Speeding

I woke at seven. Not long enough, but was there more time to sleep?
I didn’t think so.

We researched in the morning until we left.
Phil went to a specialist.
I filled the car’s tank and entertained boys.
We drove forty minutes
To a farm equipment dealer,
Spent a scant hour there,
Buying the equivalent of a car.
We raced back forty minutes
And arrived, to the minute,
When Phil was scheduled for a scan.
I drove across town to get takeout,
Back across town to get Phil,
Then drove the hour home.
Six hours, most of it spent speeding.

On reaching home, I wanted nothing
But a quiet room and a plate of food.

One friend, when she learned this tale,
Wrote, “days like this make me sure you're a superhero.”
Boosted my spirits.

And made me remember that I’m glad
My quiet room has email.

To Be Prayed For

This is what it’s like to be prayed for.

A setback of six months seems fine.
The pain of a fractured tibia seems manageable.
The complete change of life seems unimportant.

In short: we have peace.

The Way Forward

It has been a fear of mine
A half decade and more:
What will happen should
Phil be incapacitated?

And then, when it happened,
I was too ill to care.

One day, two, the cows have grazed
Their paddock, good boys
Going out to water once a day,
Without complaint.

But watering is one thing;
Moving cows is another.

Phil figured that a small
Utility vehicle
Could get him around,
Like a wheelchair for a farm.

We had looked at them for years,
But the time was never right to buy.

In the morning we did due diligence:
Craigslist, friend, dealer, rental;
Prayer.
And then we went out.

Hours later, we had the vehicle for Phil
That will prevent his imprisonment.

The Apple of Your Eye

As contemporary singers sing
The ancient Psalm:

“Keep me as the apple of your eye;
Hide me in the shadow of your wings,”

This plunges me, viscerally,
Into Holland in World War II,

Where in the street a German beat
A Jewish man with low IQ.

Daughter cried to father,
I pity him!

Looking at the German,
Father replied,

So do I, for they have touched
The apple of God’s eye.

Little Thing

Phil went alone into the hospital
While I went to get dinner.

He had a scan
And got some drugs

While I drove across town
And waited in line.

He finished first,
And went to get coffee …

Until he realized that,
With crutches,

He could not carry a cup.
He left without coffee.

It’s a big thing, to have only
One leg work.

It’s a little thing, to realize
You won’t carry anything

By hand
For the next few months.

Except it’s not a
Little thing.

Me, Overwhelmed

Five sons, none yet fed.
My sickness, not abated.
My face, allergen flared, flaming.
My hair, wild and tangled.

In short, this would not be
My choice
To show the world
What a family of Jesus-followers
Looks like.

Husband in the ER,
Texts not working.
But as noon approaches,
We must eat.

Try to get Chipotle:
New store not quite open.
I know of no other options
For actual food
On this side of the city.

“In my distress I cried out
To the LORD
And he answered me.”

A smoothie shop across the street
Sated our hunger and
Helped us survive another hour.

Responsibility Shift

When I have morning sickness,
I turn worthless for weeks,
Simply surviving.

Now Phil is down for a season.
And I realize that I will,
Take over the shopping.

I haven’t yet thought about the rest.
I liked our responsibility split
As it was

Before!

Fracture

So often I’ve seen
Broken bones,
Legs in casts,
Heard reports of torn ACLs,
Torn rotator cuffs.

None of this seemed terribly
Trying.
And maybe for many it’s not?

But I think about the farm.
We live on a gravel drive,
Down a dirt road.
To maneuver with crutches
Seems quite the hard task.

Ten weeks in a thousand square feet …

A lot of constriction.

Boardwalk

We had gone to New Jersey
For a funeral,
And ended up walking the boardwalk.

And besides the rides,
The girls in their short shorts,
The small beach
And plentiful shops,

I remember the deliciousness
Of the iced lemonade,
So cold and refreshing,
With a layer of sugar on the bottom
To suck up with the straw.

