Surprised By God

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Surprised by God

She wasn’t speaking the obvious, really
It was a bit confessional
Or whining
Or a primitive guttural prayer
This is the problem with memoir
She thinks
Or believes
Or was it just musing
Truth was she did say, no typed
She hoped to be surprised by God
Or that God would surprise her
Do they mean the same
Or does that slight turn of phrase change things up a bit

And then it occurred to her
That what if the gift, the surprise
Was one of omission
Not physical or plain
Touchable or here

What if the gift was in what never happened
Like the absence of pain which never occurred
Or calamity or catastrophe which was averted or
Blocked
Saved by grace, shielded by mercy
Loved in the mystical marvelous way
That He does
Love, us

She thought maybe the surprise was in the silent step
Paw by paw of her tuxedo dressed cat
How can weight be silent as she creeps
Or the birth of a daughter one day in December
Oh joy, oh gift
Or the comfort of night, after the raucous and rowdy
Day
Or falling to sleep praying to be held
By him who is Comforter, buried under the
White down duvet
Seeking refuge and finding it in prayer

She remembered the camellia with a white blossom
Mixed among the red, a pearl in the sea of rubies
Miracle of nature or grafting of man
Either way, joy came her way
By God’s hand

The day she spoke it to her friend
The words of wanting, longing for Him to make himself known
She was empty
No filled with pain, loneliness and doubt

She sat waiting, trusting
Hope attending her soul

Time is a curious thing
She surmised
She had been surprised by God
More than seventy times seventy

It was in remembering back
On faithfulness
Not longing forward
With desire
Or is it
Both

Comfort comes
To those who believe
And who find Joy
Ushered in by the light of
Any moment now
Hope is a sliver
Of light pouring in
Reminding her of all the
What has been

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Joining my friend poet herself, beautiful writer and weaver of words, Laura for Playdates with God #atthewellspring and Michelle 

On Second Thought

wpid-20140118_161227.jpgThough forward is the best way to ride this pony
She is a bucking bronco these days
Going through it, not around it is the new black
We wade through mire and muck, almost daily
To get to the other side
Crossing that River Jordan, against the tide
Hope is our water wings
Wearing hip boots and waders
Given to us at birth, we
Cross
Redemption’s froth and foam
Splashing us, reviving us, saving us
Oh Lord my strength and my redeemer.

On second thought
It is all about the journey
It is the wading and crossing
The pluff mud soiled garments
That say
I got down and dirty
I lived
Not high and dry
Not Clorox clean
But travel weary and worn out

Traveling, still
Facing forward
No milk toast Kumbaya’s
But rather
A raucous rant and rave
Of an old spiritual sung from the
Laborers in the field
That’s our battle-cry

And Gloria Gaynor’s
“I Will Survive”
Played on repeat with those soulful
Spirituals from back in the Southern day
Not hanging on, surviving
But thriving, surviving
Running the good race
Well and good
Knocked down
Got back up again
Well

On second thought
I am in the belly of the whale
But safe in His arms
I am on the roadside, loved
By the Samaritan
Man he is good
And I am writing from prison
As Paul
Yet I am free

Oh journey you teach well and good
Oh journey
I am in the saddle, saddle sores and all
But I am facing ever toward the Cross
Wearing my water wings of hope

Your Rod and Staff comfort me
And I am humming Gloria Gaynor
And the Hallelujah chorus
And those cotton picking ballads from the
Painful places of our past, down South
Banjo on my knee
Harmonica in my mouth.

At the fork in the road
Go straight toward redemption
And don’t look back.

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Joining Laura Boggess for #playdateswithGod and Michelle at Michelle De Rusha dot com

The Agony Of Defeat

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The Agony of Defeat
I ask him
what happens when the Super G competitors
wipe out as they are winding their way
Down
Down
Down
making hairpin turns, carving the
ice and snow like a man takes
a new Gillette razor to the side of
his square jaw line
carving carefully to avoid a
ripping of flesh, a tearing of skin
avoiding blood at all costs

one wrong move
tactically taken
down the Russian mountainside

and pride and ego
land in the soft snow off to the side
spine and bone and muscle
in tact or broken
like the dream
bruised and busted up

we children of the sixties remember

we recall the Saturday slogan on TV
the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat

