Is It Too Good To Be True?

Sometimes things are not too good to be true;

Sometimes in the midst of tensions

And heartache and change,

My Dad reaches into the “mess”

And does something unexpected

And sweet.

I guess the way I’ve always seen things,

Or at least the mindset I’m tempted to adopt,

Is that things should be good and happy

And that if they start to go badly

Then maybe my Dad isn’t so good.

But that’s exactly the opposite of how

It is.

I could quote James 1 & 2

Or I could refer to Romans,

In order to remind myself

Of this truth.

And I have been doing that

(not consistently like I need to be doing,

But it happens).

Instead, right now I want to

Just say “thank You.”

Thank You for the gift of joy

And goodness that You’ve given to me

As so much is whirling on around me.

Precious moments with precious people,

Loving words from Your heart,

Move my being towards the light

And renew my spirit.

Dissatisfied

Displaced in the middle.

There is an unrest,

An uneasiness,

A pull towards pressing in more closely,

Not living in my heart so remotely.

Every synapse in my brain

Must be rewired into the

Thoughts of my Father.

I’m dissatisfied.

There is a restlessness growing,

And a not-okay-with-where-I’m-at

Attitude that is reaching out like

A hand towards the light.

The reality is that I am free.

The “veil has been torn,”

And my life has been forever changed,

But I find myself getting tangled

In lesser-than things,

And distractions,

And temptations,

And I’m not interested in living my life like that.

I don’t want to live in compromise.

My desire is to be all-in,

Heart, body, mind, and soul.

I don’t want to tell myself one thing

And live out another,

Or tell You one thing

And do something different,

I don’t want things that really mean nothing,

To be the things I am drawn to most.

May the dissatisfaction of how things are,

The frustration of feeling distracted

By meaningless things,

Be a catalyst to draw me closer

To the One I love,

And deeper into the heart and mission

Of who He is. 

Grandma’s Touch

(Excerpt from this year's NANOWRIMO, inspired by Bethany)

Grandma always had a way with her hands. She touched everything. Her hands were always sensitive to textures, patterns, variations.

When Matt was younger and kept his hair close-cut, she would run her fingers against the grain of his hair to feel the tension of hair strands going counterculture. This caused her to giggle.

“Going on a treasure hunt, x marks the spot. Three lines down and a question mark. A pinch, a squeeze, a tropical breeze. An egg that spills and gives you the chills.” This childhood ditty was followed by fingers drawn on the back to mark the treasure hunt, an “x” drawn to mark the spot where some treasure was inevitably hiding. I never figured out what that prize was all about, but I typically imagined some pirate’s bounty. The three lines drew straight down one’s back and the pinch was a slight irritation, the squeeze, a firm grip on a chunk of flesh. The tropical breeze was a puff of breath into one’s ear. The egg started with a cracking of a shell on top of one’s head and then fingers cascading down one’s head and shoulders and back to create a spilling of the yoke effect. It was sure to bring chills and shivers down even the most determined straight-faced bloke. We loved it.

Grandma taught us the bad habit of molding our fingers in the wax from melting candles. While they were lit, she plunged her hand into melted and softened wax pools, cradling the flame, and squeezed them into shapes and patterns.

She also dared to discover to us the “soft blanket” feeling of running your finger through a candle flame. She would gently swing her finger back and forth through a burning flame as we gathered around the table on a holiday meal. She claimed it felt soft, like a blanket. We cautiously and incompletely believed her and began our own test of this to prove or disprove her credibility. She was right. There was some sort of softness to the burning orange flame. Mom wasn’t crazy about this discovery and our infatuation with it. 

All I Want to Do Is Go to the Bathroom (from the head of a teacher)

All I want to do is go to the bathroom.

Chapel just ended and I am flung

Between throngs of 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th graders,

And I wind around the snack shop, past the soccer field,

Past the old tree,

And up the high school stairs to deposit

My trusty Bible, attendance sheet, and

Contigo travel mug before

Whisking into the bathroom

For a quick pee,

So that I’m not distracted by a full bladder

When my discipleship girls show up.

As I turn the corner to enter the second stall,

I see the glow of a screen lighting up a

10^th grader’s face as she quickly turns so

As not to be seen by her teacher.

All I want to do is go to the bathroom.

In a moment of tension,

I actually have to force myself to turn around

To approach her about the phone,

Confiscate it,

Walk back to my classroom to place it on my desk,

And then return on my mission to finish the task,

Because all I want to do is go to the bathroom,

But I am interrupted by my on-call duties as a teacher.

