All These Things

All these things that decorate my home, things I have created with passion and energy, skill and sometimes surprising serendipity: They color my home with warmth and visual pleasure. They still bring me joy and satisfaction, remembering those phases of my artistic pursuits. But I have to wonder where they will end up after I am gone.

Stuffed in the back of some closet or under the bed with other guilt heirlooms.

A thrift store, a junk pile?

Will any of it matter? Does it even matter now? Really?

I have made pottery, quilts, soft sculpture dolls, painted folk art pieces, cross-stitch and needlepoint projects, crocheted rugs . . . and then there are the thousands of photographs and all those myriad words in novels, poems, and essays and published songs and recordings—pieces of my mind and heart, framed, spiral-bound, pressed in vinyl.

My treasures, another’s junk—at least, I fear it.

My kids have their own lives, their own accumulations, and I can’t imagine their cherishing my creations so much that they would add mine to their own clutter and displace their own treasures; so, what do I do with all this stuff? Or do I do nothing?

We raised our children to be independent and not be tied to their parents’ apron strings—to live their own lives. And they are. But until you are on the home stretch of your own life does it finally dawn on you that your collections, souvenirs of your pursuits and accomplishments, and even your thoughtful words become more and more worthless, risking becoming an albatross around the necks of those left behind.

I guess the pain of letting go chips at our desire—my desire—for significance. The “things” are evidence that I did something with my life that was important, even magical. That I was important. I contributed something to the world that benefited others. That inspired others. The knowledge that what I have done will turn to dust as my body will someday, is an important reminder of what is really important.

Really.

It is what I have lived for—at least, I have tried.

The eternal things.

I am not getting rid of my quilts, so don’t even ask. But when that final day comes, if the kids don’t want my stuff, and it ends up in a thrift store, I will be okay with that. Mainly because I won’t be here.

I have created in this life because my Father is a Creator.

I have sung in this life because my Father has filled me with ideas, music, and praise.

I have loved in this life, even ever so weakly, because my Father is love.

So, will it matter where all my things end up or that my name will live on in this world. No, it will only matter that I am His and Home.

Just a thought . . .

You know that point in a film when the bad guy tells the trapped sucker that unless they do this thing–usually some horrible act of betrayal–the said bad guys will kill your mom, your wife, your kids, and maybe even your coffee barista?

Just a heads up if you are ever in that situation: from countless theatrical examples, once you complete the required act, you find out they have already killed your loved ones, and you are next! So just man (or woman) up and do the right thing!

I find myself screaming this at television screens! And yet . . .

You’re welcome.

Run To

It’s like dead weight being dragged along behind,

hindering the Now that has its own trouble enough.

How to forgive. How to forget.

Must; and yet . . .

I think it’s finished, this letting go jazz; but then,

all that trash springs legs and comes running after.

Should it be done? Of course, but I just can’t un-remember what betrayal felt like, what the loss of friendship and trust felt like, what harsh criticism and a kick in the spiritual teeth felt like.

It is the darkening cloud above my head, the heaviness pressing on my chest; and I should be able to let it go, but there is a disconnect between

what I know is good for me and

what I can actually pull off.

And I am alone in it because it is me who nurses the grinding grudges, me who fans the embers to a flame ready to burn down my own house.

If I let it go—let the doers off the hook—it will be like admitting that my life did not matter, that evil can win and go on eviling as long and as wholeheartedly as it wants. And yet . . .

there is enough trouble for this one day, You say. So at least for this moment, this one thoughtful pause, I am letting it all go,

the plagued past, the harms and hurt.

I place it in Your scarred hands . . . and now I run to tomorrow!

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“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34 (NLB)

“Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” I Peter 5:7

Another New Year

N ow is the time to take stock, to

E valuate choices made—to right

W rongs, to plan a way forward that

Y earns to see others needs as

E ven more important than the

A ll-consuming passions of the

Regenerated but repenting self.

I remember when . . .

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about memory. In overhearing a conversation about a past incident, I found it interesting that one person was so sure of the facts, the other not—at least not the “facts” the first person remembered. I, of course, also had that particular memory, and mine being the only accurate one! was different from both. But isn’t that the case, that what is stored in our brain cells, to us is the gospel truth, when in fact the actual truth might, and probably is, an amalgamation of all the facts of the real incident.

That only God or Google knows!

Allowing for bias, missing crucial details because of proximity or aptitude, or loss of clarity over time, the incident can be something very different from one person to another. And its emotional impact quite different, as well.

I remember years ago seeing a television show called Thirty Something. In one poignant episode, the four or five main characters observe and/or participate in the same experience, but later as they sit around recollecting it and its personal impact, it would seem that they all had experienced something quite different. Some villains were heroes and vice versa; and some bystanders played more important roles in some of the scenarios. The incident as seen by the television audience you would imagine would have been the gospel truth, but that too was tarnished by the grid through which each of us perceive our world.

