“And behold,
a woman of Canaan..."
― Matthew 15
"Have mercy on me,
O Lord, thou son of David..."
and he
answered her
not a
word...
"send her away.."
they implore him
she is not one of us
she is not who we serve
perhaps
this is true
perhaps it is
my destiny...
"I am not come, but
unto the lost sheep of
the house of Israel..."
but she will not be
dismissed
there is a love in her heart
that has sent her here
and she will
stand her ground...
even his followers
cannot protect him
from the
legacy written
on his heart....
so she speaks:
I know who they think
you are,
and who you may becoming
the promised Saviour,
the Messiah,
the one who will defend
Israel's right to the promised land,
to be the
chosen people...
but I also know Father...
have you forgotten
that
He loves my daughter
as much as
He loves you...
Your Father doesn't
sort his children
into
hierarchies of
geography,
ethnicity,
history,
religion,
race....species
he loves us all
even the dogs
are worthy of the
crumbs that fall from
His table...
sir,
you have a choice
you can be a nationalistic leader --
a Messiah
who defends the specialness
of "a people,"
the rights of
"the chosen ones"
one
sees only the
innocence,
the worthiness,
the hope of "the lost
sheep" of his own flock...
or you can
heal...
heal
universally,
impartially,
unconditionally...
which will it be?
for behold,
I am a woman of Canaan,
and I know your
Father
and I
now
know that I
have been sent to help
you
find
your way
to
who you
really
are...
a political leader
with a constituency
you must
defend,
answer to,
stand with,
get approval from...
or,
a healer
I don't think
you can
be both...
"O woman..."
― Jesus
““A mother's body
remembers her babies.... ”
― B. Kingsolver
ask me what
happened on the day
you were born
and I will not be able
to tell you
all the things
that only
she can recall
i do not have memories of
water breaking or
waves of labor...
and
for these things that
are hers alone
to
tell you of,
I am
infinitely grateful
but I can tell you
that my heart broke open
wide and swallowed
the selfishness of
my life before you...
I can tell you of confused tears...
sorrow for her pain,
joy to see your face, to hold your
tiny fingers in my own,
the agony of watching her
be brave,
the heartache in your
cries
as her voice
became
your
fondest
memory,
but
not
the
sound
you
would
wake
to
each morning,
or hear
at the
close
of
every
day...
i can tell you how the sun
looked coming through the
hospital window
that morning when they
brought you to her
bedside
i can tell you how her eyes
watched your chest rising and falling
with each small breath, and
how many tears fell
before she
realized,
and wiped
them away
hoping we hadn't seen...
seven,
there were
seven
i can tell you how
my knees buckled with love
the first moment i
looked down into your face,
and then your sisters
and it was
like falling in love
over,
and over,
and over again
in waves of
joy and sorrow
ebbing and fading
like
a sea that
can't remember what to leave
upon the beach
and what to take away
I can tell you that your
eyes were the
color of water, that
your hair felt like spun silk
and your fingernails were as small
as the tiny moonshells
we'd find
on a nearby beach when you
were five and
we went back to
that place
near the sea where you
were born
and
she held
you
once again
and
taught you
all about
summer,
and beach glass,
and
growing up
near the
sea
i can't tell you of
how it felt to have you move
beneath my hands,
beneath my shirt,
beneath my skin...but she
can
I can tell you
that I am grateful every day
for the gift that
is you...
and
I can tell her that I will never be
able to say all that is
in my heart
about what it has meant to
be your mom...
with her...
sharing you
was the greatest gift
anyone
has
ever
given me...
or ever will...
i love you
all
three
of
you...
because, you see,
on the day you were born...
she
joined our family
forever,
too...
"A child
is your own
best food forward"
― B. Kingsolver
[photo and inspiration by friend...and remarkable artist...jacqueline Janecke]
“If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up
rooted, like trees. ”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
she sent the photo
one summer when all the
days were
dry with august heat and dust
and hope-filled dreams
of lullabies, and rain, and evening
breezes off the
coast of
Maine
I'd long
loved her whimsy,
her colors,
her ability to make me
want to sit on a dock and
sing to the stars
surrounded by a long lake
and the call of
loons...
she sent the photo
with a family of
small paintings...
magical dancing shapes,
a swirl of periwinkle
a magenta moon in a sky of
pear green
small summer moments captured
in watercolor
and laughter...
each one a treasure
but it was the photo
on which she wrote a
simple note that
I first framed...
a photo of a writing desk,
a wooden chair,
an orchard...
a place for
listening
a place where apple blossoms
fluttered around my
thoughts like
butterflies and poems
gathered in
the branches like
sparrows, while
honeybees
brought the future
to kiss each
deep-throated
bud with
the promise of
liquid gold
and life..
an orchard of silent,
gnarled,
ancient
crones who
still loved wearing
flowers in their hair
each spring
and whispering encouragement
to nestlings
perched along their branches
seeking courage
for a
maiden flight...
each night I'd ease myself
into the space
within the simple frame...
