Category Archives: niggling quandaries

those mind-worms that eat my mind and sometimes feed my soul

To fix … or to bless

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morning 2.jpg

Too often I start my day
With a list of things to do …
Or to do better.

I wake to ‘the first day
Of the rest of my life,’
And immediately try to remake it
In the shadow of yesterday’s errors.

I thrum my soul
With guilt or regret
For what was done poorly
Or not done at all.

I look to the future
But the windows are coated
With a film
Of leftover shoulds.

Guilt, you know,
Is really a poor motivator,
Though it is often the whip
Of first resort.

What if,
Instead of trying to fix,
I could learn to bless?

What if I could learn
To focus on the beauty,
Rather than the flaws?

What if I could wake
With a heart that is grateful
And hopeful
And full of blessing?

Now, there’s an idea.
Maybe I should fix that flaw …
Maybe I should add ‘gratitude’
To my list of things to do better.

AAAUGH! Another should!
But it makes me chuckle
And that might just be enough
To break the spell.

Satan is the Hebrew word
For ‘the accuser.’
True for me.

Today, at least,
I leave his curse behind.
And enter this day
With the blessing of beauty.

And I am grateful.

morning.jpg

[photo is by James Walsh per cc 2.0]

learning to dance

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dance steps.jpg

It’s such a silly dance I dance,
Trying to decide if its you or me
Who takes each step, within the flow.
So, thinking too hard about the steps,
I stumble.

I forget that dancing is less about my feet,
And more about the music.
My focus, once again, awry.

Only, on occasion,
The beauty takes me from myself.
I find that I am whirling in your arms,
Alight with joy, full of you,
And … fully me.

I do not lose myself.
I loose myself,
When I turn my attention
From my feet
To your embrace.

Then, I find the music
And I can dance.

 

[photo by DrewToYou per cc 2.0]

a question for God

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Are you befuddled, like I am?
Were you caught off guard
By the once-again willfulness
Of these, (of us) your dear children?

Are you saddened by
Our angry rejection – each of the other
As we each try to be right enough
To gain your approval?

When will we wake up to the love
Already wrapped around our shoulders?

When will we learn to giggle together
Under the blanket of your grace?

giggling together

[photo by Christine Mahler per cc 2.0]

sit, sit, sit, sit …

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cat in the hat 2 3.jpg

Hands on the keys,
Head trying to focus,
I wait.

For too many days
I’ve let my eyes be distracted
By swirling circumstance.

My head is spinning.
I am befuddled.
The world is just not right.

But angst will not fix it
And consternation leads nowhere.
I think, ‘This just can’t be!’

But it is.
It is . . .
So, where are you?

‘Well,’ I think I hear you whisper,
‘Not in the eddies of befuddlement
That cloud your brain.’

‘Not in the tiny corners
Of consternation,
Or of fear.’

‘Not in any careful arrangement
Of concepts or creeds.
All those are too small.’

‘You will not catch me here or there.
You will not catch me . . .
anywhere.’

Are you now the Cat in the Hat,
Dancing amid the chaos of toys
Sent flying by Thing One and Two?

There is some truth in that story.
Some twinkle of sense
Amid the wry phrases.

And one of those twinkles
Lodges itself in my heart.
Stories catch the truth better than concepts.

Stories are grounded in life.
Stories don’t have to tell the truth for all time.
They just have to ring true in that particular embodiment.

‘But,’ I hear myself argue from the corner,
‘Isn’t truth true for all times and all places?
Why does it take a particular embodiment to show itself?’

‘Because its just that big,’ you whisper.
‘Its just that big. Its just that expansive.
You cannot hold it all.’

‘But where it touches your life,
You can glimpse its passing.
When it nods at you, you can nod in return.’

‘The trick, of course,
Is to get out of your head,
And into your life.’

‘Live your story
And keep an eye out for me.
You can’t miss me, if you are watching.’

‘The hat gives me away every time.’

 

[image cropped from photo by Daniel X. O’Neil per cc 2.0]

true

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those hands.jpg

It is the experience of God that holds us true,
That truly holds us.
Doctrine merely opens the door, if it, indeed, is true.

The closer we can get to clearing the dross from our preconceptions,
The clearer we can see.
But seeing is not enough.
It takes the deep embrace to truly know.

For me, it is a bit of a catch 22.
I try to clear my head, to make way for my heart.
Yet, my head is not up to this too-big challenge.
I must learn to lean into the embrace from the start.

And that may be the heart of faith,
The faith of the heart,
Learning to trust God’s embrace, rather than my own.
It is God who does the holding.

I cannot grasp; yet, I am held.
True.

[photo by Timothy K Hamilton per cc 2.0]

woe to you

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accusation.jpg

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” – Matthew 23: 23-24

Woe to you, lawmakers.  You seek easy answers to hard problems and produce sound bites which trivialize our turmoil, placing blame and responsibility on anyone but yourselves.

