So Good

  

     I am not a musician, but music is my lifeblood.  There have been many, many times that it was only through music that God could reach me.  Music is the blanket I wrap around myself when life proves to be cold or frightening.  It is the gospel that lights a fire of hope in my chest when I thought the flame went out.  It is the candle in the dark, the pillar of fire by night, and the gentle cloud by day that envelopes me with Spirit and Life and Passion.  Often it is the scripture that comes to my mind, giving me that mantra, that life verse to sustain me and get my feet moving again.

     This is no exaageration.  I could not live without music.

    I remember hanging out in my brother Don's room up in the attic of our Pennington, NJ home when I was a preschooler.  I was immersed in a cloud of music, and to this day, I can sing phrases of the songs that became a part of the air I breathed.  I didn't know the names of the groups, but it was in that attic room that I first heard The Byrds, Elvis Presley,  Three Dog Night, Creedance Clearwater Revival,  the Beatles.  And I carried them unknowingly with me when I descended the stairs. As I grew up. 

    When we lived in Red Bank, NJ, as a middle-schooler the second floor of our house vibrated with the gravely, passionate voice of Joe Cocker, the irreverent Dr. Hook, The Who, Jethro Tull, the Beatles, Jim Stafford, Randy Newman.... and others whose names I can't remember.  My brother Stan took it upon himself to try to steer my musical tastes away from the current pre-teen flash-in-the-plan pop stars.  Out of Mark's room I heard Linda Ronstadt and Nazareth through the bead curtain through which a purple glow shone with the aroma of incense.  Mark also had an electric piano that he played so loudly that the neighbors complained.  I did often sneak his Ronstadt albums out of his room when he wasn't around.

     When I was 12, Stan introduced me to the music of Neil Diamond, and even sat with me through the Live At The Greek TV special that year.  I was entranced by Neil Diamond's passion, intensity,  heart and soul.  I had no idea what "Holly Holy" meant (who does?) but he sang it with such passion you believed it meant something.  Something profound.  Song Sung Blue, everybody knows one.  I knew even then that that was true.  I Am...I Said was my signature song;  a pre-teen trying to make the world notice her, to know that I was alive and I had something to say.  I suffered from depression for many years, and always, always, music has been my best anti-depressant.  Especially Neil.  He was serious, intense and passionate-- like me, I thought-- he understood loneliness, longing and sadness. 

    My parents took me and a friend to a Mac Davis concert  that year.  When he began his song, "Naughty Girls,"  he said to the crowd,  "are there any naughty girls in the audience??!"  and I jumped up screaming... (I was a bit naive).  My mother grabbed my shirt and yanked me back down, whispering into my ear what exactly a "naughty girl" was.  Oops.  But he sang my credo:  "I Believe in Music, I Believe in Love..."  "Stop and Smell the Roses along the way..."  I was hooked.

    I did whatever extra chores I could do around the house to earn enough money to walk down to Jack's Music Store on Broad Street to buy another Mac Davis or Neil Diamond album.  When he couldn't get rid of me,  Stan would play a game with me in his room.  He'd play a song and I had to guess the title and if I did, I got to choose a song from his selection to play.  I always chose the same one, for some reason, a song called "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette."  My mother was appalled.  On one of Mac Davis' albums, there was a song called "Two Plus Two" that was about "making love after school."  Stan defended me with my mother and assured her that he doubted that I would get pregnant by listening to the song.  My  mother reluctantly let me keep the album.  But when I tried to grow up with David Cassidy in his post-Partridge career and went around the house singing, "Get It Up For Love,"  Stan thought he better step in.  I had no idea what the song was about, and neither did my naive mother.  Stan thought it best to tell her, for some reason.  She didn't make me get rid of the album, but she expressed that she would appreciate it if I didn't go around the house singing it.  It was ok;  I was so embarrassed after I learned what it meant that I'd skip over the song on the album.  Oops. 

    In high school, Stan lent me his girlfriend's Dan Fogelberg album, and he became my new main songman.  His music was mellow and soothing to my anxious, melancholy teenage soul.  Stan and Barb took me to Philadelphia to see Fogelberg in concert.  Like Stan, I spent hours in my room listening to all my music as I wrote long letters to friends from camp, wrote poetry and stories, or just  hung out.  Music was my language.  These guys said what I felt but couldn't find the words for.  They also helped  unleash the poetry in me so I could find my own words.

   When I was 16, I got a guitar for Christmas and took lessons.  For several years, I tried to sing the songs I listened to, but I was never quite the guitar aficianado,  of course, as Neil or Dan.  I wanted to be able to play like them, but I never quite did, and so finally it faded.  I left the music to the masters. 

When I went to college at Messiah,  when I had had a particularly rough day, I came back to my room and put on Molly Hatchett's  "Flirtin' With Disaster,"  a musical taste left over from my first heartbreak when I was 15.  My Pentecostal roommate leapt off her bed and stared at me in horror.  She said it was "druggie" music!  In fact, I learned, most of my classmates felt that secular music was of the devil.  Huh?  This music fed my soul, drew me closer to God as I could allow it to express my soul, and it lifted me up when nothing else could.  I learned to play along, so to speak, for four years, and listened to "Christian music,"  but it never did for me what my music did.  My taste in Christian music didn't last long beyond college.  To me, there wasn't much of it that had any depth, that dealt with the real angst of life.  To me it wasn't honest.  But the one exception for me was Michael Card.  He brought the words of the Bible to real life and made it into sheer poetry.  His music became the soundtrack of my falling in love with my husband Larry, and the main soundtrack of our wedding.

     It would take volumes of music to encompass the soundtrack of my life.  It would contain jazz, country, pop, rock, rockabilly, classical, "new age," and those that defy categories.  I am a hopeless addict or glutton when it comes to music, I can never get enough, and I'm always looking for new tastes, new sounds that speak to my soul and set me to flying.  The worst disability in my imagination would be deafness.  I need my music, but I suppose if that nightmarish affliction would hit me, I would still have all that music in my head, heart and soul. 

   Musicians pay a high price to save our souls, as we know all too well from Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones, etc.  And yet to me it's a miracle that such unearthly beauty and passion can come from such broken souls.  They preach good news to us, they walk that lonesome valley, they carry us into the darkness and through it to the light.  They stir our hearts alive and may even get our hips to swingin'!  They move us to tears, stir us to laughter and joy, and most of the time we never know the cost to their own souls to do what they were born to do.  And I am grateful.  Last night I watched Neil Diamond be honored at the Kennedy Center and I wanted to stand up with everyone else and applaud him for putting my life to music and giving me a voice.  He, after all, reminds me often that good times never seemed so good.