I pick my way through
tall grass towards
the slender chair,
where
i'd tuck barefeet
beneath me as I waited for another
stanza to filter through the
branches and fall lightly
on a weathered desktop
there, beneath the dappled
light of orchard days
I gently gather them
into my hands
and lifting them close
breathe deeply
perfumed words as
delicate as the colors of
a memory in
sepia...
an orchard,
a wooden chair,
and a writing desk...
a private
retreat...
an artist's
sanctuary
shared with
love...
"...her deep roots
are not reached
by the frost."
― J. R. R. Tolkein
[photo and inspiration by friend...and remarkable artist...jacqueline Janecke]
“I had been chipping at the world idly,
and had by accident
uncovered vast
and labyrinthine further worlds
within it.”
― Annie Dillard
i sat in the
dust that day
surrounded by
the strata-laced
cliffs of
human history...
a wilderness
of loves lost,
and loves found...
proud moments,
the darkest nights,
the wrongest wrongs and
the rightest rights...
and towering on either side
a sandstone
autobiography of
all I'd done
and all I thought I'd never be...
but was
I chipped away
at one layer and then
another,
but the vein of
hurt went too deeply
and all my tools,
too fragile for the
job at hand
lay discarded around me
like
the treasures found in
pyramids of
pharaohs
a sword,
a stave,
an amulet of myrrh
a toolbox for the nether world
to chase away the
demons of
the past
mine were
not so handy...
books on how to help myself,
aphorisms,
and all I'd learned
but they lay bent and
broken and
my fingertips were
raw from
chipping,
scratching,
clawing away at the
stony face of
who I'd been...
until,
tired and aching with
frustration and
regret
a curled against the wall
of blood red
sand and dust and
soft sobs
leaked from
my broken heart in
trickles of
humility...
a rivulet of hope...
and suddenly
as quiet as a dove's
ascent
beneath my
heaving breast
the rock began to
crumble,
fracture,
dissolve
under the tender
touch of
a tear...
deeper and deeper
it fell away...
until
the stream of tears
found
a wellspring of
innocence,
purity,
and
"all things new"
waters sweet with
promise,
rushed up to
bathe my
eyes with holiness
my heart with
grace
and I was
saved...
"and behold,
angels came and ministered unto him..."
― Matthew 4: 11
“The sky grew darker,
painted blue on blue,
one stroke at a time,
into deeper and deeper shades of night.”
― H. Murakami
isn't this
the way it is
with
grace...
layers of blue
upon
blue,
songs of
sorrow and
sympathy
sung by voices that
have felt the
pain of
loss and
resurrection and
rise up
singing
there is a blue
that
whispers twilight
the soft
dusky ache of
a summer's day
as it falls
into the horizon and
spreads like
spilled ink along the
edges of tomorrow's promise
a blue that blurs the
line of
sky and sea
giving the heart a
place to
sort the treasures of the day
bits of shell
and sea glass
a speckled egg and the
feather of a
tern who called us follow
her delicate footsteps
in the sand...
there is a bewitching shade
of
blue
that pulls me
under its spell and into
a sacred shade of
stillness,
a sanctuary blue that
spills along the periphery of
my dreams and
floats like vapor above
the dark river of
tears
tears
that eddy within the
twisted roots and
trapped stories of a thousand
shades of
gray...
there are
blues that cause my eyes to
water and
ache with memory,
blues that
hold a scent long after the
heady days of
lilacs and lavender have
given way to the
shimmering heat of august's
pale sky and the
bitter icy blue of
december's
frozen
stream
there are blues that
skip, and
blues that comfort,
blue paint, and blue fruit
that tastes like
july in Maine...
my life is a layering
of blue, upon
blue
shades pale and
distant,
deep and
rich,
evocative and
hopeful...
a blueberry door
on a butter yellow farmhouse,
periwinkle pots
filled with
blushing poppies,
the fragile blue of a quail's
egg,
the strong blue of
my sister's eyes...
a denim blue that
smells of hay and sunshine
salt and tears,
the blue of heavy-headed
hyacinths and the
breast of
an
oriole
i dream in shades
of blue...
layers of
grace
upon grace...
upon grace
until
the sky
is ready to
hold the
moon
so
she can turn
her face
to catch
the
blue of
dawn...
"I lie in the dark
wondering if this quiet in me now
is a beginning or an end...”
