Gift Oddly Wrapped
The spiritual journey of seeking sacred, ironic gift rather than dwelling on the pain.
Written by Patrick A. Jones
Published at Smashwords by weCatholic, part of Faith Incarnate,
www.weCatholic.org
© 2009 Patrick A. Jones
All rights reserved
Dedication:
In deepest thanksgiving and gratitude to my Beloved Lord, with whom I am blessed to glimpse daily incarnate in my Beloved wife and blessed children, and all I am gifted to interact with. Thank you each for revealing our Creator to me!
Acknowledgement:
Caregiving is an invisible gift of service. I am deeply indebted to my Beloved wife for all she does to care for me and my bludgeoned brain. And to all caregivers, on behalf of those who may not know or be able to express their gratitude, thank you for the gift of selfless love you daily give. May God’s rejuvenating, radiant love rejuvenate you and be the break you’ve yet to have.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Contents
Poems and reflections are organized into the seven stages of grief, which are addressed indirectly.
Introduction
Denial: This isn’t happening to me!
Anger: Why is this happening to me?
Bargaining: What if?
Depression: I don’t care anymore
Acceptance: Wow. This really is part of my life.
Integration: How is life different? The same? Who am I now?
Co-Creation: I’m ready to contribute now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Introduction
“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something!”
— Wesley, “The Princess Bride”
Since the end of 2002 I’ve lived with the challenging gift of Traumatic Brain Injury. I’ve actually lived with it unknowingly since I was twelve, when the swing I was on broke at the apex and I landed heals over head. Back then (1983) they knew to treat the broken neck but never bothered to check for permanent brain damage.
“Just a concussion, nothing to worry about,” I was told, repeatedly. Yes. I’ve had over 8 total. Each one different (I didn’t box or play football). The bottom line, I’ve learned, is all concussions cause permanent brain damage (though the brain can learn to work around it fairly efficiently), the likelihood of a concussion increases with each, and the effect is cumulative, so a “lighter” concussion can appear to cause greater damage than an earlier, “bigger” concussion because the underlying synaptic infrastructure was cracked but not yet broken.
While this is not a book specific to brain injury, though brain injury clearly plays a big part as the source of my oddly wrapped gift.
This is a book about facing the challenges and struggles life throws our way, whatever they may be, and choosing to struggle and triumph and find the gift, however oddly wrapped. Seeking the gift rather than dwelling on the pain requires faith and a deepening, broadening relationship with God. I am Catholic, and I write from my own spirituality. I trust you, the reader, will glean what speaks to your situation and toss what does not. I’ve chosen not to generalize out either my specific disability or my faith because focused depth is far superior to watered down breadth.
Seven Stages of Grief
Each writing here was written in relation to grieving a loss. Most relate to my loss of capacity due to brain injury. One speaks of the death of our daughter soon after birth. I’ve organized them into the seven stages of grief, based on either what each says or my own state of being when it was written.
Some may wonder, “Why seven stages of grief?” Yes, the official stages, as created by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, have only 5 stages. However, five aren’t enough to bring us completely back to participating in life. So I’ve added two more to help get us there.
The book is a blend of poetry and reflection. Enjoy unwrapping the gifts in your life!
Blessings in Jesus our Christ,
Patrick
Spiral Staircase
Grieving, they say, is a process of
Denial, anger, bargaining
depression, and acceptance.
It is not so clean as that.
The steps are all there,
if not so neatly lined up.
They are arranged in an inwardly descending
spiral staircase to the soul.
The first four steps are only
for the purpose of accepting and integrating
the need to descend the rest
of the staircase.
It is a journey well worth taking,
when necessity requires,
for with each step into the depths,
One is added into the heights,
where, without the anchor of the depths,
we do not last.
To take the journey, I must first grieve
that I am grieving. Amen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 1
Denial: This isn’t happening to me!
Fly Without Wings
I have tried, desperately,
to make this up.
If I am, if I can,
I can make it disappear.
I am not and I can’t.
This is real and
It is happening to us.
Not a nightmare, really.
They are different:
we wake from them,
their pain dissolves with
consciousness —
there is no waking up,
reality is even clearer with
consciousness.
So we face into the wind
billowing forth upon this brink
on which we stand
and prepare to learn to fly
without wings.
Ticket Home?
(Journal entry of what happened 14 days after disability set in)
I heard a voice ask me, “do you want to go home?”
I replied, “You bastard! Be gone!”