Is It Any Wonder?

Is it any wonder?

Is it any wonder that we can look

At the same thing

And draw different responses?

Is it any surprise that one day I might see

The sky and marvel at its graceful décor,

Illuminating the landscape with sparkling diamonds

That will never get lost between sofa cushions

Or disappear on the subway.

Yet on a different day of the week,

Maybe even tomorrow,

I will gaze at the papers in my hands that

Are crying out to be graded

And I will answer their desperate pleas

And swoop in like a mother bird

To redeem the abandonment—

And in doing so I will attend to

An item on my list of ever-growing items to

Attend to,

And I might never even lift my head above

My desk, my path home,

My hands,

And I might never make eye contact with the clouds?

The half-moon?

The life pulsing all around—and

I might just plain forget that

“all creation groans and waits”

For the return of the God-man who will

Descend from His throne in the Heavenly realms

And sweep down to draw me near.

(NANOWRIMO Entry)

Sweet Sweat

Someone else’s sweat against my cheek. Not the sweet sweat of a lover or the sticky inevitability of a child, but the sun-beaten-down-on perspiration of a woman I greet as she passes me. Jacqueline. She is a machann who sells her wares in between the school and my house, so I see her each afternoon as I return to my abode. Angrily, she passed today. She was up on Delmas Swasant-Kenz—arguing with another machann about something, for when she storms down the street I inquire,

“Poukisa ou fache” (why are you angry)?

Her words returned void. Some disagreement between her and one of the other women who faithfully sits along the street, waiting for passersby to run their hands over a ripe zaboca or fig: to purchase.

Somehow sweat is sweet sometimes. In the middle of my workday, over my lunch break, is when our cheeks brushed—mine was fairly dry from being incubated in air conditioning all morning and hers was dripping moisture from standing under the orb in the sky all maten (morning).

(NANOWRIMO Entry) 

In the Middle

Mid-twenties. You are a funny bunch of years.

I’ve always liked the middle.

When I was younger, living in a suburban neighborhood—

Positioned across from a small patch of rolling

Cornfields,

I fought for the middle in my trio of friends’’

Biking entourage.

I wanted to be second in the line-up,

With one neighborhood friend in front of my 5-speed,

And one neighborhood friend behind.

My mood turned foul if this didn’t happen just “so”…

I am the second middle child,

In a collection of four.

I’m third;

I’m in the middle.

I didn’t have to do things first,

But I still ended up paving “the way” somehow

With a rebellious streak yearning for boundary-pushes.

I often wanted to stand out—not for outlandish opinions

But for music taste, outfit choice, sarcastic jests.

I wasn’t the firstborn and I wasn’t the baby of the flock.

I had to make my mark somehow, huh?

I never liked being the one to rock the boat,

I straddled the middle,

Fought for the center,

Disdained the thought of being a killjoy

Or unpopular.

I wanted favor and to know I was appreciated.

I wanted to stand up for the leftovers

And looked-down-upons.

I didn’t want to be an extreme on any side of

The spectrum, ever.

Well, rarely, I suppose.

The middle.

It’s safe, but it’s dangerously so.

Reaching out toward one side or the other

Leaves a vulnerability—the fear of man

Begins to kick in,

And I grasp for air because this is the ultimate

Choke factor for me.

But Jesus never stayed in the middle,

And if He’s my role model, then what am I doing

Drifting to the center of the situation

Trying to hold fast to some middle ground?

He frequently entered into polarized discussions,

Opinions,

Made frighteningly strong appeals

That left no middle ground to be clung to.

I need a get-out-of-the-middle lesson.

There is one grande middle in which I

Struggle to remain.

And that is a sort of equilibrium,

An anchored peace and state of dwelling,

Where I struggle to exist in full.

This is one middle, that Jesus did promote,

That I struggle the most to embrace.

The anchored center,

“Come and take Your place, in the center of

Our hearts/Come and take Your place, Jesus.”

To find rest in the anchor for my soul,

I am often on a search and rescue mission.

This is “middle” that I have never gravitated towards

But that I deeply need.

I need my Dad’s perfect peace

And solid direction for my life.

I need His ultimate view on every issue and situation

I encounter.

I need to find rest in a balanced kingdom:

His kingdom’s floor plans.

I need to find my middle in Jesus.