Wakefulness

I don’t usually deal with wakefulness.
Something is stirring now, though,
And I wake after four hours, or six,
And I find myself wondering what’s up
In the heavenlies,
On earth,
As the year
Runs out.

Accumulated Failures

When my oldest was born,
I assumed I would make sure he
Memorized much scripture,
Prayed diligently for the lost,
Maybe even evangelized some.

Life happened.

I read today about two children who prayed
Every day
For a missionary and five villages
Who had yet to respond to the gospel.

Only five years later,
Those villages were transformed.

It took us five years just to build a house.

Maybe I have an idea for a New Year’s
Resolution.

Being Known

To be known means that
When something happens to you,
Others know the significance
Because they know your story.

So when my friend said,
“I would take that guy’s life,”
That meant, in part, that any future
Singleness

Did not have to mean desolation and defeat,
But faithfulness and usefulness—
Life suffused with the goodness of God
And the fellowship of the saints.

Temporary

When the boys are all in bed,
I start to feel a little twitchy
For some transcendence
Or at least a little creativity.

So I might read a poem,
Or I might write a poem,
Until my soul is mollified
For one day more.

Pinochle Neophyte

When Grandpa explained that
A king and queen was a marriage,
Jadon asked if a jack and king was

A bachelor party.

Hashtag for the Year

I used to ask for a word for the year,
A simple summary of where a person has been.

Perhaps a hashtag is a better request,
Offering a medium for a few words.

Not everyone has a good year.
And there is space for sigh, for enigma.

But what joy for #released, #affirmation,
#thankfulrestoration, #mypeople.

God is at work, and we celebrate
How he was at work this year.

God Tells a Man

Siberian winter,
Pastor in prison,
Wife and children hungry.

God tells a man: go.
Man protests: may die.
God tells the man:
Don’t have to come back.
Just have to go.

Man went.
Wife and children saved.
Man returned
To tell this story.

Success not guaranteed.
Obedience required.

Humbly, I receive this lesson.

First Friday

A friend hosted First Friday parties.
She skipped December and January,
Those holiday months,
And April for tax season, July for the 4th.

But the other eight months,
Church friends and work friends,
Young and old, mingled at her house
Until the wee hours.

A small gathering to anticipate with joy.

Art Defined

Art is exactitude winged by intuition.

I think of exactitude as photorealism,
Not the fantastic mosaics of color
And scrawls of cats of Paul Klee.

And yet his definition charms me,
A combination of precision with
Flight of fancy and inspiration.

I start each poem with a wisp
And wait to see what mind
And fingers create.

Like the Mayo Clinic

A friend from China is here on a work visa.
There, he was a neurosurgeon,
Trained in Shanghai at one of their top five hospitals.
“It would be like the Mayo Clinic.”

Neurosurgery, a discipline so demanding that
A third of the hopefuls quit before graduation.

He came to do research in America,
And finds himself, at forty,
Doing residency in the Bronx,
Working with gunshot wounds and knife wounds.
It is so other, like a third country to dwell in.

Although I am not a neurosurgeon,
I, too, have found myself in an unexpected place
That feels entirely unsuited,
That does not recognize my gifts or my brilliance.

I have wanted someone to widen their eyes
In belated astonishment that I was trained in a place
Like the Mayo Clinic.

Pedagogy

An answer to the common question,
“Why must I learn this?”

Etwas bleibt hangen.

Roughly:
Something remains.
Something sticks.

You will remember but a small fraction
Of all that you learn.
But part remains

And you may yet find it useful
Unexpectedly.

Baptism

Years ago, my mom wondered
Why Jesus needed baptism.

John came, preaching
Baptism of repentance for
The remittance of sins.
Jesus didn’t need that.

Today, an answer, from
The Muslim world.
Baptism offers community,
A family, a place to belong.

“I have come home.”

Unexpected

This year I went to a meeting with a friend,
In pretentious grocery store Wegmans,
Expecting doubt, sin, pain, tears, fear,
Anger, grief, and, eventually,
Prostration.

Instead I found:
Belief, confession, repentance,
Forgiveness, prayer, reconciliation,
Laughter, and, eventually,
Peace.

I had gone expecting the taint of the world.

I returned having witnessed
The transforming power of God.

Memory

All my life people have commented on my memory.
In elementary school, I would astound my parents.
In my majority, friends sometimes warn,
Don’t tell Amy anything unless you want her to ask you
Follow up questions years later.

I don’t intend my memory to be a weapon.

We all wrote memories for our mother.
The other three wrote broad strokes, cheery, funny, sweet.
And mine, though people laughed, were perhaps not so nice.
I hadn’t realized it.

Later, we talked about money memories.
Once I was baby sitting and the children cut my
Toilet paper “cast” off my leg and accidentally cut my stockings.
I remember the horror of the waste in the moment,
Trying to keep the slits hidden from their mother.
And at home, my mother: “Whatever you earned this afternoon
Would hardly cover the price of the stockings.”
My fears were realized. In trying to keep the rowdy children
Occupied, I had failed. All those miserable hours, wasted.

My sister: do you have no nice memories?

The question ricochets in my head.

Are not the most vivid memories the bad ones, for us all?
I know my Dad read to us, and my parents sacrificially paid for school.
I know I had birthday parties and Christmas presents.

But my most vivid memories are the ways that I have failed.
I left my mittens on the city bus my junior year.
My glasses case fell out of my backpack on the plane four years later.
Even writing these failings makes my stomach hurt.

I don’t intend my memory to be a weapon.

But I suppose it is, sometimes turned on others,
And sometimes turned on me.

So Little

A new baby. Heart murmur.
This is where I come in:
Designated sitter
During doctor visit.

Doctor sends to specialist.
This is where I come in,
Offering nothing but pie
And companionship
While the realization sinks
Deep and deeper
That the planned trajectory
Of the immediate future
Has changed.

So little to offer.

Superficial

One book said, “Everyone is broken sexually.”
I don’t know if that is entirely true,
But it sounds reasonable.

And yet it seems to me there is a great distance
Between friendship and the marital embrace.

It’s not enough to say with Paul, “Flee fornication.”
The basic rule is not sufficient:
We also need to put up additional boundaries:
Make sure no one breaks the rule.

Girls, no friends with guys. If you’re dating, fine,
But once married, no more.

And the more superficial, the better.

Elena

Senior year, I’d sleep over at least once a week.
We’d listen to Santana and the Eagles,
Eat tortillas with avocado and salt,
Watch Poirot and Sherlock Holmes movies.
Your Dad would make us laugh.

We’d go to bed and pray
For our friends and our problems.
I loved it.

You created all the time: drawing, painting,
Pottery, poems. (Not knitting, though we tried.)
We built up a collection of inside jokes.
You married on our sixth anniversary.

You remember my birthday every year.
Whenever we talk, we connect.
How rich I am to have such a friend.

Christmas Eve Open House

My sister asked God to bring
The people who would be blessed
To come,
And to keep all from getting stuck.

I think that prayer was answered.

Cheesecake, lemon bars, cupcakes;
Beer, wine, cider, cocoa;
Talk, laugh, card trick, air guns;
Songs: new, old, famous, original,
Birthday.

For those who came and shared
Almost eleven hours of one of my
Favorite days of the year:
Thank you for expanding our family circle.
Thank you for loving us
And letting us love you.

Our hearts are full.

All She Could

I swam year-round in high school,
Practicing next to teens who would
Win scholarships, go undefeated,
Represent their country in the Olympics.
I could do whatever they could do in practice.
But in meets, I was not a serious competitor.

New to the sport, I missed qualifying for state
My freshman year. A year later,
I caught the flu mid-season. Still recovering,
Less than a half second kept me from qualifying.
My team in the pool won state
While I sat in the stands.

I transferred teams and transferred schools then.
And either my junior or my senior year,
I was, again, so close to state times,
But not quite there.

My Mom found a coach and paid for a private lesson.
Whatever minor adjustments he made
To my flip turns, my arm strokes,
Was sufficient to allow me to qualify,
Which, in the end, was all I wanted.

She always did all she could
To make our dreams come true.

Anime

We talked about watching Summer Wars.
Grandpa asked, “What is that?”
“An anime movie. It will make you hip.”

While Grandpa rolled his eyes,
Abraham said, “No thanks. I already have two.”
And, in response to our questioning looks:

“Hips.”

He has quite the dry wit.

Rejected Transplant

Friends, beautiful, intelligent,
Ready to learn and engage,
Were sent away. They left,
Sorrowing.

We still feel like our "body" of Christ is there.
We feel we attempted a transplant,
And the body here is rejecting our part.
(Though it should accept it,
Because the blood is the same!)

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lowly exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

December Sun

The weeks around the winter solstice,
The baby awakes me every morning to a surprise.
The sky out the window glows pink and yellow.

I had always thought of the sunrise colors as
Stripes of variation, a magical combination of glory,
Until I read that the sun illuminates the
Underside of clouds.

Now the glory has vocabulary,
And I make sense of what I’m seeing.
But the sense has not destroyed the magic,
But enhanced it, as what I can see is lit
By what is yet hidden.

If I can stay abed long enough,
I can witness even the sun rising.

Stable

”Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”

If I think of the Christmas season,
I can’t think of one I haven’t enjoyed.
Why, then, the Scrooge spirit within?

