revbaum

I Remember

I remember the crickets, how the sound would seem to be in stereo, louder to my right and then moving to my left, always in flux, never still.

The moon stood so bright that I could easily make my way between the trees and not trip over pine cones on the ground, especially those pine cones that seem like they never opened fully and can feel like prickly stones to barefoot feet.

I remember how the air was thick with moisture and yet mingled with a cooler breeze that sent some fronds waving, way up high above me.

It was important that I reach my destination quickly so that I could be still and not seen, just another shadow in the night. I had to get closer to the road so I could see the stars because the thickness of the trees filtered the light but obscured the overall view. So, near a silent county highway, I made my altar and bowed up in reverence to the light above.

I think the conversations I had there had meaning but few words. It was a Communion, a Eucharist, without the need for verbal response. It was a “Passing of the Peace” as we say in liturgy; “The Peace of the Lord be with you God…”, “and also with you Lisa”.

It’s not cool to be a 15 year old contemplative who thought her abuse was a personal failing, a sin that needed penance from me. Oh how I remember those theological discussions: forgive 70 x 7, turn the other cheek, I bore the abuse to my body, which healed quickly, but the theology of it all trapped me into my Great Depression for decades to come.

I remember taking in deep breaths of humid air laced with the scent of pine, as the stars were moving forward in their predestined path and I returned to mine. Predestined? For real? To be a wounded healer was not part of the big plan. But gradually it came to be.

I remember.

#blog

Senses

I see you fern leaf, the decorative tenderness that reaches out for air, sun, water.
I see you mountain, unmovable, tall, proud, alone.
I see you river, with a plastic cup floating past along your path.
I see you sunlight, ever changing, from the greater to the lesser over and over.

I taste you ice cream, rich, sweet and sticky in my mouth.
I taste you bitter coffee so hot it burns my mouth.
I taste you dirt as you are lifted out of the ground.
I taste you fig preserve in a butter filled biscuit.

I hear you wind as you fly around and past me.
I hear you thunder when you shake the ground.
I hear you child as you giggle with you friends.
I hear you music, stretching me in an intimate personal way.

I touch your bark, dry and rough, protecting a vulnerable trunk.
I touch you keyboard as I lean into meaning.
I touch you dog, as you jump up in my lap.
I touch you baby skin, soft and new & inexperienced with air.

I feel you loneliness, in the ache that can break me.
I feel you fear as you try to paralyze hope.
I feel you grief as you remind me of lost love
I feel you Spirit, breathing into my soul.

9 May 2020 #poetry

She’s Hurt

They hurt this child.

She’s bruised.

She’s beaten.

She’s alone.

She’s unconscious.

She’s been shaken.

What happened?

Where the hell were you God?

Please tell me you blocked her mind.

Please let me believe you blocked her pain.

Please convince me she wasn’t terrified.

I can’t imagine her thoughts otherwise.

Did she look hopefully into eyes of rage?

Did she cry out for help?

Was she aware of the trauma in her body,

In her little experience

In her innocence?

How could you let this happen?

How am I supposed to love her caretakers?

How, please tell me, do I forgive?

If I’m this enraged

How did you manage with the men who came with a hammer and nails for your feet and hands?

You didn’t fight.

Did she?

Convince me, please, that you bore her pain

You took it and kept it from her &

From where I sit, tell me she didn’t feel

The betrayal, the horror, the terror.

Please tell me you spared her

From what seems very evident

In her little body…

In her little ‘created in God’s image’

‘Blessed little one”

Childhood innocence.

Please help me God.

At least she’s sedated now.

I’m fighting the righteous rage

I’m feeling,

The ungraceful judgement

The balled up emotional fists.

If I must feel this rage for her,

As you felt physical torment on a cross

Please help me.

I want to be like you

But this is too much.

Please help me not join in with

Those who crucify and terrorize

Because of my feelings of rage.

Please save her

But help me too

To be like you.

Amen.

#pediatric palliative##prayer#

Lament for Our Time

O Broken One, it is on this Good Friday that we come to you, in our frailty, in our collective illness, in our shame, and in dire need. Never before have we needed you now as they needed you when, pursued by Pharoah’s army on a moonlit night and headed directly to the deep sea before them; you parts the waters. We cannot cross this violent river alone. Too many have already been pulled under by the tides of this virus. We stand at the shore in our helplessness afraid. We are stripped of our confidence in the way things were, in our smugly coveted independence. We mask our faces and fear the other more now than the hate groups that have risen up, more now than the global political unrest. With our eyes we question: “Are you the one? the one who will infect me?” and avert our eyes.

Help us O Lord, for your mercy is great,

your compassion is sacrificial

your presence is RIGHT HERE.

L: Lord have mercy.

R: Christ have mercy.

L: Lord have mercy. Gracious God, deliver us

R: from our fear of the stranger, from the fear of our breath, from the fear of a sneeze.