Today was a hard day.

I took my second of 11 tests for my work certification, and Mom had a doctor's appointment.
He told her she wouldn't see another Christmas if she didn't decide to join the party. And although it was hard on the ears, it wasn't unexpected.

I get we will all die someday; I just thought Mom would be one of those who raged against the dying of the light. In my head, she breathed life wherever she went; brimming over with quick wit and messy love for strangers.

Somewhere, between the then and now, she grew bitter. She shared once she'd not forgiven God for not giving her the life she expected. I wondered at the time how life could have ever been prepared for her.

Now... is different. Her body is weak. Her mind can't always get messages past her emotions through to her nerves, as if her thoughts get caught in darker gridlock.

She seems here, but she fades into grayness more and more often. I don't even recognize the person wearing my mother's skin.

And as much as I want to wish her back, to show a light, a path, she flickers to the in-betweens. I want to be angry that is where she makes her home... But I am caught, praying for her peace and an end to her suffering more.

My posts and messages about her have been too brief and inconsistent. I kept thinking she would pull herself from this depressive mire, lean into the struggle, see winter can mean Christmas and not just endless snow; and then I'd share _that_ with the world. Because it might mean spring was coming, or Mom the Firebreather awoke.

Today happened instead. And while I cry in my warm, too large for me house, she passes the night 5 blocks down, living far, far away.

snoring, coffeepots, cookies

Once upon a time, my mom snored. She would wake farm animals; she was invited to Girl Scout camp - once. She said it was the best sleep ever, but she was asked never to return as she slept soundly and no one else did. In the entire camp.

She had her own cabin during church ladies' retreats. Every year.

Once upon a time, my mom was a one-person office working for a landscaper. The office itself lived a former life as a house, so her desk was downstairs with a couch and communal coffeepot. Upstairs, the bathroom, offices, and most of the storage filled the the space. She'd walk up and down the old, slick carpeted stairs with the empty coffeepot; then back down with paperwork, office supplies in one hand and a water-filled glass pot in the other.

Once upon a time, she missed the last step. The pot fell, shattered. Water coated the tile at the base of the stairs, and she slipped across the entry into the closed front door.

She broke her nose, looked like a Southern white lady version of Rocket for a good while. She never snored again.

Once upon a time, she got sick and it took many, many doctors to help her. One doctor requested one of her other doctors provide a fresh set of specific tests, in case of possible future concerns.

Yesterday, we visited the vampires' lab. They pricked her arms, the back of her hand, drawing 5 vials for tests. Leaving, mom felt weak and I promised her a cookie for doing so well. Instead, though, she had a mini-stroke, dropped her feet, and tumbled from her wheelchair.

She broke a tooth, blackened an eye, has a poofy, discolored knee, a bit of road rash, and scraped knuckles. The ER doc told her to make up a story about how the concrete looks worse. Because it looks like she was in a fight, but won.

She's been more present, even on the painkillers, since the fall; even made the comment the knock to her head cleared her mind. She's a tough, non-snoring cookie, my mom. Now and once upon a time.

lesser shade of grey

sometimes i wake up at 4
before the world begins
or fully exists
not quite mad about the lack of sleep
but if i could form the thought...
like a thunderstorm
not glamourous enough
for The Weather Channel
a thought fully outlined
that doesn't communicate
to anyone else completely
misty
undefined
a dreamy place
burning with constant struggle

but sometimes
i confess
there's something needful
about this lesser shade of grey

lent

there are things
of beauty and grace
friendship
and truer weight
which hurt our eyes
with their keenness
bruising arrogances
against gentle community
but these
which remain in the dark
when
all other lights fail
show a different path
a thing with feathers
truth, life and a way

dusk

swirled cotton candy on one side
Gone With The Wind on the other
sleek silver train slithering through city streets
in between the in-between of dusk and dark
miles to go before reaching the car, before bed

trees rush past
shadow pockets blurred in the window
i check my phone for another text
hoping...
as the train surges from one stop to the next
leaving the city with its mashup of history and greed
and progress for its own sake
behind

sun slides into bed as i blink slowly
pulling a blanket of familiar dark over the sky
as i sigh, feet throb, bones ache in new places
wish the week were shorter, life were longer
i had more in-between

consistency

What we call authenticity or transparency could be seen as truth or consistent behavior. Even what one person believes to be true may simply not be accepted by another.