It's a Girl!

  

       One of my favorite Christmas memories is that of Christmas 1994, Sarah's first Christmas.  We were living in Tilden, Nebraska, the birthplace of L. Ron Hubbard (another story!) and Richie Ashburn.  We served four churches together, including the United Methodist Church of Tilden and the United Church of Christ in Tilden.  One of the gifts of grace in that appointment was singing in the adult choir at Tilden UCC.  It's a unique choir for such a small church, as it's led by professional musician and music teacher, Pat, who grew up in the church.  It was also a fun group of people to be with, and we laughed as much as we sang with those folks.  When Sarah was a baby, I brought her to choir rehearsals and she was passed around as we sang.  Every Sunday  morning, I'd pack her up in her car seat, strapped into my F150 pick-up truck, and take her with me to whatever two churches I was preaching at that morning.  People in the congregation took turns holding her through the services, and would often fight over her.  Except, of course, when she was fussy.

     In 1994,  the Peace UCC choir of Tilden put on its annual choir cantata.  Pat asked me to do the solo as Mary, the mother of Jesus.  It didn't take long for some choir members to think that it would be so darn cute to place Sarah up front during the cantata, as the baby Jesus.  I didn't know how this would go.... a 6 month-old baby just doesn't lay still and quiet!  But we borrowed a Nebraska Huskers bean bag chair, covered it with blankets, wrapped Sarah in her Lion King blanket, and laid her in the bean-bag manger.  I put a blue union suit on her, just to make her a little "boyish," but you couldn't see it anyway because of her wrappings.  The night of the performance, she got a fever of 101 degrees.  I paced and worried, gave her Tylenol, and by the time of the performance her fever had gone down and she was pretty mellow. 

    We placed the bean-bag manger up front, at the end of the center aisle of the church so everyone could see her as we sang the Christmas story.  She was quiet and lay still, though I nabbed one of her babysitters to sit up front and keep an eye on her, and to scoop her up if needed.  I was nervous about my solo anyway, but even more so because I didn't know what Sarah would do!  But as soon as I started to sing,  Sarah did too.  She wasn't upset, she wasn't crying, she just started kind of yelling out,  "ya, ya, yaaaaahh..."  When I paused in the music, she was quiet.  When I sang, she started up again.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing and to keep singing! 

     After my solo, her babysitter came up, scooped her up and shrugged at me with an expression of "sorry!"  But afterward, after all the usual accolades of the whole program,  people told me that during my solo, though I did a good job,  Sarah kind of stole the show.  There wasn't a dry eye in the place, I was told, because it seemed that Sarah recognized my voice and just joined in with me.  She wasn't upset, but rather quite content, just adding her voice to the praises of the night, reaching across the notes to her mommy from her bean-bag manger. 

     As soon as I got her back in my arms, I realized that she needed changing!  The baby Jesus-girl stunk a little!  Christmas was never more meaningful than after I'd been pregnant, felt that life growing in me, and gave birth.  I felt I'd gotten a chance to embody the Christmas message, to connect more with Mary as a living woman, who knew the messiness and fear of helping to bring forth a life and watching that life grow in wonder and beauty.  Every Christmas I remember that night when Sarah and I got to sing to each other in the candlelight, just like I think Mary and Jesus might have done on a similar night forever ago.  And my soul magnifies the Lord!  

Miracle

     Sometimes my job wears me out.  It seems that in the last few weeks I've seen more suffering than I can stand at times.  It's not the decline of a 90-some year old who has lived a full life that gets to me.  Yeah, I wish it was easier to get out of this world than it is, but I figure we had a hard time getting into this world, why not have a hard time getting out?  No, it's the suffering of children in families that shatters my heart.  Children who didn't ask to be here but who get treated no better than a stray dog.  Or the bright, lively, giving person who's only in her 40s who is slowly wasting away to nothing, her precious story cut short when there's so many beautiful chapters yet to be written.  I don't understand.  And pat answers only makes it worse.  I'd rather live with the uncertainty and questions than offer shallow lines of comfort that only inflict more pain. 

     Somehow it's harder during the Christmas season.  I go to malls or grocery stores and see people who think the world revolves around them.  Or I see the stress and anger that arises in otherwise good people.  I can imagine Jesus running around with his hands waving,  "People!  Stop it!  This is not at all what I want!  Put down your bags and credit cards and give each other a hug!  Go home and love your children, tell them they are beautiful!  Make one other life a little easier today.  THAT'S what I want.  Not this chaos.  For God's sake, love each other..." 

     Today, when I thought I couldn't stand one more day of being exposed to suffering while people are cussing each other out at WalMart,  I was called to the bedside of a 90-some year-old woman who was dying.  Her daughter had been there all night.  Everyone said they ought to "get her out of there,"  send her home.  But she wanted to be there for her Mom.  No one was going to pry her out of that chair.  And no one should.  Her daughter had been reading prayers to her mother for hours, prayers of their shared faith.  Outside her door, another resident's T.V. was blaring full-blast with "The Price Is Right,"  with intermittent commercials pressuring viewers to go out and get that next big gift.  There were beeps from someone's chair alarm, moaning from another resident who probably couldn't even hear himself, and an occasional dog or cat loping past.  Some nurses donned Santa hats, and garland lined the hallway. 

     The daughter and I sat and talked.  I thought about Christmas, life and death.  People say no one should die on Christmas.  I don't know why, exactly, but it seems somehow that'd be worse.  It'd kind of taint Christmas Day forever after, I suppose.  I thought about Christmas carols, and how I discovered years ago how much sorrow was mentioned in Christmas hymns.  "And ye, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing, O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing..."   You don't hear that one on the radio often.   Or "In the Bleak Midwinter."  Kind of a downer.  But if we pay attention, those hymns mention the darkness, the toil, the hardship.  Stuff deeper than being stressed out by holiday dinners or the traffic near the mall.  Life and death, all woven together.  It can be a dark world, yes, but what Christmas tells us is that there is always Light.  It doesn't deny darkness.  But tells us not to get stuck in the Dark.  The Light has come, and keeps coming, and WILL keep coming... 

     I was weary when I went to the nursing home today.  But I watched a daughter sit by her mother's side, having been up all night after being here all day yesterday, I was quieted.  Stilled.  Her mother had been prayed over so many times in the last 24 hours (because we thought we knew when she was leaving!) that I could imagine her waving us away with a "ok, shaddup already!  God heard ya the first time!" 

