Readers,
I have put an announcement here.
Thanks,
ymp

Oh, and I hope you enjoy the new template which shall also be known as 'useful distraction'.

I've walked here before

Sometimes life is just unfair.

I've walked here before
this trip past the edge of the cliff
trusting in skilled bridge to carry me across

I've walked here before
the uncertain approach
the tedium of waiting
waiting for the edge
waiting for the other side

I've walked here before
I've seen these looks,
of fear, bewilderment, and
misunderstanding
misunderstanding placidity for courage
misunderstanding courage for faith
misunderstanding the fatalism
which I cannot stop
but use to inform my response

I've walked here before...

written 2/10/08

Coming Home

I don't know what to say other than, this is not a bad thing. It was time. It needed to happen.

Coming Home
I was coming home but found
a house not my own
familiar people, places, things
but not where I belong
not my room,
not my kitchen,
not my church,
not my town
home had moved
though all else stayed
I came home and found
just another place
beloved, fondly remembered
but just another place
so I'm still
coming home...

written 1/15/08

Truth

Final word count from last week was over 16,000, or about 32 pages. And the good news is that now I'm done.
Some reflections about the blog are still upcoming. I have a draft sketched out, but some serious revising is called for. Also, I'm still considering Christine's Invitation to Poetry this week. We'll see.
So, until then, here's a poem about truth, which is almost always appropriate.

Truth

truth
words that strip bare
my heart, my soul
full of fear and doubt
fear of how my
weakness will be met
doubt that I can ever be
whole or strong

truth
words that rattle in my mind
challenging how I know my world,
my self
seeking out the fire
in my bones
sounding out the skeleton
that compels me to act

truth
words I let fall reluctantly
words of pain and fear
words of joy and hope
words grounded somewhere else
words that must be spoken
passing between
you and I

Written 12/5/07

thinking

This is a week of a lot of writing for me. Over the last 7 days I've written over 11,000 words and I'm not done yet. Which means that this week's post is not going to be long or overly theological or heavy or deep. This week is also not going to be the reflection on 7 months of blogging here. I will write that post because there are things I want to share, but not this week. Sorry.
This week is going to be about words, and thinking, and creating. Specifically about how much I appreciate your comments. I know what I think about my work and there seems to be a small, but (amazingly) a growing, group of people who enjoy what I write. However, your comments give me different insight to what I have written and help me appreciate and think about things in new ways. Thank you.

building

word
word
concept
idea
building blocks of thought
come together with another

two
thoughts
complex-
ity born
then we meet people
complexity sprung to the world

talk
Wait
By turns
each other
Exchanges new though
friction rubs new patterns in us

new
strange
springing
communion
forward through us both
creation in old wineskins

written 11-19-07

fingerpainting words

This is one of the joys of this blog. I never expected to be someone with a blog. Ever. But then I was. Really, that's all there is to that story. But this week I was reading Tandaina and Sophia (who has recently taken what I hope will be a break from her blog)'s commments about Flimsy Words. And then I wrote this.

Finger-painting words
spreading them around
feeling their consistency
between my fingers
watery
chalky
lumpy
smooth
thick dark words
watery rich words
lumpy bright words that won't flow together
smooth crystalline words
color
viscosity
free to feel
to soak them through myself
until my fingers are dyed and
I need water
water that I may start again

written 11/28/07
With thanks to both Tandaina and Sophia.

A good reminder

If you asked me (which you didn't), I would tell you that good poetry is much like prayer, it is somehow out of time, applicable in more than one setting, and at the same moment, entirely relevant and set in the moment of it's creation. For more thoughts like these, go back and reread the first poem I posted, On Writing. But this is what I was thinking when I reread today's post. I remember writing it. I remember how good it felt to finally have those thoughts on paper. And as much as my life has moved from that moment, this is still true.

How do I praise God from my life?

