never walk alone

In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live

(Never walk alone)

In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live

(Your arms are all around us)


The Shelter, Jars of Clay

Closer to 2 than 1 in the morning, recapped water bottles and scraps of paper rest, strewn and sprinkled on a collection of tables, completely forgotten by the responsible attendants tucked in bed upstairs. Bite-sized chocolates circle cute theme things. Everything seems to hold its breath, as if waiting for permission, for sunrise to exist again.


This is not my world.


My mom's church ladies convened on a small campground on a slender island this weekend. Surrounded by water and spring skies for two days, they gathered in a richly neutral colored room to learn about God.


I came to hear the speaker. 


With skin like richest chocolate and a soul that crackles like fire, she holds a place in my imagination as what the voice of God would look like. Walking as quietly as she can, she still arrives like a happening of nature. And watching her makes some of the Old Testament descriptions of the divine seem almost plausible.


We were the last two in line for dinner, and I bit my lip a lot as she gathered her food. Words raced, thoughts I wanted to share as we ambled towards the few available seats. Still words raced, built, because her preaching had touched me. But what do you say to the voice of God? How do you start a conversation with the Voice of the One you've been ashamed to admit you know... for years?


In Texas, talk food. 


Starting with allergies and preferences, the conversation drifted towards what we had both chosen, and what she wished had been offered. She spoke of the vacation she'd just returned from, the first she'd taken in years.


Somehow I ate while I listened, and finally managed a deep breath. I tried to talk, but found the words formed in my throat cloying. Stuttering, I tried to share the tightness of fears and failures, how I existed scared and scarred.


She listened like I was a friend.


And somehow, at the table, the Voice became someone I could talk to, someone that got my humor. The Voice of thunderstorms and earth-moving morphed into a woman remembering a hotel in New Orleans, talking about the wonder of black-eyed peas and skillet-fried bacon.


Closer to 3 than 2, stars litter the sky, and ripple along the water. The world stretches out, more nestled here. It's curious and different, not my home.


But I have a friend here, who talks to God.
And in the shelter of each other, we will live.

a knife and fork

A knife and fork.


Driving back from my interview to mentor a child in East Dallas in my air-conditioned, pretty car, the words echoed in my head. An offhanded comment, so telling.


A knife and fork.


Flipping through paperwork and legalese, signing this and reviewing that, the pretty lady talked about the responsibilities of a mentor. If you suspect abuse or neglect, tell someone. You're expected to spend an hour a week with your mentee. It can be anywhere, McDonalds, Sonic. The list of goals and expectations, read this. Achievable goals.

Efficiently, she gave examples of what to do. We have a 7 year old who doesn't know how to tie his shoes yet. Maybe you could help them learn to read, since you like reading. And if you find a away for the child to learn, maybe the mother can, too. Most don't have a high school diploma or GED.


More paperwork. Here's a folder, fill out emergency information. This'll have the child's information, any allergies and such.


Really. Anything. Do you like fireworks? Yes, watching, not setting. A quick smile.


Another girl here didn't know how to use a knife and fork. More paperwork. Questions. Clarification.


On my way there, my thoughts flipped and fluttered between word count and how many followers I have. Is this hip? Is that worth attention? How do I make my blog sticky and my tweets popular?


And in a small, stolid building, a child whose mom committed a felony doesn't know how to use a knife and fork. 


A knife and fork.


Help. 

Help.

Help.


A knife and fork.

learning to stand

When I first started writing, poetry and prose were easy. Words poured and seeped, flowing like melting ice cream through me and onto the page.

The first time it happened around other people, I was at school just free writing for a test warm-up. I knew it was good, better than I should be able to write myself, and my hands shook as I lifted my paper to read it. When I finished, I looked at my teacher. She looked as fluxomed as I felt, and laughed in surprised. She laughingly said I passed the class with an A, but I didn’t hear her, caught in this champagne-like bubble of wonder. I was enchanted, disconnected from everything but somehow feeling like I was listening to God’s heartbeat.

I kept writing through middle school, needing words like most girls need to be skinny. Everything I wrote, I shared with my mom. Being my biggest fan, she told everyone about her daughter, the poet. In high school, I thought she was proud and just went with it. My ego thanked her for the strokes, but I was embarrassed by her evanescence. I alternately wanted more and couldn’t hide fast enough.

Then there were the 90s. Poetry was served like stir sticks with the newly discovered lattes in coffeehouses. I did a couple of readings at hole-in-the-wall places. A local coffeehouse owner heard my work at an open mike night, and asked me to do a personal reading.

I was stupid and oblivious, and made a lovely woman cry. She heard the theme of scars skittering through my work and came to talk to me after the reading. She stood, speaking softly with uncertain words about how she had been scarred as a child, too. Melting like a candle beneath the weight of her pain, she thanked me for what I had written.

I freaked.  The weight of that moment, her pain, my pain. I drowned. When I could gulp down air again, I ran. Like a little, little girl with pigtails and hellhounds on her heels.

No responsibility, no. No weight. No, no, no. Pain and I were best enemies for many years, and I reckoned if no one depended on me, I couldn’t hurt anyone else. I wasn’t responsible for anyone, and no one was responsible for me. It never occurred to me I’d feel ever differently. Just run. That thought alone drove everything.