He then appeared in the form of winged fire and fired wings, where layered feathers became layered wings upon wings, and his form was much more fierce and awe-inspiring than human.
Again he asked me “Do you want to go home? This will be a long, painful, hard road.”
Incredible peace came over me — a peace that transcends time and space and understanding. I replied … no … I shouted back in quiet response, “My journey here is not done. Why let me go home before my work is complete? I need to see my kids grow. I need to complete what I’ve been sent here to do.”
He simply nodded. I said, “Go now, and don’t come back unless I can see you face to face and my wife can see you face to face. I imagine my grandlander can do quite a bit of damage here.”
He nodded and left.
I looked around and saw six angels around my bed, occupied with various ministries; as well as those angels holding up my wife and my daughter. We asked our daughter where the angels were and she looked all around the bed, stopping at exactly the points I had seen them. There was another angel focused on my Beloved’s belly, too. (She was pregnant with our second daughter).
I’ve often wondered what would have happened had I said “Yes, I’d love to go home.” Part of me suspects this was simply God’s way of sardonically kicking me in the rear. If so, it worked!
The Test
The test of whether or not we have come close to realizing our core - who God created us to be - comes when we can no longer do the things we choose to do. Ultimately, who I am does not depend on anything I can do — these are merely expressions of me (or perhaps less than me!). What is left, my desires, longings, and yearnings — these are what I was sent to do. And I am
nothing
but who
God created
me to be.
Now, if I could just stay out of my way!
Courage
People tell me “What courage you have!”
I do not feel it.
If what they say is true, then
Courage feels in me
nothing like it looks in others.
Courage looks brave, fearless, and dauntless
Courage is battle proven, hard won
in the face of dragons and demons.
Courage feels nothing like this,
though, perhaps, it looks that way to others.
I have been beaten down, pummeled, and bludgeoned,
I have lost much and have done nothing other than
face reality unblinking, whilst my teeth grind out the dirt,
and decide to seek the gift rather than dwell on the pain.
Snow Shadowed Virgin Curves
Bury me deep, oh blanket of snow,
Insulate me wet and cold from what
I must truly know, of still, perfect
blanket of freshly fallen snow.
Smooth over my rough crags,
let me place first footprints
upon your virgin curves,
walking in your beauty,
from the rampart of my soul.
What soft stillness, beloved silence.
Bury me deep, oh blanket of snow,
reveal to me crisp and white, what I
already know.
Amen.
Temptation
Alluring and fair,
like the siren’s call,
Awakening desire,
to follow and disregard
care and consequence.
What matter they,
in the face of
tantalizing possibility?
I yearn to grasp
beyond my reach,
even if the price
is all I hold dear!
Come, join me wisdom!
Come, sit with me contentment!
By what thread am I kept
from plummeting o’er this
cliff of impetuous disaster?
Where are reason and discipline?
What thread holds me back from the brink?
A calmness settles about my soul,
Contentment come to call?
Wisdom bids me sit a while,
Wrapped in stillness.
Wrapped in stillness.
All possibilities, tantalizing
though they be,
Are no thing to the
abundance I have as gift:
My Beloved, our life and love
we share. With her,
I will always push the boundaries,
though not toward siren’s call.
Amen.
Written at the campground near the cliffs of Patrick’s Point in Northern California, on a hard day when I yearned to join my wife and daughters on their visit to the seaside cliffs, as I heard the barking howls and hoots of the sea lions.
Beauty Unveiled
Recognize beauty unabashed
but once and she beckons
wher'er eyen should fall.
(eyen is Scot’s for eyes)
Dawn’s Embrace
I wait in darkness,
await creation's unveiling
at dawn's embrace.
Beauty rising,
revealing beauty
receptive.
I wait in darkness,
Fire's distant scouts
stretching purple blue hue
across the heavens.
Slow to change.
Noticed in bursts.
Enticing, yearning,
beckoning, seduction.
Heartbeat of heaven
ignites earth's yearning sigh,
her stretched open curves.
Taste of divine seduction,
we glimpse the Eternal
in the rising of the Sun.
Eucharistic Receiving
Eucharist means thanksgiving, and being disabled challenges us to choose thankfulness as our attitude.
There is a humbleness to receiving
I didn’t know I knew,
Now that poverty of body,
places burden on my beloved,
and I can’t do the things I’ve done,
We are, quite simply, overrun.
For the dishes pile high,
remaining days on end,
making cooking even tougher and cleaning a
wished for God send…
What gift when others say
in humble offering,
“Tell us, what can we do?”
