The moment my eyes open
the old story—
inflated, puffed up and glowing—
shatters.
I sit with a heart full of dread
grief
sorrow
the ache pours out my eyes and belly.
I want to rush ahead.
How can I fix it?
Make it OK again?
Make this ache go away?
Escape merely tightens the clinch,
lets it all decay underground again.
One option is all that remains—
wait, sit in the ache.
Slowly
morning light returns.
The big picture emerges from the shadows.
The moment spreads across time and space.
A blue whale blows then dives deep down
into the abyss of the Monterey Bay,
making me remember
the present moment held in the middle of eternity.
Love this poem, thank you. Can\’t remember my password for the blog…. I admire how you\’ve gritted your teeth and taken on the challenge of learning technology to fit your present outreach.
I appreciate again your honest writing about challenges at church. We just had meeting about updating our liturgy(as some see it) or ditching it (as a few see it). Quickly someone\’s personal vendetta was trotted out against the new choir director. The rest of us were silently horrified. We are Lutherans after all. Some dominated the discussion to the point of interrupting others. I\’m spoiled by al-anon meetings that demand more civility of all attendees. I got tense after a bit and blurted out to the pastor, a very fine and gentle man sitting next to me…..\”Can we just wrap this meeting up now?!\” I feel that I owe him an apology, in retrospect. Many \”bless them & fill them\” prayers on my part since…….I guess that is always the point after all. Peace, Christine
Lordy, passwords. Don\’t get me started on that one. Hard to dive deep there…
And incivility at meetings. It is always disappointing, but especially so in spiritual communities. Sounds like the meeting needed a bit of slowing down, listening to each other and speaking whatever what underneath the eruptions. I do tend to dive deeply into my disappointment rather than remembering the deepest places we are still connected and then, offended and very reactive, blurt away. Trying to learn a different way.
The level of partnership that is needed in our world today is very demanding. Bless us all and we stumble, pick ourselves up and try again.