Christ came! We celebrate the waiting world’s
Consolation, even as we recognize
That Mary’s joy would end in grief.

Present Opening

Caleb, just over a year,
Is ready for present opening.
He finds the edge of the paper,
Tears a piece, stands up,
And walks it carefully to the place he chooses.
When he has another small piece, it joins its elder,
And this clean, precise dance
Repeats
Until we are all desperately impatient
And help.

Integrated

We went to our friend’s Christmas party a couple days ago. Our friend Andrew Lynn. It was a pretty fun party.

He and our friend Olivia, another one of our friends, decided to give us this awesome Christmas present. It's Batman. It's got a steamroller....

The most frequent question
Most homeschoolers face is
“What about socialization?”

Do most eight-year-olds
Describe men and women
A decade or two older as
“Our friends”?

Mine does.

A Grim Door

It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we shall sup at his table tonight.

My friend’s mother is dying,
Has been dying for eighteen months,
A physical deterioration until she cannot sup
Or evacuate, or speak.
Perhaps even eyelid communication will soon end.

The grief over the loss of a mother remains,
With the added grief
And exhaustion of caring long
For a terminally ill woman.

And I cry out with my friend:
Jesus, be gentle!

No Photo

My friend’s grandfather is dying,
Today or tomorrow.
In the new year, they had planned
To take a photo with the Senior, the Junior,
The Third and the infant Fourth.
Now that will not happen.

And the grandfather is old
And it is his time,
But we can share in the sorrow
That there were four generations
With the same name
And soon there will be only three,
Without even a photo to commemorate.

Abundance

In college, I got hooked on butter.
I heard a lecture that you should leave
Teeth marks in the butter when you eat bread.
Perfect.

My friend knows my love for butter,
And she sent me a butter dish
Like a bouquet, with flowers in
Bright colors, different patterns,
And a red knob on top like a little round hat.

A colorful jewel in a pleasing shape
To decorate my table and gladden my heart.

I will eat butter and feel loved.

Aslan Confusion

When, near the end, free Narnians are enslaved,
Talking trees cut down,
They submit because they don’t understand Aslan.
“He’s not a tame lion.”

And because it had been seven generations
Since Aslan appeared,
And because the animals desired faithfulness,
They behave beautifully, yet wrong.

Aslan would not destroy his handiwork.
Aslan would not enslave his people.
And though it’s true that he is not a tame lion,
He still acts in accord with his character.

Slant Answer

Years back, three friends went on a missions trip.
They feared that the time would be wasted.
I prayed for that trip before and during.

My prayers seemed unanswered.

Years later, I learned that the relationships formed
During that ridiculous and poisonous trip
Were vital through some dark days.

Were my prayers unanswered?

I look back through the years.
My circle of friends has increased from the three,
So of the seven who went,
I count seven dear friends.

I could say that my prayers were answered
Slant.

Humbly, O God, I thank you.

Six Against the Train

When I was in high school,
Six students left a party.
The drunk driver tried to race a train.
He lost.

Six students didn’t make it home.

Sick

When my son threw up, I wondered:

Did he throw up because he was sick?
Or just because he hadn’t eaten all day?
And had he not eaten because he was sick?
Or because he was picky? Or distracted?

And it seems he’s been under the weather for some time.
Or was that his brother? Or three brothers? Or four?
It seems, over the last weeks, I’ve heard reports of
Headache, fever, exhaustion, sinusitis;
I’ve seen vomit and runny noses,
Heard coughs, both deep and shallow,
Had a sore throat myself.
(But was that sickness or simply too much reading aloud,
Or maybe dehydration?)

When I only vaguely notice a plethora of symptoms
Among seven people for several weeks,
And I didn’t start tracking who suffered from what, when—
Does that make me distracted and inept?
Or simply practical?
Few people die from a cold.

I’m not sure if this is confession or justification.

Letter to Myself

A college professor assigned us
A letter to ourselves.
He promised to mail them
Five years hence.

(One wit asked if we should add
Seven one cent stamps
To keep up with the inevitable
Increase in postage.)

The letter never reached me,
Even though I’d addressed it
To my parents and they didn’t move.
Either the professor died,
Or tossed the bundle of letters,
Ignoring his promise.
That makes me a little bit mad.

Even at the time, though,
I found the exercise
Unsatisfactory.

What could my senior year self,
In the first year of marriage,
Possibly have to say to the unknown older Amy?
I would have wanted to impart something
Lovely and profound,
And instead I felt the weight of the stilted comments,
Tongue-tied to myself.

Softball

The piece of us that a person sees
Is not always representative.

I remembered recently
A request an acquaintance made:
Join the church softball team.
I said no. She begged. I caved.

Almost two decades later,
Even the thought of that
Makes my heart pound.
Shame stains my cheeks.

I don’t do team sports.
I had no desire to stand where
A pitcher hurled a ball.
Why did I say yes?

I don’t think I paid for my jersey.
I never made it to a practice, let alone a game.
I didn’t return calls requesting my presence.
Did they field a team without me?

I was, in most respects, a dependable teen.
But if you had asked the organizer
She would have said anything but.
It shook my perception of myself.

The piece of us that a person sees
Is not always representative.

The Silver Chair

My dislike for The Silver Chair
Stretches back to childhood.
The intensity of
The man-eating giants,
The woman become snake,
The underground imprisonment.

But mostly, I see now, the horribleness,
For one who longs to be perfect,
Of an imperfect beginning,
An imperfect middle,
Of having four instructions and muddling three.

As an adult, I still found myself raging
At the injustice of the difficulties of the signs,
At the physical challenges,
At the lack of clarity.

Perhaps this one suffers from abundant verisimilitude.
Reading is not escape if you recognize yourself and your failures.

And yet, I noticed something else as I read.
Despite their imperfection, their very real failures,
All worked out.

They missed help from Caspian,
Gained help from Puddleglum.
Missed “Under Me,”
But had a night when they slept warm and dry.
Fled for their lives,
Found the way anyway.

The timing worked out precisely in every way.

If a human author can orchestrate such a story,
I expect God can, as well.

Let not the same charge be leveled:
“Four babies playing a game can make a play-world
Which licks your real world hollow.”

I expect God’s world is better than we can ask or
Imagine.

Wish Fulfilled

“Do you mean to say,” asked Caspian, “that you three come from a round world (round like a ball) and you’ve never told me! It’s really too bad of you. Because we have fairy-tales in which there are round worlds and I always loved them. I never believed there were any real ones. But I’ve always wished there were and I’ve always longed to live in one. Oh, I’d give anything—I wonder why you can get into our world and we never get into yours? If only I had the chance!”

Seventy years and another book later,
The recently deceased and now restored Caspian
Repeats his wish for
Just one glimpse of their world.

Wish fulfilled.

Such a small wish to hold over decades.
Such a gentleness to have it fulfilled,
Even as it worked Aslan’s purpose,
“The Healing of Harms.”

The potential leaves me breathless,
That even a small wish can have a purpose,
That even a lion can grant a request.

Remote Control

Jadon runs his remote controlled car
Across the floor.
Caleb chases it.

Jadon stops the car,
Backs it up.
Caleb grabs it.

Caleb offers it to Jadon,
Who thanks his brother,
Takes the car,

And they do it all again.

Release

As we shared our word for the year,
My long-time friend, now moving away,
Said not, as I expected, “Change,” but

Release.

This picture, for me, of an arrow,
Aimed and let go, flying to a target.

This picture, for her, of a leaf,
That grew green in its time,
That now, as the season changes,
Is ready to let go,
Not grip tightly to the tree
Long after the weather says
Release.

12/13/14

A new century offers many dates of beauty,
And I have saluted them in their turn:
01/01/01 on up to 12/12/12,
Including a son’s birth on 08/08/08;
The sequence dates like
01/02/03 or 07/08/09.
These have made me happy.

And on this day, the last of the sequences
Of this century,
I took a long nap
And I read some Narnia with my sons;
I watched my friends dance,
And I ate with my friends and laughed.

Should the world still stand
A century from now,
I could hardly hope for a better day
On this date
For my descendants.

For Another

A friend said,
I had no need to see this person who hurt me
Ever again.
That chapter was closed.

But I realized it was a kindness to the other
To allow the meeting,
To allow the formal asking of forgiveness
And granting.

It was a sign of growth that I could be
Both honest and gracious.

Boarding House

I lived in a boarding house for a year:
One of ten tenants who shared a house
With a family of six.
I loved it.

We like people and feeding people,
So we considered duplicating that
In Boulder. We failed to find a house
That worked. And who wants so much debt?
And do we really like people that much?

It's an intriguing idea for a life, though!

Half a Year

After taking some good-natured ribbing
About half-birthday celebrations,
The question came up:
Do you actually celebrate the half?

January 30 is my birthday.
I have always just jumped six months ahead,
Counting July 30 as my half birthday.

But mathematically, the half doesn’t come
Until August.

This is not quite an existential crisis.

But it did keep me up late one night,
Thinking about the people born
August 30 and 31 (and, three out of four years, 29):
They have no half birthdays
As I celebrate them,
And are forced to count by number of days.

Really, though, to celebrate
Half of 365.25
In any way is a bit silly.

