The Word

the Word was first
before
even me
before
even Him

a seed-thought
born in the heart of God
swelling and pulsing
ripe with all that
is
or
ever would be

then
that Word was spoken
holy breath blown across
dust
and
there was life

and there was light

a light whose
silhouette
burned life
despite
the darkness

and the darkness
like an ocean
engulfed
and
raged

yet still
there was light

because the Word and the light
they
live

and
like seeds
they have been planted
in my depths
and
woven together
in my secret places
and
they take root

as creation spins
and the heavens twirl
I am grafted into something
bigger

and
it is in the splicing
in the splintering
that I am
made
true

because
that is where 
my story begins

Night

Once again, I went to bed too late.
And I was so tired, too.
I lay there, trying to sink into the mattress...the pillow...the Earth
trying to just let go of all that I hadn't gotten done
and sleep was slow to come.
Isn't that always the way?

Obviously, at some point, I surrendered and sleep came like a blanket.
But, I didn't grasp that sweet relief until, ironically, you woke me up.
I saw your dark figure, lit from behind by the weak rays of the porch light,
just standing there
willing me to consciousness.

That's how you do it, most nights.
You just stand there.
And hope.

Because I know, somewhere deep, that you don't like to wake me.
Your goal is not to disturb me.
You just want to be with me.


But that kind of heart-vision is bleary eyed at 1:30 a.m.
and confused
and irritated
and 
tired.


I just want to sleep.


So do you.


I escort you back to your bed, the one that you share with your brother, and I see the reason for your waking.
Your bed partner has managed to fall deep into slumber, as he always does, and in the falling, he has begun to explore your side of the mattress, your covers, your stuffed animals. 
Even in his sleep he is reaching out to everything around him, just as in the day.
But his endless striving has a flip side and that is your waking.
Every.single.night.
Over.and.over.

I curse the night conspirators and shoo you into bed.
I pull up the sheet, tuck it under your chin, smooth your hair from your forehead and plant kisses across your brow,
believing that such rituals will somehow ward off that which disturbs you...
me...
the world.

But it is not enough.

There you are again, an hour later.
And another hour, again, after that.

The memory of hours linked together, one after another, bridging the darkness until morning's first light is the stuff of fairy tales and I long for someone to tell me that story again.

At one point, I stir and find you in my bed.
Silently, you melted in between your dad and me.
Your hand, gently searching for mine under the sheet, is what woke me.

That sweet, warm hand.
Reaching out to me.

That is what I must hold onto.

Yes, it seems like you are too old for this.
Yes, I am tired.
Yes. Yes. and Yes.

But that hand.

It is, at once, a gesture... a request... a need... an offering... a truce.

And so, I squeeze it into my own.
My hand, which is big enough to consume...crush...absorb...engulf
it reaches out to
your hand.

They clasp each other
pulled together by a deep innate power
and there is a humming.

Our hands, linked together in the night, become that bridge I've been chasing after.
The stuff of fairy tales...
And, finally,
we both sleep.

{On, In, And Around Mondays} The weaving

They became holy the moment we opened ourselves to them
the house
the bar stool
the floor
all of you

At first, it was in the waiting.
Then, in the turning.

Leaden skies, for which we had prayed and hoped and dreamed, stood at the ready
groaning and flashing at the weight of it all
Yet, there you were
the answer
to what had been rippling and singing below
for years 
despite our best efforts to quiet it 


Because how can you really deaden songs from the deep?


