An undertow of tears
dragging thoughts at first,
Then emotions burst
In a tumbler of sorrow.
*
Blessed are mourns
Curled under and away.
Sit ashore with me, stay.
Let’s embrace our humanity.
*
Oh, ocean, receive our
Drops of brokenness.
And on your openness
We shall pray.
*
“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.” James 5:13
Go down, step off
into the deep waters
they say…at least
they used to say.
Now we skip our
minds along the surface
hoping never to sink
into the unknown.
But is in the depths
where stillness sits
under the pressure of
context and history.
God holds my breath,
from beginning to end.
Every fear of drowning
exhaled to His lungs.
How I long to go down
Again and again–
each dive extended
in His presence.
I didn’t touch the news yet. Took my synthroid. Sipped some coffee. Read from several books. It’s been a full two hours and I haven’t seen the world map blotched with blood from one continent to another. So many have offered perspective by comparing all the different ways humans die and the percentage thereof. I once read that more people die from donkeys than from plane crashes every year. What an asinine perspective. Now when on the back roads of my delivery route, I see donkeys as potential murderers.
This must be some sort of reset. This virus, of all the past viral anomalies, is historic in its scope of culture twisting adjustments. Off in the distance I see. I see you off in the distance. Six feet might as well be six miles in some instances. Yet, out of the fire and into the frying pan-demic we all can admit a heightened awareness of how little we control stuff. I can still set the toaster level on four and expect crispy bread ready to melt butter on the surface, but deep down I know…
What?
Today is Sunday. The sun was seen from what I now call my reading room. It’s a little hovel, with windows facing east, south, and west. My thoughts tip-toed, skipped, and tripped from brain cell to brain cell, eventually finding neuron highways to travel as the coffee kicked in. I thought of other author’s thoughts. I thought of God’s thoughts. All this time to think, when the truth of the matter is we are thinking all the time. It’s our awareness that flickers on and off like a light bulb in a fruit cellar.
Here are some things of which I was made aware:
When filling my vitamin/medication daily dose tray, I imagine playing mancala.
An organized garage is a thing of beauty.
Refrigerator chess is always one move away from checkmate.
Everybody poops. (The toilet paper isle is still echoing, even when we speak in hushed tones six feet apart.)
Whenever I see latex gloves my first inkling is of an unpleasant procedure.
God and the Coronavirus are both unseen, but real.
My family can survive a lockdown, for a couple of weeks at least.
Neil Diamond is relevant.
I really want to play tic-tac-toe in the grocery store with all the X’s on the floor.
My wife loves me, and I love her.
Wildlife, especially birds, don’t give a rip about pandemics.
Beauty is indeed fleeting, but hey, I still see it everywhere.
A measured sense of humor in times like these is essential.
Thoughts can be turned into prayers.
Family is.
I’ve already gone over my goal of six hundred words per blog post, so if you’ve read this far, I’m proud of you.
Everyone, wash your hands, say your prayers, and make eye-contact.
Take me down to the river,
where eternity flows.
My prayers dangle
over the edge,
and are carried
to the sea.
Why is the ocean vast?
Why does it bend the horizon?
Oh, little metaphor
of the universe,
lay your tides
over and over
like a meditation.
Oh, currents within,
correct my course,
couch my requests
and praises into
your endless soundings.
Dear God, I bow at Your river
to swim in Your ocean.
Length of days.
Stretched desire
thin. A thin slice
of passion for the
lost connection
with You.
Hurried, distracted,
brink of brick on brick
and the mortar between.
Where are You?
Do You see us?
Do you see me
behind this wall
of mine?
This thick skinned
membrane, memory
brained elocution
where words fence
me in, and attempt
to keep distance
from Your editing.
Come, check my
cobbled diction.
Free this sentence,
this self-relying status
of trying to figure
things out.
Help me to humbly
figure You,
To read You word for word.
Always early morning,
when the quiet nudges me awake.
Then the fridge hums,
and the computer fan whisper syncs.
In a trance, I hope the kettle
cooperates for my mandatory
pour over.
Pour over coffee…
On what grounds?
Might I incriminate myself?
The process gives me pause, literally.
Have you ever prepared a pour over?
It’s like being in the Army…
Hurry up, then wait.
The weight of it all
while I wake is what grinds me.
On a good day I’ll distract,
watch the weather report between pours,
fiddle with my phone etc.
On a better day I will look and listen.
I observe the brown noise falling.
They say the two inches of oxygen
between the cone of milled beans
and the awaiting mug
enhances the flavor.
If I close my eyes and open
my imagination I hear the trickle
of a brook, and the mending of my mind.
A prayer of sorts, as I sort through
yesterday, and prepare for today.
I thank God for coffee,
then poor over the humanity,
mine, yours, the world’s.
I grab my mug of brew,
and cream it with “Lord have mercy.”
The throb huddled
in the back corner.
Eyes spliced open,
no alarm,
except dull pain.
Thoughts, analyzation.
“Not enough water?”
“Caffeine deprivation?”
“Dead pillow, flat?”
Imagine that.
Did I try to hoard worries
instead of thinking
them through?
Did I stuff them,
choking off synapses?
By thoughts alone
can the ache dissipate?
By thinking only,
do the knots loosen?
“Have you prayed?”
I’ve thought about it.
“Why don’t you simply
think your thoughts
toward Me? I know
every one of them.”
Then I cast my thoughts
toward God.
The bundle in back
of my head softened,
dispersed.
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” Philippians 4:6,7 The Message
Wasn’t it Monday just last week?
Didn’t I wake with no words to speak?
No thoughts of the morrow to say,
Just breathing in today.
Some prayers were said as I sat,
For children and wife and all that.
An amen was uttered as I walked away
Saying this is the day, this is the day.
Under mind,
bump stocked
and fire branded.
A cool glass of water,
clear as a monk’s
prayer before sunrise
is sipped and spilt.
Be anxious for nothing
is an easy task…
It’s when we’re anxious
about something,
everything,
that our equanimity
is bent by a category
five, and we kneel
when we should stand,
and stand when we
should kneel.
And the rain falls one drop at a time,
All at once.
Its voice collected from the spaces between
The pear shaped missiles.
Variations of tone, from guttural to whispers
Of moisture wending.
Thank You for speaking this way
When Ecclesiastes became my umbrella
Under the sun.
Gerald the Writer 