet, the little notes I write to friends here and there, the deep breath I take before I enter the room, new packages of guitar strings, dirt in the pots, a broom that encounters every inch of the house again and again, the straw fingers of a domestic lover: hope.
The index cards filling with finds for our "basket of tricks" and the slips of paper in my Blessing Jar, the prayer written and taped beneath the kitchen table, under the bed mattress, that the laundry is done every Monday, the dishes at the end of the day, that it will take two years to read the Word in its entirety: hope.
Shoes paired and stacked on the rack in the closet, walk together in hope.
That the sunset then held me to the floor, but lifts me now.
And I can hear the crickets, in frozen January night dreaming of themselves in July.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
When Your Daughter Wants to Talk at Night
A part of new:
Letting go.
"I don't have friends in my wisdom yet," she says, a quiver in her voice. (She is learning: slowly. If only she knew how many friends are in her heart, could feel it. This single child. Tonight I rock her after warm milk and sing "Baby Mine" like I used to. Sometimes we all need that. Carry her to bed, hitting her long legs on the door frame. She pretends not to feel it because she said she'd be asleep by the end of the song. She isn't yet; I can see her eyes moving under the lids. Oh, how this child has grown.)
To bring her a sister or brother. A friend. But this body's blood won't allow it. This singleness. (Letting go.)
"I wish I didn't have to grow up. I wish I could still be a baby."
"You know, Nora, even when you grow up, you sometimes wish you could be little again."
"But, Nora, listen to this: You will always be my baby. Even when you are an old woman."
She giggles. "Did you know you get little again when you get old?"
She doesn't know how wise she is. Like most of us who aren't sure, who step hesitantly around the world's meanness. "Nora, I have been mean before. We all are sometimes." Kind is stronger. Love is stronger. Always wins. Fight with that, dear one.
God tells us to do two things, honey: Love Him and love each other. Just start there. Maybe they were just having a bad day--a no good, terrible day. That's when they need your love the most.
"Nora, listen to this, too: You are my friend, and I am telling you this: you DO know friend wisdom. Because you are my friend and I love you."
Please, let these bed time talks continue long into the years when she needs love and guidance the most (all years)--let the bridge remain intact. If we keep crossing it again and again, each day, it will remain.
"Promise me you'll always remember:
You're braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think."
-Pooh
Letting go.
"I don't have friends in my wisdom yet," she says, a quiver in her voice. (She is learning: slowly. If only she knew how many friends are in her heart, could feel it. This single child. Tonight I rock her after warm milk and sing "Baby Mine" like I used to. Sometimes we all need that. Carry her to bed, hitting her long legs on the door frame. She pretends not to feel it because she said she'd be asleep by the end of the song. She isn't yet; I can see her eyes moving under the lids. Oh, how this child has grown.)
To bring her a sister or brother. A friend. But this body's blood won't allow it. This singleness. (Letting go.)
"I wish I didn't have to grow up. I wish I could still be a baby."
"You know, Nora, even when you grow up, you sometimes wish you could be little again."
"But, Nora, listen to this: You will always be my baby. Even when you are an old woman."
She giggles. "Did you know you get little again when you get old?"
She doesn't know how wise she is. Like most of us who aren't sure, who step hesitantly around the world's meanness. "Nora, I have been mean before. We all are sometimes." Kind is stronger. Love is stronger. Always wins. Fight with that, dear one.
God tells us to do two things, honey: Love Him and love each other. Just start there. Maybe they were just having a bad day--a no good, terrible day. That's when they need your love the most.
"Nora, listen to this, too: You are my friend, and I am telling you this: you DO know friend wisdom. Because you are my friend and I love you."
Please, let these bed time talks continue long into the years when she needs love and guidance the most (all years)--let the bridge remain intact. If we keep crossing it again and again, each day, it will remain.
"Promise me you'll always remember:
You're braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think."
-Pooh
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