it's your hometown

so i am stumbling down to my computer to write these words lest i lose the feel of them by putting this off... tears are streaming down my face... i just watched something that touched me in a deep and true part of my soul... watching bruce springsteen on the today show... i have never really been a fan but somehow i kept coming up on the screen as he was singing... at first just this little snippet of singing back and forth the audience and bruce "it's your hometown"... he did it back and forth so many times i kind of got irritated... but the more he said it the more i felt that sense of what it means to have a hometown... went away for a few minutes came back and there he was again singing that sad refrain.... the faces of those listening were a beautiful portrait of his words... one woman's face was such a history of all it means to have lived... maybe lived somewhere for a long time.... she wasn't old but not young maybe 40-50 but she knew about what was being sung.... about thinking about moving from this damn place... of being so sick of what has occurred there you look for a way to leave but even in that you know perhaps you will stay and there will be a cost...

hopie

hope caitlin acay is four years old. she is sturdy and brown with dark hair that curls just so at the ends. she has beautful white teeth and a bit of a lisp.she will say her name at lightning speed so that all the words run together "hopecaitlinacay" these days hope is heart sick.... her dad is going to iraq and she doesn't get it ...he left two weeks ago and every day hope [ we all call her 'hopie'] has a meltdown... a raging screaming time of terror ... and i get it... i get that her world is different and she doesn't know why...but dad isn't home i wonder what it is that tugs at my heart so when i see her [ even dani isn't that enthused right now i can see why each day she does what is needed and she will never be enough because she isn't daddy... ] at the risk of taking something very real and making it a metaphor hope screams as we all do when faced with the terror of change....only we must tuck that terror inside placing a lovely tight smile around it...

new floors

i have been looking at my kitchen floor tonight... it is the last night i will see this particular floor as we will replace it tomorrow...many feet have walked these floors the stories could cascade out of this particular vinyl i never really liked but put up with for more than 23 years...but the one i want to tell is quite recent... today i had a group of youth over for a bbq... i have been leading them toward a mission trip which begins next saturday... this was the final meeting and last time for me to really be with these students and the leaders who will travel with them...and my floor was travelling away in the morning....so i picked up a sharpie and asked them all to leave some pictures and words on the floor ... it was pretty amusing to see their faces as i offered them the pens... no one had ever told them to write on their kitchen floor...but they were up to the task and soon i had scores of kids writing and drawing all over my floor... the range of skill was broad.. some scribbled... some left little gems of art and word..... let me tell you about one..... there is a young woman in this group who is a cancer survivor somehow in the course of her treatment she had a stroke or some kind of brain injury.... mostly it is evident in a slight limp but there is something about her I can't quite put my finger on what ...maybe a certain clarity to her... perhaps purified by fire? she drew her name and some graphic design-y things around her name but what struck me were these words ...don't be afraid to be different....i still swirl the words around in my brain trying to get a hold on the idea that an eighteen year old girl surrounded by the adolescent world of 'i don't want to be different would write that on my floor... we had just had a painful time of singing a song we really didn't know at the team commissioning that morning.. angry stares and sighs had been sent my way when i insisted we sing this song even if we didn't quite know it and our guitar player was not there to cover up the mess... the comment by some was "the most awkward moment ever" but still this survivor had said don't be afraid to be different sometimes i wonder if that kind of fear [of being different] keeps us from finding our own passion as well as using that passsion in a manner that makes God smile....and us
somehow beauty emerged for just a few hours on the canvas of my old ugly floor...though it will be gone tomorrow i will know that underneath the new tile i chose will be those words don't be afraid to be different...and they will give me courage

ellen

so i have started this thing at least twice...how to remember ellen ....how can i not remember is a better thought... how can i not remember her funny voice which i loved and she really didn't... how can i not remember her questions and our conversations about all our questions... how can i not remember her love for her c group girls... how can i not remember how she loved her family... mitsuki had i think the number one spot sorry rich...how can i not remember how she loved Jesus...how can i not remember that she raged against her cancer, that she fought til the very end and then looked at me and said "i don't know how to do this dying thing....but she did know.... and better than that she lived until the moment she died and i know that is what God asks us all to do...so how did she do that and how can we? ...i remember talking about 5 things with ellen... 5 things to remember in all our relationships to say... i love you...i forgive you...will you forgive me...thank you and goodbye.... ellen did each of these things so well... even when perplexed by how to say the words... her tenacity and courage were rooted in the knowledge that Jesus was coming soon [she always told me so]... her hope was that she would see him soon [even when she wanted just a few more months...and i think she wanted jesus to come before she died so we could all be together] i miss her and still think that soon she will just call and say hi and we'll talk and plan a new way to reach students and tell them how much we love them...we'll laugh and cry about wigs and about cancer... i will remember the days we shared a room with 25 plus girls in spokane ... i will remember the days before our surgeries when we cried together and laughed as well at all the various indignities associated with them...i'll remember her tiny sturdy and strong body full of energy as she put together mission trip packets late into the night... i'll remember the haven and our dear friends who were a part of the prayers, study and fellowship that was our haven...i will remember her desire for us all to know the goodness of God... i will remember her joy as erin and tim and tim and chie moved home ...i'll remember her love for chris... i'll remember that someday we were going to africa... i will remember that she and rich loved to watch survivor with sue and duane and that she loved us all so much... i will rage and cry and wonder why ellen ...why not someone else someone i didn't love and then i will remember these words ...."Look, God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! they're his people, he's their God he'll wipe every tear from their eyes. death is gone for good-tears gone, crying gone, pain gone-all the first order of things gone " [rev 21] and i will know that ellen is there in the place of glory with no pain... no tears... no death and i will know comfort
if there is anything i can say in the face of this sadness it is to laugh and to love and to show hope in the midst of hopelessness... ellen would have... will we? and be sure to wear a yellow wig when you do

