Anticipation

Lord,
I don't know what happened overnight,
But I woke up this morning
With my heart in my throat,
And tons of nervous energy.

Last day on-site at MetroTech.
Packing up the Uhaul tomorrow.
Setting out for Upstate Saturday.
And then...

School and work have always been my buffers,
Welcome escapes from the crazy
Sometimes awaiting me in my family life.
The fact that I will now be going Upstate,
And will be alone in the house with my sister for two weeks,
Is forming a familiar, unwelcome knot in my chest.

I have broached the conversation
About my need to return to Arizona
Several times with my sister.
For each reason I present,
She's finding a way to refute it,
Or work around it.
She's not getting it, God.
She's avoiding the issue.
And Father, please... I have to go.

Manipulation was a skill
Honed to a rapier blade in Mommie's hands,
And one that my sister inherited.
Mommie could assault me with words
That would cut me to the quick,
And make me second-guess
My actions, decisions, motivations,
My very sense of self and identity.
My sister's manipulation
Used to be of a more turbulent strain,
Involving thrown objects,
Tossed furniture,
And a verbal barrage learned from our mom.
She's toned down...
But I sense the edge still there.

I developed a system of
Anticipation, avoidance, lying, and giving in
Very early on. 
At that point, it felt like the only way.
It was easier to roll over and play dead
Than stand up for myself,
Assert myself, or fight.
The passing years only saw
More and more of me dissolving.
I didn't engage in my first true act of rebellion
Until I was 20, and moved out.

Adalheid has done so much
To teach me new ways of thinking
That aren't laden with guilt.
But there are apparently several gaps
In my so-called filing system,
And my sister is one of them.

There was a moment when we were on the phone,
And she said things I remembered
From an incident when Mommie was alive.
It involved an overturned dining room table,
A knife, and enough blood
To scare the crap out of me.
I panicked.
It was like I was there again,
Reliving some horror movie scene,
And all the old impulses and behaviors
Rushed to the surface.
I doubted.
She wouldn't - Would she? -
The not being sure blew me away.
So to New York I came.

Father,
I know that there's an unspoken expectation
In my sister's mind.
I know that I'm about to fall short of it.
I know an attack is coming.
I know that all the pent-up resentments and jealousies
Are about to foment to the surface.
I am so afraid of the fallout from my actions.
Afraid almost to the point of... what?
Immobility?  Capitulation?  
Self-sabotage?  Dissolution of self?

No.  NO. 

Softness and compassion, in and of themselves,
Are not bad character traits,
But taken to an extreme, can be.
There is a difference between having a healthy conscience
And allowing myself to be consumed and controlled by guilt...
Guilt for not living up to people's expectations,
And for choosing a life
That removes me from
The immediacy of my sister's life.

Father,
Help me find the fine line of balance
Within myself...

Arrow

Father,
An arrow has been shot at me,
And it has found its mark.

Have I proven myself deserving
Of such little faith in my actions?

Anointed One,
Mediate for me please.
Guide me to safety
On the other side of being hurt.

I hate that the people we really love
Often have the greatest power
To deeply hurt us...

Dispossessed

This last week prior to
My sister's relocation Upstate,
We are living like refugees
In the master bedroom.
Hiding out. Planning escape.
Eating on the run.
Sleeping at odd hours and intervals.
Packing furiously when inspired to.
Recovering from a cold that has left us
Sounding like walking contagion.
We are drained,
Physically, mentally, emotionally.
There's a reason why moving
Is one of the top five stressful situations.
We're living through all those reasons
And then some
Right now.

This is how a heart breaks, I muse,
Hearing Rob Thomas singing in my head.

Yesterday,
I spent many hours in the second bedroom,
Repositioning or repacking the boxes that stored
So much of my sister's life
That she hadn't unpacked three years ago.
Oh, what I found. And touched.
And remembered.
My sister has held on to
The relics of our former lives
As children of our parents.
She's kept holiday decorations,
And accent pieces like the
Wrought iron candelabras,
A remnant from our old life pre-fire.
"Happiness is being married
To your best friend,"
A wall plaque read that I repacked.
Our parents were, at heart,
True romantics.

This, too, is how a heart breaks.
Mommie only lasted six years
After Daddy passed away.
There have been moments I thought,
"What, Ma, we weren't enough to keep you here?
You had to leave us to go see him?"

I stood in the fire of my sister's breakup,
And the shadow of my parents' love,
And thought,
"There is no way I want this for my life."
The ones I love will eventually leave me,
Willingly or not.
What is the point of all this?