     Her mother's breathing started to slow down.  It slowed down some more.  Some of the nurses from the facility gathered, looking sad, the rims of their eyelids red.  The daughter began to cry.  We could all feel it coming.  She just started slowing down, understandably tired.  Then finally, nothing.  I think we all held our breath, wondering if there'd be another breath or not.  Seconds ticked by.  Minutes.  The daughter cried.  Other nurses filed in, one by one to hug the daughter.  Nurses who saw this every day.  Who wiped butts, sometimes got hit in the face, yelled at,  dodged complaints from exhausted family members... they still managed to love these "ol' buggers," as my father would call them, and maybe even himself. 

     All was calm, all was bright.  There was a hush.  Somehow you couldn't hear the T.V. across the hall, or the beeps of alarms or the moans of another.  It was quiet, as if we were all cocooned by the Spirit for that moment.  It was... holy.  It wasn't odd that it was 2 days before Christmas.  This is what Christmas is about;  the Light coming into the darkness and the darkness vanishing into a mist that becomes a comforting, holy Spirit to remind us,  It's ok.  It hurts to love because it hurts to lose.  But it's love that keeps us alive, that keeps us hoping and trying and working one more hour when another dementia patient slaps us, because we've seen that glimpse in their eye, that light.  And we know that there's someone in there, a child of God, who lived a whole life before this, and who still wants love just like us. 

     It's moments like that that remind me that Jesus' birth is not a denial of Real Life.  Jesus was born into a world full of pain, and his Spirit still lives on in this world, shedding light in dark places, giving us the courage and the hope to carry on and bring Light ourselves into dark places. 

     This Christmas Eve I want to be with my family, in quiet, build a fire to light up the darkness.  I want to share stories of where we've seen the Light in our own lives or in the lives of others this year, despite the nagging darkness.  I want us to remember why we press on and keep lighting those candles.  I want us to remember why we can't do anything else but to love, and to keep loving, despite getting our hearts broken again and again. 

    I want to spend time sitting in the Light....  with the people I love the most in this crazy, broken world.  You may say I'm a dreamer, but thankyouJesus, I'm not the only one...

body

the sound of whirring
complicated machinery
that moves you here
and there
i touch your hand

to ask how you are
seems like a mockery

and you can't even
answer

your eyes smile
strangely blessing me
offering hospitality
with warm welcome

it's Christmas
out there, anyway
in here, there's no indication

out there
people are running around
competing for parking spots
dragging bags of commerce

haggard
angry
nerves not soothed by yet another choir
in the middle of the mall
singing "all is calm..."

yet here
all is calm
for the moment
quiet

words are not our medium
because yours are trapped
all the usual conversation
people offer
seems absurd
a waste of precious oxygen

your body betrays you
will not obey your commands
but lies silent
obstinate

i choke on words
that are automatic
cliche
no theology
big enough to explain

this

your eyes connect to mine
i am vulnerable
wondering what you see
what words form for you
in our silent communication

i wonder who you are
apart from
This

you raised children
married  the one
who faithfully tends to you
now
elicited that faithfulness in him

pictures
amongst the
equipment
smiles
freedom
everyday life
never thinking then
about

walking
breathing
kissing
speaking
holding a book

never suspecting
the enemy around
the corner
ready to rob

i am here
to encourage
you
and yet
i sit
in awe

that your eyes
can still

smile

Fairy Tale

(From the Sunday Scribbling's Writing Prompt:  Fairy Tale)

Mama said there'd be days like this

there'd be days like this, my Mama said...

But Mama said 

to lower my standards 

the man I was looking for 

did not exist 

and I told my mama 

that I'd rather be alone 

than settle 

I came too close 

too many times 

to a life of forgetting who I was 

I wasn't looking for a fairy tale 

I knew that fairy tales don't come true 

what I'd forgotten 

or maybe didn't know 

was that fairy tales were full 

of darkness and challenge 

struggle and longing 

and giving up right before 

the sun finally rises 

fairy tales were hard won 

and "happily ever after" 

left much room for interesting narrative 

I bet Cinderella laughed 

with her new husband 

about the grace of their finding each other 

against all odds 

and she put away those damn glass slippers 

finally 

because after all, 

they were simply impractical 

She was used to hard work 

real life 

I doubt she just watched soap operas 

and joined the PTA 

I imagine Cinderella 

embraced her new life 

found things to stimulate her mind 

and her strong will 

and if the Prince truly loved her 

(after all, didn't they live "happily ever after"?) 

he wanted her to be the full person 

she was meant to be 

Or Snow White 

she'd known evil in her life 

she'd faced death and lived to tell 

she'd seen The Other Side 

and sat up to Begin Again 

with a man who loved her 

I imagine they had Thanksgivings 

with her seven little friends  

who were the first to love her 

for who she really was 

you and me 

what were the odds? 

we'd both been Through It 

The psychologists wouldn't have predicted 

a positive outcome 

too many "issues" 

but all I knew 

is that with you 

I was safe 

you quickly knew all about me 

the good and the bad 

the dark and the light 

you held my hand 

as I walked through fire 

and still 

you loved me 

I told you once 

when we were just friends 

that you had 

Jesus Eyes 

What I meant 

was that in your eyes 

I saw beauty in me 

that I hadn't seen before 

In your eyes 

I saw love 

that could endure 

everything 

ahead 

unshakeable 

unrelenting 

and there was no reasoning 

no wondering 

it didn't make any sense at all

but no matter what 

I did 

to keep you away 

your love enfolded me 

calmed me 

centered me 

grounded me 

and for the first time 

I was Home.

joy

driving over the viaduct
i offer the traditional
two-finger wave
to the birds
gathering for their morning coffee
squinting into the sun
that glistens
on their blue-black feathers

they seem so happy

my cats
vie for the bowl
of tuna juice
playfully nudging each other
out of the way
to taste the elixir of the gods

or

they flop down
in the sunlight
in pure bliss
while another
grooms them
licking, purring
nuzzling
as if making love

no pretense
no expectations
just pure grace

oblivious cows in the field
have a snack
of cornstalks
already harvested
or run after a calf
who's discovered, it seems,
that the world
is big and beautiful
safe and trustworthy
simply delicious

my friend and i
meet for a drink
and all others don't exist
we tell
we remember
we laugh like kids
sometimes we cry

and it's all good

 we trust
each other
to guard our secrets
and tenderly hold our hearts

to mirror back to each other
our own beauty
that we often cannot see

it is sanctuary
it is life
it is holy

it is
pure joy.

