Holding

You know

She said

You lose more sand the harder you try to hold onto it

I felt baffled

Because

At 19 I had never heard of such things

And the concept of self-awareness was still far out of my reach.

But now looking back --

And seeing what is now --

I can recognize the ways in which 

I have kept grasping

Only to come up empty.

My sense of perfection has little to do with wholeness

And instead futilely attempts to fill the "hole"-ness within me.

Twenty years later

I am left to ponder the question

"What does it look like to let go?"

I hold on even as the infinitesimally tiny specks escape between my fingers,

And all that is left is the fear and anxiety I started with.

But then I try again

And this time I breathe

And I open 

To hold

Vulnerability, resilience, courage

Forgiveness

Grace.

I hold more but the weight is lighter.

I now see that it's more of a choice than an instinct or a reaction.

I can choose between

Right or relationship

Fear or connection

Control or freedom.

Yet even as I know this

There is still a part of me

That struggles to unfurl her grip.

On my better days

 I can meet her face to face

And offer the grace she rarely received

Hold her small hand in mine

And let her know

That when she's ready...

She can let go. 

Part(s) of Me

 Part of me wants to go back and stop myself from following the treacherous path of curiosity that led to finding the news that broke me from sleeping that night. 

Part of me wants to stop caring -- to not care. 

You were never mine anyway. 

Part of me is the bigger person & sends blessings and well wishes & hopes only for your happiness. 

Part of me rages and wants to lock eyes during a serendipitous meeting 

Just so you can feel my burning --

You did this -- 

Or to offer some vicious comeback to an innocuous question. 

Part of me wonders why I care at all

And part of me wonders WHY

Would God or the Universe or whatever Giant Force

Leave crumbs of you in my path, hinting at a feast,

But only leading to desert.

Part of me wants to fix it and make it make sense without the pain. 

Part of me wonders when this will stop

And part of me wants to let go. 

Part of me says to "just wait" and to remember that I don't know how the story ends...

And the other part of me screams "Bullshit!"

Part of me carries the song of you within me

And remembers how your touch felt and how

I couldn't sleep that one night from pure joy & delight

And part of me remembers how it all mysteriously vanished. 

Part of me knows that this will not last and that

I will

Move out from underneath the heaviness

And slowly rise

And ground my feet in my worth

And remember that you were a visitor

Along the way.

Reflection (on the 20th anniversary of 9/11/01)

Never forget
Never forget the blood that was shed
Never forget the lives lost

In the rubble
The grieving widows and children
Lovers and
Grandparents and
Siblings and
Relatives and
Friends
Never forget the sound of screaming
Sirens and
The silence that comes in the face of cataclysm --
Frozen in disbelief and fear
Never forget the bodies that piled up
One after another
After
Another
First hundreds
Then thousands
Then only pieces to be identified
Later...
Never forget that this all happened before 
Today
How we toppled governments like dominoes
And put our puppets into play
Never forget the bombs that were dropped
Some Where
Over There
Decimating whole buildings
Whole blocks
Whole cities 
Without a thought
Never forget that
"Legitimate Target
has sixteen letters
and one
long 
abominable
space 
between 
two 
dehumanizing
words."*

What is a life compared to an agenda?

Never forget
So you can remember
That war never brings peace
That blood shed
Never brings back the dead
That a life lost is a life lost --
No more than any other...

Never forget.

*from "The Pedagogy of Conflict" by Padraig O Tuama from his book Sorry for Your Troubles

First Day

 How do you say "I missed you" to a total stranger?

For over a year we have 

avoided one another's gaze

As if meeting eyes could somehow pose a risk 

of spreading viral particles

that could infect, poison, or kill us and

 No one 

would be the wiser.

Our faces have been halfway hidden

behind pieces of fabric -- 

decorated with patterns and vibrant colors 

to replace the missing blooms

 beneath --

All of us a patchwork of protection 

from the unseen danger,

wearing our unspoken wish that we should all live

and not

one more

die.

And now, a day after the announcement was released,

I walk outside with my face barer 

than a newly born 

Being

And breathe in the warm, sweetly scented air

of honeysuckle

and promise and hope and

Freedom like the rush of an ocean breeze through open car windows

down a highway.

I can smell the sunshine on the pavement.

***

Unexpectedly, our eyes meet as we pass --

nothing now obstructing our view of the upturned corners of our lips

that silently speak the words:

"It is so good 

To see your face."