Brilliant

”In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”

I am made of mostly water
And a whole bunch of elements,
But I am more than that.

I love the distinction between
Material composition and
Reality.

Reading

Lying on the bed, working on a book,
I looked next to me to find
Caleb, on his back,
Paperback book in the air above him,
Pages open,
Babbling away as he
Read aloud.

Binary

Adam and Eve ate from the tree
Of the knowledge of good and evil.
Not the tree of evil.

Perhaps this means:
Let me know what is right and wrong.
Let me know the law.

The tree of life was open to them—
Until they ate the other.

If we look at the nature of man:

The world, it seems, says
Basically good.
The church, I think, says
Basically evil.

But what if the question was not that binary?

What if the question is:
Do you choose life?

Why Did That Make You Cry?

And when they looked at her they thought they had never before known what beauty meant.

I have read this book often enough
That two sentences before that line,
I had to swallow back tears.
And after I read it,
The boys asked, bemused,
“Why did that make you cry?”

Why, indeed.

Because who of us knows such beauty,
And yet don’t we all want to?

Because I know that this girl will marry the king,
Will have a son,
Will be bit by a serpent and die.

Her beauty will go out of the world.

Not that Narnia is a real world.
Yet she is a real character,
And I grieve her loss,
And the loss of those who love her.

I didn’t say any of that to my sons,
Ages six, eight, and ten,
As they waited to hear
What happens next.

We Laughed Till We Cried

Phil, please don’t die.
I don’t think I would find someone else
Who likes me as much as you do.

I think you overestimate
My esteem for you.

Touché!

Demas

Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

A friend mentioned this.
It’s a harsh verse.
It makes me catch my breath.

Did Demas long for movies and chocolates,
Or whatever other pleasures of the world,
And so went off to pursue them,
Finding the gospel less satisfying?
That is how I have read this verse in the past.

Or did he simply grow weary of laboring
Without much result?
Paul’s imprisonment, perhaps, not quite what he expected.

And I wonder: would I desert Paul?

Life long daily faithfulness:
A stiff demand.

A Constraint

Reading again The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, not our favorite,
We discussed how thin the conceit that holds the book together,
How much we prefer interwoven novels to episodic.

And yet there is something satisfying about reading an entire episode
In an evening,
As we did with Eustace as a dragon.

What struck me was the gold bracelet,
Biting into his flesh, until he tore his arm with his teeth for the misery.
Constant. Painful. A reminder that this was not what he should be.

A constraint.
And it drove him, in the end,
To the place of healing.

Celebrate

Though I have never heard anyone in real life use
Fructify,
I occasionally read it,
Usually when writers don’t want to use the word
Pregnant.
All those Victorian-era inhibitions.
(What a world we live in.)

I would like it, though, were God to
Make fruitful and productive
Our farm,
Our labors,
Our minds,
Our hearts.

All true.

But I also sort of just want to celebrate that word
Fructify.

And now I have.

All Flame

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

Sometimes I pray with people.
Deep pain surfaces, long-held lies.
Jesus brings truth and light,
Peace and direction.

A friend asked me what I do
During those prayers.

And it was hard to answer.

Eyes closed, I see nothing but blackness.

I listen with all my inner ear,
For the next question.

Sometimes we sit in silence.
Tears drip off my chin.

My right palm grows hot and heavy,
But not sweaty and not tingly.

Sometimes the top of my head feels open,
So that I feel like a pipe runs
From my head out my palm,
Flowing with the Holy Spirit.

I have, at times, grown vertiginous.
I have, at times, been unable to move,
Almost unable to catch my breath.
Almost overwhelmed.

It is the most present, most demanding,
Most intense experience I know.

And when peace that passes understanding comes,
My hand remains hot for a while,
And I pray again,
And we sit, prostrate,
Astonished at the presence of God
We have seen and felt.

Define the Relationship

After a summer of hanging out with friends,
And a few long dinners together, just us two,
Phil wondered where I saw this going.

I could see us getting married someday.

And that is the difference between us two.
You could see yourself marrying me someday.
I could see myself marrying you tomorrow.

That was our first conversation about our relationship.

We told this story to a friend,
And she laughed and said,
I know Phil, and so of course that’s the way
The conversation would go.

Best Moment

Some of my sons don’t remember Prince Caspian.
I read to them the familiar story.

“Have patience, like us beasts.
The help will come.
It may be even now at the door.”

More than one delighted boy stopped me to point out:
“Mom, the help is there! It really is at the door!”
And they jumped in excitement and joy.

The irony is the delight:
The help is listening
To the stated faith that help might be coming.

Maybe that is a lesson for all who are looking for help:
Open the door.
See what is even now waiting.

Molars

After I’d had a scant half hour sleep,
Caleb woke me.
Too stuffy to nurse well,
He started to scream in panic.

He peed in the pot, screaming.
He pooped in the pot, screaming.
I dosed him. He screamed.
I held him. He screamed.

I don’t do screaming babies,
So even twenty minutes is a long time.
Long enough that Phil got up to ask
If he was okay. He will be, in the end.

And I stood holding him
As the clock struck one,
He in red shirt, me in green,
Christmas colors without Christmas cheer.

He looked scared.
We both looked tired.
Molars: they have to come in,
But it’s no fun while they do.

Helpfulness

I stopped reading to the boys midway through a sentence.
Was Caleb actually throwing away his board books?
Yes. He was.

I fished out the three that had already nestled among torn plastic packaging,
Then pulled the garbage bag over so Caleb could continue.

He strutted back and forth from shelf to trash basket,
Broad grin, proud that he was enhancing the orderliness of the home.

Did I mention that yesterday he found a blanket in the bag of our guests
And brought it to them for their son. They didn’t need it, but they received it.

It was the first true act of service I have seen of him.
He walked away, head high, smile big, satisfied that he contributed.

As, indeed, he had.

Fig Tree

But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.

For months, I had been tempted to purchase a fig tree.
I would walk past them at the grocery,
Check on them online.
I resisted the temptation, barely.

We had sheep then, and the sheep had to go.
The final one loaded, the buyer pulled out a fig tree
With one small fig, a promise of more to come.

“God told me to get you a fig tree.
They weren’t easy to find this time of year,
But I finally found a place that still had one.”

How to tell him that that had deep meaning for me?
How to say to this stranger strongly enough,
Thank you for hearing and obeying the voice of God,
To bring me this gift, this message.

It astounds me even now that a fig tree can speak,
That a man can be the voice of God.

Amy

I.
I hope it does not make you dislike your name
If I point out how much I appreciate
The beautiful shape of “Amy” on the printed page.
A letter at an angle above the line,
A letter, both straight and curved, in the middle,
And a letter at an angle below the line.
Compact and perfect.
(I’m sure your name is nice, too.)

II.
And I hope it does not disappoint you
If I mention more to appreciate.

Only three letters, but two syllables.

Twice as many vowels as consonants.

Composed of the first letter of the alphabet,
A letter in the precise middle,
And final letter the second to the last.
Beginning, middle, end.

It is not elegant or unusual,
But cheery, energetic.
More freckles than lace,
More fun than mellifluous.
I think it suits me.

And “Amy” means “beloved” and that is very nice.
(But really: I’m sure your name is nice, too.)

Clementines

When I packed Phil his lunch every day,
I would peel his Clementines.
It was a little treat for me:
I’m amazed every time by their easy peeling.
And Phil doesn’t like getting his hands sticky.

A coworker asked once:
“Do your oranges come that way?”

Another answered:
“Only when you’re married to Amy.”

Calling

A friend said, Though I knew God,
I was not living faithfully.

My girlfriend didn’t know God.

Then God called us both,
And we spurred each other on.
Now live faithfully.

I love to hear how God is at work.

No Preference

A friend said
About a major life choice,

I wanted to reach a place
Where I would have been content either way.

And when I reached that place,
God spoke clearly, and I knew what to do.

At Last

Caleb brings me his shoes,
Then tries to escape out the open door.

His brothers joined him and blew bubbles for hours.
He wandered around, smile on his face.

At last I have an outdoors boy.

Adulthood

I wonder if the point isn’t to reach adulthood
Without bad memories.
Much of childhood is training, after all,
And training is not often pleasant, but painful.

I wonder if the point is to reach adulthood
Growing in wisdom, and in favor with God and man.

Which is not to say that childhood should be harsh,
But that if a child matures well,
Even with some vivid memories of correction,
That’s to be expected, and, indeed, unavoidable.

One Nap

His whole life, Caleb has napped
On my back, in the bed, in the car,
Without real pattern that I could tell.
When he was sleepy, he slept.

These last days, he has taken one nap.
Long, in the middle of the day.
He is ready for bed by 7 or 8,
And wakes by 7, the happiest baby you’ll see.

I say this to the concerned mother in me:
Yes, you do notice things.

Stray Comment

A friend of a friend
Watched us tell of our struggles,
Our thanksgivings.

Later she said,
My crowd sticks to the surface.
We keep our junk to ourselves.

But you all just talk about it.
That’s probably better.
Why don’t we all do that?

I don’t know.
But consider this
An invitation to openness.

All So Needy

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
It’s clichéd and makes me a little mad.

But if I set aside the anger and let myself
Actually look at the ways I don’t measure up,
The sorrow I feel as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend,
I think of how needy we probably all are,

And I resolve again to be kind.