i wrote this a number of months ago when my friend ellen died ...once again the words of faith are double edged [?] one side says they are true and the other says show me

i found this while reading through a web site about women's talking circles and liked it thus the desire to share

Take Time
Take time to live-
It is what life is for;
Take time for justice-
It is the beginning of peace;
Take time to look afresh-
It will fill you with surprises;
Take time to search-
It is the secret of perpetual youth;
Take time to laugh-
It is music to the soul;
Take time to pray-
It is the greatest power on earth;
Take time for solitude-
It revives the spirit;
Take time with the earth-
It speaks of harmony and balance;
Take time at home-
It renews the heart;
Take time to sow-
It gives perspective on life;
Take time to reap-
It brings gratitude;
Take time to heal-
It is full of hope;
Take time to love-
It is the reason for living.

unknown poet

cancer

today i read the prayer requests from my old home church...i wonder why i continue to do that.... i think because i have become a betwixt and between christian searching for a home uncomfortable in the past wistful in the present and hopeful for the future looking around the corner for a place to set my faith and my body down but still pondering those i left behind knowing their faces, their need, the strength or weakess of their faith....even as i walk out the door i take with me their images and so when i read of the progress of leanne's cancer i remember her face doing her daughter's wedding flowers, cutting ivy and chatting... now i wonder how has cancer made its home in her... i pause for a moment and pray for her life... for the life of her family remembering how she prayed for me though we were not terribly close... so is this the church/ the body so to speak... the compilation of encounters, of relationships which coax Jesus out of us? do these encounters lead us to a deeper understanding of who Jesus might be? so then i think of ellen and the loss of someone so dear someone who shared with me a time of cancer and made it a time with jesus as well some of her last words to me were i don't know how to do this dying thing very well and then she was gone i have had a hard time really believing our time to gether as fellow cancer people was a time of Jesus [to say it that way seems so christianese-y and not authentic...was there even cancer when he lived here?] but then i think of all the images of our friendship and i see that however we see jesus now it has to be through and with these people we love and as i weep for her and so many others i have watched as they suffer i remember jesus wept as well lest these thoughts seem too insipid the struggle to feel the truth of those words is immense the mystery of my faith that jesus also wept is only part of the mystery of why i really believe that Jesus was here there is that funny word anthropomorphic...do i assign qualities to Jesus he may never have had? the definition states that anthropomorphic is derived from 2 greek words anthropos meaning human and morphe meaning shape or form and then there's that spot in phillipians 2 where paul says Jesus took on human likeness and so when i look at the face of ellen and of leanne and of all those who suffer am i seeing the human shape and form of jesus again?

madeleine

madeleine deirdre... my lovely daughter... the last of our children graduated from high school today... after a number of years of struggle, depression and sadness, finally, maddie was given this gift... the knowledge she persevered and reached a place of celebration...a spot that was good. throughout her life as a family we have encountered many difficult times ... as i reflect on her experiences within our family [cancer, death, job loss were just a few] i find myself drawn to wondering how to 'be with' another in suffering and in the sadness of their story i know that with madeleine the terror of what was happening sometimes caused all of us to leave her behind thinking as we did that she was too young to absorb such grief not knowing that as we grieved she was soaking up our sorrow.
so i wonder... as we are partners with others in their grief what is it we might miss? do we miss their physical needs as we turn our attentions to the words spoken...do we forget them as we consider the grave nature of what is happening...do we miss those sitting on the edges of grief not sure of what to do... how can we be mindful of our own need to grieve and still not lose madeleine...
i wrote this some time ago as i was meditating on my beautiful madeleine at the time of her graduation...i see now how she has been refining herself and her world to include sorrow but also joy and determination and conversation in a way that is so uniquely hers

warm-up

hmmm today for some odd reason i decided it was a good time to look into the blog thing. i spend a good deal of time wandering in my mind, thinking of , dreaming about, talking to a gallon or so of different thoughts. every day i promise myself the writer will emerge. and then i make a right turn into picking up the house or meeting a friend or lying on the couch, gardening, reading one of the many books i read simultaneously, or searching the web for gems like charis' nose drip story. so i choose today to take my non-punctuating, never capitalizing self to the blog. will a self conscious freeze come over my brain will i take the leap allowing words to spill out boldly that remains to be seen i am just warming up