This poem commemorates the first day I went outside without wearing a mask in over a year during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to the announcement made by the CDC the day prior. 

Finding "Advent Stanzas"

I started late on my annual New Year's Day walk. I never really have an agenda for this walk -- no time frame or length or even location. Just go for a walk somewhere in the neighborhood and take in the fresh, sharp winter air, along with some sunlight if possible. I had maybe 30-45 minutes of sunlight left when I started out, and I just went where my gut told me to go. 

One of my favorite things in our neighborhood are the mini-free libraries -- wooden boxes on posts that look like enlarged bird houses containing books to take, or places to leave books looking for a new home. Even if I don't intend to take (or leave) anything, I always like to look inside. It really is like walking into a bookstore just for the sake of seeing what's on the shelves. This time, one title caught my eye: Best Spiritual Writings of 2005. Considering who I am and a title like that, I couldn't not at least look through the table of contents. That's when I found "Advent Stanzas" by Robert Cording. 

There, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with the winter light fading around me, the air already sharp and cold, a stark yellow crescent of moon above and colorful Christmas lights on the surrounding houses, I found this reflection on the season of mystery that pierced an opening in my heart. I let my tears fall freely as I read the following lines:

"And will you intercede with sighs too deep for words
Because you love us in our weakness, because

You love always, suddenly and completely, what is
In front of you, whether it is a lake or leper.

Because you come again and again to destroy the God
We keep making in our own image. Will we learn

To pray: May our hearts be broken open. Will we learn
To prepare a space in which you might come forth,
In which, like a bolt of winter solstice light,
You might enter the opening in the stones, lighting

Our dark tumulus from beginning to end?"

I did not take the book with me. I didn't need to. Besides, someone else might need it, if not for that poem, then some other writing featured in it. But I have no doubt I was meant to find that book and that poem, to remind myself of the mystery of universal LOVE and our ability, however meager, to accept it without full understanding. 

For the text in its entirety, see below. 

Oh, and happy new year. 

I.
Are we always creating you, as Rilke said,
Trying, on our best days,
To make possible your coming-into-existence?

Or are you merely a story told in the dark,
A child’s drawing of barn and star?

Each year you are born again. It is no remedy

For what we go on doing to each other,
For history’s blind repetitions of hate and reprisal.

Here I am again, huddled in hope. For what
Do I wait? – I know you only as something missing,
And loved beyond reason.

As a word in my mouth I cannot embody.

II.
On the snow-dusted field this morning – an etching
Of mouse tracks declares the frenzy of its hunger.

The plodding dawn sun rises to another day’s
One warm hour. I’m walking to the iced-in local pond

Where my neighbors have sat through the night
Waiting for something to find their jigged lure.

The sky is paste white. Each bush and tree keeps
Its cold counsel. I’m walking head-on into a wind

That forces my breath back into my mouth.
Like rags of black cloth, crows drape a dead oak.

When I pass under them, their cries rip a seam
In the morning. Last week a life long friend told me,

There’s no such thing as happiness. It’s ten years
Since he found his son, then a nineteen-year old

Of extraordinary grace and goodness, curled up
In his dormitory room, unable to rise, to free

Himself of a division that made him manic and
Depressed, and still his son struggles from day to day,

The one partial remedy a dismal haze of drugs.
My friend hopes these days for very little – a stretch of

Hours, a string of a few days when nothing in his son’s life
Goes terribly wrong. This is the season of sad stories:

The crippling accident, the layoffs at the factory,
The family without a car, without a house, without money

For presents. The sadder the human drama, the greater
Our hope, or so the television news makes it seem

With its soap-opera stories of tragedy followed up
With ones of good will – images of Santas’ pots filling up

At the malls, truckloads of presents collected for the shelters,
Or the family posed with their special-needs child

In front of a fully equipped van given by the local dealership.
This is the season to keep the less fortunate in sight,

To believe that generosity will be generously repaid.
We’ve strung colored lights on our houses and trees,

And lit candles in the windows to hold back the dark.
For what do we hope? – That our candles will lead you

To our needs? That your gift of light will light
These darkest nights of the year? That our belief

In our own righteousness will be vindicated?
The prophet Amos knew the burden of your coming.

