Sighting Blessings

If I’m very good (which can be very, very hard for me) and if I’m very, very patient (which also can be very, very hard for me) and if I look very, very closely in the right direction, sometimes I can get a glimpse of the most amazing life. True blessedness comes, not in what counts as gained, but in the Intimacy and Truest Love known only in the solitude of the heart.

Creator of all Life:
One-by-one every family we know breathes whispers in clandestine tones….

It happened to us…
     to our parents,
     grandparents,
     aunts and uncles,
     to a sister and her husband,
     brother and sister-in-law,
     to our best friends….


Four times in a row
     before the baby came
          once, before
     We even knew…

Three times
     over six years
          and then children
     healthy and perfect.


To our relief,
     the dare-not-breathed
          horrors
          of
          never 
          at all 
               hang 
                    palpably
                         between the words
                                                                of but a scant few.

We just keep breathing
      in and out
     in the darkness
          of the deep void
     that has consumed us.

Breath is the life you give.
     You’ve been there all along…

Breathing for us…
     when we could not remember to do it for ourselves,
          holding us from the beginning,
          as we are holding each other, now, in invisible bonds.

We won’t feel this way
     always.

Everything that is,
     you created
          out of the deep darkness
               of the void.

You do no less for we who you created good:

Call us out of our shapeless places of endless darkness…

Help us find new form and shape for our living
     in this void
     that has stolen the shape
     from our lives.

Bring light to our darkness, O Creator of all.

Call us out of the water of our tears, bring us to dry land.

Carry us from this shapeless time, into new fruitfulness for our living.

Assure in our darkest nights…
     that dawn and its daylight will always follow.

When the water of our tears
     do overcome,
          console
          that they team
     with the potential for new life.

Bring forth from us new life for the living of our days.

Lift us gently,
     compassionate Creator.
    
 Take us softly
     in your arms
          and
          breathe
          tenderly
     into each of us
          your
          breath of life.
               Amen.

The prayer above was written to conclude the 2009 Annual Candlelight Memorial Service in memory of children dead to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, being born still or who died within a few days of their birth. I was privileged this year to be the organizer and to once again light candles and speak publicly the names of my own Dear Little Ones, Alice, Claire and Elizabeth. They continue, by God’s good grace, to bless me in so many amazing ways.



Some may recognize the inspiration I found in Rachel Barenblat's poem "Community" published in, THROUGH (miscarriage poems), the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, and Pierre Wolff's, May I Hate God. (Links are provided, just run your cursor over.)

Late Summer Prayer

A fall breeze
leaves blowing across
the gravel
~ lao xian

May we offer in prayer this week
late summer’s gifts. May we open
our hearts there to the blessings
of what has been, seek the hope
of what will come and entrust the
living of our days to the coming
Breeze of Fall.
Amen.

Listening for Joy

After reading two of the postings from this site
at our local Writers Workshop on Wednesday
(my first time reading—an experience not for the faint of heart),
a wise member—
with several books published in English and in Hebrew!— challenged me to write about joy the next time I present.
So much of my life and work is engaged looking for hope
in the most tragic of life circumstances,
I do forget about joy.
He is correct.
He is also consistent
with wise Spiritual Director,
only the week before
asking me to listen more closely
to God’s blessings.

Both these statements blessing in themselves.

Reminding me of Paul: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about theses things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9).

Always a good antidote for an ailing soul.

Listening closely for the antidote I found this poem by Gerald Locklin in an anthology compiled by Garrison Keillor, Good Poems for Hard Times, commended to me on Thursday by another wise man. When I read it this morning I knew my life was changed forever.

Three wise men and a changed life and its still 123 days until Christmas.

No Longer A Teenager

my daughter, who turns twenty tomorrow,
has become truly independent.
she doesn't need her father to help her
deal with the bureaucracies of schools,
hmo's, insurance, the dmv.
she is quite capable of handling
landlords, bosses, and auto repair shops.
also boyfriends and roommates.
and her mother.

frankly it's been a big relief.
the teenage years were often stressful.
sometimes, though, i feel a little useless.

but when she drove down from northern California
to visit us for a couple of days,
she came through the door with the

biggest, warmest hug in the world for me.
and when we all went out for lunch,
she said, affecting a little girl's voice,
"i'm going to sit next to my daddy,"
and she did, and slid over close to me
so i could put my arm around her shoulder
until the food arrived.

i've been keeping busy since she's been gone,
mainly with my teaching and writing,
a little travel connected with both,
but i realized now how long it had been
since i had felt deep emotion.

when she left i said, simply,
"i love you,"
and she replied, quietly,
"i love you too."
you know it isn't always easy for
a twenty-year-old to say that;
it isn't always easy for a father.

literature and opera are full of
characters who die for love:
i stay alive for her.

Despair's Beatitude

Despair has a red shopping cart palled by two old winter parkas as soiled and oily as her hair. They guard sad mysteries of a life cut short long before its time. What of this life lost does she guard so well from prying eyes of voyeur lives which pray they don’t convert?

She sits silently in the shade behind a big box book store; matted dark hair veils a face bowed in contemplation—will drained of willingness—before the alter of a life no soul should ever know.

Before her, sail SUVs and foreign luxury cars natant on the asphalt sea ferrying pilgrims of other faiths, they worship here as well. They come for the liturgy of the latest word or to offer praise—the hottest songs; partaking of the sacred meal, drinking venti, with an extra shot, and eating the most luscious foods that no body will sustain.

Despair has only a few stubby teeth, vacant black eyes, light brown skin weathered and pockmarked; vigilant bulwark enduring life’s most violent storms. A stained and faded green tank top and short-shorts of indeterminate grey offer little relief from burning sun or biting bugs. Despair sits in the cool shadow of the big box cathedral’s shade, supplicant to this livings most unwilling and faithless faith. From beyond her sanctuary taunt big box temples to a life from which she’s been cast adrift.

Sailing past in my old scow, before the anchorage of her despair, I am as any worshiper of that other faith. Yet, from her icon faith calls, I know its strength and depth and beauty full too well. I must stop and worship here, some outward and visible sign of the will to will life’s willingness rescued from her faith’s steep decline.

Of another faith, Jesus speaks to me:
The blessings of your impoverished spirit—the grace to see this icon of despair, recognizing there the promises of God.
The blessing of your life time mourned—the grace to offer comfort here.
The blessing of your powerlessness—the grace to see in her the birthright that you share.
The blessing of your unwilling soul—that hungers and thirsts for what it dare not know is grace to offer that which fills.
The blessing of the grace of mercy in your heart—the grace to do what Mercy wills.
The blessing of God’s pure heart upon your own—to see beyond the s-oily rags to where you share with her God’s common heart.
What peace you share is from God’s own heart—God’s daughters recognize their own.
In the darkest suffering and deepest griefs, palled by the illusion of their prevail, you are surely joined with her in hidden deeper parts—longing for the safe shelter of your Father’s home. Amen.