Gospel as Incarnation

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And the word became scripture.

We understand that God took on human form
And lived in a specific place, in a specific time.

Could it be that we should understand scripture
Similarly, that words came to a place and time,

That God spoke to the people where they were,
Not in some universal way, but specific?

And if so, how does the incarnation of the words
Affect the incarnation of the man,

And my understanding of them both?

First Thing

I usually try to get up before the children
And get an hour of work done in the silence.
This morning, though, fighting a cold,
We all woke up together
And Joe said, “Mommy, read to us,”
Which he rarely does.

So I gathered picture books and we enjoyed them
Together.

The work will always be there,
But Joe will not.

Reality

Years ago, a sweet homeschooling mother
Was talking to a single mom.
Both had daughters going through puberty.

And when the sweet mother mentioned
Her sweet daughter sometimes slammed doors,
The single mother started to laugh and said,

And all this time I worried that it was
The public school influence on my child!
I would never have guessed you dealt with that, too!

Recently, I spoke with a man who admitted
Fistfights with a brother for the bathroom.
My sons are still at an age of fistfights for a toy.

It gives me hope for my sons, who scuffle,
And then play, and then scuffle again,
That perhaps they will turn out okay.

I can wish for perfect self-control,
But there is time for that, too,
And more growing up that they need to do.

Pinch

When I was eight, my brother made me mad.
I pinched him and he cried.
I shushed him so I wouldn’t get in trouble.
I noticed later he had a bruise.
Bad sister.

My family went to the Botanic Gardens.
As he got out of the car,
My mom noticed the bruise and asked where he got it.
Guilty Amy listened for the truth,
Sure of the punishment that needs must come.

I don’t know, he said.
And didn’t even glance at me!
Sweet relief.

I think of that now, almost three decades later,
And I don’t know what to think.
I was more in fear of spanking than sorry for the pinch
(As I said, he made me mad). And that is not so good.
And he lied, but did so to protect me.
(But maybe that was because he feared retribution?
Would I have done something even worse?
I don’t think I had thoughts of possible revenge,
But he would not have known that.)

This is one of those stories that adult siblings laugh about,
Because it happened, but it’s ambiguous in its ethics.

But not in its outcome.
I don’t go around pinching people any more.

Play

The baby is old enough to be into everything.
He sees us throw trash away.
He finds toys and puts them in the same bin.
Not actually helpful, but good practice.

He would rather take out CDs than toys cars,
Prefers to open the drawer with the china
Than the box with the Duplos,
Happily opens the wardrobe to extract piles
Of diapers and folded clothes.
He’s less good at putting them back.

After a dozen or so redirections,
Phil asked the brothers to please play with the little guy.
Two were busy with schoolwork,
And one was not interested,
But I soon heard baby giggles, such a happy sound,
As one brother chased him about the house.

It’s a good reminder for me:
Maybe the china drawer is actually a simple, wordless statement:

Play with me.

Suicide

When I lived in a boarding house,
The house parents spoke of a cheerful resident
Who entered the military and killed herself.
Except they didn’t believe that official story.
“She was always so cheerful! Not one to do that.”

I think of myself as normal and healthy,
But even then I thought, I also am cheerful and
I think about suicide regularly.

I mentioned this to a homeopath once.
“Most people consider it,” she said.
“But who really wants to admit to such thoughts?”

I know now that wheat exposure triggers the word in my mind.
I ate Thai food on Tuesday and have now had
Three days of casual consideration of killing myself.

I have no method in mind,
Just the occasional whisper that maybe
The world would be a better place
If I wasn’t in it.

I don’t believe that whisper.

If you, too, hear the whisper,
Don’t believe it either.

Lost Robots

In a large warehouse, robots move pallets.
Bar codes at intervals triangulate position.

In heat, floors expand and bar codes shift,
Just enough that the robots get lost—

Even though they are where they need to be.
It’s just the world around that changed.

Might it happen that we feel lost,
Even though it’s just the world that shifted,

And we’re right where we need to be?

Nightmare

The boys have had a rash of nightmares this week.
One night we had four in our room by morning,
Filling our bed and floor with sleeping sons.

Then I had a nightmare.
Not the sort based on travel anxiety,
Where a flight goes awry or a gate change proves impossible,
But a terrifying weight, an invasion of house and family.
The last time I had one like that was in childhood.

Children, I will put up with your continued invasion
Of my sleeping space,
As long as you have need.

Turkeys

I went to make chicken broth
And noted that I am getting low on chickens,
Low on bones.

Raising chickens has been expensive,
With high losses to predation, high costs to feed,
Interminable days to process.
And though I can eviscerate, I’d rather read.

Maybe it makes sense to simply purchase birds.
Maybe I don’t care that much about the food I eat.

I found myself behind a tractor trailer,
Stuffed with white turkeys, feathers drifting.
The birds could not stand up.

I determined to get around that truck,
Speeding shamelessly. I told myself that any cop
Would understand the horrors of the caged birds
And let me go.

Maybe I do care that much about the food I eat.

Disconnect

When Phil has been sick for
Three days or four
Or five,

It is not just the single parenting
I find draining,
But the entire lack of conversation.

I think. He sleeps.
There are things I wouldn’t mind
Talking about,
If only I remember them when he’s well.

Sigh

I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.
-Yeats

In the face of such perfection,
What more needs be said?

Is This True?

I read a quote that resonated deep:
"The God who wastes nothing.”

I long for this to be true,
For God to use the good and the bad,
To make a mosaic of my life ,
With all the pieces for a greater whole.

But I think of William Carey,
Alone in India with his family almost starving;
With the years of painful translation burnt one night;
Dealing with a partner who turned false.

Missionaries with wives who go insane.
Missionaries with children who die.
Missionaries who end up more and more odd,
Until whatever good news they may have had ends up
Not very good.

I have long thought God’s economy is different from mine.

Does God waste nothing?
I don’t know if I believe it.

I’m not sure if that makes me more or less right.

Tijuana

What Tijuana shows is that the world is broken and good things happen. Living in the States, it is easy to think that the world is a good place, and too bad that bad things happen.

To start with a presumption of light
Allows every bad thing to be a torment,
A deviance from the way the world should work.
Keep the entitlement flowing and all will be well.
Until the bad things come, as they will.

To start with a presumption of darkness
Allows every good thing to be a gift.
No entitlement. Sheer grace.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Censers

Rebellion in the camp. Korah and his henchman, and 250 more.
The earth swallows up the three instigators and their families.
Fire shoots out from the Eternal One and burns up the 250.

God says that the censers were offered to him and are now holy.
The men who offered the censers are dead.
The censers are hammered down into sheets to cover the altar,
A cautionary tale.

What to make of this horror story in the desert?
God is serious about his holiness. Obvious.
God purifies the gifts offered, even as he consumes the giver?
Horror has never been my favorite genre.

What?

You are not to make an image of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.

It is a matter of opinion whether this stricture is intended to stand alone,
Or to be combined with the next sentence,
The injunction against worshipping such images,
Islamic art avoids likenesses. Christian art embraces them.

The tendency to idolatry was not hidden.
The complaining Israelites made the calf, after all.
But later, when beset by snakes, God tells Moses to make a bronze serpent,
So the people would look at it and be healed.

I understand the foreshadowing of the suffering symbol,
Christ on the cross,
That we all look to him and are healed.
Exercise faith: a look can be effectual.

But … really? With their history,
God tells Moses to make a graven image for the people to look at?

And we know that the story doesn’t end with healing.
It ends long after, in the days of Hezekiah,
When the serpent, now named Nehushtan, and worshipped,
Is finally destroyed.

This is a story that makes me say,
“What?”

Contained

I first heard about you four and a half years ago.
I prayed for you and your parents for a year.
I pray for you now, beloved brother
Of one of my beloved friends.
And soon I will meet you.

I am excited. You are hurting.
We are coming from different places.

I will try to remember that
And keep my excitement contained.

But it will be hard!

In Memoriam

Jean died this week of Alzheimer’s.
Four years and a bit she lived near.

For daughter and son-in-law,
It was love in action,
And it was bitter and hard,
And I watched them in their pain,
Tethered to the house, to the constant care,
Burdened by the weight of selfishness that needs
Yet again to be uprooted day by day.

Did any of us expect this?
Is this not precisely life?

I saw, too, a granddaughter come to visit
And say, “I love you, Grandma,” with
Such love in eyes and voice
That even though the mind might be destroyed,
The spirit must recognize this love.
It must.

Did any of us expect this?
Is this, too, not precisely life?

Frustrated

My friend takes pride in his guitar-playing.
A labor of love for self and church and God
Decade after decade.

So when his mother-in-law, mind going,
Sat in on singing and interrupted,
“That’s enough of that!”
He chuckled about it for hours,
But it was not happy. It hurt.

And yet … where should the blame of the hurt be placed?
On the woman without her full mind?
What would be the point of that?

And so the frustration turns inward,
Frustrated with self for feeling frustrated
When the other can’t help it and means nothing.
Probably.

No situation so bad that a little self-blame won’t improve.

Wanted

I was shaken today in my sense of wantedness.

I cried to the Lord in my pain:
Am I unwanted?

And the picture of a wanted poster came to mind.
Silly really, a cartoon outline without a clear image of my face inside.