And in joyful gratitude
deliver our wished for
gifts from God.
When another says
“Take this, this is my body,
given for you,” I’ve learned
There is a humbleness to receiving
I didn’t know I knew.
-Amen
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 2
Anger: Why is this happening to me?
Cruel Land
Why so cruel, bitter, and hard, Lord?
Why must I travel this bloody blasted land?
With gravity so strong as to
draw me down, yet so weak
as to allow me no bearing.
Its local inhabitants ritually enact
clanging chaos, bewildering and exasperating
in its frequency and result:
the air thickens to work the lungs,
exhaust the body, fog the mind.
What cruel land is this
through which I trek?
It is mine — the result
of damaged brain.
There is no way out but death,
Yet I choose to stay and live,
to trek this land, love my Beloved and our wee ones,
and accomplish what God put me here to do.
God, grant me strength and fortitude.
Amen.
Gran’lander
May I be like me gran’lander,
Always sharp and keen.
Willing and able to pierce defenses,
Mine and mine enemies!
May I be like me gran’lander,
double edged to slice both ways and
reveal a third — well balanced,
far reaching, yet well founded.
In the forges of me maker,
whence his heat has strengthened me,
shown me purpose, and enabled me to
bend, not break, and return straight and true.
And may I always know my enemy,
strike swiftly and well at injustice,
at less than right relationship,
all the while embracing Christ
In each person I meet.
Amen.
Dialogue with God
There is a prayer form in which we write to God with our non-dominant hand, wait in contemplative silence until God’s response appears and flows out through our dominant hand. Consider yourself blessed you needn’t attempt to read my left-handed scratch!
Me: Lord of All Creation, I am dizzy with vertigo and occasionally am hit by axes and spears into my head. Further, an angel of yours asked me if I want to go home, saying this road (life) would be painful and hard. Why did you send him? Why give me a choice?
God: You now know your own determination to follow me. Is this not reason enough?
Me: Perhaps. Life is different now that I have chosen to be here. Am I here to do what I think? Raise a family, write, publish, marriage spirituality, family vision — Is this why I am here?
God: You are here to do my work. These things are part of my work. More will be required as time goes on.
Me: Am I to be disabled the rest of my life?
God: I made you strong so that your weakness would not stop you from being about my business.
Me: It seems I could do more if I was fully healed.
God: Seams simply hold together two pieces of fabric - they cannot see the whole garment. Allow your weakness to be a strength — you already partly know how.
Me: Thank you for all you have given me! And I embrace the life you have given. Help me live it well. Amen.
God: You are precious and graced and you have been well prepared to serve me. I am always with you — use me as your strength. Go now, and live the day!
Now is All
I no longer know which direction is up,
though too often I learn which is down.
People ask me “What’s up?” I answer,
truly, “I don’t know! What is up?”
I no longer know my own thought
of just a moment ago — gone forever?
Or destined to reappear?
Unknown, baffled frustration in
not knowing. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
I no longer know a normal day. Even normal
redefined requires consistency, which for me
only vanishes into shrouded mist like
so many well thought thoughts.
The only thing I know is now.
Contemplatives’ dream come true.
Now is what I cherish, where I cling,
cry, and celebrate. How much more like a child am I,
now that now is all I know?
Looking for a Miracle
“I’m praying for a miracle,”
I’m told with optimistic glee,
And I wonder what exactly that might be.
Complete or even partial healing?
Certainly. That’s what they have in mind.
I’ll take that.
But what if the miracle is different,
if it’s simply that I’m here,
given the grace to carry on
the work I’m here to do?
Would they see the
miracle
in that, too?
Amen.
Trial by Trail
My God,
What trail is this on which I tread?
But for my own fall, I can hardly discover
which way be up and which be down.
I cling to my faith,
that you are up,
all other ways down,
Help me know you
Help me know up,
For this trail I tread
is treacherous indeed.
Wrap my heart with your
gentle, peaceful, wild, passionate hand,
that I may know your gentle nudge.
Embrace me, Beloved Lord!
A Hard Day
I feel
raw,
disoriented,
churned.
I forget
a moment ago,
a thought,
that was now.
I am
bombarded with shrapnel
noise: joys and cries
of my daughters.
Exhausted,
I sink into the embrace of the mattress,
soft, dependable, steady, silent.
Dear God, let tomorrow
be less so.
Amen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 3
Bargaining: What if?
What If…
The whatifs gather, gripe and moan.
In my mind they oft do chide,
Hounding me from every side.