We prefer to use consistency when we talk about food, and not so much about things with serious weight. Cakes undercooked or unevenly prepared have unreliable consistency. Or micro-greens might look like they taste clean and herbal, but taste of vinegar.

And that sort of anticipated surprise thrills. Because we can plan on their consistency, even if it's just momentary.

Consistency in life - character, determination, stick-with-it-ness, and all those other words no one really uses as descriptors anymore - take time. And effort. And effort over time.

We'd rather eat cake. Made by someone else. And convince ourselves the difference doesn't matter.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and person of consistently challenging character, once said,"when a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure."

Cake.

A cake made by a stranger, wrapped in packaging someone else crafted distracts to frustration, and eventually, dissatisfaction.

Because no one lives on cake alone.

And although we could love on the pleasure found in a lover's bed, or actually eat those feelings so dark and biting... that's not where our cake bakes.

Doing the mundane, bland grinding does. 

Replacing a busted light on your car because it's practical and needed; working up the nerve to have that hard conversation you'd rather avoid. Paying bills, passing up something easy to allow space for something else; apologizing sincerely because you'd wish someone would do the same if they did what you did.

Doing small things with great care because they add up.

Because they make life greater. They're bread.

And bread is life.

Sacred Lent, blessed journey.

foot washing

There's a story the real life world's most interesting man, Bob Goeff, tells. 

Background: Bob always looks like he can't wait to be where he is. And he just leaks love like most people reek Starbucks. Among the epic stories he's lived: he's the consulate for Uganda, was the first person to ever successfully have a witch doctor convicted in Uganda. He publishes his personal cell number in the back of the first book he ever wrote. Which went on to be a New York Times Bestseller.

Anyway, once a year, he invites all the witch doctors in Uganda to meet him, then tells them they have to stop killing and maiming kids. He says if they don't, he'll go after them. And will not stop. 

Then he kneels before them and washes their feet. 

Imagine. Just for a moment, some lawyer, some stranger from a country on the other side of the world kneeling before you. And washing your feet. 

Being raised in a conservative faith tradition, I can honestly say there are few things as powerful as having your feet washed. Washing someone else's might be equal.

It seems simple. Enter a room filled with benches and sit there. Someone, maybe a friend, maybe a complete stranger from a different church removes your shoes, socks, hose. Resting your feet on the towel, handfuls of water fall over your exposed skin while time becomes hushed and reverent. Sounds disappear, and the air fills with intimacy so thick it smells of incense. Another towel dries your feet. Time lulls.

Even if it's only a slow, intentional rinse and dry, it feels like love. Free, unexpected. Just offered for the taking.

And in the end, secret, dirty parts slide away. Somewhere between sitting and resting your drying feet on a towel, things slip, walls wisp.

That after-time calls to the deeper parts of the soul, hallowing the thought every experience of worth costs. There is none here, no tit-for-tat, no backscratching.

It's just water, and a towel. And an unexpected glimpse of something fuller.

For the history of footwashing and how it connected to Lent more robustly in the past, click here.

Sacred Lent, 
such a blessed journey.


John 13:14-17

he stayed

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

There's an unusual little story in the Bible I fell in love with as a child: the journey of Hosea and Gomer. He's a prophet, she's a sex worker. It's not exactly Pretty Woman.

The story, as best as I remember it: God tells Hosea you needs to marry this chick I have for you. Hosea says ok, and goes to find Gomer. He pays 15 shekels of silver and 5 bushels of barley for her. They marry, and have three children. Gomer continues to take payment for sex with strangers, even sleeping with her father-in-law at one point. Hosea finds her every time, and takes her back home. As a couple, they ended up with five children, with it not really noted who was the father of the last two.