But in my mind, the word changed from unwanted to

Wanted.

If I am on God’s wanted poster,
I think that’s probably a good thing,
Despite all negative connotations.

I hope that what God wants, he gets.
And he wants me.

Traveling

Although at times I wished for a daughter,
There is a certain notoriety that comes
From traveling with five sons.

Is the baby a boy, too?
That’s a lot of energy!
Will you try for a girl?
You have your hands full!

There are other comments, too,
That make me glad.

This is the most efficient family I’ve ever seen.
Do you need help? Probably not. You’re managing so well!
These are good children! So polite!

I try to remember to bask in the comments,
The fleeting communal smiles and joy.

Travels with my youngest have just begun, but
Two-thirds of my time with my oldest is over and done.

Grandsons

My mother-in-law started looking at tiny pink dresses
As soon as she heard we were expecting.

She ended up with seven grandsons.
It’s good that she has a good sense of humor.

Morning

M'illumino d'Immenso.

A very short poem by Ungaretti,
“Mattina” is translated
I am illuminated by immensity.

After four hours of sleep,
The baby woke me.
The sky was light.

And if the sun has not yet risen,
I feel the morning’s immensity
Back in the confines of my own house.

Feel the immensity of this place,
My home.

Landing

Two barefoot brothers sat in the seat together,
Looking out the dark window at the gold lights below.
The darker head spoke, told the lighter head what to see;
With arm curled protectively around the little body,
He smiled and sang, and sometimes swooped in for a kiss.

Have Our Being

Our people prayed. They did a special ceremony. Then the minds of the white men changed.

The Cherokee and other nations in the south were not the only ones
With a Trail of Tears.
The Navaho in the west had their own forced march to exile.
I hadn’t known.

But after four years and a special ceremony,
The Navaho returned.

This used to bother me.

The Navaho did a ceremony that, apparently,
Shifted things in the heavenlies and reversed their fortunes.

Or when a man, not a God-fearer,
Had an intuition that the present state would last six months,
And six months later, fortunes changed.
I sometimes have these intuitions … how did he?

Or when Mother Teresa asked Mary
To please take care of an issue that was hindering her,
And the issue went away.
I understand how God hears all our prayers.
But Mary? She was just a person, and
I can’t even hear two children speaking to me at once!

Or Balaam, the witch doctor, peddling blessings,
Yet proclaiming the truth of God and the children of Israel.

But then I see that Paul dealt with this already in Athens,
That God has made of one blood all nations of men,
That they should seek the Lord, if they would grope after him
And find him, for he is not far from any of us.
In him we live, and move, and have our being.

So maybe I don’t actually understand it,
But there is some space to hold the mystery.

Debt

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another….

I understand that debt enslaves.
Financially here, Paul makes sense.

But I’m struck that we might actually
Owe each other love.

This would seem a debt that will never
Be repaid, an unbroken bond to the body.

Imperfect

I told my family I started to write poetry
As an exercise in imperfection.
I’ve created something every day (but one),
Knowing that no poem will be perfect.

It stretches me.

My sister said, And you could even let it go
That you missed a day. Why not exercise
Your imperfection there, too?
I hadn’t thought of that.

It stretches me in ways I didn’t know I needed
To be stretched.

Dolphins

Some years back we went on vacation
That had much that went wrong.
Food, lodging, location, additional guests,
Activities, illness. It was a mess.

Our family went out, in two groups,
With Scarlet and her motorboat,
To try to spot the dolphins.

“I do believe in dolphins!” she cried,
And we loved her for her enthusiasm.

Then we were out on the water,
And the dolphins came, without any feeding,
Happy to be near the boat of their friend.

A larger ship sailed next to us, and
Dolphins leaped in front of the prow,
Again and again, playing.

On a vacation where much went wrong,
This was very right.

Remembering Vacations

When I think about past vacations,
I want to be able to pull up my lists
Of places we went and things we saw.
I want details to bring me back.

My sister wants impressions:
This was restful; that was unpleasant;
This was exhausting; that was enjoyable.

If I wondered ever whether I am
A big picture thinker or a detail person,
Our vacation memories clear that up.

I'm Driving

The law was a map to keep people
On God’s road.

Jesus comes and says,
“Move over. I’m driving.”

The destination will be the same,
Though the route perhaps more scenic.

And how much more restful
To have someone drive for me.

Birds

A pod of pelicans flew overhead.
I’d never seen more than one at a time,
So to see almost a dozen, with their offset heads,
Flying in a V—it was something to see.

I watched a tiny dot of white suddenly plunge
Into the ocean. I had thought there would be some
Slowing in the plunge, reverse rocket boosters,
Not a full-tilt descent like a rock.

The sandpipers, my favorites, with their plump bodies
And surprisingly long beaks, walk up the shore
Snapping food in the sand until a dog races up
And the bind soars away down the beach.

The white egret stood on the kelp in the bay,
Watching for a meal or maybe just enjoying the sun.
The bright western bluebirds dart everywhere,
Their flashes of blue brightening the landscape.

Ah, cardinals and indigo buntings,
I will be home soon.

Adonis

Amid the overweight bridal party,
The older locals with their designer dogs,
The surfers who sit on the boards and go up and down,
And us, a normal family with children and parents,

A young Adonis ran by.
Perfect body, perfect stride.

It made me happy to be here in the off season.

It’s easier to feel average-looking when competing with retirees
Than with gods.

Vantage Point

The green of Pebble Beach was the backdrop
As we stood at the end of the beach.
The waves crashed in an arc.

From our vantage point, we could see
The backs of the waves as they reared up,
The opposite view from normal.

Then the massive sheet of foam
Stretched out flat before us,
A white carpet running parallel to the sand.

Body Surfing

When spouse and brother-in-law
Went body surfing in the freezing water,
They lasted only a few minutes.

Do you think everyone thought we were
Surfers who had just forgotten their boards?

And wetsuits? And suits?

What do you think?

The Beach

Growing up in California,
We would make the drive to the beach
Only once or twice a year.
I would deal with the salty skin,
The sand in the swimsuit chafing,
The sting of sunscreen
And the inevitable pain of sunburn.
And who actually wants to go into the Pacific?

It wasn’t all bad, of course.
We flew a kite.
We walked the beach.
We looked in tide pools.
We dug a deep hole in the sand.

But the beach was something to endure, not enjoy.

So I am surprised to find myself entirely captivated
By the beauty of the beach in Carmel.
The waves are like none I have seen before,
As they rise up in green glass,
Crash into white foam.
The shush of the sand running back to sea,
The roar of the breakers.

Nature’s fireworks last all day,
Theme and variation.
The invitation: watch and be.

After the Fact

We have an old, cracked iPod Nano
That somehow ended up in the van console.
I stuffed it in the baby carrier,
Figuring someone might like to listen to it
As we travel, and then promptly forgot about it,
Only reminded at odd moments when my fingers,
Looking for wallet, diaper, or phone,
Brush against it. Ah, yes, that further fellow traveler.

So I could do nothing but offer thanks when,
Walking home across the sand, I glanced down
And saw the iPod, that silver square inch,
Resting among the kelp, waiting for me to reclaim it.
I must have pulled out my phone and dropped it, unaware.

That no one else spotted it;
That I glanced down at that moment;
That I walked back the same way;
That I found it before I knew it was missing;
For these provisions and more, O God, I give you thanks.

Company Front

I did marching band in high school and college.
We made complex patterns, played fun songs.
The most powerful moment was
The company front,
One hundred, two hundred people
In a line across the field,
Marching forward,
Playing fortissimo.

Even now, when I see a company front,
I gasp.

On the beach, waves usually crash in a cascade
From the center out, or one side over.

I watched a wave rear up and crash over
At the same time along my whole field of view.

I recognize a company front when I see one.

Tide Pools

The tide pools sheltered crabs and urchins.
The boys jumped from rock to rock
And I watched the waves shoot up the crevice
And spray high overhead.

While amazed at the power and beauty,
I longed to get away.
If a boy slipped and fell while the wave came,
How could that boy survive?

Parenting: an exercise in amazement
And paying attention.

Witness

My sister and I walked the beach
And talked of grace, gentleness, and joy.

We returned to the children’s sand castle,
And looked up to see a dolphin fin, close.

The next wave rose up and in the translucent green,
Four dolphins, perfectly in line, surfed together.

We talked of grace, gentleness, and joy.

Golden

The gold of the sun as it lowered
Made a golden line on the water.
The clouds were lighter gold,
And the water reflected gold back,
Until it was a golden world
Of rhythm and glory.

And then a cloud rainbow appeared,
And reflected on the other side,
Until I felt like I was in the presence of God,
With a throne of gold radiating in a circle
Around the Son, covering all with glory.

I suppose I am always in His presence.
But sometimes the earth shows his glory
More clearly.

Beach Gift

Arriving at the beach in the late afternoon,
The pod of dolphins eating just past the row of
Supremely unsuccessful surfers caught my attention
And didn’t let go.
The pod moved around the little bay,
But once I watched one and then another leap,
And once I watched three leap, all in a row.
Their swept-back dorsal fins, their graceful tails,
Their spouting and fluidity,
All of this left me astonished.

And that glory was magnified with the knowledge
That my niece, expecting the Aquarium to be Sea World,
Asked repeatedly, “Where are the dolphins?”

