bigger

my family and i, we call it moving mountains.  these are the things we can do with faith.  not knowing just what it is we’re moving but trusting and being able to actually feel the power in the movement.  faith can be so big that God would even allow a person to see a glimpse of what they’re really doing.  i’m not there but my imagine runs wild.  with my faith i am free to dream.  ~

bread and water

opening the cupboard doors for the tenth time never made more appear. yet the bareness of reality never kept me from reenacting, perhaps in desperation.

hope. maybe i had hope.

the wheels always turned in me and creativity spurred the most brilliant concoctions as a child:

• brown sugar and butter makes caramel, sort of
• bread ends with outdated yogurt and raisins
• pilot crackers and canned tuna, of course
• cabbage, lentils and chicken: something i like to call Beluga

growing up and even until now i never understood the virtue in poverty. maybe because i was too poor in other things like spirit at the time.

now though, as an adult, i see how intimate one becomes with God when they are poor. no longer merely self-reliant; when we have nothing else to trust we have only to trust God. if the world turns against us we turn to God. and so in a sense, those we damn and shame and judge (and maybe even yell out the car window, “Get a job!”); those we right off and cast out often have a far more exclusive provision with the Creator, than those who seek to fulfill their needs independently.

[dry light]

respite in the Perfect;
deserted in the desert of affection;
letting in the love, kept for sudden notices;
moment’s notice, not too quick-
just take away the swears and keep it quiet.
in the tundra lost and loved;
kept quiet for my God above.~

[gone]

Gone so far… hands out farther than I can reach
Who could reach?

These things, these screams
God prevails in my dreams, keeps me close

I wake up and I feel His presence

lighter brighter

ive been tossing around various tomorrows… tomatoes juggling in the air… trying to decipher the codes of fate and my own difficult desires.

this tomorrow, that tomorrow… one is too cold, another too hot. finally, oh but finally, i have settled on a certain future. decidedly so, i am delightedly insomuch tickled over the idea i’ve come across. its been staring me in the face, rolling its eyes at me, waiting for me to turn from my scattered thoughts and return to the truth which is always ironic and always magical. God is as lovely and whimsical, deep and dark and mysterious as I love Him to be. and His gifts always reflect all of these infinite qualities.

My tomorrow, lighter and brighter than i could have imagined. detailed and simple, full circle and yet never-done. so much fulfilled in just arriving my eyes in the center of the gifts which have always been there, ready to be opened, noticed.

i spend so much time trying to will my way through life, only to look up and find it’s so much easier if you just close your eyes and let God do all the turning.

tangerine

The sky here is still. From here, the ground is busy, the earth blurred with nonsense and unsettled souls but above it all the sky is still. I look up and can not find an end. I look up and know no other certainty but that eventually the color will extract from this view, the sun will pass and another day will work its way into the world (God willing).

God willing I’m still here. And I am still with the sky. No matter how fast I go on the freeway, above it all is pause.

[training camp]

this evening is my first day on the job. the training trial period, sort of like life: preparing for some heavenly duty of sorts; a military nurse for God. The idea is to go and pick up the wounded angels of Armageddon running along the front lines, (some dimension prepared just for this) pulling them aside, relieving them of their armor.  i’ll take out my bag of tricks: God’s morphine and His tourniquet. Now and until then, he tells me his potions are potent and his pre-hospital care is powerful …  so i start with this. its small but its a start and its taken me long enough to conjure up some sense of purpose.

you first have to realize you are small
your big plans are skepticism. your small ones, volunteer work.
your life is a resume; practicing in the mirror for the long awaited interview

reciting your worth, your best foot forth; having mastered the Art of Kindness.

i tucked in my polo shirt which i never do but they never have uniforms in extra small or even small, because uniforms were not meant to be customized or to fit. i tried to fit the profile, hair tucked away in bun, slippery nose with falling glasses.
i tried to look pressed, ironed, worthy. i go to open the cottage door (cottage is their term for anything not plastered with stucco and pink paint; not uniform) but its locked. Of course. I knock and a woman twice my age but shorter opens the door, baring the same tucked polo, thrift store khakis hemmed, sliding thick rimmed glasses with question-mark eyes.

You must be the new girl.

yes, yes of course
in time with the persona.

you then have to realize where you fit
because some people learn best in quiet light,
others in do or die situations.
and God lets us figure that out
through one painted window at a time

immediately, i felt awkward, like an intruder. sorry. this was a quiet place with
musky, milk glass lighting; antique static. the living room straightened with old people in rows of withered skin and aimless eyes. they don’t say hi or welcome me because they don’t know me but they know that much. Dusty roses and muted green damask tapestry stuffed tautly forming against their bony backs, paints a false picture. Fake flowers abound, the TV is just on and a waxy wipe-off calendar blares pothetic goals for each day:

exercise, Thursday the 1st.
bingo, Friday the 9th.

Today is staring off into space with applesauce and Respiradol dried to corners of cracked speechless lips and blank daydreams shuttering only by anything familiar and nothing here is… but that’s not written on the calendar.

the next ambition is deciphering the truth from the perceived truth
because where one hopes many doubt but they all go to church
this will take a lifetime to sift through
but with the building of virtue you will.
if you love this, than you will.

she leads me into the medication room and in my loud young limbs and pin-tucked mouth, i ask too quickly:

what do you want me to do.

let me put some of them to bed and then i’ll show you around.

so i sat there observing, tarrying with the moments passing. is this God’s idea or mine?
i’ve already judged the room and my place in it: too fake. too boxy; plastic antiques. replicas of
comfort. its a shade too quiet for my age and i’m a tad too quick for their hands.
i can’t take it anymore:

Ya know i can help; i don’t want to just sit here.

well that one needs to be changed; she goes at the very end of the hall behind you on the right.
she’s pretty easy but use a high pitched voice, she likes to be pampered.

what is she talking about? seriously, i’ve never even held a baby. i’m too proud to ask.

i reach for the cold clammy creature, walk with her down the hall. young and old, new and used. its sort of purposeful like Mary and Elizabeth; we’re fulfilling something… perhaps me.

last you realize small hands do big things
your place is where God puts it
The truth is in the moment, what you skim from the top of it.
even when we break, we were meant to break

and God picks us up every time.
i caught on to the quietness. they live in dreams of things that made sense once. so i pretend with her. its the only thing i could think to do. are we in the 40′s maybe? two young damsels glorifying our best features in a powder room, fixing a loose hem, a snagged stocking:

here let me help you with that.
i fumble with the washcloth; well this is awkward. what? God i don’t know.

wait Hon’, umm..you’ve got a punch stain your dress.

Oh thank you sweetheart, she says to me.

Can you believe she said thank you? and here i am sweating and shaking trying to work with this discomfort: the interplay of dignity and delirium.

it wasn’t bad for a first day; i broke my own mold and washed the feet of God for the first time.~

Isaiah 54:10

“Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”

Isaiah 54:10

song of ascents

1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

psalm 121:1-8

truth

“Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.” the genius, Ralph Waldo Emerson