And I want to hope it won’t be blood
As my body rumples with softness and tearing, clenched and tense
After finishing the last course of antibiotics from our last try, lost
Aren’t you tired of trying, weary of counting syllables and diminutive sounds, the charting, the appointments
Articulated prescriptions, fatigue blanches the balance. When will my body be well?
Absolutely. I don’t know.
Hope Haiku Triplet
Evil scansRenew life
The world gasps
For hope like air, come
Lord Jesus
My life cries
For hope like bread, come
Savior, fill
Our hearts thirst
For hope like water
Come, afresh
----
I also want to share my coworker Bruce's words:
Joy shines in darkness,
His presence renews my joy,
my soul is drawn to Him.
When I feel the weight of evil
and see the enemy's hatred and rage;
His joy remains my strength
Heightened, holding a
Tentative taut twine of hope
Clutching, releasing
--
Cautious steps
Of hope, fear hovers;
Fragile bloom
---
Disappointment is
A heavy burden of grief
Sad futility
--
Feeling the
warmth of sunshine; a
moment's gift
---
Transformed by
Inviting changed mind
Surrender
I'm by the river
One bridge of lit concrete,
One bridge of light,
The reflection, a false
Horizon.
I'm alone here
Maybe just where I'm supposed to be.
-----------------------------------------------
Murky stank, but you can't
Smell it in the pictures of the moon peaking, the river's cadence...
Faded intent, sad gleams,
I've got so little in me
its an instinct, a response.
Incredible, the support,
I should have taken a picture.
If Dick could have seen that...
so many turned up. So many cared.
Even when you were hard to be around, sometimes-
Still, the river drifts on.
I am calmed, I am
Claimed.
I don't recommend wanting
or hoping
because you're sure to be disappointed
but I also don't recommend numbing
or giving up
because you're alive and made for living
what is there to do?
One day at a time
Moment by moment
Grieve
Share
Cry
Hold yourself in a cocoon of compassion
One day at a time
Moment by moment
Daily dose of sunshine
Deep breaths to fend off the doubts and fear
One day at a time
Moment by moment
Being present to the thoughts, feelings and emotions in your body
One day at a time
Moment by moment
A blooger, a blogger, a booger
Almost the 20th anniversary; two decades of writing these occasional inspirations
Overflowing to the modern outlet, the cacophony estuary of the internet
Inspired by a professor assigning extra credit if we "try out this new medium"
And does it still stand? Yes, and no,
We've got X and Insta, Youtube and TikTok and whatever is coming next,
We've got to communicate that's the thing
Cave walls, tablets of stone, papyrus, printing press, newspaper, mail, electronic mail....
We've got to share to be alive, even if it's just with ourselves
We live in glory days, my fingers funneling focus (fragmented) - ciphering it through code into HTML into the world. Why a glory, what a mystery,
Here we are- 20 more to go?
This morning, a chipmunk beneath the kitchen sink
Months before, a mouse at the back door rug
A year ago, his body found on the floor
And before that? I know not; being born and dying happened at home,
So commonplace the endings and beginnings of this vapor life.
Why so much toil and tumult?
When the house has quietly stood for 85 years, unweighted by the suffering plaguing the children of men
Can I release it to the one who holds it all together,
Holding faith that in the crashing markets and blockaded lands,
He'll never let go.
Even the chipmunks days were marked and spent well in their own glory.
Couldn't I try to do the same?
Greeting death as the doorway, not the enemy
To the true rest our sick bodies and stretched minds long for?
You know not when he will come;
Welcome.
You are strange to me
I want to be familiar
Not strangers.
What is exchanged?
Current states of mind in bursts of time.
Obligatory compliments;
An overflowing lack.
Quite a curse,
Carrying-on with this unfulfilled long-ing.
Stultified with sadness
Breathless with wind chasing.
Go, girl, to dig your own well
And may it be well
with your soul.
Everybody wants to [turn]
& Make the most of [sadness]
Everybody wants to [sleep]
& Make the most of [power]
Everybody wants to [fade]
& Make the most of [desire]
Everybody wants to [rule]
& Make the most of [nature]
Everybody wants to [last]
& Make the most of [indecision]
Everybody wants to [believe]
& Make the most of [isolation]
We are
A date in time, an image-bearer
from god-dust
We are
boxes in the garage
ashes in an urn
We are
charmed fragments of memory
carbon copies clinging closely
We are
cramped names bereft
girded loins and fathomless bleak pangs
We are
out of the blue
& into the black
We are
blood bonds of ancestor landslides
turned into lineages
We are
gone before a blink
faded grass and mist vanishing
We are
rotted out
burned husk of rust
We are
not a failure, my son
when the salt has not yet dried
on your cheeks
and you've found a collapse in your chest
of all your bravery
and hope seems so fragile
from breaking and mending
repeatedly
and all you want
is to see your enemy
kneeling down
in their garden
harvesting for their grandchildren
All we are
cells of mitochondria
composite of galaxies
resting within infinite
e x p a n s i o n to finite expression
To imagine imagination
fathoming, dreaming, sensing
seeing the invisible
what does not exist
calling into existence
This Creator created
attuned
endowing life
processes, systems
beauty
Perceiving
the delight
of watching a story unfold, characters
who will live out the questions
invited into partnership; shalom
How the winter dormancy wraps
land in cold blankets, frozen foundations
leafless trees and hibernating debris
How the spring awakens
there is a thawing, a washing
seeds and creatures roused into fecundity
How being loved by someone changes you
There is an enclosure, a security of boundaries
Now I don't have to do everything, fled from the rancorous mob
Permission that I seldom granted myself
"be present and be loved"
initiate and respond with deepening wholeness
It will take time,
and it's a process of becoming
in the flux of dismantling
into a formless mass
identity shifts,
cocooned and unseeing
reformed
in newness
from darkness, alight
To be a lithe fishing boat,
Curvaceous, turning with the rises
Arcing brow,
Luscious aged wood crafted with care
Dropping and lifting, so unlike
A barge,
Slow, heavy, groping the sediment and debris not yet dredged
Leaving in the tailwind a trail of oil
I want to have a brow that dips sways
I want to have a mast that catches the wind
But I have a motor and I have a mission; port to port to port.
At sighted land unburdened;
I’ll pretend that the small waves can move me too.
Let it take the time it takes
Even thorough I want it done-
Accomplished and forgotten.
Let it take the time it takes
For hope to rise again
The recuperation of a disintegrated self.
Let it take the time it takes
Abiding the yelling threats that stopping will be fatal.
If I’m not pushing, I’m completely failing.
Let it take the time it takes
To rest in the proof of being insufficient
Yet sufficiently held, and released.