dancing in the minefields

I see you, the way you curl your knees toward your chest and clench your elbows to your sides. I wonder, as I watch from under my eyelashes, if you were just told too many times when you were little to keep your hands to yourself, or if you spent too much time in middle school tripping and crashing into things with your new height, or if you are so unconsciously conscious of some flaw that you spend your physical energy trying to hide everything about yourself.

You aren't always like this. What is it that makes you try to fold all your limbs into your body, drop your eyes, bow your head?

I wish I knew.

I feel something stir in my heart, and I want, more than anything, to rise from my seat and raise my arms and twirl and spin and take your hand. I wish I could pull you to your feet and help you spread your limbs as wide as mine, and let the rhythm of the music pull us away from this place where we're afraid. I ache to let my spirit unfold in the center of my chest, to let it breathe and expand to touch your spirit, to let them soar and weave together.

What are we so afraid of? Is it the dance, the arms-wide vulnerability, the possibility of being seen?

I think so.

the season of bright sadness

When, two or three years ago, I first started "doing Lent," it was quite poorly done. I was actually fasting just to prove I could. And, secretly, I hoped to make God like me more, to impress Him with my own piousness, attract His eye, and hold His ear close to my prayers.

I've been learning, slowly, that fasting doesn't work like that. It's not a gimmick to attract attention, nor a simple exercise in self-discipline. So what is it? What does it mean? And why do I desire to practice it, since I know that there is nothing I can do to attract the favor of an impartial God?

I've struggled through this over the past few years, gone through stages where I flatly refused to fast at all because I was pretending not to be prideful. Obviously, that was a rather strong backlash, and not biblical either.

Perhaps the best explanation of fasting I've found is, not surprisingly, given by God Himself.
On the day of your fasting, He accuses His people, you do as you please [. . .] You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?
Clearly not. However, God proceeds to explain exactly what He requires of fast-ers. Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

I hate self-denial, really strongly hate it, and I am really really bad at it. But if fasting gives me more time . . . or energy . . . or new perspective . . . and gives me extra space to pursue God's presence and implement His will in my own heart and in the world around me, then yes. I'll do it.

Last Sunday, our priest spoke on fasting, in preparation for the Lenten season. The crux of what he shared was this. Fasting is denying ourselves so we can more clearly hear the voice of God, putting aside an activity or object temporarily to make specific space for our hearts to be quiet and listen to the Spirit, refraining from a legitimate pleasure in order to gain the superior pleasure of the presence of the LORD.

In short, giving up the good for the best.

So, whether you observe Lent (February 22-April 8 this year) or not, whether you give up Facebook or meat or plastic or smoking or sweets or bathing on Fridays (please don't), whether you practice weekly meal-fasts or not, whether you are involved in a liturgical denomination or not, here is to a life of fasting--to living as people who defy injustice, who reach out to the needy and oppressed, who do whatever it takes to hear the voice of God, who change the world.

Good Lent.

boushk

They are three, one each with her hand on my knee, one with her hand pressed underneath my right shoulderblade. They are praying for me, strong prayers, standing up because I cannot, and like the first time, I am crying, tears trailing down my cheeks and onto my jeans.

Then she is speaking to me, her hand tightening on my knee, and she is telling me renounce it, tell it yourself. And I open my mouth and try to speak and I am shaking, shaking harder than I have ever shaken in my life and I am afraid. I am afraid of what I know I need to say, I am afraid I will sound foolish, I am afraid I am wrong, I am afraid to never be good enough, I am afraid I cannot breathe.

The hand on my shoulderblade presses harder, and the voice beside my ear is whispering words I don't understand straight to God, and I am still shaking, but I am breathing and I am speaking, and I tell it leave now, you have no place, I am bought with His blood.

And I stop shaking, but I am still crying, and they step in where I fall off and they pray until I stop weeping. Then she says, to me again, talk to Him now, tell Him you know it was wrong.

So I do and it is nearly harder than the first thing. I am not shaking, not with the same violence of sobs and breathlessness, but I have nothing to say, no words that are enough to speak to His glorious face. I manage to open my mouth, to let my heart speak its remorse and its worship, and I don't know what exactly I say but I do know that suddenly . . .

I am not afraid.

The full moon over snow
      is a better prayer
   that I could compose
          over the span of eternity.

on silence

  sometimes

     life is more beautiful when it is kept out of print

                                             and tucked deep into hearts.

You see

There is a wild beauty to the names of God given Him by primitive tongues. When He met Hagar in the desert, and promised her that her son would not only survive, but thrive, what was it that so amazed her?

It wasn't the promise. It wasn't the meeting. It was something completely surprising.

He sees me. So floored by this, she called Him a name to reflect such awe.

L'chai Ro'i--the God Who sees.

No one told Hagar what to expect, or how God worked "in our time." Presumably, she wasn't deemed worthy of religious instruction. So when she encountered God, she was not disappointed, nor suspicious.

She was, however, exceptionally amazed.

He sees me.

In that one phrase, she cried a beautiful declaration of faith, of awe, of hope.

You are the God Who sees me.


May this be our cry.

blue eyes

With him, I feel . . .
           no comparison.

  This is why
      I so naturally fell into being around him,
why his presence is so easy and freeing.

      With him,
   I can smile,
              and laugh,
         and be serious,
              and be like other people,
           and be distinctly unlike other people;

 and his gaze,
      leveled on my face,
                   doesn't change.