It is Good

(From the Sunday Scribblings writing prompt: Life is Good)

it's another day

waking up next to my beloved

who hits the snooze alarm

one more time

breakfast with our teenage girl

who's made coffee

Elvis serenading our meal

I break out in a little be-bop

between the sink and the fridge

a stop at McDonald's

gets me a coffee and a

"have a great day!"

from the Perky Lady 

and I smile

i drive

all day

cows munching on corn stalks

hawks keeping watch on fenceposts

black birds

in their synchronized flying

joyfully welcoming the morning

in a symphony of praise

tractors in the fields

cleaning up what the cows missed

dust stirred up in mystical clouds

against the sheltering blue dome

i'm free

i know this as i drove through

rolling hills

harvested fields

and eternal horizons

i feel the wind against

my cheek

as the hawk swoops up

then down

riding the air

water towers

miles away

straight ahead

announcing the next spot

of civilization

where farmers gather

for coffee

and community

sacred time

that grounds them

dispels the loneliness of

their work

i am free

i am alive

i have no wishes

that haven't come true

i can't mark a day

a moment

when it all gracefully fell in place

but i know now

that what i was looking for

graciously found me

life is good.  

I Am Woman

      Everything is changing.  2011 seems to be the year that the waves crash, and the current carries much away, and leaves new pebbles behind.  Pebbles of insight, beauty and wisdom.  Sometimes at night I get scared.  So much is shifting in me and around me that I wonder what to hold on to.  Then I realize, the point is not to hold on.  The point is to let go.  Trust the current of the Spirit and allow myself to be carried. 

     The church was the container of my faith for my entire life; the United Methodist Church, to be exact.  I'm sure I felt the vibrations of the church organ and its rhythms from the womb as my mother sat in church.  I have three brothers, who were all pretty much out of the house by the time I reached 5th grade.  First I was the only girl, then I was just.. the only.  My parents are very traditional;  even more so in the fact that my mother grew up in the South with five brothers, and my father grew up in India.  They came together with very definite and complementary views of the role of women. 

     I questioned a lot of things, but never to the point of shaking things up too much.  My brothers didn't have anything to do with Church because of their own various experiences as pastor's kids, so I was the Church Girl.  I was the Mature Teenager.  I learned early that that role gained me some affirmation from a lot of adults around me.   I loved the church.  I loved the candlelight, communion, the kneeling, the beautiful rituals, and mostly the music.  Singing in the church choir was a powerful experience for me that nurtured my faith and passion for God. 

    I never questioned why all the role models and heroes in the Bible were men.  I never questioned how I was made in the image of God and yet God was male and I was female and so....??   I was simultaneously immersed in my father's psychology, as he liked to share his knowledge with anyone who would listen and at the dinner table I was a captive audience.  So I learned that our fates were determined by the age of 3, that most of our problems were caused by our mother who was the primary nurturer in our lives.  I learned that sexuality was a problem for everybody, and that children had sexual feelings toward their parents that they usually denied of course.  I didn't question.  I also learned that women have penis envy.  Ha!  I must say I did question that one!  I knew that wasn't true for me at all!!  They can have that one!  But with that teaching, I learned that I was "missing" something.  In church I was taught that Eve was created by God using one of Adam's spare parts, so a woman was made from man (no one told me there was another creation story in which both were created in the image of God at the same time).  I also learned that the sins of the world for which Jesus had to undergo a tortuous and cruel death were caused by a woman who stepped out of line.  Who didn't obey.  Who took initiative. 

     In church, I confessed my sins, of which I wasn't clear on.  But I acknowledged that I was a sinner in need of salvation;  in need of Jesus undergoing a bloody, violent death to appease God.  I drank my juice and never questioned. 

     But as I've grown older,  as I've undergone treatment for depression, struggled all my life with self-esteem issues,  paid countless therapists to "fix" me, and also faced rejection in the church just for being a woman.... I started to think something was terribly wrong.  It wasn't until I left the Church that I was brave enough to really question things I took for granted.  First of all, my depression improved considerably when I left the church.  There was a clue.  The huge shift in thinking and feeling, however, came to fruition when I attended a Woman's Retreat in Kansas City last July.  Karen Drucker and Lori Sandstrom, whom I'd never previously heard of,  led the retreat.  At the retreat we were led in many exercises to change the stories that we carried in us.  Stories that tell us,  "you are stupid,"  "you aren't worthy,"  "it's all your fault," "you're too sensitive, you're too emotional, you're too..too...too...", "You are a temptress,"  "you're a bitch,"  "you need a man to be whole..."  I remember one moment when Karen had us think about what we say to ourselves as women, and I thought, I don't even think of myself as a woman.

     That was weird. 

     But I realized that I'd spent so much time trying to be taken seriously all my life, to get my father's attention or any other man that needing impressing in order for me to move forward, that I tried to do things a man's way.  I was a woman in ministry, but the whole church and way of doing things is decided and shaped by men.  It kept me in my head, and the heart wasn't really involved, because that makes things too unclear.  I denied my sensitivity, my passion, my creativity, my intuition, my heart.  Oh, I let it out occasionally, of course, but overall, I kept it all stuffed inside.  I wore a robe designed for men, read liturgy written by men, read creeds voted on by men (1700+ years ago, I might add), and sang 200- year old hymns.  I took vows for ordination and agreed to a contract written by a man in the 1700s. 

    I didn't really think of myself as a woman.  On Christmas Eve I did add my perspective as a woman who knew what pregnancy and birth were all about, and tried to imagine what that would have been like in a cave faraway from my mother, in a town of strangers and a clueless husband whose marriage to me had been arranged.  In fact, it was only at Christmas when I felt like a woman had any prominence in the Gospels at all.  Or Holy Week.  During Tenebrae I embraced the grief-stricken Marys and embodied them in drama.  Twice a year, I got to connect to women in the Gospels.  Pregnancy and death.  What about the other women?  What did they do?  The women of the Old Testament?  What did Sarah believe about this God who ordered Abraham to slaughter her long-awaited miracle child??  What about a culture where it was ok to have several wives and concubines?  And what did they believe?  Who did they worship? 

     I was among a community of women that weekend in KC who asked those questions, who also wrestled with depression and self-hatred, all while worshipping a God who demanded his son to die a cruel death like a lamb in slaughter because I was that bad. 

     I am a woman.  I feel deeply.  I love profoundly.  I weep, I get angry, I am gentle, I am strong.  I have experienced profound connections with God since I was a child.  I have a body that has created life!  Like the seasons of the year,  my body goes through possibility of new life, death, and new life again.  I am creative.  Words come to me.  I sense when a friend needs a hug, a note, a reminder that she is beautiful.  I have a profound, passionate love with my husband of 20 years, where we have grown as individuals and a couple during that time.  We have been hurt, we have been angry, we have been astonished at one another's goodness and appreciated each other even more over the years.  We are friends and we are lovers.  Nothing has been more profound for me than the experience of being pregnant-- feeling that life grow inside of me, and to see my child's face for the first time.  I will never, ever forget that.  When I look at the beautiful young woman she's become, I can still appreciate the awesome mystery that she came together-- arms, legs, feet, toes, head and fingers-- inside of my body.  That she got her first nourishment from my body.  That connects us in a way that men simply can't understand. 