And yet,
To be fully human,
We must love others.
And let them love us.

Father,
Hasten the day
When it won't be like this.
I long for restoration, and wholeness,
The undoing of losses,
The unraveling of fears.
Give me courage to love freely,
Without the undercurrent fear of loss...

A Letter to Mommie

Ma,
Six years ago today
You left us.
By leaving, I mean that
Your physical body
Ceased to work,
And we were no longer
Gifted with your human presence.
No longer would I be warmed
By your words,
Or alternately pierced by your blazing eyes.
No longer would you reach out
And touch my arm or grab my shoulder
As you passed by...
Establishing contact,
Just saying "hi."

Today I feel the lack of you
Like a ball of molten lead
Sitting in the middle of my chest.
It's a hot, magmatic mess.
Right now,
I am a hot, magmatic mess.

So much has changed
During these past six years.
I am not who you remember.
I am different, aged,
More resilient and more sensitive,
More tuned in to God,
And more tuned in to myself
As His child.
There are moments my life
Does not make any rational sense to me,
And somehow, that's okay.
There are moments I wish that I
Could talk to you,
Face to face...
Could hear your wisdom...
Could experience the way you made me
Laugh at my own seriousness
Without making me self-conscious.
When I wasn't afraid to approach you,
You would always provide me with
Feedback, and comfort, and support.
I wish I could share with you
All the crazy, zany, everyday experiences
Of my life with Adalheid and the tribe in AZ.
It's strange to acknowledge that
If you were here,
I would never have moved.
My life continues to be shaped
By 29 years of your presence,
And the remainder of my days
By your absence.

I am trying so hard
To do the right things.
Things that matter,
That positively impact other lives.
I am trying so hard
To hear God's voice in my life,
To discern what He would like me to do,
And not trip over myself in the process.

I don't wrestle with Demon Depression
Like I used to.
I have blue days, and black and blue days,
But nothing like the abyss I once hovered over.
Consequently, Demon Alcohol
No longer exerts a hold on me either.
I don't want to drink myself into oblivion.
I can drink, and not want to get drunk.

That has been mightily tested
During my last few weeks in New York.

I am bone weary
From the situation with your younger daughter.
There are times I feel like
She is draining the life out of me.
I am angry that no one else
Wants the burden of helping her,
And I'm too sensitive to the devastation in her
To let her fall alone beneath its weight
Without putting up a fight alongside her.
I am trying to prop her up,
Without losing sight of myself.
Her nature remains foreign to me;
There are moments I vacillate between
Wanting to hug her
And wanting to smack her. 
I can't stay long enough with her
To make her happy.
I can't leave fast enough to return to AZ
To make everyone else happy.
I am braced for the weeks ahead,
The strings of disappointments
That will trail my actions,
Whatever they may be.
A little of your strength and conviction
Would be welcome gifts right now.

Finding the balance is so damn hard.

Help me help her get settled.
And then help me get back to AZ.

I wonder what you would say to me
About the choices I have made,
And the actions I am taking.
I wonder what you would say to me
About pursuing the things I have always wanted,
And choosing the compatriots
Who have become my second family
In your absence.

I pray that I will not forever be
Bereft of your presence.
As you wrote on the note
You sent Daddy into the afterlife with,
"Until we meet again..."

Divine Appointments

The Aussie's cousin,
The fisherman,
Is in New York City,
Traveling on business
For his ministry.

We brunched at the New Apollo,
Swapping life stories
About God's love for us,
And the events that have set us
Upon the paths we now travel.

There was a moment
When he spoke of having
A divine appointment with me...
When he said that he felt that
I was one of the people
He had to meet while in New York.
As he spoke,
I could feel the thread of my life
Being interwoven with his,
However briefly,
In the rich, mysterious tapestry of
The Triune Godhead.
Yes, Lord, I thought,
You have brought refreshment
To my weary soul
From literally half the world away!

The fisherman reminded me
Of God's grace and love,
And how to move freely within it.
"His mercies are new every morning."
Ha ha, oh yes,
How I know that to be true!

Father,
You have always sent me lights
To illumine my way
When I tread through dark places.
Thank You for sending
The Aussie into my life's work and inner workings,
And the fisherman at this moment
When I need the reassurance of You.
Embolden and strengthen us all
As we walk our divergent paths
Along the roads You have set before us!

Unmoored

There she stood
At the MetroTech train station
With a cardboard sign
Stating that she was suddenly homeless
And had lost everything in a fire.

I was already at the office
When I was prompted to go back
And talk to her.