The story says it illustrates God's love for the church. It specifically, clearly says so.

Hosea could have left, any time. The patriarchal nature of the Before Common Era Middle East has been well documented. He bought a wife, he could have replaced her by all laws and rights. But he stayed.

Gomer slept with his father. Even in redneck society, divorce or murder would have been understood. She slept with whomever she wanted, whenever she wanted - even though her partner obviously was not ok with it. And took money for his betrayal. But he stayed.

At least two children who were not his lived with them, were loved and accepted as part of the core unit. There was no question Hosea loved Gomer. He found something in her beautiful and enchanting, something which fed his soul. Even though some part of her life before him called to some part of her, and she couldn't say no and stick with it. 

It made no sense. Hosea could find a partner more suited to his faith preferences, who was faithful and honest, who honored what Gomer - his wife - said she would do before God and their community. He didn't. But he stayed.

Not asking for Gomer to make up for her mistakes or hurts; not holding her to what her life had been, but hoping she would move into a different, healthier place; not becoming violent, angry, or even cursing God for what He chose; Hosea stayed.

And his choosing to makes it my favorite love story. In Hosea's frustration, the nights he was lying in bed with images of her arms, skin wrapped around someone else running through his head, kissing the top of one of might-be-might-not-be-his kids, he told Gomer she could be somewhere else in her life, if she wanted to.

It's not a pretty, convenient story. But so, so much better than being just another easy love story. Because he stayed.

Sacred Lent. Blessed journey.

Love - Post Modern Version

About to drift off, I realized I'd not posted today. A writing exercise of taking a well-known piece and reworking it popped in my head. As I seem to wrestle with a lack of patience, I immediately thought of 1 Corinthians 13.

Here is the New King James version, thanks to biblegateway.com:

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.


13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

And here's the Post-Modern:

1 Though I speak with the tongues of humanity and of tech, but have not love, I have become a ringtone in a meeting or droning politician.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries (including explaining women to men) and am, well, Google, and even if I had enough belief in something to the point I actually did change the world (or just helped the church understand the words it says), but have no love, I am a 404 errror.
3 And though I eBay all my stuff to feed the poor, and Instagram pics of me doing it while tweeting the experience before it streams vid on YouTube, but don't really care about the people I'm doing it for or anything other than the fact it makes me look good, it... just makes for another episode of reality television.

4 Love deals. And is kind; love doesn't think it's entitled to more just because it is; love does not promote itself, is not all ego all the time; 
5 does not behave rudely, does not place its own agenda above all else, doesn't go off just because it can, thinks the best of everyone. just because. seriously; 
6 does not rush to report when somebody does something stupid. or mean, just to be the first to tell the story, but rejoices in the truth; 
7 survives everything, trusts in spite of everything, dreams on your behalf through things, will be at the end of all things.

8 Love never crashes. But where people think they know things, they won't; what we say today, we might not claim later; what we think we know today, we might not tomorrow.
9 Because we don't know everything. And we only speak from what we know.
10 But when perfection arrives, our flaws will dissolve.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I strived to make better decisions.
12 Right now we see glimpses through dirty glasses, but then we'll be one-on-one. Now I know pieces, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 While we wait for perfection, faith, hope, love linger; but the greatest, always, is love.

Sacred Lent, blessed journey.

trust. community. peace.

Please start the video playing while you read.

Lent seems a peculiar time to write about communion. It's akin to interrupting a hospital vigil to serve a robust red wine and fondue. But Lent and Communion warm with a curious light, and the weight of their respective beauty almost demands the weirdness of an interruption of the expected. They also share two meaningful, relevant stories: pain and community. 

Pain, like unsettled wine dredges, swirls constantly between, around, inside each of us. Ghosts of the past with too-real touches flare, recent wounds throb, even healing soft spots ache. Coursing just under our carefully arranged smile-masks, thrumming until it splashes out of an overfull cup. Somehow. Somewhere. Because it must.

