Tonight as I reflect upon the various aspects of my difficult day, after difficult yesterday and the difficult day before and the day before and the days before those days feel difficult and I anticipate tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the day after the day after tomorrow and all the days that will follow those will likely be…difficult…I think of three particular things.
The first thing I think on is how diamonds are formed under a slow, constant pressure. I think of diligence, discipline and slow and steady pressure exerted in small bites toward the various purposes and goals in one’s life. I think of the processes in and around me that involve some dance between being the tortoise and the hare if one looks at “trees“…yet if I step back a bit I see the more over-arching trajectory (the “forest”) of my method of moving forward most closely resembling that of the slow-and-steady tortoise even though I often appear as the fast-running hare.
The thought of Jesus strengthening and renewing me in moments when I feel so overwhelmed and down-for-the-count…as He works in and through me, forming me (and all who seek his formation) into some multi-faceted and precious living stone within some purpose and plan bigger than my own, provides focus. (1 Peter 2:4-6)
The second thing I think on flows from that first thought…with all the various inward and outward pulls and situations…why would I press in a bit more to make time to write tonight? Why???
Well, because my pursuit of telling my life story, and adding other expressions into the ongoing human conversations available to others, is a pursuit I feel called to do during this season in my life. And so, I selected something to express here, tonight, not from a place of having leisure time to do so, but from a place involving a bit of intentionality and sacrifice of something else that surely could and would fill this time slot…
So why this piece? And why today?
Well…because my old journal I was inclined to browse and write in Saturday evening was laying next to my desk. And I flipped through again, as I took a break with various thoughts, and noticed that one poem I wrote in 2016 was actually written on this same date that year…August 16.
As I share various parts of my life and writings going back to the earliest I have on my blog from 1973…I do pause at which pieces should be shared, which edited or redacted, and which kept private from this blog. I’m an artist, and I’ve always written and written fairly well, and I seem to have gravitated toward the poetic in my earliest adulthood.
While this poem refers to my actual first two marriages, somewhat, it is not primarily about those people involved. It is actually about me. It is an expression that could range from being anywhere between absolute false perceptions and fully true perceptions. All poetry is simply a recorded expression of someone’s own truth and world, through their eyes only, in some moment of time.
And that is simply what this is.
The third thing I thought about (and thus the title, in part) is how we can find ourselves in stories bigger than ourselves. In particular, I am drawn to opportunities to find myself within various biblical stories. Of course, when we follow Jesus, we find ourselves in the Jesus story.
Questions I might ask of readers for their own contemplations would be things like what biblical story figures do you most identify with, and why? Or, how or whom do you see yourself fitting into the various stories involving interactions between Jesus and others…or possibly…even Jesus and animals or plants! For that matter.
There’s a lot to imagine as we also listen closely to the actual narratives.
Also, in reference to the ending of the poem I wrote in 2016 at the end…while I believed at the time that someone else would write the ending to this story, I pause to clarify that is no longer neither my truth nor the truth. All of us have stories that are yet unwritten (here is a somewhat related piece), wherein we, along with others who contribute to the various parts, and God Himself, are ever-present in this ongoing process…
Around the time I wrote this piece, I had been listening to a 4-part podcast series on the book of Lamentations, called Learning to Lament, by Rob Bell. (featured at end on YouTube links)
The series – on pain, loss, suffering and heartache – I found captivating and relatable in his analysis of the biblical book, it’s structure, purpose and more. There was a part of this biblical literature that stood out to me, which he emphasized in the talks…“Look…Look…” and she is “like” a widow…she is “like” a slave…she is “like” a mother…speaking of course of “the personification of the city as the woman” in the poem (Jerusalem going into the Babylonian exile). -Episode 2 centers on this part of the poem
I was inclined to a poetry writing challenge to myself. Just as there was a poem I wrote around the time of my first divorce in 2005 which I modeled in style after many of the linguistic features of Psalms, I thought perhaps I might write something in 2016 modeled after the elements of Lamentations. At that time (2005) I simply poured out various unbridled hyperboles and variety of feelings I was processing at that time. It actually read “like” a Psalm, somewhat.
At that time I read it to a friend and I recall the pull between being thankful she was there to listen and also put off a bit by her takeaway of the expression, and arguably premature advice. I give grace, but mention, because often we all can draw wrong conclusions from the honest articulations of deep and difficult things.
Neither that expression, fully understandable in 2005, nor this expression from 2016, full understandable at that point, are precisely where I am today. Yet, I believe it is important to note the places we have been, when narrating our own story.
The Psalms seem to be filled at times with expressings and callings to God to do things to other people (our “enemies”) that many other parts of the Old and New Testament warn humans not to do, nor want to do to others. Which I suppose, adds layers of fascination and conversations surrounding what some of these things might mean, or not mean.
So, on this date, August 16, six years ago, I took up a self-imposed creative, therapeutic writing challenge to express what I was feeling in a style somewhat replicating the points I was hearing made about the metaphors, style and structure of Lamentations.
Thank you for reading and following various parts of my journey. I am grateful to be surrounded and prayerfully upheld during these times of fiery ordeal by a variety of friends in layers of relationship, a few family (you know who you are!) and the few that faithfully are part of my more innermost connections.
__________
First Kisses – Fat Stomach
Written August 16, 2016
Look! Look!!
She walks into the small room in the fraternity house
and stands gazing at the young woman and boy about to kiss
You can see that she’s a mother
She is nearly forty with permed hair, bags under her eyes
and the fat stomach
that women who have given birth carry
She stands gazing
Sacred, quiet tears rolling down her cheek
Then she speaks
She says, “Go ahead, do it, you must…
Kiss him.”
And she leaves the room
And like a breath, she’s gone
She disappears
Gone
She does what she must, and gains her strength and dignity
Seven years later she appears again
Like a spector stumbling out of a war zone
She is clad in a hand-made wedding dress
that has a rainbow waistband and rainbow veil
the sign of Hope
but it is torn and soiled
She is walking slowly across her childhood playground
toward a man and woman sitting on a bench in the moonlight
She has walked very, very far from home
Miles and miles and miles
It has been hot
She has walked from a hell she could not have foreseen
She is in shock
She is like a widow, a slave, a mother…
She is in mourning and grief
Shell-shocked from the battle
and terrified
She is looking for her babies
They are in exile before the foe
She is frantic
as she approaches the couple about to kiss…
She gets down on her knees, weeping,
and begs the woman to stop.
But the woman does not stop.
This man will write the ending to the story.
What will it be?
Learning to Lament, Part 1
Learning to Lament, Part 2
Learning to Lament, Part 3
Learning to Lament, Part 4
Thank You For Reading
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