If It Had to Happen

Any physical injury
That may require surgery
Is unwelcome, at any time.

And yet, I can give thanks

That this didn’t happen
The day before,
In the midst of the worst of my fever;

That this didn’t happen
Two years before,
In the trailer, where Phil would have
Had no chance to enter or egress.

The Codeine Temptation

After both my hospital deliveries,
The doctors gave me codeine
To help bear the pain.
I didn’t take any,
Delighted with my fortitude.

I had once taken codeine
In college, when sick.
I remember the lovely feeling
Of slipping away from the aching body
To deep sleep.

Today, with aching body,
I came across those old pills.

As much as I normally look for health
Via natural means,
I understand the appeal
Of codeine.

This feels like admitting that I like
Dr. Pepper.

Irrational Thoughts on My Sickbed

My cold went away a day,
Then returned with a vengeance,
So I was feverish and limp,
Unwilling and mostly unable
To do much for anyone, even me.

This was fine until
The family returned from judo,
Phil with a hurt leg.
And all I could think was:

Phil! I don’t break my leg
When you’re sick!

A Blue Flash

Eyes closed, I absorbed the warmth.
Eyes opened, the blinding light
Momentarily made all white,

But then I watched two indigo buntings
Cavort into the greenery.
It was a good moment to open my eyes.

Answered Prayer

I dragged my aching body out.
Surrounded by green and sun,
I asked God that, for Phil,
This would be a day of decision.

He came home hours later.
My prayer was answered.
And I am not sure what that means,
And I am not sure how that looks.

But I suppose the life of obedience
Hasn’t looked terribly normal
For us thus far.
Further up and further in!

Two Dollars a Day

I looked through a photojournal book
Of the world’s poor.

I had forgotten
How dirty
How violent
How sick
How ugly

Much of the world is.

And now that I remember,
I’m not sure what to do about it.

Everything Changes

Two friends came down,
Just graduated.

And though they will both be here
Another year
Or two,
They will no longer live together,
They will not both be in school.

Everything changes.

And after they left,
I thought about how they have been in my life,
And how this day spent
Talking about weddings
And sharing strawberry shortcake
Will never be repeated.

Reminded again to make the most
Of every opportunity,

Because the opportunities are precious

And few.

Opportunities

There are many opportunities in the world.
I think about the ones that call to me right now.

Exercise to get a beach fit body!

Cook from scratch! (Try gluten free,
Or paleo, or frugal, or ethnic!)

Music! Play the piano, play the flute!

Read to the boys! Their days with you are few!

Remember your spouse! Take time for him, too!

Don’t neglect the Scripture! There is always more there:
Memorize, or pray, or meditate; consider commentaries, history!

Hospitality! Invite friends, enjoy friends,
Counsel friends, celebrate with friends!

Don’t forget basic maintenance! From cleaning the kitchen
To keeping emails in the inbox below a thousand (ahem),
This category could be an entire life.

Writing! It calls to me.

Healing! (I should resume my homeopathy studies. I think.)

Reading! I have dozens of books, maybe hundreds of books,
That I am excited to read … someday.
And somehow reading telescopes out,
So that one book on one topic leads to more.

How to balance so many exciting opportunities?
I don’t think I do it well.

Paint

When I swirled the paint,
I was astonished how easily the colors combined,
How beautifully vibrant they were.
I understood the allure of creation.

I am not sure how to fit that, too, into my life.

Image and Word

It is difficult to think about my thinking,
Since to observe something changes it.

But I don’t think that I think in images, mostly.
I think I think in words.

My one B in high school was in art class.
I did my best, but lack all talent. And patience.

So I read with interest a book on how
The Bible, written in words, is three-quarters images.

It reminded me that even though I am no visual artist,
I can use words to create pictures,

And that God does that, too.
(But I still wish I had some talent for the visual arts.)

