My anger burned hot A sudden flare One too many lightning strikes Burrowed into the underbrush Of my willing heart One too many lightning strikes Hit the tall trees Of my good intentions Smouldering underbrush burst Into heaven-bent flames Where bright burning treetops Met them In an all-consuming white-hot blaze Now Days later Blackened with soot Eyes watering from smoke I bend to read the ashes Hoping for hope
Author: vabutsy
Remembering Gordon
**Twenty years ago today my husband, Gordon, slipped deeper into a coma. He died at dawn on July 5, 2003.**
The poetry prompt births an ear worm “These are a few of my favorite things” And with that worm My mind burrows deep Into the rich darkness of the song that Rodgers wrote For the film version After Hammerstein was dead Often gloomy, depressive But so incredibly talented He wrote music and lyrics Of the gazebo song “Something Good” That was the song I sang to Gordon As we drove to the beach For the last time Just a month before he died Arwen Who hadn’t yet decided Her life was better without me in it Was in the back seat We shed no tears as I sang But we all knew we were each crying Into the silence after I softly sang the last lines Out of tune, and with wandering notes, no doubt As I am no singer Into that forever beyond now silence Arwen said, “Oh mom” Gordon squeezed my hand I leaned my head against the window And kept my eyes on the road ahead To the beach and beyond
A possible interpretation
This morning, as usual on Sunday, I read the prescribed readings for the Catholic liturgy. And I reflected on these lines from Matthew 10:37-39
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
And I wonder if these lines might be rewritten for our times and culture as
“When your ego is invested in your past more than in your now, you are not at rest in divinity;
and when your ego is invested in your future more than in your now, you are not at rest in divinity;
and whoever does not accept spiritual darkness,
as Jesus did, is not at rest in divinity,
Whoever treasures their ego will lose their true selves,
and whoever loses their ego in divine oneness will find their true selves.”
Midwives of Divinity
“The world is pregnant with God!” Angela of Foligno Can we care for Mother Earth Gravid with God As we care for pregnancies In others? In ourselves? Once When my oldest was very young And very angry with me He said “When I’m grown up And you are little I am going to be mean to you.” He thought we would seesaw Back and forth Between old and young Him and me Forever God created us Birthed this world Now it is our turn To midwife God’s birth But we are careless We humans Midwives of the Divine Too often Too much The Divine fetus struggles Its umbilical cord Choked with smoke With plastic With money With indifference With disbelief Will Mother Earth miscarry? Are we to be abortionists Of the Divine fetus?
Hope and Dog Shit
Hope may be For some The thing with wings Flying into the distance Or even the sprouts From the eyes of a potato Growing into the future Hope For me Today Is sitting on the back porch Watching Woody Move around the yard His old man body stooped and slow With shovel and some other tool A long handled scraper kind of thing One in each hand To pick up the daily offerings Of the two dogs Hope is simply Wanting the same Tomorrow And the next day With Woody
Getting to Peace and Comfort
Woody and I just watched the second episode of Shiny Happy People. I am a 75 year old “cradle Catholic.” While growing up in pre-Vatican II southern Catholicism was far from Gothard’s IBLP, it was not that far.
So I was very aware, while watching, that even 5 years ago, I could not have watched that episode without struggling with panic, hatred, sadness, guilt, and remorse, all bundled together in one huge overwhelming confusing package called faith.
Tonight I am thankful for one thing. I am thankful that I now understand that there are realities that I can neither think nor feel my way through. Both paths led to a frightening jungle that kept me largely trapped inside my own thoughts and feelings for too much of my life. I did not know how to pay attention to the external world when it took all I had to control the noise and chaos of my internal world.
I still loved the presentation and liturgies of the Divine that I grew up with, much as I love comfort foods from my childhood (like hot dogs and canned baked beans – neither of which is the kind of food that I typically enjoy). But then my mind reminded me of some of the doctrines and teachings that were at best ludicrous and at worst grooming. And so I was left feeling that the Divine was unreachable, dangerous even. But I wanted to be close to a God I could no longer believe in, and so I pretty much lived within a spiritual/psychological preoccupying inadequacy.
I have practiced yoga for 55 years now. So savasana, yoga nedra, and pranayama were my first introduction to meditation. They helped immensely, but I still longed for my spiritual comfort food.
And that is what the practice of contemplative prayer gives me: both the peace of meditation and the comfort of being within a familiar pattern of the Divine. This is why contemplative prayer is such an unimaginable blessing to me.
Meditation is hard work for me. So is contemplative prayer. But it is hard for natural reasons. It is hard like growing up, like “adulting” is hard. It is not hard because it is tearing me apart from the inside out.
I am slowly learning that thoughts won’t get me to the Divine and emotions won’t get me to the Divine, but the Divine can get me to coherent thoughts and controllable emotions.
My Prayer This Morning
Beloved Creator, I praise You, I glorify You, I bless You, I give thanks for Your great goodness and tender mercy. To You I come, my all-powerful Lady and loving Mother.
Shine in my heart the light of Your grace. Shine in my mind the light of your love that I may walk towards and with others all my life, following your example of boundless compassion.
Glorified and exalted is Your holy being, many-named and many-manifested, now and forever.
Amen.
I Wonder What My Mind Is Doing
What, the wise woman asks, is our task as humans
For no discernable reason
My still immature mind immediately starts
Singing the king’s song from Camelot
“I wonder what the king is doing tonight
What merriment is the king pursuing tonight”
Often I wonder what my mind is doing
What chimera is it pursuing
Especially
When I awaken
From an all too frequent daydream
In which I eloquently defend
Myself, my actions, my choices, my beliefs
From my adversaries
Who all too often are
My mother, sister, daughter
Curiously never my father or sons
Never my best friend
Although often another woman friend
If I am not careful
My untrustworthy still immature mind
Wanders me deep into a dense jungle
Of self-righteousness
With no guide or destination
Called there by the venomous snake
Of not-good-enough
Tempted by the poisonous apple
Of regrets
The Problem With Paying Attention
The problem with paying attention Is that it makes me wonder Too often Just what the hell we are evolving into Shall we all evolve into comfort With alternative facts If so Then we better also evolve Into new ways to live In a destroyed world Shall we evolve into an oligarchy -- Have we already -- If so Then I can stop listening To news that may or may not be Some billionaire’s alternative facts Shall we evolve into a republic With Robert F-for-fucking Kennedy, Jr. Or Ron D-for-Demented DeSantis As president I believe it was e. e. cummings Who observed that There is a hell of a good universe Next door And we should go (Even if it is just Canada)
making love
His body and mine in the no space between us hold past, present, and future
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