write/right on me

I find it easier to write things than to say things. I think I sometimes hide behind printed words. My actual printing, the writing of my hand, is scribbled and nearly illegible. Sometimes when I write out a thought and go back to read it, it feels foreign and distant to me.

I imagine. I escape away inside to a place unreachable. It's not often light there.

One thing keeps me grounded when life becomes too real for me: thoughts of you.  (My eyes have well-up with tears and the world has just now become literally blurry, a manifestation of what is often only inside.)

I don't know you but I know you. I've never met you but I never leave you.

As I sit bedside to patients who have nothing - no one to visit them, no home to go to - the emptiness inside myself identifies. I worry. You're too good for me. This I know.

How do I earn you? How do I not harm you? How do I leave you better off because of me?

I don't need ink on skin to mark me as yours. I have been yours forever. You are written all the way through me. When I am buried and long in the ground and dissolve back into the earth, you'll still be written on me.

The hand of God wrote on me "right for you."

Through every cell, every sphere, and all dimensions are the words, "Mine."

Ours is love; I wait for you.

the math of wrong

 

I think of myself as a moderate liberal. I also believe in God the Father and his one and only son Jesus Christ. Some think those two beliefs contradict each other. I guess I have to live it out daily making it work to prove it's possible.

Abortion. It's a word that creates an impact. Some make abortion a political issue or a "feminist rights" issue. There is a part of me that can see a small measure of validity in that. I remember a news story about a woman getting treatment in a hospital which had a Catholic affiliation. She was married, had other children, and was pregnant. There were complications with the current pregnancy that put her life at risk. A panel was going to decide if an abortion would be allowed. A panel. That's just wrong to me. Should strangers be allowed to dictate that decision for her or for any woman in that situation?

There are those that want to frame the issue of abortion in black and white terms but does life always offer such stark clarity? Or at the end of all my excuses and philosophical questions regarding abortion does there lay the desire to extend myself the chance for leeway and opportunity for moral exemption? We all like to think we are above a certain situation until we ourselves get there.

I once thought this way about abortion: don't do the "crime" if you aren't willing to do the time. If you are willing to have sex than you have to be just as willing to accept the consequences of that action. There is still some truth in that thought.

I also once thought that abortion was acceptable because I thought the pains of life outweighed its miraculous beautiful significance. The thought in my head was, "Better not to live at all than to know great terrible pain and suffering." I had yet to know that great terrible pain and suffering is worth it. Our knowledge at any moment in time is so limited/short-sighted/and too often just wrong; it's terrifying how many decisions we make on the little we know.

We like to think we as a species are evolving, but I think all we really have done is gotten creative about hiding our selfishness with fancier words. We give a shimmering patina to our corruption and call it acceptable. We are famous for self-justification; when we do something that's wrong we say "It was the lesser of two evils." We forget too easily that our sole ability to discern good and evil is severely limited and we in our pride refuse to seek The Creators Way. Two wrongs don't make a right - a wrongful action is not a morally appropriate way to correct or cancel a previous wrongful action.

To those who make abortion the only political issue they care about I add a wrinkle. Even if the law is changed and abortion made illegal it won't stop it. A law doesn't have the power to change the heart, if it did, Jesus wouldn't have had to die. We don't need legislation: we need revelation.

random thoughts on hospitality

This isn't a virtual rule just a random thought. I wish the American culture had more cultural customs, specifically those regarding hospitality and community. I am a fan of the show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and one reason I enjoy watching is it gives a glimpse of what life is like in other cultures. I think we here lack a lot of really sincere basic customs that make a society stronger.

When I am invited into another's home I always try to bring something. It doesn't have to be big or fancy, usually it's small and simple, but I like bringing something. I don't know why I'm like that. I don't really come from a family of big entertainers. I really only remember one time my mom having people over when I was young and big holiday hooplas with distant family also were rare.

Maybe my bringing something to the places I go is my way of recognizing the efforts of the host even if they don't see it as effort. I really appreciate the gathering together of individuals; the many becoming one. I appreciate coming together in a specific space at a definite moment in time. It's significant, the time we spend together.

