Save us, LORD,
from ourselves and
the unintended
consequences of -
provoked or unprovoked -
actions when we
simply cannot go on.
Give us strength
to ride the waves
of our striving
until we find our
True Home in You -
the Calmer of all our
distresses who hears
the thunder clap
then crash resounding
Above all the voices and noise
vying for our attention
May we hear - and follow -
only Yours.
- February 22, 2025
Transitional seasons are where I stay – in the not yet, but just gone in between – the border where one is just beyond view whatever direction I look.
It’s a life season – of life seasons – where the bouncy, bubbly of young adulthood borders the feel-it-in-the-morning ache of middle age. It’s just below the surface irritability from hormones that don’t quite work like they did.
It’s crawl out of my skin- or maybe slip out of my skin – sweats and heat that arises in my chest and finds their wet way to the ends of my hair. It’s achy muscles and taunt ligaments sending pulses of pain through my feet and up to my hips sometimes landing in the knuckles of my 3rd finger and thumb.
And then the moments of breezy forgetfulness. Where I am bouncing in the air, clapping my feet to the ground – making all the noises I can and feeling the flow of music run through my body as if we were one and the same.
I feel it in the joy of laughter over the odd beginnings of my younger self – feeling giddiness over a silly joke or the taste of sunshine that comes through frozen milk, eggs and sugar. I sense the lightness of not needing to be careful while staring down the rolling pin that cradles my arch.
I stride along the horizon’s curve, zigging and zagging between who I have been and who I am yet to be. But I am always, only present to the here, the now. Continuum, breath-by-breath, the constant transition defining us all.
- August 3, 2019, Writing Retreat
Burning muscles in
calves and thighs
the pinch in the knee
which ebbs away,
As my body submits
to shoes on pavement
running in spurts and
starts - to turn me
Over - a new leaf
vibrant green on
aged wood,
dark with time.
The woman made breeze
uplifting my mood,
setting my face to
smiling, my mouth to talk.
The wonder of grit
giving way to
Euphoria -
the spheres aligning.
How amazing a change
from the body,
To a body
lost in awe.
- February 24, 2025
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As small as a
mustard seed.
Yes, faith is
hard to find.
We believe, but
help,
our unbelief is
gargantuan.
- February 10, 2025
He (She?) saw a shadow;
The long January days
extending another 6 weeks.
Yet daffodils peek below
the deck, with a day
as warm as mid-March.
No prophet knows
the sum of it
but leans into hunches;
Feeling what may be
right – the limbic
firing of an ancient brain
Whispering of truth
currently scattered in a
universe of matter, waiting
To coalesce into a future
entity – vibrations already
syncing and swaying in harmony.
A shadow
seen
by the animal
within us all.
- February 2, 2025
How shall I explore?
By car on open roadways
Mouth dropped
Taking in a beauty too great
to hold in one lifetime?
Or maybe. . .
by settling in a city,
in a job, in a home
and "doing life" among
a people I do not understand?
Is exploration friendship -
where I find gems and vipers
by turning over, digging up
the hard surfaces of my soul?
Or maybe it is growing
Deeper in one square mile
Reaching higher into
the area's dimensionality -
MY dimensionality. . .
Open my eyes to SEE
the myriads of moments and
places and people and qualities
which beg to be explored.
- February 1, 2025
To see a bloom of an orchid and appreciate its intricacies.
To have a home.
To know the edge of a wood, the curve of a road, the way the sun travels in its courses through the year.
To hear a running creek, swollen with rain and trickling with drought.
To have a place where you feel loved.
Maybe. . . that’s everything
Simple pleasures
and days with gratitude
among people you love
in a place filled
with beauty and wonder.
We often wait to finish
what we start
until the end is close -
within sight and sound.
Whether inhabiting
physical space,
emotional landscapes
or deep soulful closings
Maybe energy increases
with felt finality and
a reckoning with all
which may be left undone.
- February 2025
"All Yours" the candy
wrapper said
As if I already possessed
Everything I need.
How radical
to NOT need because
I AM enough.
