First Love

(in response to writing prompt "love" from Sunday Scribblings)

*******

you'd been tucked

in my heart's scrapbook

under "first broken heart"

all those years

but

the other day

i heard

a john denver song

you fill up my senses

like a night in a forest...

follow me where i go

what i do and who i know...

and

i was 15 again

summertime

and the livin' was easy

summer camp

poolside chases

easy flirting

hormones crazy

and demanding

walks by the lake

nighttime kisses

in the chapel

first time kissing

like the french

delirious laughter

even tear-soaked moments

of pure, innocent joy

the astonished wonder

of love

we dreamed

of rocky mountain highs

eagles and hawks

west virginia country roads

and i see it differently now

you gave me

the rapturous experience

of being loved

for the first time

heart fluttering

over love letters

and marathon phone calls

a hand to hold

eyes seeing beauty in me

innocent dreaming

fairy-dust-soaked days

and since then i've learned

that love is bigger

than loss

and love can heal

a broken heart

Clean

imagining myself

a dolphin

at play

spontaneous joy

expressed by

bursting upward

through the surface

arms, legs, lungs

aching

from swimming

swimming

so long

sometimes holding

my breath

sometimes fiercely

treading water

sometimes

drowning

i've wrestled

sea monsters

Leviathan in his

underwater cave

i've let go

ready

to drift

down

away

until a glimpse

of light

sparkled

at the surface

inviting

daring

challenging

stop fighting

so hard

stop battling

ghosts

it's safe

now

you're free

let it go

let it all

fall away

be

clean.

My Resurrection Year

As I drive home from work these days, I often look out at the endless fields of corn and soy beans, look up at the intricate cloud patterns in the dome-sky that shelters me. And I am overcome with gratitude so much so that I weep.

I do a lot of driving in my new job, and it gives me a lot of time to think. My heart is nourished by the sight of the rolling hills and buttes of the land north and west. Sometimes I see real cowboys herding their cattle. Or unsupervised cows just chillin' in a pond cooling off or sharing the latest gossip. Kamikaze birds fly across my car's path, barely missing collision, as if on a dare from one of their friends. I see majestic hawks with terrific wingspans and occasionally I spot the elusive eagle.

These days are narrowing into the tunnel of my First Year Out of the Ministry. In grief work, we often talk about that intense year full of firsts after a death. The first birthday, anniversary, Family Reunion, Christmas, Easter, etc. Every event becomes a potential trigger of intense grief. Of course that is true for the years following, too, but that first year is the introduction to Life Without...

And so, I am coming to the end of my First Year of Life Outside the Pastoral Ministry. September 22 is the anniversary of our moving into our first house. September 27th is the anniversary of my Last Day in the Pulpit. And October 6th. The Day I Handed In My Ordination Papers and cut my ties to The United Methodist Church.

You may not think of that as a death, but it is. I was a United Methodist for 44 years. I was born into it, raised in it. The rhythm of my life was to the beat of the Church Year. I grew up going to Annual Conference in Ocean City, New Jersey. I was inspired by preachers at St. Peter's United Methodist Church and the sound of 1,000 or so Methodists singing at the same time. I went forward at an altar call one year to re-dedicate my life to Christ. I looked for my favorite pastors on the boardwalk at night, whom I knew from summer camp. I stayed in a cottage with my parents and two other clergy couples and we played Rook and Scrabble at night. My life was turned upside down when I heard a preacher from Missouri.

I went to church every Sunday all my life, and one time when I slept in as a kid, I felt so guilty that I missed church that I read the Bible all day for penance. I went to youth group and had a crush on the associate pastors. I waited with my mother every spring to hear if the District Superintendent would call my father and tell him he was moving this year. We made Advent wreaths at church every Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I can still smell the mixed scent of pine branches and candle wax every Advent season. I dropped out of confirmation class because I knew everything already and the other kids were too rowdy. I went to summer camp every summer for four years and got on a religious high. I fell in love for the first time there, got my heart broken, recovered, and tried things that brought me out of my introverted shell.

I went to a super-religious college that told me United Methodists were going to hell because they ordained women. It was like insulting my family, and I wrestled with my faith, learned about other denominations, and came back always to United Methodism, my spiritual hometown. I went to seminary, learned all about the Wesleys and pledged my allegiance to the Book of Discipline. My parents handed down to me a Wesley Teapot. I was proud of my religious heritage and its history, which is a history of people that wanted MORE from Church. Wesley was a rebel, and he stood up to the church bureaucracy, preached in the streets, and believed in grace. Sure, he was somewhat of a failure in personal relationships, but I believed in him.

My calendar year began at the beginning of Advent and ended with Christ the King Sunday. I loved the drama and intensity of Lent, and the coming into the Light of Easter. I've struggled with a lot of darkness in my own heart, and every Easter was a chance to begin again, walk out into the Light again. Dying, rebirth. Darkness, Light. Death, Resurrection. It was the cycle of seasons, and the cycle of my own spiritual life.