     I am not better than a man.  Nor is a man better than me.  I believe we were created in God's image at the same time, like the first creation story says.  That we were always meant to be equal, different parts of the whole of humanity.  That we were created to work together, side by side, in harmony.  In peace.  Appreciating the unique gifts and beauty of the Other than is also a part of me.  If God is male, than we are incomplete.  We are single-parented children.  And women are Other, wrong, missing parts.  But God is more than male.  God is male and female and All and More.  We are all created in God's image, and so our image must be in God.  Jesus taught so many things about living in harmony, in peace, in justice.  But in the Church we only focus on his death and resurrection, and mostly ignore his radical teachings and who he was/is.  The Christ... who told us that we were do even greater things than he did. 

     God has not stopped speaking.  God speaks every day, in nature, in books, in movies, in people,  in the arts, everywhere and in any thing that humans are paying attention to, God can speak.  God speaks through women.  And men.  And I am a woman with unique gifts.  With feelings, emotions, passions,  insights, so much!  to share.  There is a lot of Good News for God to share, and I don't believe God would limit that Good News to one story, one creed, one book.  Not when God has so much to say and to share! 

       I am Woman.  I am beautiful and unique.  I am growing all the time.  I will never stop learning, not even when I cross over into eternity, into timelessness and Perfect Love.  In the meantime, I have gifts to share, light to shine, stories to tell.  Ones that only I can tell.  So do you.  Will you tell me?

Getting a Life

     Jesus said that you can't put new wine into old wineskins because the new wine would stretch the old wineskins too much and they would burst, and the wine would be wasted.  I have wrestled with that parable for many years, and it always "dogged" me, as if there was an important lesson for me to learn.  I never preached on it.

    It's been two years since I left the Church and began my job at Aseracare Hospice.  It's been a wild two years!  Fortunately I was unaware of the journey ahead of me when I made the decision to hand in my ordination.  Though it's been a tough one, downright tumultuous at times,  I know I needed to go through everything I have as there were many profound lessons for me to learn.  I'm sure the learning will never end!

   I've literally had to Get a Life.  Often I have felt like someone who just crash-landed from another galaxy altogether and now have to learn how to speak, relate, live among earthlings.  The Church literally consumed my life.  The Church was my life.  My entire life.  I lived, breathed, ate, spoke, thought... Church since the womb.  And the church for a pastor and their family is the universe in which they live.  They have their own language, their own rules and the pastor is in that role 24/7.  He/she never gets to be just a human being.   It is nearly impossible to have friends when you are a pastor.  It's an unspoken rule that it's not recommended.  Parishioners will get jealous if you're friends with other parishioners.  If your friends are pastors, well, there's always the competition dynamic and the dreadful reality that one day your friend could be your boss.  Pastors in general do not have deep, real, honest, intimate friendships.  It conflicts with The Role.

    I did not realize fully, until I've been out for awhile, the extent of loneliness, isolation and lack of basic human relational skills the job nurtures.  There have been many moments in these last two years where I've wanted to scream,  "I don't know the rules out here!"  Meaning in the vast, diverse world outside the Church.  Now I know why so many pastors are afraid to retire, and why so many take another church long into retirement.  They don't what else to do.  In the pastorate,  you have no time or energy for such basic human things such as hobbies.  I've known many pastors who suffer deep depression after retirement if they don't continue pastoring.  They are no longer needed.  They're no longer the center of attention.  They are isolated.  Especially since pastors are also encouraged strongly by DSs not to retire in any of the communities in which they pastored.  Which means they end up settling into places where no one knows them and they have few resources as to how to meet people.
I know of only one pastor friend who retired well.  He took up a lot of new hobbies in retirement, taught himself how to build furniture and enjoyed his freedom!  He is an anomaly.

    And so, I've struggled too.  At the age of 46, I'm still learning a lot about how to make friends!  How to relate honestly and intimately with friends.  Growing up in the parsonage and then continuing my life in the parsonage, you learn also to hedge the truth about what you think and feel.  You get to be a good politician.  I've had to learn how to be more truthful since leaving the church.  That disturbed me!

   But all in all,  I had to leave the Church, because the Spirit was and is doing all kinds of new things in me,  and I no longer fit the church.  I was bustin' out all over, and it was finally killing me.  I couldn't continue to grow and learn and trust and ultimately be at peace if I stayed in the Church.  What a relief and joy to make friends and relate to them honestly and trust them to love me even if we disagree!  What a relief to be myself  without wondering when I'm going to hear the next complaint.  I kept trying, for many, many years, to cram myself into all the little boxes that the Church assembles for pastors, and it was suffocating.   No one is meant to live in isolation.  No one is meant to have their entire identity wrapped up in their job.  No one is meant to take all levels of cruelty and meanness all in the name of Christian "love."   Even Jesus couldn't handle more than three years of ministry on this planet!

    God is so much bigger than the Church.  There is so much profound truth outside the Church walls, many precious souls that radiate with the Divine Light of God.   God wants to radically change the world with Love, but God can't do that as long as we spend all our time bickering about who's right and who's wrong and who's in and who's out.  Does a mother abandon her children when they reject her gifts?  Does a mother subject her children to cruel and violent punishment when they disobey?  Of course not.

     It's scary to think for myself.  It was easier to just find out what the party-line was thinking, and just think it.  But getting out of the Church, I also got out of my head.  I was completely in my head all those years, because the Church is really afraid of the body and all of it's mystery.  All those feelings and emotions that are so darn messy.  But I'm trying to live more from the heart, from the grounding of Love, and it's so much more rewarding.  Scare as hell, but Life-giving.

     My wineskins burst two years ago, and I will probably always bear the scars.  But I'm told that healed scars are stronger than the original skin.   I don't regret any of it.  The Church gave me a place from which to launch, like my parent's house.  But I couldn't stay in my parents' house and truly grow and become who I'm meant to be.  Now,  I am truly living on faith.....

     And so it is.