So whether its a $5 bottle of wine or loaf of marble rye (remember Seinfeld) I will continue to make gestures of a sincerely thankful heart. xo

willpower not needed

Have you ever texted someone when you knew deep inside that you shouldn't?

If I was a technology genius I would invent a way to put a lock on a cell phone contact so you can't text them. The lock would last at the very least 24-hours all the way to a month if necessary. This would be good because there would be no way out of it, once a contact is locked there is no going back; constant consistent willpower would not be needed.

I recently deleted a contact to keep from texting them. I wrote the number down on a notebook and hit delete. I have several reasons for this but lets chalk it up to a measure of self-awareness. For me it's better for a temptation to be eliminated all together than for me to try and trust myself not to cave.

I feel good about this so get on it Verizon. Create this feature and help save us from our most often worst enemy: ourselves.

psalm unnumbered - get back

psalm unnumbered

get back

How do I get back to who I was before?

How do I get back what I foolishly gave away? The contents no longer fit the case. It's like going on a trip and losing half your belongings. So empty, so wrongly light it's heavy. The weight of the missing.

I believed in good things once. It was hard even then to believe in good things. Rain had fallen steadily and rays of rare sun brought stark beams of light lacking warmth.

Never before did I truly comprehend my naivety. I thought I understood so much more than I really did. So quick was I to proclaim the actions of others as pure folly while I thus far had been exempt from such situations. I want to scream "Hypocrite!" at the girl encased in time on a sheet of shiny paper all pixels and sheen, but she is so happy, I don't have the heart. She wouldn't believe me anyway, such is the curse and joy of youth.

I am unsure of almost everything now.

What's important to me, so often seems unnoticed by others. I get hung-up on the trivial, the tiny. Or is that just the theater we all are stuck playing? Are we called by some offstage director to ignore what we really feel? Do we all ignore the elephant in the room? Are we forced to feign marvel at fleeting wisps of sideshow amusements? Are we sometimes the sideshow-the freak show-in this circus called life?

Did I love the dream more than the reality? Was I not seeing clearly?

I remember asking out loud right there in the moment if it was real? God, if you have to ask, there's your answer or at least a giant clue.

How do I get back joyous hope when its flame was so small to begin with (is that more of a question or a statement?)

I want hearts and flowers and sprinkles. I want the white snow of winter not to be cold. I want to warm and be warmed. Despite all-or even perhaps because of it-I want my life to truly, purely, beautifully matter. It doesn't have to be to the masses, just one will do. I can't force it. I can't make it. But as I live my one and only life, I hope when I take time to notice, all my hopes have happen.

What is it you look for?

It’s an important question. Our generation thinks wondrous things just appear and are ours by right. We have no appreciation that every breath moves us away from one thing and towards another. How we spend our time is not incidental. We look for many things - the shortcut, the timesaver, the fastest lane, that one person at the party, the wittiest thing to say, the most random observation, the lastest must-have app. We look for something to ease the pain, to end the loneliness, to kill the time.

We all are looking for something. What is it you look for?

an all new alive

Again I discover another part of life and it undoes all I thought I once knew. Again I face the truth how little I know of life and believe I will say that even if I live to be old. We are shown constantly the wonderful possibilities life has to offer but we're often too often blind to see them. We go so fast through life with a legion of distractions that we can't see all the wonder that surrounds us and makes life worth living. Or maybe we are just not ready to appreciate things the moment we seem, maybe we need the perspective time passing can give us.

If we would but stop and look, we would be astounded at the love all around us. All kinds of love. There is the love of parent for child which you can see as they bundle them up before facing the bitter cold and as they take their smaller hand in theirs to cross the street. There is the love of burning passion you can see in among two young lovers kissing in the stationary section of Barnes&Noble or holding hands at Starbucks. There is the love of time between a man holding his wife's hand in the oncology ward as the IV solution drips on. There is the love of friendship among those who seek to understand and listen without judgement. There is much love. It is everywhere. It's all around us in the darkest of spaces in the most unlikely of places - it is there. And we get to contribute to it. We get to add love to this world in a myriad of different way. The possibilities of the New Year, the new day - they are endless. ox