His eyes are the same brilliant clear blue,
           no matter what I do . . .
                                  or don't do.

O'Halloran

His wife is in a home, he tells me, though he's told me before. Yes, she's in a home, and they take real good care of her. Oh, yes, he visits, every day at least once. She's getting used to it, someone else tending her, and they're learning what she needs and wants. But yes--yes, he misses her. Maybe he'll make arrangements, bring her back home. It was just too hard, being with her all the time, night and day, no time to really rest.

He tells me this, talking fast, eyes flickering away from mine, and I understand suddenly.

He needs me to tell him it's okay. He needs me to say that no one else is angry at him, not like he's angry at himself. He needs to know that he hasn't failed in letting her go to live somewhere else. He needs to know that it really and truly is all right for him to need help.

I cannot do that for him, cannot convince his aching heart of the truth. So I listen, and nod, and cluck with sympathy, and murmur how I'm praying for them both. But I know that next time, his eyes will flicker the same way, and he'll tell me the same story.

Yes, she's in a home.

not very fine

Wine eyes
   are disorganized,
 scattered,
        sort of frenetic,
     yet somehow molasses-slow.
But they are happy, happier than you can see from the outside.

Wine heart
        is tired,
    a little achy,
  scattered,
jumping from emotion to emotion.
But it is full, so very full.
    And grateful.

men like trees

Behind me I can hear him coughing, and it is breaking my heart. "No!" I want to shriek. "I want him to be healed, I want that to be gone! I want there to be magic, miracles!" Gone is my suspicion of prayer-healing, gone is my cynicism toward living whole lives. Instead, I find myself grieved and shaken, wondering what and why God is doing. Why hold out healing, I wonder, only to draw it back?

I don't know. But I do know I would rather have the growing questions about why God's working as He is, than the blank flat droning belief that He does not deal at all in miracles.

knit your hearts together

You sit, quiet in your corner, feet crossed through the back of an empty chair, head down and eyes quiet as you concentrate on your work. He's flitting around the room, laughing, smiling, hosting well. Then he comes, pauses, and sits in the chair in front of you. He sees you, though, for he puts both hands behind his back and cups your bare feet, gentle in the curve of his fingers. I try not to let my eyes linger, but it is such a lovely sweet gesture that I glance again. Maybe you see my gaze catch, because you twitch your toes, uncross your feet, withdraw. And he is left sitting, hands awkward and empty, and I imagine his shoulders droop just a fraction of an inch.

It makes me angry, truly it does. I want to go to you, make you put your feet back into his hands, or better yet, lean forward and clasp his hands in your own. I want to shake you by the shoulders, tell you, "Don't you know what you have?" I want to lean down and whisper in your ear, "Never be ashamed that a good man loves you."

But I cannot do or say any of those things, and with regret, I know that moment of quietness and beauty is gone, and somehow, my heart and throat ache over its quickness.

Don't you know how many girls would die to be loved by a man who would cradle their bare feet in his hands?

Don't you ever take that for granted.

the color of God's eyes

And there will always come the moments
     of dreadful introspection,
                of fear,
           of sure despair.

But sure as the morning,
         definite as the seasons,
    positive as the rain,
 Your love falls,
       cleanses away the comparisons,
     caresses away the weeping,
               cradles the brokenhearted cries.

So when the moments of darkness come,
      I will tip my face to the light,
    and I will clench my hands and refuse to loosen my grip,
 and I will be persistent as the women You marveled at.

And just maybe, as I petition and hound and refuse to give You peace,
                        You'll answer,
             break through the clouds and loose Your vengeance on my enemies.

Or maybe, just maybe, the heavens will remain closed,
       my tears will remain thick and hot on my face,
   and Your voice will remain unheard.

But I know You are there.
    I have tasted, and I cannot be deceived again.

Oh, give me the strength to cling to Your silence
      as stubbornly as I do to Your words.

not given a spirit of fear

Courage is doing something again, despite the disaster of the first try.
Grace is making it look beautiful.
Hope is expecting a better outcome without any solid reason.
And love is doing it purely for the good of another.

volunteerspeak

We speak a tongue you will never understand, with words you've never heard before tossed in for good measure. We've married Hebrew, English, Russian, Spanish, German, Polish, Arabic, and Swedish in a roaring polygamous ceremony; and we won't apologize, not at all. We abuse all languages liberally, making messy Hebrew plurals out of English nouns, Russian verbaging any word we please, remembering the correct English word by hearing it in Spanish first, making good use of the delightfully serious German specificity, lending strict and beautiful Polish pronunciation to everything.

It's only two of us in the office, but combined we possess four different languages. He sneezes (in Spanish, I presume) and I bless him in Spanish, and he thanks me in English. Without thinking, I answer in Hebrew, and it is only then that we realize what we have done, and he looks at me and asks if I, a child of English, really just said what he heard, and I read his eye crinkles and we laugh for just a moment while we load our baskets.

But really, my heart is breaking, because I know that this time is short, that my days immersed in this pidgin are numbered, that soon I will leave, and there will be only one language to use.

And much as I love my mother tongue, I know it will be flat and boring and colorless after the shimmering vibrant tumult that is conversation here.

blistering wickedness

Slash it open, let the infection and filth drain away in a painful flood.

Cleanse it, let the sting of purification overpower everything else.

Cauterize it, let the burning agony sear and seal, keeping at bay a relapse.

And keep it, let goodness and wellness and wholeness invade, leaving no room for reinfection.


Oh, God, let it be.