At some point, I wrote more, because I can’t not write. We were broke one year at Christmas, so my mom had me print off a collection of my poems and prose. We made a list, counted up the paper we had left, and gave out 10 copies.

A lady from my church asked me who Melba was, from one of the works. I laughed out loud, shocked someone actually read my words. From a page. Voluntarily. Even if they did love me.

I responded that she was my grandmother. But my reaction befuddled, and she wasn’t as sure about talking to me ever again. It should have been ok with me, as I didn’t really want people to see what I was doing. I didn’t want to be talked about or discussed like some specimen or non-person.

But it wasn’t, and I hated that my clumsy attempt to protect myself somehow caused her pain.

Now, writing calls me again. All the seemingly intellectually well-founded reasons I stockpiled for not writing look like shed fur caught in the corners of an unloved house.

I am a coward, and for so long, I thought as long as I was honest, that was enough. If I at least tell you I’m going to flake out, then it’s on you. I gave fair warning. But that’s not even an acceptable half-life, and my life has passed before my eyes like some sad instruction film on how not to live a life. A non-life, coated in fear, for which I feel I owe the Creator an apology.

So, following the idea of a life being like a story, here is my written confession. In the conflict of my life, set in a Southern city not sure what to do with itself, I failed the climax test. And although I’d love the chance for a do-over, a do-from-here would be almost better. I screwed up, I ran away. But at least now I know what I did, so I know how hurt other people, and what I should have done instead.


And I won't make those choices again.

Day 25150 of my life. And I’m just learning to stand up.

Blue Like Jazz

What do you do with a collection of essays that becomes a book about the movie about the essays when you finally the movie based on the essays?


In the case of Blue Like Jazz, you give thanks. Then you wallow in the art. And you give thanks again.


Blue Like Jazz tells the story of Don, a sweet Texas kid who makes a rash decision that ends him up in Portland, OR, attending Reed College. There, rewards come when he asks questions he didn't even think about back home, and he quickly, subtly sinks into the distraction of this new, enchanting intellectual world. He falls for a girl who seems different from the rest. And somehow can't shake the feeling this candy-coated playground provides very little substance.


The movie shows snarky, irreverent humor, then startles with deft sensitivity and metaphor. In a world of pre-packaged, pre-marketed fluff, BLJ shows complex characters - flawed, angry, questioning.


At the end lies no easy answers; only hope, possibility, and a rough road from innocence to faith.


Go. See. It. Take friends.


See it again. Give thanks.

rain, puddles, jump big

Rain came softly after service today, changing robin egg blue skies to something dreamier and grey. Soft, fat drops plopped, seeping into cement and green grass as I watched from my book-strewn, technology-enhanced nest. I stood at the back sliding door, just listening to rain.


Christians lyricists have a serious flirt with water references right now; grace flows like a river, and holiness washes like a tide.


Andrew, my pastor, spent weeks talking about leaping into God, using the metaphor of a parachute off of a mountain. He stressed the point that questions only go so far, then there has to be the choice of faith. 


The closest I've ever gotten (or ever intended to get) to para - anything happened at a church ladies retreat: I ziplined through Tyler pines, screaming like a little, little girl. In pigtails and lace trimmed socks.


And although there was definitely a moment when I had to wiggle my own butt off that tiny platform, the metaphor makes me eager to find a deep, deep hole - not eager to find the closest cliff.


But as the rain fell softly, God brushed the idea in my mind that He's not always the edge of a cliff. Sometimes the words we have just don't describe Him at all.


Words, labels, metaphors - describe, define. Limit. We use them because they do, but at the same time, we are limited by them. Some words tear, and shouldn't be used for just that reason. And some ideas should be discarded for the same reason.


My dad was a very wounded soul. When my mom left him, and the courts drug getting the paperwork to make it official, he gave me a teddy bear for comfort. I loved the bear, but passed it my younger brother because he needed it more. My brother slept through the night whenever he had the bear. When my dad asked why I didn't have it, I said I gave it to my brother. He replied I must not care much for it, and took it away when my brother and I next visited.


What I learned was not to not trust that good things would last. No matter how simple or how much I wanted them, not caring hurt less than having and losing.

That human expectation severely limited a God Whose Word created everything, Whose love seeks new ways to show me He wants good for me. And the more good He showed, the harder it became for me to trust Him at all. I just kept waiting for a bigger, uglier shoe to drop.


God is not, shall not, has not, never will be my father. God proves the exception to my father's rule.


And if I know what my father was, then I have to trust that God is something else entirely.


The soft rain that sweetly seeped into my yard stormed through other parts of the city. The news had dramatic footage of people trying to save Easter eggs from puddles.


Furious and gentle so close together; rain and thunderstorms evoke God simply and beautifully. And I can see why songwriters use water as a metaphor for Him. 


And I can see why that soft rain, those grand clouds, that furious love would make Andrew want to jump. Jump big, brave into something there are not words for. 


Because I'm all in for that, too.

caught

at dinner

he moved quietly

with a way that called

of mountains and Grecian sculpture

in the doorway

he stopped gracefully

with a way that called

of ancient pine trees running rivers

caught

by a glance

I still

by a way that called

of comforting solid and infinite hope