Seeds of unrest so easily sown.
Whatif this,
Whatif that,
Each gathers heavily upon my back.
Amuse them, bemuse them, lower I stoop,
I haven’t the strength to ever recoup.
Tenacity is one thing whatifs do not lack.
Dialogue with God 2
Me: Jesus, Beloved, How long?
Jesus: You are in my time now, not the world’s. A lifetime is a blink and a day an eternity. Be content with that.
Me: How much will I get back?
Jesus: Enough to do what I am asking of you. Your are mostly there now.
Me: Give me strength.
Jesus: I AM.
Me: Amen.
Jesus: Amen.
What Price, Holiness?
If holiness could be bought and sold,
‘twould be in ancient bazaar,
it’s well bartered price much higher than rarest jewel.
If holiness could be bought and sold.
If holiness could be bought and sold,
Ahhhh… but alas…it can not be,
Holiness can only be granted and given,
hard fought and won,
by the taming of the soul
into the wilderness from whence it came.
If only holiness could be bought and sold!
Confidence and Arrogance
The difference between
confidence and
arrogance is
competence.
Those inept who
act with confidence
are arrogant.
Those inept who
act unsure
are of no consequence,
those competent who
act unsure
are wasteful fools,
while those competent who
act with confidence
are the changers of this world.
Of this I am supremely confident!
My Gethsemane
Peter woke in Gethsemane to a near full moon far spent. Having failed to watch with Jesus as asked, he yearned to show his beloved master how much he loved him.
“Master,” Peter said softly to the man hunched horribly in blood, “Master, Our Lord, your Father, can heal you, spare you this pain if you but ask!”
Earlier that night, Jesus has seen what the world would be like if this cup passed him by — sparing him the suffering and pain … and not revealing God’s deeper love. Suffering and pain is not without purpose, though certainly beyond understanding.
Jesus looked up, the redness of sorrow becoming the redness of anger. “Get behind me, Satan! You fool! We all will be healed, in the fulness of time. Yet we cannot know the redemption our suffering brings to both us and those around us!”
His eyes softened as he continued: “What is happening to me has purpose — this cup I must drink. Do you think I choose this cup? I choose to drink it, for it is mine, but I did not chose it.”
Then Peter said, “But you said, Lord, ‘Your faith has healed you.’ Have you not faith?”
“Yes, Peter,” said Jesus, “faith in Abba, Father, not in healing. Healing can come now, or with the resurrection, or sometime between, as suits God. Some day soon you will yearn to drink this very cup of mine.”
Peter sat, bewildered, eyes heavy. Surely God would heal the Messiah? He prayed that it might be so and woke to the cock’s first crow.
Dear God,
Give me the strength and courage for another day. I am tired. Weary. Travel worn and thread bare. Help me see the gift. Help me find the hope. I am so weak in the face of this journey. I cling to the crux of your son’s cross. It is my anchor and all I can do is lean on it, hang on it. Perhaps that is what your son did?
You are with me. I feel you. I need not hope, nor love, nor life, for I have you. You are the abundance I crave. Let me splash in you as a sun parched man in a cool stream’s pool. Let me dance with you as a long missed lover. Let me enter into you, that despite my weakness, my words are yours, my actions inseparable from yours. Give me strength and courage for another day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 4
Depression: I don’t care anymore
Here of My Own Accord
What does it mean,
that I am here of my own accord?
That I chose to take the long hard road
rather than a simple death and new life?
Today I’m very tired
Today I feel the pilgrim’s journey,
Tired, yearning for home.
Yet I was given a choice and I fought
to stay here, to live this —
even calling an angel a bastard.
I wonder if such a term can
technically apply? Surely they all
know who their father is.
It means that I am here,
Happy to be so,
For this is a journey worth taking
and I take it for the love of my Beloved,
our children, and the world I’m here
to serve.
Thank you, God, for the strength you give me.
I feel it, especially today, at my weakest.
Amen.
Joseph’s Reflections
I hold in my rough hairy arms
One so smooth and gentle,
dwarfed by these old, well worked hands.
My God! How do I father you?
I’m a simple man, carpenter by trade,
much in demand for my skill,
I’ll provide for you and my Beloved Mary
the best that I can.
My God! How do I father you?
Perhaps the same way as I
Worked on your house — our temple,
One careful stroke and cut at a time,
with always an eye on the vastness
of what I build and where the piece
I work will go.
To shape and mold wood is a prayer,
Let it be so with you.