And so
for hour upon lovely hour
we remembered how to loosen the wraps
and to again
lay bare
that which we had kept draped

Old wine passed over new lips
and in the drinking...
miracles

We spoke of lives shared
of how
once you are a gift
you never stop getting
and the lilt and timbre of the words
rang like psalms

And a new wisdom
was birthed
a collective knowing
emerged
that who we always thought we were
is not inked in blood
but rather
expands
and
works itself out
Each incarnation
folds one into another
and stacked together
there is
movement

And there is grace

So we let you keep traveling
even though there is a knowing
that your journey
might separate us
might further pull
at the ways we are fastened

I turn to see the dust following you
You
headed West
chasing the sun
and I throb somewhere deep


Instinctively
I finger the raised thread
you've embroidered
with stitches crossed
one over the other
and it is then
that I know

we are still weaving

Linking with L.L. Barkat

 

How, in the choosing, we become

It happened the other day when I was driving.  A flash of memory.  Of course, there was a song involved but I honestly can't remember which one right now, since the melody was more like a catalyst to the memory rather than the essence of it.  Suddenly, I was in high school, senior year, and I needed to make my college choice.  Would it be Ohio Wesleyan with its small, close knit student body, quintessential collegiate setting of ancient trees and miles of sidewalks, and the presence one of the coolest cats to ever grace the halls of my high school who chose this college the year before?  Or would it be Colorado College with its euphoric Rocky Mountain backdrop, unique block system of classes and money back guarantee that I would have dread locks before I graduated?  What about Northeast Missouri State University (now known as Truman University) with its gargantuan student population, stuck-in-a-cornfield setting, and healthy scholarship if I agreed to stay in Missouri and teach?  Or would it be Emory University with its marble and red tile quadrangle buildings, its Driving Miss Daisy setting, and its water fountains that flowed with Coca-Cola?

I really could see myself at each location.  It was both liberating and paralyzing to see how each school had something to offer me, something that would engage and inspire some part of who I was.  And, somehow, at the tender age of 17, I was supposed to figure out which facet of my being should be polished the most, which elemental characteristic of mine should be distilled further.  No pressure.

How should I do this?  Should I think about who I wanted to be, who I thought I should be after I graduated from college...and go with the school that seemed most capable of making that happen?  Or did I go with the school that called out more to who I was at the moment, or at least, who I thought I was at the moment?  And how, at 17, was I even supposed to know the difference?  Again, no pressure.

It was in that place of suspended existence that I stayed for awhile.  And it wasn't long before I found myself on a "what if?" and "what could have been?" rat wheel that, left unchecked, had the power to undo me.  Because those are the kind of questions that can cut to the quick and fly straight to the rawest, most sensitive places.  And, even scarier... in hindsight, did I make the right choice?

If I had chosen Ohio Wesleyan, would I have sought out the one person that went before me, whom I idolized, and try to fit into his theater crowd?  Would I have chosen to major in Elementary Education, a decision that I was completely on the fence about and about which I was paying way more attention to how I would be perceived because of that choice rather than listening to what my heart was telling me?  Would I have stayed in Ohio after graduation and become an official Ohioan, like my dad?  I have since met lots of other folks from Ohio, all of whom were very cool and so, it begs the follow up question: would I have become very cool, too?

If I had chosen Colorado College, would I have embraced my inner hippy and still be wearing tinkling ankle bracelets while I shopped for organic vegetables at the market?  Would I have discovered that one passion that defined me while I was taking those intense block classes, holed up on a mountainside for a month at a time?  Would I be closer to my older brother if I had chosen to be the one family member that relocated closer to him in the West?  Would I have had a stronger bond with my 17 year old nephew and, thus, could he have been with me that dreadful night in January instead of being struck down and killed on the streets of Denver?

If I had chosen NEMO (Northeast Missouri State/Truman University), would I have kept many of the same friends from high school, migrating along with them to a new location where we would have joined up with other familiar faces that had gone before?  Would I have been able to break away when I started to discover that I felt differently about the role of faith in my life than I had all the years that they had known me?  What does it feel like to not "go away" and, instead, simply segue to a different place in the same musical composition you've already been a part of?