I know how to cry to you
I know how to collapse before you
I know how to cling to you
I know all this and so
I struggle.
How do I praise you?
How do I lift my voice,
_____My weak and trembling voice,
_____My voice which has been hoarse from shouting,
_____My voice which has so often protested the facts of my life
_____My voice,
To you in thanksgiving?
How do I stand in the face of all my wounds,
Wounds which never disappear,
And proclaim your great grace?
You didn’t stop the wounds
You didn’t ease the pain
There were tears you cannot redeem.
They were. Nothing changes that.
Not grace, not love, not beauty
And still I do.
Because pain was not all or the end.
For all the pain,
for all the sorrow
There was always love.
Not to redeem or to drive away the other,
But to stand beside, to contradict
To hold out hope for more, for better,
And so I practice:

God of Gods, God who calms storms, God who counts the hair on our heads,
Thank you
God of my life, God who heals (though not me), God knows even the sparrows,
I bless you
God who stays, God who loves (even me), God who sees all beauty and all pain,
I love you.
Amen

Written 5/26/06

Themes in my life

Sometimes it feels like this is the summary of my life.

Questions in the Void
You say this doubt is new
That these are new questions
And my heart swells
With compassion and envy

For the questions that are new to you
are old to me
I know how hard it is to live with them
and I wish I did not

But I stand, have stood, will stand
And stare into something that often seems a void
And I will ask those questions
I will shout,
plead,
cry,
whisper
those questions
I will stand and I will curl on the floor of the edge of the cliff
And I will be at home

I know where you but enter
I have wept here
And I have learned to rejoice here
I do not envy you your entrance,
But wish I had not lived here so long
That this could be new

And yet, and yet
I am alive, even here.

Written 9/22/06

Turning

There is no way for my to describe (here) why this was written. However, I do not think that you need me to. Either you understand (in which case I will say a prayer for you this week) or you do not (in which case I will also pray for you). Prayer is good, after all.

Round and round, turn after turn,
Up is up then up is down,
I laugh then weep then am silent.
I try to find sense and meaning
Then I try to survive.
I sing your praise,
Then angrily demand explanation.
Nothing makes sense.
And then I realize,
Meaning is always lost
In the next rotation,
Because the only fixture
Is your love—
Your love for me.

I stand in silence,
Stare into the distance,
And ponder
if that is enough.
As again my world turns—
Everything moves.
And my faith shakes.
My heart and mind demand
Meaning and justice
In crescendoing pleas.
And my soul quakes in your love,
Your love for me.

I want to scream and rage,
To have a face
At which to aim
But I cannot.
There is no anger, no despair—
Just the desperate hope:
Hope for tomorrow,
Hope for today,
Hope for me.
Because I remember your love,
Your love for me.

The turning hasn’t stopped
Maybe it never will
But you and I—
We’re here
And I keep finding that
I love you
In a pale imitation
of your love for me.

Written 5/21/06

Discernment and truth

Although this is written in a call and response format, it is also inner dialogue. Both at the same time. Multiple layers of truth. Just like so much else.

Truthful Discernment
They say: You are too young.
I say: God has always called the young.

They say: You are too idealistic.
I say: Great vision is the product of faith.

They say: What about your gender?
I say: God called me, for who I am.

They say: You don't know enough.
I say: Teach me.

They say: Can you lead?
I say: Will you follow?

They say: You are too strong.
I laugh with the knowledge of my weaknesses.

They say they speak the truth.
I know the truth to be greater than either of us.
Written 9/14/07

The Second Poem

Here's the second poem I wrote using the line from Milosz. Find the first one below or at this link
There are a little more than 12 months separating the two poems. So much happened in those months that I cannot condense into a few sentences, much less semi-anonymous sentences. I can only offer you this.