One day, one moment, one stroke, one cut
at a time. And I chuckle at the thought
that I get to father God.
Amen.
Father’s Day Prayer
What awe and wonder Joseph must have felt,
A massive carpenter with broad, well callused hands,
As he, eyes wetted with love, lips curled at the edge of laughter,
Held God in his arms the first time.
Steeped in sweet pungent of well used hay,
How humbled the man must have been,
to realize the task given him —
Earthly father of one without sin.
God among us, Emanuel!
There resting between his hand and the bend in his arm
lay the fulness of what we all can become,
And he, the father of God’s only son.
Now as I hold my own and I sense the possibility
of God within this gentle creature, the fulness of
what it means to be human, as Joseph’s son was,
I find we are kin, and I turn to him that
I might more fully know how to be father of
God, my child within.
Guide me Joseph, let your memory become mine,
that I might father God in my children as you did in thine.
St. Joseph and Memory
When I realized that I couldn't remember how old my kids are, I was afraid that I would see them and interact with them as if they were older or younger than they actually were. I would be an out of touch parent long before my kids reached adolescent arrogance.
I went and griped to St. Joseph. See, we Catholics have personal relationships with those who have gone before us. Sometimes we say we pray to the Saints. We don't. We talk with them, ask them questions, listen to their answers and ask them to pass along a good word for us to God because they have a corner office.
Anyway, Joseph laughed at me (a common occurrence when I talk with the Saints), then reassured me that he would help me be able to relate with my kids as exactly who they were at that moment.
Ever since, I've been given the gift of situational memory. I don't know if they will be 3 or 30 when I come round the corner, but I see them, see how they act, and I interact with them exactly where they are then, at that moment. Intriguingly, I often do this better than my wife, who "knows" where they are developmentally and misses the early signs of progressing to something new. I of course still look the idiot for not knowing the details of what is going on in life, but we've all gotten used to that.
Death Bears Us Ourselves
Death walks with me every day.
If I ignore him,
his reaper’s shadow grows even
longer and larger
with each passing snub.
I jump and startle as fear
invades my tumultuous emotions,
twisting life so I run blind
and ignorant into Death’s waiting arms,
Having missed my reason for being.
Hope lies in turning to face
my stalker. For in the moment
my eyes bore through those empty sockets
I find my reason for living
In the void of the reaper’s skull,
his eventual grip no longer chills,
but rather brings clarity and purpose
to my life’s call.
Death walks with us everyday,
bearing the gift of ourselves
if we but turn and look.
At the Joining of the Planks
Perhaps Jesus, as he cried aloud “My God, why have you forsaken me?” felt not alone, but rather, in the timelessness of eternity, felt the hope of so many hanging on with him, because he held on for us.
My devotional, the prayer my
Soul has taught to me,
revealed, unfolded, brought forth
from divine darkness
whence lies all possibility,
is the crossroads of
sorrow and joy,
torment and blessing,
abandoned and loved,
broken and whole,
The Crux of the Cross.
Here I place my brokenness,
Here I stand in sorrow. Tormented.
Abandoned.
Here I throw myself upon
nails driven deep, and wrap
my arms around the joining of
these planks.
Hang on! Hang on!
The pulse in my head proclaims,
Hang on! Hang on!
The Crux of the Cross,
Crossroad of pain and bliss.
Hang on! the chorus cries, Hang on!
for He has transformed
pain into bliss,
brokenness into holiness,
torment into blessing,
abandonment into reunion,
sorrow into joy,
the cross into the triumph
of life over death.
I hang on, for it happens here,
at the Crux of the Cross.
Juxtaposition
Joy, sorrow,
pain, ecstasy,
crisp warmth
melting snow
upon flowers
dead seeds sown
waiting, now
stormy calm,
gentle, restless soul,
watching the moment
yearning, possessing,
balances tottering
upon the brink
of expression.
Now without past
hope to tomorrow,
thrilled touch of
my daughter’s hands,
glint of my Beloved’s eyes,
tired, yes tired,
yet surrounded
with love
abundant with gifts,
unquestioned bliss,
the fuel of joy
in this glowing home
that’s ours.
The wonder of it all!
All of it wondrous!
Each fully present
among all the rest
none of them as yet amiss,
waiting for the moment
to be fully expressed.
I embrace it,
accept it as mine,
which makes it
no easier,
only more
inexpressible.
And I wonder
how to write
the deepening heights,
the veiled sunlight shadows upon
my heart.
Amen.