And then I thought about what I did choose--I chose Emory.  And I really don't think I am saying this to justify my choice but...I believe that I chose Emory because, on the day that I took that campus tour, I felt something stir deep.  Something that I couldn't quite put my finger on, exactly, but that reverberated in every hollow and rabbit hole within me.  I know,now, that it was deep calling to deep, the hushed whisper of the Holy Spirit, but at the time, it was more about what felt right.  I walked through the Quad, I smelled long and deep the potpourri of pine and magnolia, I spied on the library spaces with a mixture of fear and awe, and I sat on a bed in the very dorm that I would move into my freshman year and...I could somehow see me there.  The full version of me.  Not a fragmented or splintered me.  All of me.

Somehow, all of who I was and saw myself becoming came together in that place.  And I knew this because all of what was familiar to me hummed knowingly and all that was unknown called to me.  Who I would be when I left there seemed still a mystery and made all of the other possible places seem utterly predictable.  There was potential here rather than probability.

But I guess we are never fully free of the things we didn't choose, are we?  Because, the very fact that we turned from one decision informs the reality of what we did choose.  I am who I am today because of the existence of those other choices that I could have made.  And so that is why they linger.  That is why they hang out there in the universe, latent but unrealized, veiled but unexpressed.  And whatever it was that made them potential choices in my life at one time, all of their collective je ne sais quoi, actually means they still had a part in shaping me.

So when I think about how, even though I went on to get certified in Secondary Education and teach older students, I now homeschool my 7 and 9 year old...well, that's the Ohio Wesleyan in me.  And when I muse over how, if money wasn't an issue, I would love to live on land in a mountain valley, have goats and chickens and pigs and most likely have a membership with Greenpeace...well, that's the Colorado College in me.  And when I see pictures on Facebook of all the folks that I graduated with who never left Webster Groves, still live there with their own families and whose 4th of July celebrations look straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting..well, that's the Northeast Missouri State in me.

All of those things can co-exist with the me that I am as a result of having chosen Emory.

And when I look around at this life I have...with my amazing husband, my incredible kids, and my hodge-podge of personal work experience (all of which I have enjoyed)...well, it's all good.  And, it's all me.

You Are A Writer {so start acting like one}

"Close the door. 
Write with no one looking over your shoulder. 
Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; 
figure out what you have to say. 
It's the one and only thing you have to offer."

-Barbara Kingsolver

I wake at 5:00 a.m., pour myself exorbitant amounts of coffee, slip in the ear buds to my iPod, and plant myself in front of the computer for two hours.

It is dark and quiet and it is wonderful.  

And it is crazy.

It is in this space that I am trying to figure out what I have to say, to gather up bits and piece of myself and, with trembling hands, to present them as an offering.

It is one of the hardest things that I have ever done.

To sit and muse, to poke and probe at one's deepest places, and then to just lay it out there

well, it is profoundly humbling.

Frightening, even.

I long for approval and head nods and pats on the back.  I want to know that the pain of self examination is worth it.  I look to the comments for proof that I should keep doing this.  I secretly hope that some big-name blogger will, somehow, stumble upon this space and share me with the world.

But that is beginning to change.

Because, at its very core, this writing process...well, it's for me.  I write to figure out what I am thinking.  I write to make sense of it all.  I write to discover who I am.

So I will keep waking at 5:00 a.m., I will keep drinking too much coffee, and I will keep my iPod programmed to repeat my "writing song."

Because in that space, it is dark and quiet.

And it is wonderful.

“Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us.  The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write.  To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.  Thus, writing requires a real act of trust.  We have to say to ourselves:  ‘I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.’  Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving.  Once we dare to “give away” on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.”