― J. Gilbert
"there is hope of a tree,
if it be cut down,
that it will sprout again,
and that the tender branch thereof
will not cease...."
- Job
just when I
thought I'd given myself
permission
to walk away from
my barren hopes,
ungraspable dreams,
my aching, longing, yearning
for
something I couldn't even
fully imagine...
but felt
felt
deeply
felt,
like a yawning
space
in the
deepest part of me
a pulling
a calling
a thirst...
yes,
that is how it
feels
a parched want,
the desert of my longings,
a thirst for
what I think is
living water,
but can't help thinking
is just an illusive taunting,
a shimmering mirage
in the distance...
but I feel its pull,
i know its perfume...
it is
a wellspring
that
quenches all
the
emptiness I once tried
to avoid...
that was until
I couldn't
until I
realized that
it was the thirst
itself
I
wanted
more than
the stranger's
goatskin,
or the oasis
from
all longing
yes,
it was the thirst
to know that I
am that space
in
which the puzzle piece fits perfectly,
I am
the aching
breasts that
flow at the sound of an
infant's cry,
the toddler's incessant
questioning,
always
wanting
something more...
why,
why,
but...why...
it is a perfume so
delicate and
sweet that
it
pulls my
heart to remember
what
I thought I'd
turned from
forever....
I want
to feel this thirst
is to be alive
it is
the blind man's
demand for
"my sight,"
when he has never
seen,
the slave's
ache for a freedom
his ancestors only dreamed of,
it is a vision
I cannot see,
a something that
I cannot even
imagine, but know I can
no longer live without...
it is
a love for the
thirst itself...
the thirst that
pulls me,
draws me,
calls me
to the
spring,
taunts me to come closer to
the river's edge,
the trickling,
seeping,
wetness
between the rocks
to seek
the
source, the
place of
its
springing
where
I see
the face of
God
reflected
in
a tiny
drop of
stillness
and something in me
burst into
awakening
I feel it
in my soul,
this thirst
for the scent of
water,
the gift of
longing
called
grace...
"...through the scent of water
it will bud,
and bring forth boughs...."
- Job
[photo credit: Ashley Bay 2012]
he was waiting by the side of the highway,
just beyond Jericho's holy gates, that foolish
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus...blind and
foolish, begging...always begging....what will
the master think? a blind beggar his last
memory of our sacred walls...
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me...
"mercy," what is he thinking, he has gone too
far. the Rabbi does not know his sins, or his
parents', that he can judge his failings and
mete out mercy...what insanity, what boldness...
i know what i know...that this is a beggar, that is
what I know...a beggar who bothers our visitors
and annoys our noble men...day after day he
sits on that bench, and asks for more...always more...
what mercy does he deserve...
but wait, he stops...the master stops, and calls him
to come to him...will his rebuke be fierce, will he
finally tell him to stop his begging....it is such an
embarassment to his family...a good family,
I know them well, they don't desrve this...
oh no... now, he is taking off his clothes and
running naked towards the teacher...
"what do you want me to do," the master asks with
such love in his eyes...that it takes my breath away...
"that I might receive my sight," he answers with
a heart full of hope and expectation and dignity...
standing naked...he has honor...and faith...oh, what faith...
and it is this faith, that the master sees beyond my
blindness, it is this faith that opens my own eyes to the
blindness of my heart...it radiates from Bartimaeus
like the sun...he is whole...he is His...and he leaves
it all behind him...the blindness, the begging, the
darkness...and follows his faith...and opens my eyes
to the greatest light of all...
"For me,
the sweetest contact with God has no form.
I close my eyes, look within,
and enter a deep soft silence.
The infinity of God's creation embraces me..."
- M. Jackson
cracking open
the fragile shell of
who I think
I might
be
and laying in the womb
of my own
becoming
I discover that my
journey
is just beginning...
again
another shell,
another
story...
but this one is smaller
and I am almost
eager for the
hollow sound of my
own
isolation as I
toss and turn,
and breathe and stretch within
the narrow limits
of another
womb...
I am not afraid this time
nor am I in a hurry
to hear the
first
fissure form
a countless number of
stories will
try to
keep me from
the fullness of infinity
the free air
and endless sky,
the horizonless vista of
who I am
I am
an invincible summer,
I am
wordless promise,
I am
a deep drawn
breath of dew-soaked
morning air,
the silent echo of
a house at night while
children sleep in
slender beds
beneath quilts of
butter yellow
and and
periwinkle,
I am awareness of beauty,
the awakened heart,
I am aspen leaves dancing in
september's first
hint of resurrection...
I am the
consciousness of
what lies within this shell
and yet cannot
be contained...
I am all the thoughts that
keep me company
when there is
nothing
but the blue of
dawn to
greet me as the
fissure
begins and
light
breaks through....