And God answered the next day, “There they are,
Sweet girl, in the sea. Go look.”

Carmel

Got to love a place where you have to street park your Porsche and Beamer.

Carmel-by-the-Sea charms me.
Spanish mission architecture side by side with
Mid-century modernism, regular suburbia, Bavaria.
Large blocks, brick, cedar shake siding, adobe.
Roses, wisteria, bougainvillea.

But as much as I love to visit,
I would not want to live,
And I am thankful that my Virginia home
Suits me so perfectly that I prefer it
Over the five million dollar option on the beach.

Not that I could afford that anyway,
So good thing all around.

Connection

The woman with the chic haircut,
Large diamond on her manicured finger,
Stylish flats, cute leggings and blouse
Was reclining on a log
When multiple rambunctious children
Startled her upright.

Expecting annoyance, even sotto voce cursing,
I was surprised to hear a soft voice say to the children,
You can see two otters if you look over there.

I was not expecting a well-heeled stranger
To promote a love of the outdoors.
But that momentary connection made my day.

Point Lobos

Returning to China Cove
After twenty-four years,
The same green-blue on white sand.

But rather than children and crabs
Playing together,
Seals alone rested on the beach.

We watched some body surf on the gentle waves,
Including a little one, buffeted
But not panicked, just peaceful.

The waves come and the waves go,
But I am floating in a beautiful sea
With my companions
And it will either work out or it won’t.

School

In a giant tank with surprisingly few creatures,
What kept our attention long and longer
Was the silver school of fish, circling near the bottom.

The hammerhead, perhaps bored, kept dive-bombing,
And the school would flicker away,
Changing in an instant from calm to panicked.

To watch those thousands of fish scatter and recombine
In three dimensions
Was an unexpected treat.

Kelp

In a two-story tall tank,
The giant yellow kelp stretched from floor to ceiling,
Moving gently back and forth, as if the display was breathing.

Fish and sharks swam around,
And I felt like I was looking into
A window wall of two stories of apartments.

Not Exclusive

Rather than being exclusive,
To the people around, we can say,
My friends are these kind of people.
And then let the people figure out if
They are that kind of people, too.

Family Photos

Every two years we try to do photos as a family.
The adults change little: slightly different hair,
Slightly different weight, slightly different clothes.

But there are new children added.
The children born mature dramatically.
We have this record of the passage of time.

Tiffany's

On a whim, we stopped in Tiffany’s,
And the saleswoman chatted us up.

Was there anything we wanted to try?
We’re here anyway, might as well!

So we put on tanzanite and tourmaline.
And then a diamond caught my eye.

It was magnificent on my hand.
It cost as much as a house.

I wonder about the people who can buy such baubles.
Are they happier with the bling than without?

Or is it just another thing to worry about:
Insurance, theft, loss, breakage?

I think of a girl I met, given a four-carat family ring.
“My fiancé was drunk when he proposed.

But look at this rock!” She laughed. Was she happy?
I’m glad she liked the ring. I didn’t envy her.

Not Forgotten

I have been planted in a community
So beloved, I was loath to leave, even for a bit.

So how blessed I am that friends remember me,
Sending me game updates and photos,
Reminders of my identity and prayers.

Each day I open
A gift in my inbox.

God Knew

I had wondered if we would be in San Francisco
Until Sunday evening, drinking deeply
From the experience.
But by early afternoon, we had done
All we wanted, and our bodies were sore
From hills and stuff- and child-hauling.
So we drove away, through and by overwhelming traffic,
Until the sense of congestion
Made me feel claustrophobic.

Our group dealt with the couple hour drive,
An hour for specialty-pizza making,
A snafu with the rental house.…

By bedtime, we had all emptied our bladders
And found our rooms and beds.
We had eaten dinner
And given gifts
And sung “Happy Birthday”
And eaten cake and ice cream
And even started our more deep conversations.

But had we had to deal with the hour or two snafu
In the middle of the night …
We don’t know what we would have done.
God knew when it was time for us to leave
And then followed the frustration with beauty.

Exploratorium

With a group as large as ours,
Not everyone would delight in a science
And discovery museum
To the same extent.

One son, apparently, loved it,
Though I saw him not at all.

I watched one son go from one exhibit to the next
With intentional focus, almost tunnel vision.
He was going to see and learn everything he could,
And when we left four hours later,
He wished he could go back
The next day.

One son loved anything sand:
Regular sand, magnet filings, sand on a turntable.
And he loved to be with his cousin.

One son slept through as much as he could.
It was loud, and chaotic, and busy,
All things that could be said of our home.
But this was more so, and different.

And I was with my artist.
Tired already, he was overstimulated quickly.
But there were moments of great beauty.
We found a room to dance in,
While a computer program showed our movements
In color and stop motion and beautiful light.
We were alone and entranced.

Or the giant bubble maker,
Where we could make a sheet of bubbles
Three feet by five feet, glistening, iridescent.
Gentle blowing deformed it a bit,
A cone-shaped impression.
Then my son blew just right, and an enormous bubble
Split off, the only one we saw by anyone He was pleased.

He figured out how to make the visit work for him,
Sitting at a picture window to watch sailboats on the Bay,
Rather than watching a cow’s eyeball dissection.
I think, though, he found the most joy when we went outside
And I sat in a rocking chair and he chased the pigeons
With abandon and a wicked grin.

Whimsy of Memory

Four siblings wrote some memories of Mom.
How different the writing styles.
How different the memories themselves.

My sister remembers the impressions,
The daily rituals and repeated events:
These are the things we always did together.

I remember random moments in astonishing detail.
I always have.

This helps me make sense of my life today. People ask me,
Does your child take two naps still?
And I feel like a bad mom, because I don’t really know.
How could I be so unobservant?

But maybe my brain simply remembers moments and details,
Like my child’s first time going down stairs,
How he faced the wall for stability and stuck a foot out and down,
Before he turned to the step and scooted down on his stomach.

And whether he is asleep on my back two times a day
Or three: I can’t see that. Sometimes he’s asleep and sometimes not.
But he is always in the carrier.
That is something we always do
Together.

Grace Cathedral

Looking for the labyrinth I vaguely remembered,
We noticed the gorgeous stained glass as we walked by.
We entered the dark, hushed space to find
The sanctuary filled with “Graced with Light,”
Eleven hundred radiant ribbons hung from the ceiling,
Twenty miles of blues, reds, purples,
Making the space glorious.

We could have missed this.

Broken

When my son was four,
We visited Mackinac Island
For a couple magical days.
We biked around and flew kites
And ate fudge and French fries
And generally basked in the beauty.

We all got an ice cream to eat
While we waited for the ferry,
And just before boarding,
My son’s ice cream
Plopped on the ground
And there was no time to get another one.

Some things aren’t fixable
And the memory stings.

Now my son is six
And he got a pressed penny
At the Cable Car Museum.
He dropped it, though, into a spot
Where he could not fetch it,
So that as he fell asleep,
He sobbed, “I know where it is,
But it is gone. Too far.”

Some things aren’t fixable.

We Enter In

Although we intended to take a cable car,
The line was long and slow.
Although we intended to take a bus,
They don’t run that frequently on weekends.
And so we ended up walking

Up.

Everything in San Francisco is either down or

Up.

But we counted that a joy,
Because we entered in to the craziness of this city,
Gorgeous homes with tiny garages,
Parallel parking on steep slopes,
Lombard Street with its curves.

And we entered in to the beauty of the experience,
The Bay in view with dozens of sailboats,
Vibrant flowers and vines,
The Victorian trim, the colorful paint.

I am happy I don’t live here;
I am happy I can visit,

Especially on a sunny, warm day in November.

View

I have been to San Francisco
Three times before,
But this was my first time on the Bay.
A view of the full Golden Gate Bridge,
The city spread out from the Financial District
To the Presidio and beyond,
Houses and hotels, parks and warehouses,
All rising on the hills in beauty.
Even if the ferry had gone nowhere else
But out and back,
I would have been satisfied.

@Large

I had read about Ai Weiwei’s
Installation on Alcatraz,
Art designed for a space
That he has never visited.

I.
Little silver stools in twelve cells
Each with an audio by an artist
Detained. Ten I had never heard of,
And I had no time to listen,
But I liked the concept.

II.
In a cell, an invitation to write
To incarcerated dissidents,
Let them know that they are not
Forgotten.
You are free, but sit in jail
And write to those in jail,
Not free.

III.
Most of Alcatraz is concrete ugly,
So two tiled cells stand out:
Observation rooms for the insane.
Nothing to see here now,
But a little light.
Nothing to hear here now,
But a Hopi chant,
A Tibetan chant,
Along with the sounds of visitors
Joining you.

IV.
Toilets, sinks, even a tub in some cells
Appear to overflow with bubbles.
But they are behind bars, so it is
Difficult to tell for sure.
At last: enter the final cell and see
White ceramic blossoms, up close.
The prisoners here probably did not receive
Get well bouquets.
Here are ghost flowers.

V.
The million and more Lego blocks
That make up the faces of 176 dissidents
In shocking color
Make a carpet for an enormous room.
These faces ready to be stepped on
But are not (at least by us).
The faces are harder to see clearly up close,
And I recognize so few,
Yet it moves me to see the individual pieces
Combine to make a forceful whole.
Go up to the guard walk for better clarity
And stand in this place of vision and power,
Claustrophobic and uncomfortable,
Seeing through rusted bars.