Woe to you, self-righteous do-gooders, who make a show of what you give, who see money as the way to buy righteousness and avoid relationship.

Woe to you, silent watchers, who love to complain and lift not a finger to correct.

Woe to you, televangelists and false prophets.  You prey on the vulnerabilities of people who need God, offering them yourselves instead, and at a high price.

Woe to you, vain mirror-dwellers, who place all value in appearance and outward style and fail to reflect any inward substance, having none to offer.

Woe to you, spewers of religious fervor – all froth and uproar – and with no promise of peace, for peace belongs to the prince you do not serve.

and, that said,

Woe to me, filled with shiny plans and golden schemes, I leave undone the humble work before me.  Too easily, I drop a project when it first is marred by my inevitable mistakes, not willing to recognize those failings as innate to me.  So, dreams prevail but do not accomplish good for anyone but the dreamer.

To long for perfection on my own, to think that it is possible within myself to be perfect, is to usurp the place of God.

Woe to me. My particular risks and temptations are my own, sculpted from the clay I have wrested from God’s hands. I make a false self in a fancied image of goodness, as do all the woeful souls that shout and thrash around me.

Teach me to release myself, flawed and loved, into your hands.

Teach me that all other souls are there, beside me, held in those same loving hands.

 

[image edited from photo by M.V. Jantzen per cc 2.0]

A question for the struggle

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together under the umbrella.jpg

Whom does God love more
The mistaken, but earnest, heretic
Or the proudly intolerant orthodox?
Answer: both.
God loves us both, infinitely.

That is the place we must start.
That is the place I must start.
In God’s love.
In love with God.
In love (with God’s love) with you.

We may build walls with rules
Or circle our wagons in self-protection
But the rain falls on us all:
The just and the unjust,
The correct and the befuddled.

So, we must find a way
To live our best lives
In a world that contains us both.
Try as I might, I will not change you,
Nor you change me, with arguments.

Yet, I know I will change with time.
I know because I have changed, already, many times.
You will change too.
And when we lean into love,
The change is for the better.

The father waits for the prodigal,
Even if the big brother does not.
Even if the big brother was secretly glad the prodigal left.
Even if the big brother left the father, too
And just didn’t know it.

And the father wants us to party together,
When the prodigal makes it home,
When the big brother hears the music,
And wonders why it is not for him.
It is, really, for neither, alone.

The party is for reunion.

I have faith, I have hope, that love will win.
I just wish it would happen sooner rather than later.
I dare to think that is God’s hope, too.
That we would both come to ourselves
And come to the party.

Soon.

[Image modified from photo by Markus Goller per cc 2.0]

defiant joy

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irrepressible.jpg

Is it possible
To hold within your heart
A nugget of defiant joy?

It is.

To deeply know
God’s deepest love
For all the deepest parts of you.

To hold to love
Despite the angry shouts
And sadly shaking heads.

To welcome God’s love
So fully, so truly
That it spills out to others.

Even – though they cannot see it,
And don’t know how to receive it,
To those with sadly shaking heads.

That is the miracle of grace.
That we can offer love to one
Who cannot love us in return.

Father, forgive them,
For they do not know
What they are doing.

Let me be a conduit of grace
Let it flow to me and through me
To all creation.

It is. (amazing) It is.

[photo by Michelle Robinson per cc 2.0]

words

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words.jpg

sometimes, words won’t do
they are just too tiny
just too constrained
inadequate

but the absence of words
can leave an awkward emptiness
a sense of isolation
separation

so let us build
a tiny bridge,
a fragile conduit
with our words

let us reach
with faltering hands
to touch the cheek of hope –
the hope that we all share

the hope that we might be
both truly ourselves
and truly one
with all that is

such is the gift of God
selfhood and community
a mystery to be honored
with our tiny, hopeful words

[photo by Jennifer Fred Merchán per cc 2.0]

kludge

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kludge.jpg

When I encounter a problem, a conundrum, a quandary,
I want to fix it, as quickly as possible.
I work with what I know, and who I am, and what I have
To find a way around or through.

And that, sometimes, creates a bigger problem

My preconceptions get in the way.
If I could back off far enough, or shed my frame,
The problem might just be transformed.

Instead I build a kludge,
A work-around of convoluted wires and patches.
I solve one problem and create another.

Too often, it seems my theology is a mass of kludges –
My own and those of others.

The longer I stay in my head,
Requiring explanation or understanding,
The longer I delay delight.
For somewhere beyond what I can grasp,
You wait to gather me in.

I am bound by my own befuddlement.
But even in that moment,
You find a way to set me free.
Slowly, I am learning to release my questions
And, instead, be held by wonder.

 

[photo by Marco Assini per cc 2.0]