Ephemeral

Four brothers were in bed.
After a long afternoon mowing,
Phil soaked his muscles in the tub.

The fifth brother gazed longingly at the water,
So in he went, too,
A dirty, sweaty, pale-skinned tyke
Standing in a tub of tepid water.

After he had splashed,
After he had been soaped,
He finally sat down, as Phil wanted to get out,
Mostly sealing off the drain.

In the slowly sinking water,
He smilingly lapped the soapy water
Like a puppy,
And we his parents laughed and watched him.

This is a normal moment
Of a normal childhood,
But this moment will not come again.
Has he ever bathed with his father before?
Should it happen again,
He will probably not be babbling,
Or the weather will not be as perfect,
The smell of soap so sweet.
He won’t attempt to wipe his nose with the wet washcloth.

And I sat with tears at the happiness I was living,
And I sat with tears that this moment is already past.

Fourth in the Series

I am reading aloud
A book I’ve not read,
The fourth in a series
Thus far we’ve enjoyed.

The heroine just discovered
She has a voice like
An orchid in a field of daisies,
A gift.

And I realize that I don’t like
Books with such unexpected
Grace, because it leaves me
Feeling

Insufficient.
Why wasn’t such grace
Given me? After all, what daisy
Wants to read about an orchid?

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries were on sale.
Such a short time in season.

Like my mom before me,
I made shortcake,
Sliced the berries,
Stirred in sugar.

Seven bowls with shortcake,
Strawberries, sugar, whipped cream.

Soon, seven smiles.
Seven satisfied stomachs.

Summer satiation.

I Can See the Outline Now

I get boxes of books on occasion.
I skim a bit of each.
So many are poorly written,
Or have detailed sex scenes,
Or constant unnecessary profanity,
I discard them in minutes.

But there are usually a few
That appeal to me in writing quality
Or topic,
And those I set aside for later.

Until I realized I could no longer
Enter my storage space,
Filled with boxes and books and stacks.

I have organized.
A bookcase of books that I will keep,
Because I want to,
Even if I never read them
(Though I hope I will).

And a wall of shelves,
Now stacked two deep,
Of books that need attention.

I can see the outline of the project,
A mountain of information to sift.

How did I get this behind?

Facing Reality

For years I have hauled around
Classic literature, telling myself that

One of these days I will have time to read.
Until I faced the reality that,

Although I like the Poe I’ve read,
I will never read his Complete Works;

I have never liked Ibsen,
And would happily never read his plays again;

Mandelbaum won the National Book Award for
His Aeneid, so I don’t really need another translation;

I am not a bored king, waiting for Scherezade
To tell me serial stories every night (goodbye, Arabian Nights);

That I attempted Doctor Zhivago in college
And it was too long and too cold, and my attention span is even less now.

I am facing reality, a book at a time.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Reading a hundred quotes back to back

About kindness
And looking inside
And being a good person
And having hope for each new day
All sounds so nice and vaguely religious.

Actually it is the vague religion of today,
One that wants us all to be good
With the end goal of happiness and self-esteem,
And that God is somewhere else, but ready to grant our wishes:
Moralistic therapeutic deism.

Not as offensive as the bloody cross,
Not as joyful as walking by the Spirit.

Just plenty of platitudes along the lines of
To thine own self be true,
Without the wisdom to see that maybe
The self is the problem.

Two Reasons

In Exodus, the Sabbath is commanded:
Work six days, then rest,
For God created in six days,
And rested on the seventh,
So the Sabbath day is blessed and holy.

In Deuteronomy, the Sabbath in commanded:
Almost identical language until
The justification.
No longer a memorial to creation,
This is an appeal to history:
You remember that you were slaves,
And God brought you out with a mighty hand
And an outstretched arm.

This may be an appeal to justice, to community—
If you shop, there are people who work to serve you.
You were a slave, and are no more; let others be free, too.
We stop so that others can stop.

But I see this also as a prefiguring of Christ,
Who saved us from slavery with an outstretched arm.