Narcissism
To truly love one's self is to also love all others -- and this is not narcissism. Narcissism is becoming obsessed with one's image of one's self to such a degree that it is idolatrous -- supplanting one's orientation toward God with one's orientation toward less-than-self. Hence the need to prop up one's self as a puppet in the spotlight and declare it the finest of creation. Hence the need to diminish others -- either by falsely elevating them into some misplaced service to her/his highness, or by cutting them down and down again until they do not stand above the horizon from any perspective. Failing either of those, they hastily retreat to the company of those who allow themselves to be less then they are.
In facing hardship and woe, have I become obsessed with my own burdens such that I’ve accidently made my suffering my own false god?
Journey in Darkness
Journey in Darkness
Beauty cast starkness
Enchanting at first.
Into your spell was I drawn.
Moon light hill crests bathed in silver,
eyes adjust and make each step
possible, though bare.
Thus have I traveled, arm in arm
with my wife, two years going
seeing only what was essential to
take the next step – through black
forests we stumbled, o’er silver hills
it felt like we ran, catching
mere glimpses of each other, as we drew
the other along.
Enchantment wears thin and is seen
less frequent than spouse.
Drudgery sets in – no break, no light,
Day upon day becomes two years in the night.
A slight pause for one moment and
Enchantment firefly returns, skipping
away as the journey resumes.
Away from me darkness!
Enough of your starkness!
Arm in arm we depart to discover the dawn!
Beauty upon Beauty in love to behold
Bold sun’s rays wash away the film of old,
starkness absorbed in abundance, and
Behold! My Lover’s face radiant in
country splendor.
What sweet welcome the dawn
after two years of darkness.
Bathe me full, for I shall not return
to a life of journey by sliver of moon.
Fine taste of resurrection this, in
reflection has been.
Out of darkness into light, Beauty
transformed, love deepened, renewed, Freedom
lived! What sweet joy to savor
in full, abundant light, the land
through which we journey, those
near whom we journey, and of
most import, my Beloved, radiant to see!
Amen.
Vibrant Virgin Green
Vibrant virgin green,
eager and exuberant
becomes
green solid and sure,
constant and dependable
becomes
green pale and worn,
tired and dwindling
dies to become
bold percussion gold,
sublime silent symphony
blown to ground
leaving
spartan wisps
cold and dormant
waiting
to hesitantly emerge
vibrant virgin green…
At the foot of the Cross
Parched earth drinks my tears,
empty though I am, they stream on down
at the foot of the cross.
The sun sets and rises. Many times.
Wind, caress me with your mournful cry,
Rain, fill me with your roaring river,
Thunder, my anguish is your cry,
Mountains, carry me deep to your roots,
that someday I may again ascend to your heights.
My Beloved, Mary, Joseph and me,
we kneel, hunched in our mud,
on heart and knee.
My arms wrapped around my Beloved,
her quivering, quaking, entwines with my own,
encased in Mary's,
enwrapped in Joseph's,
Lonely together
at the foot of the cross.
Agony is Ecstasy's Door
Agony is ecstasy’s door,
for to be in agony,
suffering and utterly forlorn,
and find myself in the caress
of my Beloved is to be ushered
from the depths of despair,
through some
mysterious and secret passage
straight to
the inner chamber of timeless
eternal communion where
naught matters save Love,
and it’s expression there of!
Communion with my Beloved!
Here is served elixir of
milk and honey, and tears of sorrow and joy,
here is depth and breadth and height of
sheer ecstasy!
So grand the delight that upon
unwilling departure, I (almost) yearn
to find myself again suffering,
for I now know ‘tis ecstasy’s door!
Change
Change
comes slowly,
noticed suddenly,
Stunning
transformation
vibrant life
into
stunning death
into
unexpected life,
Divine
Revolution
Transubstantiating
less than me
into
me.
Long Hard Road
Its a long, hard road
We’ve been told,
A long,
hard
road.
Indeed.
In the long and the hard
I can deal with and understand,
Until it becomes what I actually see before me:
For the long hard road
travels far, surmounting
mountains, hills, canyons, and cliffs,
valleys, rivers, swamps, and more…
these I can comprehend and understand.
What deeply frustrates and confounds
is boulders placed and pitfalls dug,
left there unnecessarily by
human hand.
Or the realization,
on a straight, clear way,
that I must crawl
instead of run or fly.
When they say it will be a long,
hard
road,
they speak of more than just
the road.
Amen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 5
Acceptance: Wow. This really is part of my life.
Disabled
I am no differently abled,