Elegy for DG

Heavy on your brow the crown sits

Wove of brittle shale tears shed by

Wretched sheep you shepherded.

Waist-deep in shards,

We wade.

Great, scarred paws sift deceits for the carbonless diamond,

Save trembling sailors whose ships have sunk,

Stand with the smokers in solidarity,

Singe and soil wings, broken and healed,

broken and healed,

to lift the dead weight of separation.

In a misty hayfield stands a grand, live oak,

a hive of curving, gnarled parentheses.

The swaying arms cradle whispered vespers like Spanish moss,

Billowing tiny words into the air.

They are singing.

As they fall, the words twine wreaths

Round our heavy heads.

The songs, old truths, gather in braids

From heartwood, deep beneath the rings.

Longing to root in a strange, noble trust,

The branches embrace us paternally.

As we gaze up, rain falls from a clear blue sky

And we are sent to walk the long road.

From a distance, it was not a pillar of salt the gift

But the drops, like prisms, lit by a ray

And the words, “All is well”

In our ears.

“Love is such a priceless treasure that you may redeem the whole world by it, and expiate not only your own sins, but the sins of others.  Go, and be not afraid.” 

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

The best thing is often the hardest to do.

My face is wet with tears because someone posted a loving note - someone who has had my class before, someone I managed not to ruin.  How does that happen?  To the writer, I'm humbled by your words seemingly unfit for me, and grateful you were kind enough to tell me I helped rather than hindered you.  I wish you peace in your long journey, wherever it takes you, warning you that being true to yourself is an often lonely but always worthwhile pursuit.  Please keep in touch and let me know how it goes.  And thank you for the grace you gave me.  It meant a great deal to me.

And the best thing?  That isn't what we want to do; it is the thing we avoid, that we are destined for, perhaps, that we're drawn to inexplicably.  The thing we put relationships and medications in the way of, and yet it seeks us, to our dying day it seeks us and is relentless in its murmurings of what's undone.  That nagging thing we fear because it is for us to do alone, and that's the last place we want to be for long.  And yet there it is, glorious and terrifying and waiting - always waiting, without sound, without tiring.  I am lonely right now, trying to look away from it.  But I know why I'm out here by myself.  It hurts, and I'm tired, but I'm not exhausted.  I've known this would happen for years, and now I finally believe that I won't ever get away from it.  No position, no amount of time, no person can remove it.  My job is to surrender to it, to allow it to take me into the words and the paint and trust in what happens.  It isn't up to me, anyway.  "If you're playing too small a game, you'll sabotage the game you're in just to have something to do."  Peter McWilliams.

Shalom.

In Memoriam

Today we celebrate the abbreviated life of David Gentiles.  I don't understand it, nor do I believe I won't see him again, arms folded across his chest, listening intently, bursting into animated gesticulation without warning. Surely during his memorial, fittingly on a baseball field, he will jump up from the stands and proclaim it all a farce, hugging everyone and laughing because we are all together.

What I do understand is that it is my turn to do those things myself that I depended on David for: the dirty jobs he shouldered without complaint, the attention he paid without tiring, the trials he endured alone.  It is now my challenge to step up and do as needs doing, to love as needs loving, behaviors I'm afraid of.


It is hard to say or see right now, but I somehow trust in shalom: all must be as it should be.

A lament

Someone beloved and critically important in my faith community was injured today, and lies in critical condition in an intensive care unit. It doesn't really matter the how or the why; the what sat in my darkened car with me as I returned home from a vigil for him, and I'm sure I'll find it waiting there in the morning when I go back.

To think of him is to think of sanctuary. He has protected me on more than one occasion. I had the privilege of teaching one of his daughters, the same clear blue light in her eyes that illumines his own (though I use "teaching" loosely here: Calla had everything she'd ever need when she came to me at 17). When he prays, knots loosen and problems resolve. When he speaks, tears spring from his eyes as life flows through him, unimpeded. We all see him as an angel, lover of baseball and flawed humanity.

My words are hollow. If prayer is presence, my heart is open and listening, Lord, and that hurts, but it is good. I lift him up to You. I lift up his family, his countless friends, his sacred, beautiful life.