My Backyard

my backyard
stretched large
front to back

a carpet of green
the stage
of my imagination

I was Jane
to Tarzan
swung on the rope swing
that hung from the maple tree
topless
in my underwear
I was Queen
of the jungle

my Barbie dolls
took epic journeys
across the vast lush prairies
on horseback
meeting danger
emerging heroines

the old pine tree
sheltered a bed
of needles
where I built roads
for the Country Camper
and convertible

we set up a tent
and put on plays
my brothers and parents
the audience
forking over bags of pennies
for entertainment

as we got older
we transformed the old tool shed
into a clubhouse
wallpapered with posters
carpeted with samples
from downtown

sanctuary
in the city
distant from the
busy highway
that ran in front of the house

a place to read 
make up stories
of danger and triumph
a little romance

a place to pretend
and dream

a place of our own
in my backyard

then there was
The Day
they broke in
turned everything upside down
spray-painted
destroyed
desecrated

my first encounter
with horror
random acts
of pain

was in my backyard

also
when
I started
to grow up

Here

From the Sunday Scribbling's writing prompt:  You Are Here

"I BELIEVE I HAVE INSIDE OF ME
EVERYTHING THAT I NEED TO LIVE A BOUNTIFUL LIFE.
WITH ALL THE LOVE ALIVE IN ME
I'LL STAND AS TALL AS THE TALLEST TREE.
AND I'M
THANKFUL FOR EVERYDAY THAT I'M GIVEN,
BOTH THE EASY AND HARD ONES I'M LIVIN'.
BUT MOST OF ALL
I'M THANKFUL FOR
LOVING WHO I REALLY AM.
I'M BEAUTIFUL.
YES, I'M BEAUTIFUL,
AND I'M HERE..." 

From "The Color Purple" musical

I used to think

that my life was a map

that was all laid out

before I was born

the biography already written

the plot already thickened

and I had to find the key

the solution

the answer

to star in the story

that was already finished

but

then I grew up

I looked outside of myself

for the clues

sought answers in other people's

eyes

struggled for worth

struggled to be seen, acknowleged

recognized 

so I could get somewhere

be somebody

lovable

it was only when I walked away

from everything I knew

pushed the "stop" button

on a narrative

that kept demanding blood

it was only when I

was in the middle of the wilderness

with no map

no clue

experiencing death

my worst fear

it was then

that I realized

that I have survived

I have grown tougher

more tender

I have walked over mountains

staunched the bleeding

of seemingly fatal blows 

I have sung into the darkness

with a trembling voice

dared to love

in the face of death

it was then

that I realized 

that I am me

I am worthy

I am beautiful

I am loved

I am strong

and

I

am

HERE.

    

      

The Call



From the Sunday Scribblings' writing prompt:  The Call

     "I hear the call to Something More... I hear the call to be something I've never been before..." Karen Drucker.

     In 1989 I had a different concept of Call.  I believed that I was called to the ministry, and I was.  Specifically, the pastoral ministry.  At a Lay Witness Mission, after I shared,  a woman pastor affirmed my story and embraced me, looked me in the eye and said,  "You... are called to preach!" 

     I believed that a person had a call, one specific thing they were born to do.  One thing that made sense out of everything else in their lives.  What a relief to find mine!  I was called to be a preacher! 

     But I no longer believe that a person is called to do just one thing with their lives, nor do I believe that a call is just something related to a job.  What I didn't know during those 20 years of following that call, was that I was more than a preacher, more than a pastor.  It consumed my whole life, 24/7.  I was always a pastor.  If I learned new things that were outside the bounds of being a pastor, I had to keep it to myself.  I had to conform constantly to what the United Methodist Church said what a pastor should be, how they do what they do, what they should think, and how they should function.  Having grown up a pastor's kid, I was used to the life of a pastor's family.  You had to keep your true self under wraps much of the time.  You weren't supposed to have opinions that were outside the lines, the boundaries of what was acceptable.  You weren't even supposed to be a person. 

    Two years ago, I handed in my ordination papers.  It was hard to say, "I'm not called to be a pastor anymore,"  because the thought was that once called, always called.  But being a pastor was killing me slowly.  In the last two years, I've had to think about Truth.  What is truth?  I was used to hedging the truth, not telling the full truth, keeping the truth of what I thought or felt under wraps in order to follow the call of being a pastor.  I'm called to Something More now. 

    I'm called to be a whole human being;  healthy, whole, honest, free, more accessible, more at peace.  That's more of a vague call:  how do I do this?  A specific call, a narrow call like that of going into the ministry,  was simpler.  Go to seminary.  Call the D.S.  Tell your call story over and over.  Color within the prescribed lines.  Adapt. Adapt. Adapt.  Conform. 

    I believe we are put on this earth to love and offer the grace of God.  It's a tough world.  Everyone struggles.  Everyone needs a little grace.  When I love someone, I have to tell them.  When I see beauty in someone, I know they need to hear it.  I am called to hold up a mirror to people's faces and allow them to see the beauty in themselves,  as so many others have done and do for me.  My day job is to be a Spiritual Caregiver to hospice patients.  Through that job, I hope to help others face death with peace, and to feel that they're not alone.  I hope to convey that God's arms are already around them as they make this journey.  I try to be present with each person, one at a time, so that they know that someone sees them and wants to listen to their story.  That they are more than this disease.  I try to honor them and hear them.

    But I am more than what I do for a living.  I am called to be a person of Light, joy, peace, grace.  I am called to learn all I can, to be richer, fuller, deeper, full of spirit.  I am called to bring color to this world, and peace to chaotic corners.  I am called, most of all, in everything I do and am, to Love.  I am called to be who God created me to be, and not conform to someone else's being.  There is only one me, who can love and give and create exactly the way I do, so I better be ME.  No one else can do that but me. 

   It's all about Love.  What do I have to lose?  Chris Rice sings,  "That's What a Heart Is Beating For,"  and that's what I believe.  Why else are we alive?  I can love so much more fully outside of the church, I've found.  Because in the Church, there were set rules and set ROLES.  I had to get out of the ROLE in order to be fully me, and to love more fully.  To be.... more fully. 

    I will not be done doing new things until.... I'm done.  Breathing.  Living on this earth.  And then who knows?  Eternity is beyond what I can fathom, but I suspect that it will be an eternity of new things all the time.  Very cool. 

    

Present

From the Sunday Scribbling's writing prompt:  Present

      At any given moment, it seems the past and future seems to swirling around me.  Especially as I listen to music.  I hear a song on The Bridge on Sirius Radio and I am transported back to a moment in the past.  I can remember what I was doing, what I was feeling.  "What's Love Got To Do With It?" by Tina Turner plays and I'm back working at Dunkin' Donuts the summer of '85.  I can smell the donuts, feel the sticky counters, taste the coffee.  I was "in love" with Dan, I thought we we were going to get married someday, but he turned out to be afraid of pretty much everything.  He was an old man in a young man's body. 