One person’s nostalgic memory can conjure up another’s bitterness and betrayal. We all have a tendency to place ourselves in the best light, whether intentional or not; and the harmful or even just embarrassing things, though truly “true” need to be filtered out and archived into grey matter that doesn’t . . . matter, that is!

I suspect it is just self-preservation.

But when it hurts, when it matters more, is if that other’s memory diminishes you and rewrites your history, and there is nothing you can do to edit the narrative because it has become fixed in their mind; and hence in reality.

I guess the moral of this commentary is that we need to listen more carefully than we do. I mean really listen!

We already hear and see and think about things, but very quickly all that data gets catalogued into our fixed brain-vessels that have decided who people really are—what they are like, what their worth is, their credibility, and their ability to grow and change.

If I have a 2023 resolution, it would be this: To listen with my head and my heart, creating as much as is possible a blank slate onto which I place that data. Grudges be gone. Over sentimentality be . . . well, not gone, but at least tempered with solid doses of scrutiny. Let those who hold a hard and fast history in their heads have it. But as for me, it will not make me feel less, and I will not use another’s view of me as the metric for my worth.

Standing Alone with Elisha

We all like to think that standing for something big would not be too hard because in a part of our head and heart, we know that we really aren’t standing alone–

at least, really alone-alone.

And yet, there are times when the likeminded seem to fade away,

weary of the fight, fearful of being targeted, or just not as committed to the cause as they had thought;

and so, standing alone becomes real, necessary,

and painful.

And resolve is almost enough,

but not quite.

And stillness is almost peace,

but not quite.

Let my soul rest in You so that the chaos would not swallow me.

When I stand alone, let me see the armies of Jehovah surrounding me.

********************************

II Kings 6:17 “And Elisha prayed, ‘Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

Collector of Words

I am a collector of words, a hoarder of fractured phrases.

I scribble in the margins of my life words wild and wonderful that shout a divine “wow.”

Other words I grind down fine as they seep into my belly, lubricated by tears. Waiting.

Some words roll off my tongue, like gold threads of morning light:

evanescent

breathless grace

forgiveness

Wave-walker

fellowship

freedom,

and Camelot days.

Other words stop at my teeth, choke the air right out of me, saved at the frayed edge of my life where tension lives:

savage

ugly

betrayal

myth madness

splintered hope

withering,

and nevermore.

My linguistic calisthenics and mad manipulation are not just a benign desire to create, but an insatiable desire to find the right label to organize this messy mind, this muddled life.

To form this twisting and turning earthbound into everliving everafters—

thoughts that matter,

truths that stand.  

And so:

unfailing faith

intimacy

willed reverence

wrecked heart

repentant soul

passion outpoured,  

and open-chested praise.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart”

                (the inside and the outside of my mind’s mulling)

“be acceptable in Your sight,”

                (pleasing, lovely, thoughtful, and honest)

“O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

                (my Rescuer, my sustaining One, the Hearer of my wandering heart.)

Ps. 19:14

Weekly Photo Challenge: Liquid

Apronhead

I love water, but reflections in water is a fascination.

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After All This Time

A p r o n h e a d -- Lilly Green

One day slips slowly by, minute by minute, filling up its hours.

One life slips slowly by, hour by hour, day by day, filling up its limits, bounded by health and will and intersection with others on this human path; and

the child’s mind is still there behind the lined skin, the greying strands, thinning. And

the insecure teen is still buried somewhere in those pieces of flesh and neuron, hiding

behind her guitar, trying

to convince the world she is worth something—

trying to convince herself.

And the wandering wondering minstrel is there with her boundless creativity and her endless insecurity, all muddled into one mass of synapses firing

with the only thing giving weakness away, the red blush that fills her cheeks,

announcing to the world that she is floundering in this finding of her way.

And in a corner is the hesitant bride, sure and unsure,

all…

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Betrayal

I have been thinking about betrayal lately—

the splintering of trust, the shattering of expectation.

You go along, accumulating pieces of relationship, of mission; and

you collect a colorful and varied panoply that looks like truth, feels like truth,

and maybe it is;

at least,

maybe it was.

But then, in what seems like an instant, doors close, walls rise, and

those you thought you knew, those who held your fragile trust, look at you as if you are

a stranger—the other,

those others that you talked about when you were once part of the group.  

The shared meal, the paths walked should feel no different than the kiss;

and yet, the faithlessness changes everything.

*********************

 Mark 11:25 (The Message)

“If you have anything against someone, forgive—only then will your heavenly Father be inclined to also wipe your slate clean of sins.”