While talking with a friend tonight, I was offered the honor of sipping from his bitter cup. He spoke of long-gone ghosts, sharing a journey of hard steps. He said he only recently started talking about where he started, about how he longed for a father who'd checked out and wished for a mom who'd been strong enough to be present.

He was the odd kid out, awkward and unknowing of how to accept his dredges, ungainly, unsure. Told not to talk about such things, not to make up stories, he was left to stew, brew, bitter. In the dark night of his soul, seductive voices whispered... self-harm.

The steps from there to here went mostly uphill. Demons from that time still pick at his healing scabs.

He now holds the hope for what he didn't have in an uncertain, open hand. The other reaches for community. He shared he thought of community as trust, that trust feeds his needs. We talked about how what we wish were different aches as bad as what we never had. The time was too short, but stretched like taffy. 

And in this bread, 
and in this wine, trust.
And in this place,
and in this world, community.
And on this journey,
and in every step, peace to you.

books and thankful voids

Riding the train this morning, almost every head I saw bowed over a book. And it struck me again how much everyone needs story. Stories have a plan, they’re a decided path to follow. A character wants something, and faces choices, defining what will be surrendered, and what will be clutched.

The tension builds. The character leaves home, or loses food packed for the journey. Friends betray or an unexpected lover fills all the needs but the greatest. The story breathes, builds.

And the reader knows there’s a point; that somewhere there’ll be this big, important scene. Modor will fall, Khan will die, Alice will believe impossible things.

And everyone lives happily ever after... until the next story begins.

There's a rhythm, a process, a way to things.

We know what should happen, we know why. We just move on until we arrive when it happens.

Like the way we wish could with our own lifestories.

Except we lack that level of control; we were only given our individual story. We can choose our own adventures in our lives, choose our own stories, but we can't live anyone else's story.

There's great comfort offered in embracing that truth.

Being given a path to follow, a singular story to craft means we are not responsible for anyone else - not their choices, their damage, their glory, their need.

Which makes every act of kindness, every chance interaction a gift.

And allows us to take responsibility and ownership for our own paths, choices.

When Lent started, I wasn't sure what I should give up this year. I'm not so great at the self-sacrifice, and it's hard for me to see when I clutch things which should be surrendered. I tend to be blind, but God has no such weak spots. And a rather wicked sense of humor.

Today, I have three nails in my cross: no Starbucks, no playing Second Life between midnight and 6 AM, and to blog, comment or somehow communicate online every day. Two things I offer at the altar, and one, I take on as a personal challenge.

The Starbucks really only challenges during the week. Under my art deco office building lies the world's. best. Starbuck's. Seriously. My baristas literally sing while ringing up my order. Carlos (who makes the drinks usually) and Panda (one of the cashiers) find me to randomly talk about life events, town happenings, and other random good things. One of the managers tells me she lives to hear about my love life. They are not my intimates, but it's hard not seeing them all first thing in the morning. That grande, soy, no whip, extra sprinkles cinnamon dolce latte just makes life better. So does that brownie in the afternoon.

Except what I pay for gas a week goes towards a bunch of sugar and caffeine. Plus, if I need a coping mechanism for my job (and as a self-identifying post-modernist creative in an accounting firm cube farm - Yes. I. Do.), I should be more creative in finding one.

Which brings me to the challenge I face on the weekends. I love to stay up late, always have. Nothing makes me feel quite as contentedly introverted as staying up all night, then sleeping late into the morning. Or afternoon. It's a small rebellion, harming no one. Or so I justify.

Except it keeps me from community.

Meeting with friends to talk about God, or catching a meal where we talk about nothing becomes much harder when I'm unconscious. Or haven't planned it. And although it pains me to admit it, the rest of the world is not going to flip its schedule to better suit mine. I should learn that after 30+ years.

But I can be stubborn. Which is a lesson worth learning every Lent.

This Lent hit me unlike any others before.