Shalom.

Hope

A rainy, cool Sunday is drawing to a close. My elder son just woke up from a nap, sweetly asked for cookies and milk, and drowsily told me about some new videos I might like on YouTube. A week ago we were barely on speaking terms. Today, spontaneously, he hugged me and told me he loves me. No, he won't go to church, but he is willing to be a part of the family and try to make a contribution.

I don't understand all the workings of the human mind, but I'm beginning to see a few things more clearly. First, Rainer Maria Rilke was right when he said, "Be kind to all you meet, for we are all fighting a hard battle." We are, each one of us, and defending our ignorance keeps us from the vulnerability of learning a new way of thinking and behaving. Second, all the love we need is constantly surrounding us. We are taught, however, at some point in life that it isn't real by defective humans who themselves don't believe in it. We then shut ourselves off from that love and walk around with darkness clouding the lenses through which we look at the world. The fear caused by that cloudy vision makes us attack each other as a scared animal bites when frightened. We listen to others who are also afraid, who have agendas based on fear, and the situation grows to global proportions. But all that is needed is openness to the love that already exists. When we meet someone who has opened themselves to love, we sometimes allow them to dispel the darkness within us, too, until we become afraid again and close down. This openness transcends belief system and ethnicity and location and political affiliation and economic power.

I want to be open, and if I have to pry myself apart each day to do so, perhaps that is a good thing. I am grateful for this insight.

Shalom.

Faith

There's a groove that I get into, right or wrong, that leads me through the days of work and decisions and money problems and relationship issues so I can manage them, not so I can necessarily feel or understand them. I depend on this groove to keep my feet on the ground, so to speak, even if the ground is too soft to stand my weight for long. Things must keep moving. Perhaps the insupportability of my weight is partly what demands the forward motion.

Recently I realized that my parents are simply people I'm concerned about, not a pair of interested parties. The quilt my mom and I worked on for my bed will never see completion. Their system of addiction works for them; they acknowledge this functionality, and are fine with my objection to it. I am simply a small obstacle to their general groove. At first I was hurt by their choice of lifestyle over relationship. I now understand that to get to acceptance, I had to see how my groove and their groove aren't that different. I had to see them as they truly are: addicts, just trying to keep the balls in the air. I cannot condemn them for doing what best serves the working system, but I can choose to abstain from exposure to the system.

I can become as they are, or choose to maintain my freedom. The more difficult path is definitely the latter, but it is one I commit myself to again. Seeing anything binding as critical to my selfhood, as my parents view their addictions, is toxic. It seems, instead, that looking outward from the self into the doing of life is where the grace to stay free lies.

A pressing question

I spent yesterday afternoon with two different sets of people: some of the most wonderfully free people I know from our beautiful Journey IFC at Barton Springs Pool (along with a host of colorful, hot people splashing about in the emerald murk), and a man who has been both lover and friend (sometimes both) off and on for almost four years. All of these extraordinary individuals confirmed (affirmed?) the importance of freedom. They aren't waving flags, but they aren't anti-American, either. They are all artists, though, who remind me of the divine perfection that is brought forth through our cooperation with God. Through my specific cooperation--something I find ways to avoid sometimes.

Their unified message? Get out into the doing. Don't think too much (something I have trouble with). God works through me when I don't listen to the "form over substance" folks. I know my friends are right; when I close my eyes and let my heart speak, colors and shapes form that I haven't brought into the world yet, stories that need telling present themselves. My shaking hand is guided (albeit jerkily) toward communion with Christ, humble and tangible and holy as cedar wood. When I allow my "self" to dissolve into this truth, my agenda disappears, my divided self is healed, my comparison to others and its accompanying vanity or deprecation dissipates, and I am literally unbound from my humanness. So why don't I opt for that most of the time? I belive it is because I worry that if I do too much of that "artsy" stuff, I'll lose sight of the mortgage payments and the showing up on time, prepared, to teach my classes. But immediately another argument surfaces: would I not be a better instrument of God if I were open to Him in other ways? If I were truly willing, truly serious, about His taking over my life?

I have no defense, and Christ sits on the table, swinging his leg, smiling in wait for my answer.