VI.
A five-ton wing in the base of an industrial building,
Made of the reflective panels for cooking pots and tea pots.
A wing in flight, yet trapped in a lower floor,
Soaring and stuck.
I don’t usually think industrial is beautiful,
But this is magnificent.

VII.
I was unprepared for my first view
Of a dragon head facing me,
The start of a dragon kite,
Snaking through the factory room,
Undulating higher and lower.
The glorious colors vibrate in the sun,
Dozens of round panels to enjoy.
Butterfly and bird kites in the corners
Keep the dragon company.
Here is beauty, trapped inside.
Release this kite and it could fly.

Alcatraz

Seventeen family members in
The Alcatraz cellblock.
Twelve had vanished into the depths,
Missing for some time.
Four children were with me.
Until I realized that one young one

Wasn’t.

I looked up to find a wave of humanity approaching.
The concrete prison was loud and disorienting.
I already felt lost.

I had a good idea where that child was,
But had a moment of absolute terror nevertheless.

The story ends well.

But even so, we exited soon after.

Turning the Elephant

On Fisherman’s Wharf,
Early in the morning,
The children ran and played
Before anyone else was there.

The pier we needed was a short walk away
And we had plenty of time.

But to go anywhere with
Seventeen people is an effort.

“Like turning an elephant,”
I said to my Dad,
As my sister and I started
To sing nonsense syllables,
And turn slowly in a circle,
Taking little steps.

We hadn’t rehearsed this,
But apparently looked so legit
That my dad and brother both thought
We were simply imitating a movie.

No. Art imitates us.

It’s Family Fun Week!

Way Way Awesome

We saw Ai Weiwei’s Lego installation
On Alcatraz.

My brother-in-law said,
“This is way way awesome!”

And we all laughed,
Wondering how many times a day
The Alcatraz workers hear that joke.

So we tested it on the closest one,
And she laughed and said
That no one had said that:

“Tell it to all the other workers you see!”

And so we did,
Spreading joy and laughter wherever we went.

It’s Family Fun Week!

Unexpected

A friend was flying.
The man in the next seat reclined,
Fell asleep.

When it was time to land,
The flight attendant put hand on shoulder.
That man would never wake.

I think of the logistics involved.
If a man died sitting next to you,
So quietly you didn’t notice his passing,

Do you simply gather your belongings
And go to your connecting flight?
What else could you do?

This world is so entirely unexpected.

All the Eggs in One Basket

My friend was hurting.
I brought him some food.

“Don’t put everything you have into me.
Is that the best use of your resources?”

At the time, that may have been everything.
But if “pointing out progress motivates forward movement,”

Something about that act of service triggered
A cascade of community that I did not expect.

One requested a mentor: a mentor I became.
One requested prayer: a pray-er I became.

One called me nurturing: nurturing I became.
One called me hospitable: hospitable I became.

Was this always there, waiting to be released?
Don’t ever stop someone from an act of love.

Ambitious

His little sister asked,
“You’re going to watch cows?”

He replied, straight-faced,
“Yes. I will feed them and water them
And walk them

And even butcher them!”

Astute Listening

Reading in Numbers, Aaron and Miriam
Protest Moses’ standing:
Since they prophesy, too,
Why should Moses get
Preeminence?

God, unimpressed, sends leprosy
On Miriam
For seven days.

Astute listener Abraham asked my question:
Why just Miriam?

I wondered if it was because she was the instigator.
We know that Aaron was rather passive
About that whole golden calf.
Maybe he is typecast as a follower in rebellion.

Or maybe, said Abraham,
It was because he was the high priest.

Considering that a millennium later,
The high priest who condemned Jesus
Still prophesied truly;

That Paul refused to speak evil of the high priest
Who was ordering physical violence;

I am impressed with the depth of my son’s conjecture.

Surely if God used men in the employ of Rome,
Who had no desire for righteousness,
He might also protect his inaugural High Priest
Simply out of respect for the office he established.

This explanation might make me uncomfortable,
But it makes sense.

Be Gentle

I’ve been thinking about encouragement,
How much even the most confident of us
Need it.

I know when I’ve messed up.
When I could have done more.
When things work out wrong
Because of human error or malchance.

If you rub the failure in my face,
It is hard to feel inspired to do better.
Maybe I will just give up.

Could I ask for a conversion to
Gentleness?

The City

I spent a year reading about inner city ministry.
Racism. Poverty. Burnout.

I spent months volunteering in the inner city.
The astonishment of being given a paperback book.
Complete financial illiteracy: “I bet you make $200 a month!”
Toothless meth mom. A child dropping out of seventh grade.
A young teen slept with fourteen boys in a weekend.
Eighty percent of the girls molested by age five.
Broken, broken, broken.

So the phrase, “It began in a garden and ends in a city”
Has sounded horrible to me, like the Bible works backwards.
Begin in a paradise, tended carefully, filled with fruit,

And end in a strip mall with graffiti, an enormous parking lot,
And some big box stores across the street, accessed only via
Stop lights, always red. This did not appeal to me.

I could adjust the vision some: the city has streets of gold.
(But what plants were paved over to get these streets?)
Presumably there will be no sirens or rusty rebar,
No burnt-out neon signs and no fast food.

But today I heard something that upended my understanding.

Start with a garden. The Creator gives the creation
The gift of co-creation. Trees produce more trees.
The world created one day will grow and develop the next day.
There is movement and transformation.

And we end with a city, which can be defined as:

A lot of organized gardens.

Is that not beautiful? Rather than one large, unsubdued garden,
We have beauty, order, responsibility, companionship,
All things in right relationship.

If the city now is fully broken because of the mass of broken people,
Think how glorious it will be, with the shalom of God
On us all.

Fifth Son

I have heard that parents get tired,
And so the youngest gets spoiled.

Perhaps.

But I wonder, as I watch my fifth son
Clamber onto a bench, an amazing feat of
Flexibility, strength, and determination,

Then hoist himself onto the table and
Toddle about, head almost level with mine,
Curiosity and happiness mixed on his face,

If maybe the fifth baby is simply more confident
Because of constant affirmation from parents
And doting siblings.

Not Ours to Save

The world is not yours, not to save or to damn. Only serve the one whose it is.

We did not create, and do not own, this broken world.
We serve the one who can restore,
Without pressure to make things right, since we cannot.

Ephesians tells us that the manifold wisdom of God
Might be made known through the church
To the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Even the smallest things we do in love play a cosmic role.
What a marvelous gift this is,
That our actions have significance without pressure.

Thanks be to God.

Modern Miracle

My son threw up recently, unexpectedly,
So that his pillowcase and sleeping bag were soaked,
And I had to use multiple towels to clean the floor.

I put all the articles in my washing machine, set to
Sterilize.

No cold stream with rocks.
No water to boil over an open fire;

I try not to take my mechanical servants for granted,
But this felt like nothing less than a miracle.

Pilgrimage

The congregation sang
As we filed around the gym
To take communion.

There is something fitting about
Walking and singing with the saints,

Those minutes a microcosm
Of life,

Which is, of course,
Pilgrimage and worship,
Together.

Beauty

Three weeks ago, the fall colors
Were gold and green.
The slant light made all glow.
I could not imagine such beauty
Could last another week.

It didn’t. And yet.

The next week, the weather
Was superb, and the green vanished,
As yellows and gold tones took over.
It was a week that was good to be alive.
I could not imagine such beauty
Could last another week.

It didn’t. And yet.

The next week, the reds came out,
And the leaves started to fall,
But there were more on the trees
Than on the ground.
I could not imagine such beauty
Could last another week.

It didn’t. And yet.

Today as I drove the ground was
An orange carpet, the trees
Orange and burnt sienna,
So that I felt a bit like
Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife,
Living in a pumpkin shell.
A glowing world of beauty.
I cannot imagine such beauty
Will last another week.

It probably won’t. And yet.

When the trees lose their leaves,
The shape of the mountain appears.
The houses tucked away become visible.

The drab winter is not flashy like fall,
But can I not acknowledge its gifts,
Its beauty, as well?

Forty People

When forty people come to my house,
I find it hard to fall asleep afterwards.

I’m not sure that’s because I acquired energy
As an extrovert would,
Or if I am just amazed yet again

That one room held voices in worship,
That saints met each other,
That God was here.

That forty people came to my house.
My house.

Return

Wrestling through the message of the Good News,
A friend said that we could start in
Genesis 3, with what is wrong with us.

Or we could start in Genesis 1-2,
With all that was once right,
All the splendor and glory that we love yet today.

The message then is the Hebrew “repent,”
Which means “return,”

Not the Greek “repent,”
Which means “turn around.”

If you find yourself in darkness,
Return to love and peace.

Return to right relationship with
God,
Yourself,
Your fellow travelers,
The earth.

Inspiring

Imagine if Christians became known as “the most encouraging, creative, loving, life-inspiring people I've ever met.” What if people far from God said about you, “I want to be around him because he calls out the best in me”? Why don't we see ourselves with that identity?

When I fell in love with Phil,
It was because he made me want
To be more like Jesus.