Time flew; my attention's been more on calendars full of doctors' appointments and job expectations rather than holy days or loftier goals. Excuse or no, I've noticed it's easier to justify my stubbornness and self-focus when I stop watching for those red lettered calendar days.

And that brings me to the third nail in my tree, what I least want to confess.

I'd rather be a character in a story already written than try to figure out what my role is in the Story God writes each day. Owning what happened to me, to the fact I cling to what I know rather than what might be good for me, that I use the pain of past experiences to dictate how I respond to strangers is... unsexy. It's petty and too honest.

It reeks of Pharisees and televangelists. Or at least something they'd do; not really something they would admit to.

Although that seems a subtle difference, a matter of semantics, it's what Lent means for me: a time out of me-focused desperation to achieve my own ends, the opportunity to prepare for a for everything to change in ways I cannot possibly anticipate. It's the break between chapters as the story breathes.

Lent turns our pages, starts a new chapter. Reminds us to seek the unexpected, and to give thanks for the voids created by surrender.

lenten void

Every year, I write about Lent. The idea of the observance fascinates me since I wasn't born into a flavor of faith which acknowledged its existence. As Pentecostals, we spring from the very mind of God. (Humbly and speaking in tongues, of course.)

Our Lent came most notably, every time the Spirit told us to let witnessing lead. Those so led by the Spirit would stand, telling of darkness and redemption, addiction, sin. Their pasts offered to the congregation like clear foreheads; our acceptance and love marking them as changed, like soul-deep ashes.

The closest Pentecostal Lent service I found usually rolled around on New Year's Eve. That night looked like a vanilla version of Mardi Gras: playing games in the gym that's never be street-legal, kids running amok ludicrously high on sugar and the freedom of deferred bedtimes; women putting out food and gossiping, erm "sharing possible prayer concerns about fellow members of the community"; men sweat-stained from overly competitive basketball games.

Until the solemnness roiled in.

Then the gym, cleared of most of the sports equipment, filled with families. Hands held, heads bowed, the first thought of every year prayed softly in a incongruously starkly sacred space.

Lent in the Methodist tradition tastes almost like a christian-flavored candy now. From what I've gathered, most attend Ash Wednesday service because it appears in the bulletin under Happening This Week. Some thing surrendered for forty days usually takes the form of food or drink. (This being the South, most commonly Dr. Pepper and/or chocolate.) And the space the thing leaves remains like a subtle void, either filled with the thing again after Easter, or... left.

Those of a sturdier stuff, those faith lights-on-the-horizons fill that space with prayers of gratitude for the chance to experience the thing, or more authentic wishes for those who have not, who are not free to, who may never know such simple pleasures to find comfort.

That prayer feeds my Lenten reverence: that the space created through sacrifice, no matter how seemingly small farmers on the outside, still, and always will allow for inspiring possibility.

This year, rather than dwelling on surrendering, God nudged me towards taking on. In the past, He requested I do all sorts of weirdness: give up being late, break up with my fiancé, stop being afraid.

And while Lent jumpstarted me down the respective paths away from those seeming insurmountable challenges, I still wrestle with them. (Not so much the fiancé; that was by far the most definitively completed. Gold star: me!)

Now, in the interest of transparency, I should confess: I'm completely fuzzed on what I'm adding. And I could be Hallmark card christian/hippie chick and say that's fine... But it's not. Lent officially started, the ashes crossed, I should have a plan. Really, I should have planned and I should be sacrificing.

But... I got nuthin'.

Just a void, created by past years' sacrifice. And the centering faith found in eerily sacred gymnasiums.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Who is Christ Jesus my Lord.
Sacred Lent, blessed journey to you.

clock nail tears

watching the clock while
sitting in the doctor's office
picking at remains of
pretty red nail polish on my fingers
feeling fat from the Starbucks 
drunk to smother worry

in comes Dr. Ryan
with his subtle drawl and copious notes
says to me he wishes
all his patients
were as healthy and self aware
as the clock ticks softly

in the next room over
mom talks about meds
interactions and 
10 falls in 14 days
And the clock tick, tick, ticks
while polish flakes fall like tears

The night before Opening Ceremonies, NBC talking head Meredith Vieira made a striking comment. She said she would be watching the Games to see how Russia portrayed itself, outside the Communist scope. Being of a certain age, Meredith thought of atomic bomb drills, Soviets taking over the world whenever she thought of the country. She even went so far as to say she believed most people of her generation would think the same.