Manifold Repercussions

I went to the ballet.
I saw a friend there,
One who left her husband.

I expect that she saw me,
As she stood so close
We almost touched.
But as she hugged her beau,
She cut me dead.

And I am left grieving
The manifold repercussions of sin.

Welcomed

Since wheat makes me psychotic,
I avoid it. Even in small bits,
Like Communion.

So when we went to church that
Announced, “If you need gluten-free,
Please ask,” I was so gratified,
So welcomed.
They had considered the needs of another.

Pass the Peace

We can greet someone,
And that is beautiful.
But to say, “Peace be upon you”
Is another level of greeting,
A blessing, a hope,
An expression that God changes
All.

Play and Pray

For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

What is the work of the Sabbath?
To rest.

How?

Prayer makes sense.
The chance to reconnect with God.
The chance to ask for needs, for insight.
The chance to listen, to hear from him.

Play makes sense.
If the Fall brings dissolution,
There is only One who offers re-creation,
And recreation, perhaps,
Proclaims that reality.

Strive, therefore, to enter into that rest.

Evening and Morning

My Sabbath-keeping has always been
A midnight to midnight affair.

Why might a sundown Sabbath be better?
Because we start with rest—

Proclaiming with our bodies
That grace precedes work;

That God is the One who sustains us, and
We enter into His work;

That we wake curious,
Wondering what God is doing today.

I am willing to invert my days.
I am ready for the rhythm of grace.

Creativity Exhausted

I spent forty hours
Cleaning out another’s house.

Then I came home,
And my home needed cleaning.
I haven’t found forty hours yet,
But even an hour or four a day
Has made a difference in my home’s
Function and livability.

Cleaning out requires mental effort.
Is this item worth keeping?
Does this bring me joy?

It leaves little room for writing
Or other creative effort.

When Phil Is Sick

Forty-eight hours so far
Phil has been sick this time.
He resurfaces occasionally
For the next dose of Nyquil,
And returns to bed.

I am competent enough
As a mom and a wife
That I don’t feel one-legged.

But I do feel like
One leg is a bit shorter—
Like my life, my days,
My thoughts
Are off-kilter.

Green Tunnels

The country roads
Are vibrant with green,
Surrounding the car.
I drive through
Green tunnels
And remind myself
Not to be mesmerized.

Kitchen Skills

Ever helpful,
Caleb joined me in the kitchen.
I noticed he had grabbed
The knife sharpener,
A little device without
Sharp edges or cause for concern.

Then he pulled out the
Ten-inch chef’s knife.

It was as long as his
Legs.

And though it looked to me
Like he was ready to sharpen
The blade with good form,

I put an end to that.

Wedding Juggernaut

An eighteen month engagement
Left the bride frantic,
As her wedding became
All-encompassing
Until it was unrecognizable.

It would all be over one day,
But if that day is the first day of
The rest of your life,
How could it bode well?

For the last few months,
We prayed with little more than howls,
As we had little expectation
Of anything good in the end.
And we counted down the weeks.

So when a guest described it as “amazing,”
I initially thought she was ironic.
But, no. Incredibly, God answered every prayer.
So that the weather was perfect,
The trees in bloom,

The dresses fit,
The family all centered
(Including the bride)
Until the entire weekend
Was a fairytale celebration of love and joy.

Thanks be to God.

In the Month of May

For my first home birth,
I had a midwife
And her beloved assistant.
And a friend to make me laugh.

It wasn’t until later that I learned
That the day the birth happened
Was the only one for a half month or more
Where all three people were free.

Thanks be to God.

Celebrate!

Every day this week:
A palindrome.

5/10/15
5/11/15
5/12/15
5/13/15
5/14/15
5/15/15
5/16/15

Celebrate!

Feeling Blue

My sister had felt blue.
Very blue.

She said later,
Even if I get that blue again,
I am in community,
And I will be okay.