Could we do that now
For everyone we meet?

If “pointing out progress
Motivates forward movement,”

Would this work for my children?
For my friends?

Just how radical a life would this be?

Zaccheus

Jesus was just passing through Jericho
But he went home with Zaccheus,

Who was also a son of Abraham,
And salvation came to the house that day—

A beautiful story of repentance,
Restoration, transformation.

But I am struck with the offhand comment earlier,
“And when they saw it, they all murmured.”

I was stuck on short Zaccheus of Sunday school song fame,
And I had passed over the intensity of his job.

Chief tax collector.
And, in real time, Jesus had to tell

The Sheriff of Nottingham
That he would dine with him, befriend him.

Holy, loving Jesus going home with the
Oppressor, not yet repentant.

I would have murmured, too.

I say this to my shame.

Incomprehensible

I have made his heart and his servants’ hearts as hard as stone.

When I read the Bible,
Six-year-old Joe is never as attentive
As his older brothers.
Sometimes I wonder if he gets anything at all.

We read today about the Ten Plagues
And Pharaoh’s hard heart.

Joe suddenly started repeating what I had just read.
“God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
God hardened Pharaohs heart?
Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart?
If he wanted the Israelites to leave,
Why did he harden Pharaoh’s heart?”

It leaves me feeling socked in the stomach,
That my child understands that this is a mystery.

This messes with any tidy understanding
Of free will and agency.

Joe encountered the inscrutability of God today.

Stand amazed with me.

Good Samaritan

Seminary students prepared a sermon
On the Good Samaritan.
They were told that an audience awaited
Across campus.

An actor was strategically placed on the way,
Doubled over and moaning.

Of the students told, “Hurry! You’re late!”
Only one in ten stopped to help.

Of the students told, “Take your time,”
Six in ten stopped.

This study brought tears to my eyes.
Are not most of us busy, most of the time?

How could anyone rightly weigh the priorities
Of an impatient audience with the groans
Of an ill man?

If the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few,
Are we too busy to labor?

Even assuming we identify the harvest correctly?

Candy Corn

The little triangular candies
Were not my favorites growing up.

I gained an appreciation when
Some mentioned how they anticipated candy corn.

Then I stopped eating them.
Who needs all that fake color and flavor?

In a care package today,
The “healthy” version, colored with vegetable dye
And flavored with … I don’t ask.

They are too sweet for the rest of the family.

I’m not disappointed to have two bags for myself.

I’ll eat them slowly, over time.
Even “healthy” candy corn has
Sugar enough to make my heart race.

Unseasonal

When the temperature reached 80
And sunny,
I could do nothing but smile at the gift,
And send the boys out to play.

Fall

As a breeze wafts through the window,
I look up from my reading to see
Hundreds of gold leaves floating down
Into the clearing.

Magnificent decay.

Retribution

This is what the Eternal says: “Israel is My firstborn son. I say to you, ‘Release My son, so that he may serve Me,’ but in your stubbornness you refused to free him; therefore, I am going to kill your firstborn son.”

An imprisoned son
Necessitates the death of the captor’s son.

Somehow the signs escalate quickly
From tricks with snakes
And water turned to blood
To the predicted, expected eventual outcome:

The death of the firstborn son.

God's Instructions

Reading about God’s early instructions to Moses,
I am struck by how terribly unkind God’s instructions are.

Moses obediently throws down his staff.
It becomes a snake so feared that Moses fled.

And God tells him to pick it up,
Not safely behind its head, but
Dangerously, by the tail, where the whip of muscle
Could sink fangs into the hand that grasped it.

Moses obeys.
He is safe.

Next God tells him to put his hand in his shirt.
He obeys.
It comes out leprous.
What kind of a God rewards his obedient servant
With a dread disease?

He is, in the end, healed.

What kind of God sends his obedient servant
To the ruler with a sign easily duplicated
By the magicians of the court?
Why is it necessary to have Moses stumble away, embarrassed?
Why necessary to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

What kind of God takes the lives of the people he is saving
And makes them horribly worse for a time,
So that even the faithful doubt his obedient servant?

The Psalmist says that He Himself knows our frame;
He remembers that we are but dust.

Why, then, must our frame be tested,
Our dust tormented?

I rail against this story,
Even as I stand amazed at the intensity,
The trial,
The faithfulness,
The seeking of both God and man.

Birthright?

Israel had twelve sons
From two wives and two concubines.

Oldest cast aside for sleeping with his dad’s wife.
Next two cast aside for their violent slaughter
Of an entire city.

And the favorite sons of the favorite wife
Did not receive the inheritance.

Judah, fourth-born son of the less-loved wife,
Carries the lineage.

So the birthright is not entirely age-based,
But also meritorious?

Just Saying

How incredible it seems to me
That the oldest books of the Bible,
Written a thousand years and more
Before Christ,

Would have precisely the stories included
For the genealogy of Christ.

You’d think someone would have planned it!

Holy Ground

When Moses approached the burning bush,
God told him to remove his sandals.
He was standing on holy ground.

Feet shod, protected, disconnected.
Were they made of skin?

God had killed animals to clothe Adam and Eve,
No longer naked and unashamed.

Now God tells Moses to unclothe his feet,
Breaking down the division between earth and man,
Between man and God.

On holy ground, come close to God.
Unprotected, but connected.

Two Names

Women come up in Genesis:
Eve created,
Sarah laughed,
Rebecca and Rachel beloved,
Hagar and Leah unloved,
Dinah raped,
Tamar shrewd.
Women of action remembered also for
Their marriages,
Their offspring,
Their place in the patriarchy.

And then we come to Exodus one,
With Hebrews rapidly multiplying.
Pharaoh calls the midwives,
Shiphrah and Puah.

Remembered not for their place in a family tree,
But for what they did:

They feared God,
They disobeyed Pharaoh.

We remember them by name still:
Shiphrah and Puah.

Subversive

Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river.

I think of slave woman Jochebed,
Living in a hovel in Goshen,
Who hid her beautiful son three months
And then, shockingly, obeyed Pharaoh’s order.

She cast him into the river.

She obeyed, but not as expected.
Her son, guarded and protected.

How long could she have thought to keep this up?
Did Pharaoh’s daughter find him the first day?

Or was this an act of survival and hope,
One day at a time?

As it is, indeed, for all of us.

Three Jobs

When asked to list three jobs
He didn’t want to do,
Abraham, age eight, answered decisively.

Army man.
Slave trader.
Race car driver.

Artistic, gentle son,
I am glad you know yourself.
And history.

Bewildered

You and I pack our schedules
To keep from getting bored.
The world is full of interesting things
And we like to engage.

We get that life is short,
And we have no patience for pettiness.
Give us realness and depth, or don’t bother.
Some might say we’re intense.

You came and told me much,
With an openness that is usually earned over time.
And I am left feeling like I bellied up to a fire hose:
Filled up and flung out.

And I wonder: what can I do for you?,
Even though I suspect that is not the question.

Broken Glass

I once broke a jar and put the remains
In a trash bag and set it by the door,
Ready to take out.
In the five minutes of final food prep,
I stumbled into the bag
And wound up with seven stitches for the gash.

But my phobia of broken glass began long before that.

So I can do nothing but thank God
That when the glass broke on the carpet of the playroom
With such a muted crack that no adult noticed,
That the damage was limited to a total of
Two small cuts on two small fingers of two small children.

for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

Exactly Right

On a shoot in LA,
You passed a stall of clocks made of
Books, row upon row, beautiful.

Scanning titles, you found
One of my top ten, so when I opened it
Weeks later, I felt very known, loved.

I think about my clock Odyssey
And want to tell you: Yes.
There is time for the journey.

True?

St. Augustine said, “You become what you love.”

I wonder what St. Augustine meant when he said that.
Maybe:

If you love money, you become hard;
If you love children, you become playful;
If you love learning, you become knowledgeable;
If you love God, you become godly.

Or maybe:

If you love grace, you become gracious;
If you love truth, you become truthful;
If you love love, you become loving.

Love the good.

Mind Blown

Isn’t this the cup from which he drinks? Doesn’t he use it for divination?

Joseph and the dreams doesn’t bother me.
I like the strangeness.

Then we have Joseph and his cup,
That he claims is used for divination.
Twice.

Perhaps this is simply part of his disguise,
The build-up before the big reveal.

But what if he did practice divination?
That was what the dream prophecies were,
Telling the future by supernatural means.

Sometimes it seems that those who follow God
Most closely
End up looking

Most crazy.

Wendy

What a wise person says is the least of what they give. It is in the little habits of life, the daily acts of kindness and courage that were handed down to that person by a mentor a generation ago which were handed down by a mentor before—and stretched back into the dimness of time.

A year and a little more I had
Wendy as my weekly mentor.
One Saturday I tried to do something loving,
And it failed, and I was sick and took the wrong bus home.
In short, it was a disaster.

And in my campus mailbox the next week
Came a card, the “Get Well Soon”
Crossed out and rewritten
“You Are Cool.”
I laughed about that for days.
It was so very Wendy.

In my memory, she always clapped and cheered
When I walked in her door,
Exuding eagerness to know me, to be with me,
Sharing her gift of hospitality.

I clap and cheer for guests now,
Passing on the hospitality I have received.
May there be another generation of
Welcome, coming soon.