The day of the Lord is darkness, he said, darkness, not light,
As if someone went into a house and rested a hand against a wall,

And was bitten by a snake. Amos knew the shame of
What we fail, over and over, to do, the always burning

Image of what might be. Saint Paul, too, saw
The whole creation groaning for redemption.
And will you intercede with sighs too deep for words
Because you love us in our weakness, because

You love always, suddenly and completely, what is
In front of you, whether it is a lake or leper.

Because you come again and again to destroy the God
We keep making in our own image. Will we learn

To pray: May our hearts be broken open. Will we learn
To prepare a space in which you might come forth,
In which, like a bolt of winter solstice light,
You might enter the opening in the stones, lighting

Our dark tumulus from beginning to end?

III.
All last night the tatter of sleet, ice descending,
Each tree sheathed in ice, and then, deeper
Into the night, the shattering cracks and fall
Of branches being pruned by gusts of wind.

It is the first morning after the longest night,
Dawn colorless, the sun still cloud-silvered.
Four crows break the early stillness, an apocalypse
Of raucous squawks. My miniature four horsemen

Take and eat whatever they can in the field
Outside my door: a deer’s leg my dog has dragged
Home. Above them, the flinty sun has at last fired
A blue patch of sky, and suddenly each ice-transfigured

Tree shines. Each needle of pine, each branch
Of ash, throws off sparks of light. Once,
A rabbi saw a spark of goodness trapped inside
Each evil, the very source of life for that evil –

A contradiction not to be understood, but suffered,
The rabbi explained, though the one who prays
And studies Torah will be able to release that spark,
And evil, having lost its life-giving source, will cease.

When I finally open my door and walk out
Into the field, every inch of my skin seems touched
By light. So much light cannot be looked at:
My eyelids slam down like a blind.

All morning I drag limbs into a pile. By noon,
The trees and field have lost their shine. I douse
The pile of wood with gas, and set it aflame,
Watching the sparks disappear in the sky.

IV.
This is the night we have given for your birth.

After the cherished hymns, the prayers, the story
Of the one who will become peacemaker,
Healer of the sick, the one who feeds
The hungry and raises the dead,

We light small candles and stand in the dark

Of the church, hoping for the peace
A child knows, hoping to forget career, mortgage,
Money, hoping even to turn quietly away

From the blind, reductive selves inside us.

We are a picture a child might draw
As we sing Silent Night, Holy Night.
Yet, while each of us tries to inhabit the moment
That is passing, you seem to live in-between
The words we fill with our longing.

The time has come
To admit I believe in the simple astonishment
Of a newborn.

And also to say plainly, as Pascal knew, that you will live
In agony even to the end of the world,

Your will failing to be done on earth
As it is in heaven.

Come, o come Emmanuel,

I am a ghost waiting to be made flesh by love
I am too imperfect to bear.

Reflections on a Year of Seeking Joy

A year ago today, I wrote about my coming in to finding my theme for the year: Seek joy. You know that old adage of things being easier said than done? Yeah, well it turns out that applied to this as well...in a lot of ways. Nevertheless, I think it's still worth reflecting on how this all went and what I gained from it.

First off, similar to other years when I had a certain theme, I found that the word "joy" kept popping up everywhere -- on signs, books (see my previous post re: Mary Oliver), even in Brene Brown's Netflix special ("The Call to Courage"). Maybe I was just paying more attention to it because it was my theme, but I still can't help but think it was somewhat serendipitous, just a little.

Second, I came into contact with the phrase "The Devil's working overtime." You ever have a goal in mind and it just seems like so many obstacles get thrown in your way to keep you from accomplishing it? That's basically what happened during the first part of this year. I aimed to seek joy and I kept finding stress, sadness, and heartache. Work was awful, my dating life sucked, and then to top it off my grandmother died before a third of the year was through. Devil. Working. Overtime.

And then, after not even being halfway through the year, my wallet was stolen. While I was in the midst of a very joy filled conversation about my sense of calling in life, no less. Fuck. But, strangely, this was a turning point. Because it was on that day, before said wallet was stolen, that I had resolved to start a gratitude journal. One of the points Brene Brown made in her talk was that people who are joyful all share one thing in common -- gratitude. So I decided to start making lists in a journal, as often as I could. And it just so happens that it started on the day I felt the most vulnerable, violated, and helpless.

What's interesting is that I didn't feel forced to start the journal even after what happened that day. Instead, it was because of what happened that I felt even more motivated to start it, because I had so much to be grateful for. Everything from the sun shining on my face that morning to the above mentioned conversation, from the staff at the cafe who were so helpful and generous to recognizing everything I already had, despite what I had lost. This was the beginning of what I see now as my life long journey of seeking joy.