I scream at the screen
as the athletics
dissolve into a pile
a medal-less mess

and I want grace extended and do overs and second chances
for every last one

oh but that we would
extend it
the comforting caress
Balm
of the Spirit
Blow the winds of Mercy
Comfort a suffering saint

these elements of blood and grace and death and life
the Spirit’s there
at the moment of impact
always wiping the skinned knee
of his child
lying in a mangled heap
paralyzed
frozen by fear and disgrace

the agony of defeat
loss and pain
sadness and disappointment
roll down the cheek, by-product
of defeat
like an avalanche

He who makes us white
As snow
Mercy
He makes it new

Comforted in loss

Raising us up
from dejection
and defeat

I cover my eyes
Like a child
Look away
So much to bear

I tell him it’s the stories I love

Of the overcoming ones
The get-back-up-again ones

Tell me your story
Of mountaintops and mountainsides
Of trudging in the valley
Of defeat
And I’ll tell mine

The thrill of victory
Battle cry of those who
Break the seal on the package of grace

and at all costs
run into the arms
of a Carpenter
whose flesh was ripped
skin was torn
whose blood was shed

We look into His eyes
And
Forget

The agony of defeat.

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Joining Laura Boggess at Laura Boggess dot com for Playdates At The Wellspring & Jennifer Dukes Lee for #tellhisstory

Sunday Poetry – Through My Lens In Prose

If you are here every now and then, or have ever visited my space  here, or perhaps read my page with a bio. Back  when I had a page with a bio, and not an underconstruction about the writer or  author page, well you’d know the ratio of poetry to prose. ( I have an aversion to bios and struggle to write them.)

For a longish while the ratio has been heavy on  poetry.

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But I find that I  am moving into a period of prose.

Did you leave? Or did you return? I find that humor helps calm the beating heart. And  helps to hold back the flood of tears. Because I come writing today with an overflowing heart. One filled with raw emotion. Maybe even writing about poetry makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. That is different, right, from writing poetry. Right?

Sundays always seem filled with poetry. Maybe it is there Monday through Saturday but the eyes can’t see. Or maybe the holiness of Sunday causes the soul to feel ever single poetic thing. Maybe Sunday created by Creator God to be an eyes wide open to beauty day.

I just know that  yesterday there was an abundance in every turn and fold, step and dash. And I think hard these days of why poetry. For me. In my life. Why is there a passion in me to write it and find it. To unearth it and not miss it. To seek it out and name all that seems poetic in my days.

Because there are those days I truly wonder why. Wrestle hard. Question long. Think deep. And they are more frequent, raising  their heads and shining light, looking for an answer.My wandering and weird journey to poetry continues in tandem with a questioning spirit. Why  do I  feel fire in my belly to write it and explore the poetry of everything. It would be rhetorical to ask, so for now I am living into the call to write and earnestly hope that my art blesses.

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There was poetry for the uncovering everywhere in my yesterday. And while some I captured with my camera lens, some I simply cupped my hands and caught there in the moment, drinking from the vessel of the day. When I see how alive poetry causes me to be, I question less the draw to it. For if God unveiled poetry as a gift for my receiving, then I say thank you, truly and turn it back, release it out and beyond myself.

I can question and create in the same breath. He makes room for both. This is the Grace shown to the artist. And in the revealing of each small beautiful poetic offering in my days, I feel more like one who is undeserving. So much beauty and nuance. Lilting and singing. Swaying and flowing. Wooing and whispering. Calling to come see. To taste. And savor.

In life’s poetry.

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Each verse of scripture read by our Vicar carried me off and out of church on the wings of words. Yesterday. Lost in the lines of the living Word.

Browns and creams, smoothed by years of refining salt and sand, held my gaze for minutes and more. And I simply was stuck in a beauty pause carried in from the sea. Gifts my husband brought home. Porcelain-like. Perfect. Deposits from wave on wave of glory. Now sitting in my home. A reminder of love and beauty.

At dusk, the dolphin danced on the calm waters of Jeremy Creek and I was there in the moment. Because I answered the whisper to go stand by the water at the just right time.  Dipping up, breaking the water, his stage. And I on the banks alone. Breathing in poetry.

I rested my head on my husbands shoulder, smelling the salt the aroma of him whom I love. And  lost my breath. He had captured with his own lens, the swan preening, like a marble sculpture, frozen in time. And the mink stuck in the crab trap. But oh the story of its release told in his soothing voice. And the Oyster Catcher. The oysters and the sea.

And as I tell, I tell myself. It is a gift.

This life. This poetry.

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On Mondays I love to join my friend Laura Boggess. I am there today with other writers. Come visit?