-Henry Nouwen

What pulls me

I stare into the center of the hollyhock blossom and am caught unawares

I already knew that it was beautiful
with its blazing color
and
its feathery grace flowing 
its length and breadth swaying 
with subtlety and nuance


And I had long ago marveled
at
the joy it brought
how it connected me to
the man
who walked along roadsides
in a state miles away
gathering colored joy
in his pockets 


And how I wanted that
delight
to grow in my garden
and
for my boys
to be dwarfed by
its
beauty
and comforted
by its
humming

These things
I knew

But it was
the
outstretched hands
inside
with rays of light
pulsing
that
gripped me

This...
this is what pulls me
I gasp
this star shaped center
almost hidden
but still brilliant

This is what it has always been

And so I wonder
when people turn their heads
and gaze
at
all that is me
what do they
already know?

what has it always been?

{On, In, and Around Mondays}: going South

There was always an excited pull in my stomach as I dressed in the dark in the rippled clothes that lay on the bed covers.  Moving silently and with purpose I would melt down the stairs to join my parents, already moving and arranging and shifting in a flurry of preparation.  There was not much that I could do but step back and fade into the background of house and home, anchored to the one thing that wasn't being touched or moved or rearranged.  Before long, a large collective sigh would simultaneously gather in the last of the necessities and let go of whatever else had been forgotten and we would be on our way.

There was always a small split, somewhere, in the vinyl car seat and so I had to keep my leg skin from being sucked into the crevice, or sweating, or both--a futile attempt, seeing that it was summer and I was wearing shorts.  So, I would hunker down, crouched low and small, my head resting on my bed pillow covered with the Peanuts Gang pillowcase and its smell of sleep.  It wouldn't be until we were miles away, in other people's houses and in different states, that I would recognize that it also hid the smell of home.

Despite my excitement and percolating anticipation, I would inevitably doze off.  There was the droning white noise of the radio and the rhythmical rocking of the car and my dreams would be spotty and confusing, narrated by the disembodied voices of my parents and a.m. traffic helicopters.  It would be the rising of the sun, the snap of the newspaper's front page, and the smell of coffee poured from the red thermos with the Highland pattern on its side that would pull me back to consciousness.  Peeking over the car window's ledge I would see that the landscape had changed and the sound of the tires on the pavement was different and we weren't in Missouri anymore.

There would come a point, somewhere in Tennessee, where we would decide to stop for lunch.  We would find a rest stop with picnic tables and clean restrooms and maps.  To the concrete table already covered in ants we would haul the mammoth green Coleman cooler and we would eat in the shade of the last hardwood trees we would see for awhile.  I never felt rushed.  Rather, I ruminated on the idea that this road we were traveling reached wide and deep, long and high and connected us to people who loved us.


I could smell that we were in Georgia long before I ever saw a sign with a peach on it.  It was the swelling of pine pitch and the hard crusted red clay that now edged the roadside that did it.  I would marvel at the interminable cascade of kudzu that enveloped trees and barns and whatever didn't move and I would wonder whether we would escape its death hold before we headed homeward in a week.  Georgia was glad to see us, but it didn't want us to leave.


And then, just like that, we would be there.  And we would be squeezed and kissed by folks with bright lipstick who wore Shalimar perfume and smoked Benson & Hedges in the gold box...folks whose voices curled and dropped in different places and always ended in laughter...folks with familiar lines to their faces and silver hair that glistened in the lamplight and twinkles in their eyes that were reserved only for us.  And for a week, we belonged to them.  We would listen to their stories and we would drink in their love and we would memorize their faces because no one wanted to forget anything.  


We never left for home as early in the morning as we had that first day headed South.  The parting was always difficult and dreaded and drawn out because how, exactly, do you say goodbye to yourself?  And after the loud and wet farewells and that momentary suspension in time where one is caught between worlds, we would find ourselves sunk deep in our seats, quiet in a way that we hadn't been for days.  It would be that bed of silence that would carry us the first hundred miles or so headed North.  Then, a restroom break or a stop for peanut brittle would cut the tension and we would begin to accept that we were headed home.  But as we continued to drive, passing mile marker after mile marker, we became more comfortable with the thought that all of it was home.  For home is where you are loved and cherished and we were all of that.

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."

-Basho

linking up with L.L. Barkat