She has family
And friends
To support her.
But she meant more.

That if she is struggling,
There are some who are winning,

And in a community, there is space for
All.

Ten Days

After bearing witness to transformation,
More than I could have asked or imagined,
I return to regular life
And feel like I’m floating.

It makes me wonder if the ten days
Between ascension and Pentecost
Were there in part to let the disciples,
Those regular humans,
Process.

Such a small grace.
If any grace could be said to be small.

Bathing Beauty

After a fun hour in the grass, dirt, and mud,
I brought the baby in and stripped him down.
As he sat in the shallow tub water,
He asked for his rubber duck, using,

As always, only the initial consonant sound.
After he accidentally shot himself in the eye,
He figured out how to shoot water out
The hole in the bottom.

And it overwhelmed me, the desire
To capture forever the delight of his smile,
His wrinkled nose, his dripping eyelashes,
The wonder of discovery.

Whirlwind

…pressing the final chapters of Job in the direction of a radically christocentric interpretation that sees Job's silence at the end of the book as being filled with the pathos of one survivor bearing prophetic witness to the sufferings of another…

My friend faced loss upon loss,
Until she beheld her shards of faith
And considered walking away.

In Job, God speaks out of the whirlwind.
And my friend finally left
Her icy bubble of isolation

For the chaos of companionship
And mutual grief
And there she found God

Where he has always been.

When the Days of the Siege Are Fulfilled

I woke in the night, overwhelmed by need.
So much to make right;
So much beyond me.

I went, that day, to visit a friend.
God gives her scripture references,
And the verse applies.

Ezekiel 4:19 does not exist, but 5:2 does,
A strange verse about dividing cut hair into thirds
“When the days of the siege are fulfilled.”

I planned to research that some more later,
To figure out if this was actually a word,
When my friend asked God if there was anything more.

And the answer came immediately.
This was what the man would do at the end of the siege.
He would still be standing.

I had woken and felt besieged.
There would be enough for me until the end.
I, too, would still be standing.

If creative interpretations of Scripture make you nervous,
Perhaps it’s because you haven’t
Had God speak to you that way yet.

Lusitania

One hundred years ago today
The Lusitania went down.
She carried passengers and materiel,
No neutral ship she.

And whether her loss,
Or the Zimmerman telegram,
Or the projected loss of bankers’ investments
Finally incited United States to war,

We went. And won.
And planted the seeds of the next war,
Far worse.

No action stands alone.

Missing the Others

After nine days away,
After a late night flight,
After almost a week of constant illness,

Caleb was not ready to greet his brothers.
But in the morning, when they bounced in,
He smiled.

And when they put him on a blanket
And carried him sedan chair style,
He laughed.

And I thought—
There you are.

I think sometimes about the loss of a child,
And wonder about the devastation.

Considering my youngest was pining for his brothers,
And, frustrating as he can be,
They were clearly pining for him,

I suspect there are not words to imagine
The loss
Of one.

Let Me Go Home

It was not my choice to depart. I felt called.
I went with appreciation and expectation,
If not enthusiasm.
After all, I have a very nice life at home.

Every day away, I saw beautiful things.
Every day away, I had reason to be gone.
Even so, I returned with gratitude
To my own life, my own space, my own people.

My friends remain in a distant city,
Far from their people, their space,
Their life.
I cry out on their behalf, O God.

Abundance

Less than twenty-four hours prior,
I had bought my ticket.
Not even all my family knew I was in town.

I walked into church and saw
My best friend from high school.
She had been on her way to another church

But was running late and decided
En route
To visit this one.

And so I sat in that sanctuary,
Rich with the presence of the Lord,
And reflected

That I had been to church
With my friend
In high school, in college,

And now married, both of us with young,
As we held hands during the Lord’s prayer,
As we took communion one after the other.

This lavish gift,
Orchestrated by the Father,
Enjoyed during a teaching on the Father’s

Abundance.