Delights
Blue lines, green flecks, red numbers, black names. How I love pulling out my road atlas, poring over the places I've been and picking out new places to go--there's something about a map that just blasts the universe wide open for me. The world is my playpen now. I can go to
any place in this whole book.
"So, what next?"
I say. "This summer, I'm going to Lynden," I inform myself. Ok, Elaine, how do you want to get there? Well, Elaine, maybe I'll take the interstates most of the way. Real quicklike, you know. Or, maybe I'll jaunt down through Yellowstone on a scenic detour. Backroads, then. This one. I betcha it winds through the most gorgeous mountains ever.
Or maybe I'll ask Dad which route we took last time. . .
All the memories flood back from other roadtrips. All the nodding donkeys, the truckstops, the rest areas where we lost a baseball mitt, the infamous place where somebody soiled his
onderbroekjes -- my road atlas impishly assures me that these places are still real, still there, still perhaps waiting for me to come back.
And probably I will. I know how to get there. Where there's a will, there's a map.
दविड़ यू अरे फुन्न्य। ई लिके यू अल थे मोरे व्हें यू राइट मे सेक्रेत मेस्सगेस।
एलैने
Tied, Stamped
God, I’m running away.
You mustn’t come along, this is for me.
Got my bags packed and everything,
Everything I need to brave the
Wilderness.
A couple books, the ones I always read--
Well, not Yours, right,
You know,
Because if I’m running away,
then I don’t need it quite so much, right?
But I might slip it in, if it fits, later
Because I know the words, you know.
I like how they fit on my tongue.
No promises, though, God. It might not
Fit in.
Food too, PopTarts.
Daily bread, I guess; but I bought it myself.
And juice too, for my vitamins--
Orange juice, I was thinking at first, but
I got the grape juice.
It was on sale.
But, mind you, don’t take it serious now.
It doesn’t mean anything.
I’m bringing music along too
Maybe when I come back
I’ll show you the songs;
You might like them.
Probably you’ve heard them before anyway.
But I have some other ones too,
Songs that you can’t hear.
That’s why I’m running away,
So I can have those songs,
And other things too.
See, that’s the thing here:
Can’t you just imagine the places I’ll go,
The things I’ll do, the people I’ll see,
Without the leash of my baptism
Holding me back?
But I’ll tell you about it all
When I come back,
Honest, I will.
But see, God, I’m not a deserter, am I?
Like the ones in the Civil War,
And they’d shoot them right off . . .
It’s not like that, right?
Suppose I come back.
I have to;
You know.
So I can tell you everything,
That’s what we do, remember?
Remember how I tell you everything?
So I will come back, if you’ll have me.
Could you, though, could you,
Maybe,
Maybe just keep an eye on things
And yank on my heart,
Or whatever you do,
Give it a tug
When it gets dangerous
Out in the wilderness?
Thanks, God.
Take care, hey.
Oh.
I’m back again.
I forgot that
You have my passport.
No, no, keep it.
I think I’ll stay here after all.
Am I hungry?
Oh, well rather.
You too?
As a matter of fact,
I’ve got some right here.
But the PopTarts are broken . . .
Is that ok?
And the juice kinda leaked . . .
Delights
You cannot say,
"Tonight, I will write a poem."
Well, sir, tonight, I will write.
Always I see things,
And always I hear things,
But only sometimes I pin them down,
Bundle them into words,
Into splendid words,
Words like. . .
Like, Grin!
or, peanut butter M&Ms!
or, the liquid velvet of French horns,
Dripping like golden chocolate,
Oozing like caramel--
Caramel
cuivre?
No, rather more like
Toffee
cuivre,
Or hazelnut coffee
cuivre--
A kick, eyebrows startled into jumping,
A brassified bray,
Wedging itself through the smoothness.
Also I snag myself on BIG words, words about being BIG:
Capacious,
Majestic,
Southview living space!
Dizzying churning clouds,
Eighteen rumbling tubas,
The tuning epicenter,
sending the grumbling tone across--
A dull roar flaming into shrill sparks, almost.
Tripping words, snickering words,
Joyous ones, crinkling into smiles,
Gurgling into laughter
A little too quick, perhaps,
And spewing soda or peanut fragments
Into the smiling air around us,
Wiggling words,
Or dancing ones too:
Jumping and leaping
And praising God
My heart is about to burstMy head is about to pop, andNow that I'm dancing,Who cares if I ever stop?
They Cut Off Their Hands
"Long sleeves or short?" they leered. And then they hacked away.
I watched
Blood Diamonds tonight, and my mind got stuck on a few gut-wrenching images. Cutting off hands was the main one.
I do that a lot; get stuck on things and can't let go. It happens with Bible passages, or songs, or lines of poetry, or even a person. Tonight my mind clings to hands. I used to have nightmares about losing my hands; that and losing my younger brother in a housefire. But that's a different story.
My hands are my life--no surprise there, hey; I don't suppose there are too many people who consider their hands expendable. Hands are for playing piano, for writing, for painting, for playing basketball, for holding kids, for petting animals, for wiping away tears, for combing my little sister's hair, for cooking, for praying. . .
Maybe you can pray without your hands; maybe I can too. But there's something about curling up in a ball, with my knees tucked in close to my battered and wrung-out soul, as close as they can possibly get, with my head buried deep into my tear-stained sweatshirt, and my trembling arms binding the whole miserable package together, buckled finally by clenched, white-knuckled hands; a repentant, or angry, or helpless, or floundering, or bitterly disappointed soul pleading with the Lord of heaven an earth -- it's times like these when I need my hands, or I fall apart.
I remember too, His hands, the ones riven by nails, and it's because of those iron pegs that I can stagger to the throne of grace and drop my burdens there.
Good question
Pilate had all the right questions, didn't he:
"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" What indeed?
Later, in John's gospel, Pilate wonders,
"What is truth?" And Jesus doesn't even answer.
Silence.
He IS the answer, of course;
he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
But Jesus doesn't tell Pilate that.
Cross
On my chest this Friday afternoon,
the elegant small signature
of violent death
swings as I walk, gold tapping my
deep heart, telling me I was there.
(I did not mean to do it; I did
not know.) I slump under the weight
of it; my pulse
echoes the beat of hammers.
--Luci Shaw
English Majors in the Bible
Honest, they're there. Otherwise, we wouldn't have King David jubilating [yes, I made that up]
"My heart is stirred by a noble theme
as I recite my verses for the king;
My tongue is the pen of a skillful writer . . ." Ps 45:1
Last night I went sky-watching, and today I went painting. I do realize that painting is not something that you can "went, " but I did it anyway, and ended up with the only motif I could think of:
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory!
[Zap, sizzle, flare, illuminate, blinding us from backlit clouds] [That's lightning; that's glory.]
We didn't have thunder last night, but don't you love it when you can feel the thunder,
feel it thudding in your soul,
wringing out every ounce of awe from your
nephesh, your heart, your throat, your entire being . . .
oh, it's indescribable, but I did the best I could.