Day so perfect it could only be a dream
Healthy-er for the first time ever
Pills and stress gone
And a little part of me

Morning comes, alarms go off, Dreams end
And who is to say it wasn’t a nightmare?
Or perhaps it was just the me of dreams,
The one I never quite recognize

Dreams end and so did this,
Here I am again
Finding new balance, new normal
A new which seems so familiar

The morning light, not harsh at all,
Brings an equally gentle and relentless truth:
This is my life
This is who I am

If broken or marred, then only in the now
The temporal, almost gone now of mortality
In the eternal almost here now of God,
I am his child, holy and perfect
A dream for another night.

Written 6/23/06

Rereading this poem, I'm not at all sure I like the poetry of it. But I still think there is something in letting you see how very different poems could come from one line.

Yesterday's Sorrow

So, not so long ago a professor assigned my class the task of writing a poem using the same starting line as Czeslaw Milosz used in one of a selection of poems we had read. This is what I wrote. I am posting it this week because of what is going on this week is about Invisible Illnesses. Next week I will post the second poem I wrote using this same first line.

Yesterday’s Sorrow
A Day so happy it could only be a dream
An interlude filled with hollow gifts
No pain, no pills, no needles,
No shadows in my family’s eyes

In my mind I can name it: Normal
Yet I cannot speak this name for fear,
Dreams dissolve you see

My Heart names it also: False, Forbidden, Lost
For Time cannot be spun backwards

My days are now marked with pills
My years with doctors visits and tests
And it is easy to get lost in wanting the dream

So easy to miss the wind in the trees, children’s laughter,
The Sun on the lake and the stars at night
To forget the welcoming hugs

But sometimes yesterday’s sorrow is still too great
Too tempting, too easy to fall into
But even then the gifts of dream
Are hollow, shattered by today’s realities, necessities

And I know that here is where I must make my peace
Between the dreams and the endless tomorrows
Here today, every today
Again and again and again
Written Spring 2005

For those of you who want to find Milosz's original poem (because I really did take the first line and go somewhere very different), I recommend New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 . It's a large book, but I promise, he's really good. For more info on Milosz check out wikipedia's page on him .

Sleeping

Or rather, not.

Insomnia…

free time
extra hours
actually finishing the “to do” list
being alone in the store (because it’s 2am)
writing
befriending stars

being alone in the dark
feeling like a ghost in your own house
laying awake in a tired body
counting sheep, goats, the whole damn barnyard
the tick tock tick tock tick tock tick…
dreaming of sleeping

frustration
glaring at a refuge-less bed
sleeping while awake
endless, dayless, nightless
depression*
awake

Insomnia.
Written July 2007

*This is not clinical depression, just the depressing realization that insomnia is an endless, cycleless sort of cycle. And you have my sympathy if you also understand that description.

What I Want

My last post was more about where I've been. This is about where I want to go, who I want to be. I felt that it was equally appropriate to this week of my life. (See previous post for as many answers as I'm giving out.)

To look back and say:
I have followed the call of God
(wherever it has led)
Preached the Gospel
(all times and all places)
Lived Christian Community
(even with those who dislike me)
Shared the joy that God loves me and you
(and have loved and been loved)
Helped others articulate theology
(for words bring understanding)
Been a voice for the less powered
(even when no one else was)
Never stopped learning
(the greatest challenge)
Called others to leadership
(because shared power is stronger)
Helped create hope that will outlive me
(there is no better legacy)
Gotten up every time I’ve fallen
(and learned from the bruises and scars)
Clung to a Kingdom realized, here and now
For this is the Gospel.
Written 7/17/07

Guess I got my hopeful poem after all...

Anniversaries

So this week is a week I celebrate in much the same manner other people give to their birthday. And I almost wish I was willing to give y'all more details, because vagueness makes this hard to describe. This week is the anniversary of my latest new chance at life. And in commemoration of that event, I wrote this:

Shadows of the past

Tomorrow dawns anew
and the same sun
which chases the dark away
helps define my shadows
some have one, but I have more
shadows of pain, sorrow and loss.

Falling off my heels, slow to fade
familiar, yet not welcome
shadows of the past,
things gone by,
dark days,
times that will not end.