    My daughter is going through her senior year of high school and from day 1 I've been reliving my own senior year.  I started it getting mono, and missing the first two weeks of school.  I did, however, go into the school basement one day long enough to wear that God-awful black drape and get my senior pictures taken.  My eyes look a little droopy in the picture!  Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful year.  I'd been accepted to Messiah College and had plans to attend there, and remembering that gives me some regrets.  It was a painful experience, and I wish sometimes I could go back and tell that poor tired girl in the black drape;  'don't do it! Keep looking!  Don't be afraid! But for your own sake, don't go to Messiah!'  Ah, but who knows what other experiences I would have lived through somewhere else and now regretted? 

    And then there's Facebook.  Wow, talk about the past coming back and parading around in front of you like a drunk ex-boyfriend at your wedding!  Whew.  I've reconnected with friends from high school,  summer camp from those years, from past churches, and past work experiences.  Notice I didn't say Messiah College.  I chose not to revisit that!  Most of it has been good, but it is disconcerting to see pictures of people whom I still remember as teenagers who are instead somebody's grandparent!  I've reconnected with old boyfriends, too, but we don't mention our relationships of the past, we just talk about our lives in the past 30 years and make comments about nice, light stuff.  My husband isn't threatened by this, since we have a great relationship and the pictures don't make him feel the least bit inadequate.  We're all aging, after all....some better than others. 

      But all of this reminds me that though the past swirls around me like annoying flies sometimes, and the future taunts me, daring me to worry about what will happen if...?  I realize that all I have is right now.  This moment.  Right now I'm typing on my blog, my family is watching TV in the other room.  It's Saturday, a day to relax, to be a little selfish with my time.  The weather outside is gorgeous, and I look forward to going back out there when I'm done.  My kitten is sleeping on my printer, basking in the sunlight.  Life is good.   I have everything I need and want.  My daughter has turned out to be a really special human being, defying all the worries I carried about her while I was pregnant.  I have a loving, kind, sensitive and fun husband who is my best friend.  I only love him more than I did 20 years ago.  I live in my own house for the first time in my life.  I have a good job, and a boss who cares about me, who is a friend.  I have special girlfriends who understand me and provide a safe place for me to be;  whether I'm happy or venting or crying over a hurt.  Right now is good.  This moment is precious. 

    I realize that much of my suffering usually is over a hurt from the past, or worry about Larry or Sarah or myself in the future.  The past is over.  It is what it is.  I can't change any of it.  When I catch myself regretting some past bad decision,  I remind myself that right now I love my life.  However I got here doesn't matter because the wonderful gift is I am here, life is good, and there's nothing I would change.  Much of my suffering occurs over things that I have no control over;  someone else who annoys me,  other people's decisions or behavior, the state of the world,  what other people "might" think of me, etc.  So I try to not worry or suffer over those things I can't change because I'm only punishing myself and wasting right now.  Now is all I have for sure.  I only hurt myself to stew over things that aren't even real or things that may never change. 

     So my gift to myself each day is to stay focused on now.  On the present.  To savor the hug of a dear friend.  To take in the beautiful smile of a precious person.  To be fully aware of my daughter's and husband's love.  To breathe the fresh air of Nebraska and take in its beauty all around me.  To bury my face in my kitten's fur and let his purr soothe my spirit.  To create.  To give.  To experience.  To listen.  To LOVE. 

     Right now... is a gift.  A present to myself.  A reason to simply say to the heavens,  "thank you."

Why I Love Nebraska

     I was born and raised on an entirely different planet called New Jersey.  It feels so foreign and distant to me now, as I've lived so long away from it.  But the last time I rode a train through central New Jersey in 2006,  I felt uncomfortable and alien, looking out the window for something to lay my eyes on.  But all I saw was buildings and crowded roads.  And  I had to actually look UP to see the sky.  What do people LOOK at here? I remember thinking.  I couldn't wait to get home:  to Nebraska. 

    When I met my future husband Larry at Drew University Theological School in Madison, New Jersey in 1990,  he was the resident cheerleader for the state of Nebraska.  Drew was located in Northern New Jersey, which was mostly upper class, close to New York City, and regarded itself as a very intellectual and cultured environment.  I'd say 99% of us there could not have pointed out the location of Nebraska on a map of the U.S.  Anything west of Ohio was considered foreign, essentially.  Our classmates generally regarded Larry's enthusiasm with condescending amusement;  not only trying to recruit him to stay in New Jersey, but making it clear that they believed that Nebraska was a place made up of just a bunch of sub-cultural hayseeds.  I just imagined endless empty prairies.  Something like the set of "Little House on the Prairie."  

   When I ended up falling and love with Larry with the full knowledge that he was returning to Nebraska that year,  I told him there was "no way" I could move to Nebraska.  Number one:  I didn't know where it was.  Number two:  I couldn't leave New Jersey.  It was home.  Well, the only home I knew. 

     I flew out west to check out St. Paul School of Theology in another foreign country called Kansas City, Missouri, because I wanted to study with Gene Lowry, a preaching professor there.  I spent the weekend staying with parishioners of Larry's church in Osmond, Nebraska.  It is true that after Larry picked me up at the KC airport and drove us north,  I literally started to hyperventilate as the land and sky opened up before us.  We had to pull over and let me breathe into a bag.  But it got better. 

    My first experience of Nebraska was the small town of Osmond, in Northeast NE.  I fell in love with the community.  They welcomed me so warmly, supported us in our new relationship, and related to me as if they'd known me for years.  People were so down-to-earth and real.  They were kind and loving.  Everybody was related!   We visited Larry's tinier church at Stark Valley, and a few old men wore cowboy boots and hats and called me "ma'am."  I half expected to see Michael Landon.

    We moved back east for six years after awhile, and then decided that the only place we wanted to be was Nebraska.  I was so relieved to get back here after my stint back east.  No, Nebraska is not perfect.  There are all kinds of people here, good and "bad", just as there are anywhere else.  But I feel like I can breathe here.  Literally and figuratively.  Yes, the air is much cleaner and fresher (even in Gibbon!).   When I drive to work or in between visits, my eyes have much to look at and take in to feed my spirit.  I love to look out over the Sandhills, see the horses and the cattle, the cowboys rounding them up.  I love the pheasants, the hawks and the occasional eagle.  I love the small towns with miles in between them where everybody knows everybody (for better or for worse) and is related to half of them.  I love that when someone gets cancer and doesn't have health insurance,  the whole town puts on benefits to raise money for them.  The small-town weekly newspapers record who visited whom from out of state.  Local churches or Legion halls have spaghetti "feeds" or soup suppers, roast beef dinners and fish frys.   During Lent, Catholics host Protestants for fish dinners on Friday.  People in jeans or their Sunday best show up for funerals for people they're not even related to because it's what you do.  You don't have to dress up here if you don't want to. 