No, I haven't been perfect with my gratitude journal, nor have I suddenly transformed into a semi-permanent happy and joyful person. Dude, sometimes life just sucks. It's hard to be joyful in such a hurting world. It's hard to be joyful when you've had a bad day or when you're reminded of what you don't have...or when your cat decides to attack your arm when all you want to do is cuddle with her. (Sorry, I digress...) But what I have noticed is the difference I experience when I do write down what I'm grateful for, even if it's just five things. I feel calmer and less cynical. I'm not minimizing my own struggles or the pain that I and/or those in the world experience, either. I just feel more balanced and less stuck. Maybe that's part of what joy looks like.

Joy is an option, just like anything else. But it takes work to choose it, because to do so is to be more vulnerable. There's no risk when you're feeling cynical and bitter...you're protected then. But to have joy is to risk having it be taken away. Then again, maybe that's why  what's underlying the joy is gratitude -- the recognition of the fact that life is fleeting, so it's important to enjoy what we already have right now. But it's not based in fear or anxiety, either.

One of the things I most often write down in my lists is my cat, Ashley (even when she's been a pain in the butt or bites me without cause). I mention her because, for one, I am truly grateful to have her as my companion, but also because I know that, someday, I won't have her anymore. I know someday I'll miss not telling her for the 100th time to get off the counter, or I'll miss not hearing her little bell or her meow throughout the house. I know it sounds so cliche or insignificant, but I truly think this is what gratitude can look like to an extent.

Seeking joy isn't about seeking that next high or extraordinary event (though I have to say that meeting one of my favorite poets and theologians, Padraig O Tuama, and seeing a live recording of On Being with Krista Tippet and Shane Claiborne, were definitely some highlights for the year). It's about the ability to stay present and recognize the good that already exists, in whatever form that takes. And yes, sometimes it is about seeking out those experiences that will give us a sense of happiness and belonging, especially when doing so causes our comfort zones to be expanded. Overall, though, it's taking in the good, no matter how fleeting, and giving thanks. It's so simple, but so challenging, especially in this consumer culture of ours where we're constantly told we're not enough or we don't have enough or we don't have enough of the right things. It really is like seeking out a high, and it's probably one of the reasons why we're often so unhappy in our romantic partnerships -- we're hooked on the dopamine of romance instead of being committed to the people we're choosing.

Joy isn't dopamine or some permanently happy state that can't be taken away. Joy is a choice, and it's a state of being. It's a practice of gratitude. It's a practice, period. For most of us, anyway. I came into this year hoping to seek joy, and I found it. Over and over and over. I found other things, too -- loss, pain, sadness, heartache, stress, depression, rejection. But I think the important thing was that I was able to recognize what joy can look like and how to integrate it more into my life. So, it is in this way, that I will always be seeking joy.

Where I Meet You

You are the one that I meet in the sacred places ---

In the cool shaded woods where ancient pillars have erupted from the earth,

And singular notes from bird's song echo as if in a hallowed cathedral,

And the soft sweeping sound of a brook's dancing 

Over stones can be heard as an eternal whisper;

Under a wondrous night sky where infinity could not be better explained
Than in the silent staring back
Of thousands of eyes that have long since closed 

Before our beginning;

Within the cavernous wombs of vaulted ceilings holding ---

And nearly bursting from --- 

The limitless words poured forth in hushed petitions and shouts of praise

To that which still remains unknown;

In a flock of starlings at twilight, moving together as one heaving, breathing,

Miraculous organism;

Between the lines of a poem that read like a prayer;

Within the notes of a song that seems to have always existed inside of me;

In the rooms of the dying and the tombs of the dead

With air hanging heavy from all that remains

Unspoken.

You are the one with whom I can exist in the spaces without words.

But you are not to be encountered in the everyday of living ---

The morning routine of awakening,

The preparations made for the predictable day ahead,

The simplistic reporting of what we experienced when out of each others' sight . . .

Your body I will never know in the act of

Folding & enfolding

Of skin together in a playful dance.

Yet when I stand in the space where time stands still

And stillness falls over me like water,

Where the infinite becomes visible amongst the finite objects

Of our existence,

And I can do nothing but do nothing

And breathe . . .

I can say with clear knowing:

You are here  

You are here.