Grief and Ground

Cold and hopeless now
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground

He no longer feels the sweat on his brow
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground

In the soil he loved when he lived and breathed
Bones in the ground
Bones in the ground
            ---
He is gone, and I grieve.
Just having known him, I was touched.
I sit cross-legged on the living room carpet and

We utter prayers
to a God we say we know.

Do they pray, too? Saying "he is at rest now. he is at peace."
With all assurances in their minds
of their god's universal offering of eternal life.


Did he repent and call on your Son
Only Savior, the beautiful sun?
Oh Lord, my heart grieves for Bud and family.
I pray for your power to be revealed in this passing.
Your eternal life-giving, dead raising power,
born of your suffering.
So unlike our suffering.
So freely chosen.
Oh Lord, may your Name be exalted through me and through this I pray.
In Jesus' name.


Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV)

This. Is. Not. Okay.

I stumbled upon an ironical article on Relevant (9 Quick Ways to Get Depressed). Quite amusing, I chuckled. Until I got to number 6.

"Become a Cynic: Start to believe the following things: people don’t change, life generally sucks and avoiding pain is more important than risking love." -Nicole Uncie

Wait, that sounds a little close to home. 

That sounds a little...like me. 

I never would have put myself in this category. I'm a sanguine optimist! I have a rosy-colored view of the past. I forgive and forget. I have hope in God. Until now, I guess. I look around...

People I love are sick. And suffering. 

People I know are dying.  In hospice. Suffering.

People I respected and cared for are gone. Eternally. Suffering.

It's external, and it's internal.

I am broken. I am hurtful to others: impatient and stubborn and harsh. I think the worst. I judge. I compare. The list goes on. 

And it does, really, suck. And it's not okay. And I can't fix it. 

But I can cry out tonight. Lord, do what only You can do.
-------------------------------------------

I don't want to ride on somebody else's passion
I don't want to find that I am just dry bones
I want to burn with unquenchable fire
deep down inside, see it coming alive 

Help me find my own flame
Help me find my own fire
I want the real thing
I want Your burning Desire

In my heart tonight, do what only you can do
In my heart tonight, do what only you can do

Why wait for tomorrow, when I can have you today?
When I can have the change....

Change me by Your beauty God
Change me by Your beauty God

Help me find my own flame.

-Will Reagan and United Pursuit Band

 

First love

God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.
-C.S. Lewis

Great Relisher

What I know of spirit is astir
in the world.
The god I have always expected
to appear at the wood's edge, beckoning,
I have always expected to be
a great relisher of this world, its good
grown immortal in his mind.

-Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Poems

This path of love

Love,
made on the kitchen table
across with eyes, fountains to
empty pitchers,
lies and jars of pennies.
Such is the family heritage.

I admit, I am one
capable and culpable,
I give up and in
and go.

This pursuit of happiness
in the Driftless region
of agnostic hypocrites
such a harmonious cacophony.
It's electric.

Now I wait for a penman
from the Red Cedar River,

I wait for the Man
of God to enter
again
into this Tapestry
and complete the loose ends fraying
and batten down the hatches blowing
and rescue mind from Satan's plaguing
and until then,
counting it all joy;

He is singing, strumming, loving
over us, over us.