Over breakfast,
She told me her name is Debbie.
She summarized her life story,
And the events leading up to
Her desperate, destitute condition.
She told me that no one ever stops
To talk to her.

Of course.  You are invisible, I thought.
And I am a creature who precariously hovers
Between worlds.
I operate on instincts, and gut feelings,
And spiritual promptings,
Seeing what others often miss. 
I see you, Debbie, I thought,
Thick with emotion
In response to her tears.

I ministered to her as best I could.
I felt awkward and foolish,
Guilty and self-conscious,
But I stayed, and listened,
And prayed that she heard You
In the words coming out of my mouth.

How easy it is
For a string of events
To rip us from our moorings at life's docks,
And toss us about
A storm-savaged sea!
How very easy to lose
Meaning and direction and purpose!

O Lord,
Let the words of my mouth
And the meditations of my heart
Be pleasing to You.
Recall that girl to life's safe shores.
Help her get settled.
Help her find a good way,
A sturdy harbor in her storm.
Fan the flame of hope inside her.
Above all, Father,
Don't let that be snuffed out.

I rode up the escalator
Disconcerted and unsatisfied.
Lord, have I done enough?
I asked You.
It never feels like enough.

The lyrics to the hymn
"Let Your Heart Be Broken"
Resound in my head,
Weaving through the melody
In a tapestry that girds me.

And deeper in the background,
On the periphery of my thoughts,
I hear the siren call of seminary...

Envisioned

For the archer

I've always had
A vivid, over-active imagination.
Daydreams occupy my time
During mundane tasks
Like doing dishes or riding the train.
When I was a kid,
Fantasy stories and adventures
Would dance through my mind.
As I became older,
The daydreams became more down-to-earth,
And sometimes much darker or sinister
Depending upon the seasons of my life,
But they have never, ever left me.

Robert Foster talks about
The role that imagination can play
In prayer life.
You have given us imaginations;
Why, then, should we not put them
To use in service to You,
And in service to each other?

In my mind's eye, I see...

In the spiritual realm,
The AZ house looks like a
Radiant, dome-shaped sphere,
A halo of light encompassing
The physical structures of
House and cars and
Ficus tree and backyard.
Pulses of radiance shoot out of the house,
A hidden nexus of Love and Light
Traveling along ethereal axons,
Binding us to God
And one another.
This is our earthly home,
An earthly temple of unlikely compatriots,
Bound together
In ways unseen,
For purposes yet to be revealed.

It is dawn.
I see the Anointed One
Coming down the street,
Approaching the house
With a gentle, purposeful stride.
Fingertips of soft translucence
Bathe the ground and air,
Enlivening the bushes and flowers,
The earth and cacti.
The environment hums aloud the scripture
"All things were made through him,
and without him was not any thing made that was made." *

He enters the house.
Gabrielle and Fifi toss in their sleep,
Sensing his Numinous Presence.
The king doesn't know that
The King is leaning over his shoulder,
Reading his e-mail,
Tweaking the universe so that
Another eBay sale is closed,
And another client seeks out his skills.

The birds in the birdie room
Stir into parrot semi-consciousness.
They bow in silence to the East,
Hailing the morning and the King,
Hearing in their hollow bones
Echoes from the primordial past,
The cycles and rhythms of life
Authored by the Holy One downstairs.

In the master bedroom, Adalheid is asleep.
The hub of the house's aura,
The Anointed One infuses her
With divine energies, healing powers,
Insight, strength, endurance,
Cosmic protection and intervention.
Downstairs, the wandering momma
Sleeps like a dead weight.
He peeks in on her,
Sifting through the amyloid plaques
With a thought and a breath of peace.
Today will be an okay day for her.

Simba emerges from my bedroom,
Greeting the King with a loud purr.
He walks before Him into the den,
Leading Him to the archer
Who is asleep on the comfy, brown couch.

My beloved archer,
Another initiate into our ragtag band of
A family of friends...
Drawn by threads of Love and Fate that,
For all we know,
Have been sewn
Since the foundations of the world were laid.

In spirit,
I am seated on the cuddler.
I have been waiting to speak with Him about her.

He turns, sees me, and softly smiles.

I smile back,
Feeling some of the heaviness in me lift.