Shadows from days long gone,
but events that outlast the sunset
days when the pain wouldn’t end
days when the sorrow debilitated
nights when there were no stars.
And yet…

And yet,
I am still here.
My dragons reduced to shadows,
following, yapping, diminished.
This time I know, that I survived,
that tomorrow will dawn anew,
again.

Written 7/17/07 (I know, same day as post. Be impressed please.)

I wanted to write something happier, but I just couldn't get there yet. Maybe after another couple of years. I was still pleased that the last verse (stanza? too much time in Church I guess.) Held what hope it did. Just in case anyone is worried, please don't. My writing is often driven by "old" emotions because those are the ones I understand best.

What I do

Sort of at least...Here are a couple of poems/prayers I've written in conjunction with my life in the Church. This first one was written for use as a community gathered to worship. It is untitled.

Come Holy Spirit,
quieten our minds,
still our hearts,
strengthen our spirits.
Come among us
help us to recognize and
celebrate the Risen Christ. AMEN.
written spring 2007

This next one was written last summer while I was in the midst of some pretty intensive training/education that largely involved working with people. (How's that for saying a lot and nothing at all.)

I go, I talk, I listen
I love

My heart, my soul move to greet theirs
And what is between us becomes even more
Holy Communion

I leave,
though a bit of me stays
Still I am not less, but more
written summer 2006

Summer Haircut

So yesterday I got a new haircut, impelled in part because of summer. I go to this little place that does good haircuts for a reasonable price and they don't talk too much, so I had time to have this idea.

An hour of odd mediation
Time for me, about me,
Well, almost me
One person’s focus, entirely
This stranger and I brought together
Through the medium of my hair
The warm water
Circling fingers
Sudsy Shampoo and creamy conditioner
Chairs that rise and fall
And spin round and round
Sharp sections of my hair, held up in clips
The wet shck of the scissors
Old memories gone,
Fallen away,
New edges to learn
New tricks to develop
Ideal for the slightly new me
New image,
New ideas
A little time with a blow dryer
I’m all set to go
written 6/8/07

More about me, I guess

Two posts in two days! It's partially that this is oddly addictive and partially that just one poem doesn't seem to really represent my life. So here's another one. About me, even.

The I I want to be
Would you understand
If I ever said,
“those childish moments you laugh and ridicule,
Those instances of glee,
The glimpses where I seem not quite me
Those are what I fight for,
That to which I cling.”

Would you ever listen
while I went on,
“I know life’s horrors, dark hours,
Weeks of tears and mourn
Don’t think I haven’t lived there too
Know me rather as a frequent visitor,
One with favored paths and common trips.”

Would you then see,
The moments of glee,
The delight and wonder:
That I revel in these not to forget,
Not to negate
But as a runner, struggling to breathe,
They the images of the goal towards which I strive

Those glimpses where I seem not quite me,
Not denial, But pursuit
For I have decided
The darkness may not be
All that I know, not
The theme of my life, not
The reality I cannot escape.

Would you understand then
That these are my choice and treasure
That each smile
Is one more statement
A declaration of who I mean to be
Victory over who I will not become
I laugh, I giggle, and I go on:

Ever more the I I want to be.

Written 2/27/06

A Good Place to Start

This is probably the poem that started to convince me to do this whole blog thing, so it seemed like a good first post.

On Writing
I Write
and in this act of putting pen to paper,
of spreading ink across a void
I do that which is irreversible
My words, once written
cannot be unwritten, undone
They are from me but no longer of me
In making them into ink
I give them fleeting permanence--
bound as they are to physicality
and eternal difference.
Once written
I too must enter into dialogue with them
changing, not remaking
Once done
They stand
for my eyes and those of others
forever speaking from the moment of their separation
To the millions of moments that follow
They were mine to make--
a natural mating of my thoughts and my ink
mine to alter
mine to destroy
But their unmaking is beyond me
They become written and separate
I can not write
But I cannot unwrite

written 4/21/07