- February 17, 2025
J and I have now purchased my childhood home. We took over 2 of the 3 bedrooms, the hall bath, and the dining room-turned laundry room/pantry. The rest of our goods landed at the storage facility 2 miles away. Too much stuff crammed into unaesthetic monotony on the 3rd floor, down the hallway to the left as you get off the elevator.
Dad and I share coffee in the mornings while Mom drinks her Boost. J and I go for walks along the creek behind the property, then up along the ridge line of the
Hills. Our rescue, the Maltese named Riley, has grown in to a veritable therapy dog – his love for love softening everyone he meets. Work remains fulfilling, as the people in front of me find space and freedom to air deep concerns or hidden secrets – leaving them lighter and more hopeful.
Thanks to Richard Rohr’s book, Falling Upward, I’m looking at my return home to Rocky Ridge through the lens of the Odyssey with its wandering and return, attempting to see how all the pieces of my life are grace. My vision’s not so great, but if God shows up in anything, it is this beam of truth: everything is grace.
Going on 16 years ago, my wanderings took me to a Catholic retreat center in North Carolina. St. Therese, the Little Flower, was its patroness. A labyrinth lay just beyond the dorm, scattered trees encircling it. I walked the labyrinth with urgency since I wrestled with returning back South, and particularly to Memphis, TN. I had left the South 3 years earlier and, in that time, faced some of my own demons from childhood. I felt broken and utterly confused about why now was the right time to come back. I had not wanted to return and tried my best to stay in Berkeley, but all the doors closed.
I poured my heart out as I walked in one orbit then in retrograde, in-toward-the-center-and-away-again, on the serpentine path to the middle of the labyrinth. As I stepped into the quiet center of that particular system, I saw it: a singular stepping stone imprinted with the shape of a butterfly, its wings filled with the shattered glass from some imperfect past. Then imperceptibly the thought came, “Nothing is wasted. What has been your wounding will be your path to flight.” Then the tears and gratitude of hope.
I met J in Memphis – a conduit of love and grace that I could never have dreamed or imagined, but God could and did. And here we are, in Birmingham, back at ground zero. I’m trying to envision how all the pieces are being formed into wings – the pleasant, the difficult, the indifferent. Some days the evidence shines, some days not so much, but I believe the hope discovered on the path and I trust the Love with all the unbelief that remains. As a prayer to St. Therese says,
“Little Flower, give me your childlike faith,
to see the Face of God
in the people and experiences of my life,
and to love God with full confidence.”
May it be so, God. May it be so.
- Written as an Advent devotional, 11/2020
At recess, we gathered outside the classrooms, being told to sit Indian-style on the floor (There were not the sensibilities then that exist today.) until the clock indicated we could go outside. We sat as 3rd graders do, compliantly at first and then with increased restlessness until the teachers reminded us to be quiet if we wanted to go outside.
Then IT happened. A classmate sat up and made a dash to the bathroom, but could not quite make it. Bleh – the guy stood there, stunned, until the next wave of retching overtook him. The teachers, sensing the urgency of the situation, rushed over, sweeping him to the toilets, his noises echoing against the ceramic tile.
Within moments, the smell filled the circle – above, around, below – and other classmates began running in turn. Most of them had more of a warning, by this age knowing if another’s vomit produced vomit within themselves. The scene continued while the other teachers, some what anxious about how many more would fall prey to the scent, ushered us back to our classrooms.
I don't know if this is what Isaiah meant by streams in the desert - the barren landscape flush with unexpected color - green and yellow, pink and white - but maybe it is an iteration of it.
Isaiah (or Deutero Isaiah or whomever) speaks of binding that which is broken, of strengthening that which is weak and somehow, by taking steps toward the reversal of fortunes, the unexpected takes root and blooms in barrenness - the warmth of summer juxtaposed against the snows of winter.
A baby becomes the King, a lion grows to be the Lamb, a star in the night sky brightens to be The Light of the World.
"Have you not seen, have you not heard, how God has reversed the fortunes of God's people?
- Written around November 2019, like as part of a devotional for Central Lex
Photo credit here. Eastern Angel Blow upon this sea Thick with reeds And re-create Dry land from Water’s depth So all of us Living in capt...