I wish they were alone in that.

Before the Opening Ceremonies, there seemed to be a quiet tension presenting from some American social media sites. Russia was presented as that country where we won a hockey game which brought down Communism. It was referred to as the former Soviet Union – 24 years after the Berlin Wall fell.

A country filled with millions, large enough to stretch 9 time zones (the US covers 6), narrowed down to single period of its history. Then named by the former of that time, as if that were the pinnacle and it is forever broken or lesser.

The arrogance astounds.

I thought, that's one person's opinion, and that's before the Games get started. After some medals are won, skeletons slide and curlers bowl on ice with brooms and rocks, the world will accept Communism cost its people far more than it ever did anyone else, and the host country will be seen in a more complete light.

The torch will pass, Rio will samba in. Do a shot of good Russian vodka (for those whom it is a sin will then confess), and all of humanity will move one more step away from the horrors marring this land filled with paradox and robust wonder.

Or at least there won't be this bloodthirsty-edge demanding we spank Russia at hockey again.

Mexico Calls

I spoke with someone recently who spent the last nine years in Mexico. He left England with its crusty society and fine manners to be a teacher in a drug-ravaged, poverty ridden desert.

He said he had wanderlust. I heard courage.

There was nothing there to pull him, no lover, no job, no good reason. There was nothing at home, either, pushing him away, no grand desire or fashionably acceptable cause. There was just the soft call of doing something different somewhere else.

He's back now, in the land of Narnia's birth and Highland moors. Rebuilding himself.

Seems the desert burned away the lack of passion teaching held for him, and he's decided 38 is the new 20.

My mother fell three times this week. The first time made a Facebook update. The second was more of a stumble. The third she didn't tell me about until the following evening.

When someone who used to be an intimate of my mother's asked what her faith community could do to help, I went on a Facebook rant. I was angry and frustrated, short on patience. Someone asked something I thought was obvious and should have already been realized.

And I tore into them as much as my Southern manners and respect for elders would allow.

I thought I was being emotional and mean, the voices in my head were so loud and driving. I must be wrong, I must want what I shouldn't. Where is the logic in presenting the idea any community really exists as pure and as loving as that of the Church?!

And then I was questioned - again - by an elder of my personal faith community, a light on my personal ethics horizon. She asked if I had considered assisted living, thought of the time and effort involved.

She asked if I knew I was getting myself into. Three years after the start.

And I found a cross to die on.

I've always wrinkled my nose at that phrase. It reads as melodramatic and irrelevant, only speaking to those who only talk to themselves. But secretly, I wished there were something so important to me, I'd not care what others thought or argued; I'd stand by it.

Just... some idea, some truth, some.. something. 

Some thing that could hurt me. And be used to hurt again in the same way, for the same reason. Something worth holding my frustration, my sustained hurts carefully so it didn't rot, didn't turn bitter and damaging.

Some thing I could accept those I most wish understood not understanding; an experience or idea I could find the patience to explain again and again because I understood why those I wanted to understand didn't. 

And because it mattered enough it didn't matter if they ever understood. Because someone took the time to explain it to me over and over until I got it.

My cross' name: Community. 

That curious magic which turns a cup of coffee into a bared, vulnerable conversation. Which resides in some mystic room of the soul, but seeps in to hallow the cold, empty spaces of life. Makes more of less, leaving any memories before it pale and wanting.

And only requires the cost of fear.

Of setting aside the notion where we're familiar is where we're meant to thrive. That what we know we know isn't what we're meant to learn. That who we were dictates any aspect of our future at all. 

Grab your bag. Grab your coat. Mexico calls.