There is a pregnant pause.
I seek words.
I seek passages to express
What my human mind grapples with.
I thumb through Romans,
And finally find what I'm looking for.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. **

He hears me read the passage in my mind,
And nods.
"Please..." I mumble aloud,
My one word request encompassing
All my pleading and emotion and thought...
Everything in me lensing to a laser-like point
Focused on the healing of the archer
After last week's car accident.
"I know You spared her," I say,
"And I and everyone else are so
Thankful and grateful that you did.
Now, I ask You to mend her,
Body and soul.
Restore her to wholeness,
Our Lord and Healer!"
The prayer rises up my spine,
And out the crown of my head,
Tingling in that way it does
When the Holy Spirit is at work in me.

The Anointed One sits on the piece of couch
Between the couch's edge and the archer's pillow.
She lightly stirs, her arm flung in sleep over her eyes.
He brushes her hair back from her forehead,
And I watch the healing-filled Light
Escaping His fingertips...
I watch the Hands that made her
Slowly bring down her body's inflammation...
He soothes away her troubled sleep,
Reigning in her fears and misgivings
Beneath His glorious cloak.
He exhales a deep breath,
Controlling a steady flow of
Physical and spiritual energies
That are repairing the archer
From the inside out.
He tenderly kisses her forehead,
And there is an easing, a slight release
Of the pain from the concussion.
"Humans take time to heal,"
He reminds me.

I take it as a word of assurance,
And a call to patience and continued prayer.
I feel confidence renewed within my soul.
I feel my spirit overflow
In praise and worship.

O, my Lord God,
Creator and Healer,
Whose touch heals so many
And even raises the dead,
Hear my ardent prayer,
And grant that it may be so!...

*John 1:3
**Romans 8:26-30

The Customer Service Face

Lunchtime shoe shopping
With the Aussie.
She is shopping.
I am tagging along.
Suddenly, I realize that
A woman is addressing me.
"Excuse me?" I ask.
And then I see her dilemma;
A clothes hanger,
Complete with clothing attached,
Has lodged itself in the
Curls of her hair.
She can't extricate herself from it.
I untangle her.
She thanks me, and continues shopping.

There were at least
Ten other people milling about
That the woman could've asked for help from.
Why me?
99 times out of 100,
Why me?

I am that person:
The person people will stop and ask for directions;
The person little, old ladies gravitate to
To help them across the street
With bags and packages;
The person that hungry and homeless people
Are not afraid to approach for alms,
Or anything else, for that matter.

I call this syndrome
The Customer Service Face.

It's pretty severe.
I have tried masking my appearance
To minimize the syndrome's impact.
I wear hats, headphones, sunglasses.
I pull the hood from my sweatshirt
Deep over my face
So that it is cloaked in shadow.
I turn up the music on my iPhone so loud
That other people can hear it.
It's all to no avail.
I am always stopped, queried,
Sought, picked, tapped, singled out
In countless banal and sometimes extraordinary circumstances.

It's me too, of course.
There is something about me
That shouts safety, openness, welcome
To stranger, friend and foe alike.
Surely, this is dangerous.
Surely I must shut down,
Shut out, shut off
In order to successfully survive life intact.
I've had this conversation with myself
So many times.

This is far beyond
People-pleasing or being motivated by guilt.
It's innate, like breathing...
A generalized vibe I emit
That human souls receive,
Without either of us knowing what's happening.

Father,
I have exposed myself,
Trying to do the right things.
I have been betrayed
By stranger, friend and foe alike.
I feel far too vulnerable,
Far too open to survive.
And yet I know -
I acknowledge -
That this is a part of my nature,
And that I could sooner grow wings and fly to the moon
Than protect myself.

Abba,
Shield me
From the good or evil intentions of others
That ultimately hurt me.
Shield me
From my disappointments,
From my mislaid plans that backfire,
From the enemy who knows how
To lay me low in five seconds flat.
Shield me
From myself,
And the unspoken dangers
I am exposed to
Which I sometimes step into unwittingly,
And sometimes step into
With a premonition of trouble.

Almighty Lord of Hosts,
Be Thou my Fortress,
My Rock and My Redeemer,
My Protector,
Now and all the days of my life!...

Pierced

Father...
We cannot fathom
The rhymes and reasons,
The hidden meanings and workings
Behind our lives.
Your Understanding
Arcs across our pasts, presents, and futures,
A secret path, a hidden thread
Leading back ultimately -
To salvation or damnation -
By You and through You.

Instill faith in us
When darkness encroaches -
When friends fail us -
When serpent tongues
Pierce us with poisonous fangs.
Protect us
When we feel compelled to take action,
And throw ourselves into the fray.
But mostly, Abba,
Heal us
Where and when we need it most.
We get injured. We bleed.
Tend to our wounds
With Your gentle, loving touch...