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Mourning Light

I rise and take up my mat of grief, pulling it over me like a heavy wool wrap.

My son draws near, standing in the shadowy membrane between memory and presence, to remind me that Love never fails.

I turn and pull up the shades to face the mourning light, with all its pain, to be assured the night has not overcome me.

I limp toward the kitchen with these torn ligaments of love, searching for a way back to wholeness, but everything looks different now.

I pour coffee, break chocolate into chunks and sit with sadness in the mourning light.

A warm consolation seeps into my bones as I realize it is not just my mourning, its ours, and its His.

All His wounded children are here, all His severed limbs, we sit together, one in hope, in the same light, waiting to be healed into the one body of Christ.

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Small bites

The vet told me not to give Holly human food but I just cant resist It. There is a deep down vicarious pleasure I get in spoiling her with the good stuff. 

She stands at attention before my plate , holding dead still, like a pointer in the presence of a bird. If I let her at it she will ingest it all in under two seconds, barely chewing or tasting it, and then I resent her for not appreciating the gift. 

If I am going to spoil her with human food then I must find a way to make her to enjoy it like a civilized human, and thereby draw more pleasure out of my role as the benevolent master.

Both Holly and I love cheese, and she is keenly alert to sound of the frig opening, and the little plastic cheese drawer that squeaks when I tug on it, and the thud of the wooden cutting board when I place it down on the stone counter.  

I cut off very small bites, one for her, and one for me. I eat my piece slowly while she inhales hers without a single chew.  I pause for effect before reaching for the next morsel, as if to train her to savor things more, and we just stare at each other.  

Then I begin to see myself reflected in her eyes. I see my own unbridled hunger, my impatience, and my inability to savor and appreciate all the little gifts, the tiny morsels and moments in life. 

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Aspens

Standing together on a mountain of silence. 

With dark eyes peering out from white parchment faces. 

Limbs woven into slender cages, 

holding the sky 

Stripped bare, pure as snow and light as air.

Standing in white drifts and holding a weight glory. 

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Its All God

“As God can only be seen by his own light, so He can only be loved by His own love” (Meister Eckart, Sermons)

We tend to think that achieving sanctification and union with God is up to us, but it is not. Yes we must cooperate with grace, but at the deepest point within the soul we are not isolated actors, rather we are participating in God’s being. As St. Paul says, “For in Christ we live and move and have our being”. 

Imagine yourself as an interface between God and creation. We discover our true self out on this frontier, this wild and vulnerable space between us and the divine milieu that we cannot control.  We come alive in the letting go, in the loss of self, in the unknowing.   As we get caught up in this larger drama our small self disappears. 

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Jar of Gladness

I am transparent that you may see into me, and hold up both my sorrow and joy. 

What resides here is sacred, not for the having but for the sharing and transforming. 

I am a glad vessel, an experiencer, a witness, and a story teller full of pain and promise. 

What I hold is not really mine, it is ours, and its purpose is well beyond my grasp. 

But my gladness is as clear as the glass, and as sure as the light passing through. 

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Rain Fall

I love rain that falls straight down, with no wind to push it around.  Long heavy drops in gentle free fall. The pains grey sky easing its suffering by just letting go, un-coerced. 

As the barometer drops so to do my defenses. Something deep in me feels permission to open its pores and everything becomes enchanted and connected. 

I can feel the earth soaking up the cool grace of sky letting go.  And yet there remains on the broad leaf and hard surface, some beads of tension, still bound, waiting for the sun to return and release them, to raise them up again. 

And what about the water-cycle of the soul of man, governed by the will and this membrane of separate self ? Perhaps a simple, porous yes, and we dissolve into one.

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Sitting With Mom

My mother loves to sit in the shade of the grand oaks that line the river bank of her property. She sits for hours while I come and go. These Oaks are so broad shouldered they can offer shade all through the day. 

The breeze moves in off the water and the oak leaves begin to sing. It is a gentle song full of praise, moving up through limbs and down into the soul.  And then it fades off as softly as it came. 

These Oaks are masters of time, endlessly patient, and accepting. They stand by like servants, as we sit in their shade and listen to their song. 

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Farm Stand

There is the familiar  sound of gravel under tire as I pull into the road-side stand.  A few steps under the burning July sun and then I am under the heavenly tent. 

A table is piled high with green sheaths, slender, and still warm to touch, as if just dumped from the farmers truck. The sweet corn with its small white kernels lies within, waiting for blanching, butter, and salt.

Softball size peaches sit five to a basket. Their ripe smell radiating out, inviting the hand to hold and lightly squeeze.

The tomatoes are also stacked in fives in straw baskets.  They are all different shapes, like individuals set free to be themselves. 

 And there is zucchini, summer squash, plumbs and blackberries. I touch the skin and flesh of each, grounding my self, and connecting with my own roots.

I imagine all this juice sucked up from the soil and now residing in the cell structures within these beautiful shapes. All this abundance, this transference of energy and life from field to flesh.  

And then a moment of sadness, that summer’s harvest will not last, that this abundance comes in a wave and is gone.  I want to slow it down and spread it out, to preserve and control it. I am afraid of the cold supermarket tomatoes on refrigerated trucks that will be invading soon. 

What do we do with such waves of abundance?  Build bigger barns for the future or just widen our hearts for the moment?

Barns are for dry stuff, not this summer juice. The heart must learn to beat with the seasons, filling in July and emptying in January.   For now, we hold the cup of abundance lightly as we drink its joy. 

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The Shore of Serenity

A tide of gratitude envelopes me, every cell immersed in its presence.

A wave of acceptance washes over all that has become of me, and all that will be.

It feels like a glad dissolving, a disappearing into the Christ mystery.

As waves of fear recede, the self-less sand is carved up into new channels of grace.

And my loved ones, who keep my heart open and vulnerable, I release them into this wild sea of hope, as I stand on the shore of serenity.