    I'm not a big football fan, but since Nebraska doesn't have a professional football team in the state,  the entire state rallies around the University of Nebraska Football team, the Huskers.   Toddlers and residents of the nursing homes all wear red on Game Day.  Employees get to wear their Husker T-shirts to work, even on Friday.  You go to Walmart or the mall and the game is playing on the loud speakers so you don't miss it.  It is assumed that everyone wants to keep up with the game!   When I first moved here,  a parishioner asked me on Sunday,  "did you watch the game?" 
      I replied,  "What game?" 
      You would have thought that I'd suggested that Jesus wasn't the Son of God. 
      Many of the nursing homes get Pay-Per-View if necessary on Game Day.  It's THAT important. 

    Many people here say,  "There's no place like Nebraska."  And it's true.  It's hard to explain, and not everybody would get it.   When Sarah was 10 years old back in Pennsylvania, she said one day,  "If I could live anywhere in the world,  I'd live in Nebraska."  That was before we knew that we were moving back a year later. 

    But I would say the same thing.  It is now my adopted home.  It fits me.  It fits my nature.  I can find peace here.  I can breathe here, and live life at a manageable pace.  I can walk the streets of my little town at night without fear, and  I can stretch my eyes when I get out of my town.  My soul is nourishd throughout the day on the awesome sight of the endless prairie and its inhabitants.   Occasionally my family and I will drive 60 miles away to the small town of Sumner to eat at Tub's Pub where they have the best prime rib. 

      People who knew me in my previous lives have often asked me,  "why Nebraska?"  And I just smile.  I can't explain it.  It's just my land of grace.  And that's why I love it.

Cat

(From the Sunday Scribblings prompt:  "easy")

standing majestic
as if posing for a
royal photo
he stares out the window

focused on a bird
a squirrel
totally focused
unwavering

he sleeps
spread out
all muscles relaxed
limp

or curled up
contained
paws under his chin
tail wrapped around
the length of his body

awakened
he stretches
in yoga-like fashion
gently reaching

he yawns
taking in all the air
he needs
his coarse tongue exposed

I watch him
chase a ping-pong ball
here
there
and back again

in total delight 

a woman comes to
the window
and strikes a pose
staring back at him

through the glass

and he is mesmerized
tail twitching
a mournful cry
sometimes coming from deep within him

he climbs up on my lap
massages the area
for awhile
making it meet his standards

he lays down
purring in tranquil ecstasy
looking up at me sleepily
inviting me into his peace

when I cry
becase life can be hard
he comes to me
puts his paws on my knee

and leans his purring
body inward toward me
if I lie down
he will massage the space next to me

curl up tight against me
and allow his warmth
to soothe
my sadness

I envy him
sometimes
while yet grateful
for him

life to him
seems so peaceful
so

easy. 

Woman

I am Woman
I'm not "Gal" or "Girl"
I'm not a child
to be talked down to

You joke about "politically correct"
and in that way
you can dismiss responsibility
to be sensitive, mature or kind

You may say I'm one of "those women"
as if wanting to be taken seriously
or even seen as human
is a joke or some phase I'm going through

I am Woman
God made me at the same time
that God made Man
and God made us both in God's likeness

God gave me the power to give birth,
to nurture life with my own body
to be tender and strong at the same time

God gave me anger
to protect myself and my child
but God gave me a womb
to remind me that I have the power to create

I go through physical cycles of change
regularly
maybe that makes me more adaptable
to ebbs and flows

You dismiss me as being "hormonal"
when I am creating and letting go
ocean waves crashing in my body
parts of me working together to build a life
or dismiss the possibility for now

Bishops 1800 years ago
said I didn't have a soul
that was an official church opinion
and I have paid

They also said that I am responsible
for all the sin of the world
and for all these centuries
I am blamed

Blamed for men's sexual temptations
blamed for Jesus' torturous death
blamed for all the evil in the world
Blamed 

Shamed

You say I'm angry
You bet
wouldn't you be? 
If you were accused wrongly
with no advocates to defend?

I am Woman
I have grown and developed
in wisdom and beauty
despite doors slammed in my face

despite cries of
"whore!"  "witch!" 
"bitch!" 
despite being dismissed

by sisters who decided
that it's better to play along
than to give up their position
than to be shown the door

I have sat and listened
to your stories of God
that God is only male
and only interested in men
to work for "him" 

I've been blamed for people's deaths
as punishment from God
for letting me speak in church

I've had women tell me
I have no right
to speak on behalf of God
just because I have a uterus

I listened to the stories
that told me
that women are either
whores or virgins

nothing in-between

that God hates sex
and therefore God hates me
because I, Woman, have caused
good men to sin

I've listened to litany after litany
confessing my unworthiness
to even approach God
for I am shameful

I am Woman
I am a Mother
and I would never want my children
to cower in my presence

I would never beat them
or kill them
or make them suffer
for offending or disappointing me

I am Woman
I was made in love
and I create in love

I make mistakes
but I am not my mistakes

I embody love
I embody creativity
and life and compassion

I am whole
I am fully human
I, indeed, have a soul
and a heart that can break

My power is in my love
in my ability to create
and re-build
and I am a force for healing

and I will help heal the world

you may dismiss me
you may call me names to make me
more manageable
to reduce me

but God loves me

God made me 
whole
equal
powerful
beautiful
full of light

my arms can embrace
heal
empower
and shelter

I am Woman
and I am Here

backwards and forwards

my father used to say

"sometimes you have to go backwards

in order to move forward"

and sometimes that's true

but sometimes i've gotten stuck

in the backwards

stuck in the tangled webs

roots

and unseen hazards that dwell there

i have to look backwards

sometimes

to get my bearings

but then

a forward step

a swish and a turn

a sidestep

no hurry

because there's no end

to where we're going

no hurry

i savor what isee

smell, touch, taste

give thanks

take a step

and that step moves me

sometimes a little bit ahead

sometimes a slight curve back

in case there's something

that was forgotten

this is not a race

there are no losers

sometimes i just close my eyes

and let the current carry me

when i don't have the stuff

to carry myself

the current will not forsake us

i hate to say that my father

was right

that there are treasures

in the past

that help guide the future

but the past is only a place to visit

it is no longer a good place to dwell

and so i've learned

to move more gracefully

less urgently

less anxious about who will

arrive ahead of me 

all i want is a hand to hold

as i dream

and dance

and love 

and seek

and wonder

there is no end

there is just beginnings

and so

i just take

another step