I could never have foreseen leaving the United Methodist Church. And it does feel like a death. Death sucks. But sometimes death needs to happen in order for life to come forth. A year ago I was in a very bad place. I had been for a couple of years, struggling against a lot of forces. I felt trapped. I felt like I was dying spiritually-- sometimes being choked to death. I lost hope. I tried to get people to listen to me, to hear that I was in trouble. But they wouldn't listen.

But I am still standing. I can breathe. I can laugh. I can sing. I feel lighter. I have the capacity for great joy and deep, deep gratitude, and I feel the intensity and height of that capacity as I drive alone through the Sandhills or simply drive to work past all the miles of cornfields. My new job gives me room to try new things, to develop new gifts I didn't know I had, to discover that there's more to me than I thought. It connects me to some of the most beautiful people I've ever met, in whom I see the face of God. I have wept with them, laughed hysterically with them, learned with them and from them, and been blessed by them. I feel a richer, deeper sense of God's love in me and through me than I ever dreamed possible. I sense God at work in me every day. I see God at work all around me, and see the Spirit in the eyes of those I get to work with. Not only am I healing, but I am thriving. I am in awe most days.

There are mixed feelings as I approach these landmark days. There is still some sadness for some of the people I left behind and for those who didn't seem to feel they could continue our friendship after I "left." But mostly I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful for New Life. I am astonished at the power of God to give life, to heal, and to empower. Today I am grateful for the crazy, winding, painful, exhilarating journey God has put me on and for the precious people who have walked with me.

Life is good.

Rose

This morning I was sitting out on my little side porch reading poetry. It's a gorgeous day, except for the pollen that is viciously attacking my vulnerable sinuses. Anyway, I saw the woman walking across the street. I've seen her many times, always walking to the store and back. Or sometimes just walking. Her hair looks like she just got out of bed, just wild, going in all directions. She walks a little humped over, and she always wears mismatched clothes. Today she wore a black and red sweater with bright purple pants. Her breasts swing freely under her clothes, clearly unbridled. Her face is very wrinkled, her chin jutting out as if taking the lead. She always walks alone. I saw her at the 4th of July parade, just walking on the outer edges of the crowd, as if invisible, unseen by the people lining the road.

Today she saw me on the porch and crossed over to my side of the street. And kept coming. "Hey!" she said with bunched lips, behind which were few if any teeth.

We got to talking.

Her name is Rose. She has seven children, and none of them talk to her, though they all live in Nebraska. Her husband died a long time ago, but if he'd lived, they'd have been married for 40 years. He "beat on her alot," so it was a good thing he was dead. She lived in the white house with the green trim, just a few doors down from the corner, I could see it from where I sat. Pays $400 a month.

Larry walked by, in the midst of hauling garden remains to the dump. She nodded. "I bet he gives you a lot of grief, huh?"

I laughed. "Maybe a little, not much," I said, "he's a good guy." She looked at me as if she didn't believe me. I suspect she figured all men "beat on" their wives.

She asked me where I was from, and I told her, New Jersey. "Hmmm..." she said. "Jersey." She said, "yeah, New Jersey really just is a continued state off of New York, that if you look at the New Jersey shoreline at night, it runs right into New York, and it all looks just like one place."

"You've been to New Jersey?" I said, just a little bit -- ok, a LOT-- surprised.

"Oh sure, I went there a lot when I was truckin'..." she said, matter of factly.

"You were a trucker..." I said, chuckling.

She proceeded to tell me that she was a trucker for many years, kept a Colt 45 in the glove compartment of her rig but never had to use it. She told me about the time a "cowboy" tried to treat her "like a whore," so she "beat the crap out of him." It was in a bar where he approached her and she kicked him "between the legs, hit him in the stomach, and got him in the face" a few times.

"I said to him, I said, 'you ain't gonna treat me like no whore, you
mother-f@#%*r!' and I let him have it, the whole bar was laughing," she said, chuckling herself.

She asked me what I was reading, which happened to be a book of poems by Garrison Keillor, and she said, "oh, I like that Lake Wobegon, that's good." I agreed.

I kept looking at her. She had a hooked nose and a pointed chin that had a few stray gray hairs sticking out from it randomly. Her eyes were a cloudy blue, set back amidst a complicated design of wrinkles. She said she walked a lot, especially when it was so nice out. She sneezed, always turning away, because she said, "I don't wanna sneeze on you, that would be very rude." I appreciated it.

"Well, I gotta go do some housework, I 'spose," she said and started walking away, still talking without looking back, "I'll talk to you later!"

I watched her hunched-over back and her eye-catching purple pants as she limped away across my overgrown grass. Her name is Rose. Now she has a face and a name. And a story. She was about 5'5", but I could imagine her "beating on" that cowboy in a bar. She wasn't someone to be messed with. And she was living now about three doors down from my porch.

What a wild world.