“In the depth of winter,
I finally learned
that within me
there lay an invincible summer..."
- A. Camus
"“the strange sensation
of weeping under water... "
- R. A. Dickey
i let my arms and
legs go slack
as I struggle against the current,
an undertow pulling
me further and further from
shore...
I am tired
and cannot fight the
inevitable
I will not reach my destination,
I will not win this
battle with
the past to
drag me backwards...
I feel myself sinking
like lead
and for the first time I do
not think I can do it...
I can't win,
I cannot overcome what
grips the
sodden graveclothes of my mistakes,
the choices
I have made, the
injuries
of another's
touch upon my soul...
I have nothing left
but this last breath drawn
and it escapes me
like the sad, soft mewing of
a starving child
belly inflated with the
emptiness of
hope,
the hunger for
salvation
and then I feel them...
hot tears
they are so different from the cold,
damp, angry
fingers of the undertow...
they are warm and
stay close to my face
they are not quick to melt into the
brackish darkness that
reaches for more
of my heart
they are mine,
and because
they are mine and mine alone...
I know that I have lived
I know that I have felt
I know that I have loved...
and want to love again..
and in that moment,
the heaviness of my leaden limbs
turns to gold...
and instead of sinking,
I reach deeper for the
bedrock of my being
my right to love...
my right to
try...
again.
weeping under water
hot tears
coax my heart to push off
from the black
shale, and
sharp granite,
to reach for air and
seek the light
and
as I burst through the
surface of
my wetted sepulchre
I see my life
before
me warmed by an inner
something,
a presence
deeper than the
cold tunnel vision of
my
empty
past...
it is the swelling
song of compassion
the rich heartbeat of a living
love....
it is the deep drawn
breath of one who knows
that the past can no longer
drown her in
despair,
and with
that new breath,
I rise
from the darkness
lifted by the
buoying waters of
a billion tears...
“the dark domain of
pain and sin,
surrenders,
love doth enter in...”
― M. B. Eddy
"“Your pain
is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding... "
- Kahlil Gibran
I woke within a dream
to find myself
gazing up at
hairline cracks in
a tiffany blue sky
clouds
that once shifted in shape
before my eyes
were shredding,
and
peeling from the
canopy
like gossamer sheets of paint
falling from a
false ceiling beyond my reach
and below me, beneath me,
around my naked,
scarred body,
a soft sea rocked and
buoyed me,
gently
lifting me higher and higher
towards the
crack in the sky...
I stretch my arms
out,
my body no
longer rigid, but
easy and pliant in the
rhythm of the sea
its pulsing silence
filling my ears with serenity's song...
"come out
please,"
they call to me from
a vanishing shore
but I cannot
tears are
all the words I have left,
and
they fill this self-sea with
the poetry of silence
an echo of forgiveness, and
a whispered mercy...
each tear causes the sea of compassion
to rise higher and
higher beneath me
and I discover that with
each teardrop,
I am closer to the fissure in
the shattered sky...
The salt-soaked waters
cleanse and heal my
open wounds,
sorrows once buried
rise to the surface like bubbles of
escaped sulphur from
a brimstone
past
I smile with
compassion on this
once-upon-a-story
self
whose sharp edges
dissolve within the saline
sea of tears
I weep...
higher and higher it lifts me
towards the crack in my world of
soft blue delusion, of all
I thought I was
and
discover I am not...
with each
tear,
thought soars,
and I come closer to emerging
from this
fragile orb
of self
to find I am
alive in the
warm
hollow of His
hand...
enraptured,
featherless,
and free...
“Emerge gently
from matter into Spirit. Think not
to thwart the ultimate of all things...”
― M. B. Eddy
"loose him,
and let him go..."
- Jesus
loose me,
please...
loose me,
let me go
somewhere
you cannot re-wind
me in the graveclothes
of the past
or entomb me in the
rock-ribbed
darkness of your culture,
your creeds,
my heart is new
can't you see
that I am not
"there"
I am not in that place
where I once was,
and who
you think I still am
loose me
let me go
let me be free
of the
bindings of
opinions,
judgments,
the myopathy of what
you can't
imagine
I no longer live
within the
tattered memory of
what I have shrunken from
the shell shape
of my once-upon-a-time ego
reduced,
withered,
dissolved
within
the
shattered emptiness
of my own
undoing
no longer puffed up
with selfish pride
or sad ambition...
no longer building something
I thought would house
a legacy...
what you think you see
is just a name,
a body,
a history you believe I
live in,
your story of my life
projected on
an empty
screen
but I am not there
loose me
and let me go....
please
“What is it
that seems a stone
between us and the
resurrection morning?”
― M. B. Eddy
