Missing Rachel

I cleaned my office and organized all the clutter. I may have been inspired by the need to organize around a new flat screen TV at home. That required going through games and DVDs to keep only those that are still played, then returning them to storage neatly stowed beneath the half of the entertainment center we decided to keep. Still, only half the room is actually clean. The rest will come later. My office, on the other hand, is completely tidy. It’s a much smaller space than my house.

Rachel is the epitome of messiness. Her room is a jumble of paper and clothing and art supplies and books and blankets and stuffed animals and make up and knitting stuff. Our conflict over the state of her room is like the war on terror – it will never end because there will always be another attack of stuff. Her grandmother has attempted to bribe her with money and electronics. We told her that she couldn’t go to Paraguay unless she kept her room clean. That lasted until the non-refundable plane tickets were purchased.

What I miss more than anything is stepping into this minefield and picking my way to her bedside and to wake her up. Rachel sleeps wrapped in fuzzy blankets and she always has a sweet, warm sleep smell that reminds me of when she was a toddler and would come to my bed in the wee morning hours to snuggle until we’d need to get up. I miss my baby. I miss my teenager. Tomorrow is her 16th birthday.

From a Train Window

Riding along through the mountains of Pennsylvania at sunset, I notice that the scenery passes with a certain amount of intimacy that I never really thought of before. There is so much that you can see from a train window that you can’t from a car window and certainly not an airplane. It’s like seeing lost nooks and crannies of creation that are only really seen when they are “looked” at.

Part of my trip was spent watching a movie on my computer or reading, but as the sun began to take on a golden hue and the trees began to dapple the hillsides and rocks beside the tracks, I suddenly found myself compelled to search the scene outside my window for something…what? I don’t know. But what I saw made me feel one with the scenery.

I saw a river running beside the tracks. At some bends, a clear stream rippling over rocks in miniature rapids. At other stretches, a muddy, slow-moving slag of mud that couldn’t reflect the trees even at the height of the sun. I saw little league baseball being played at the small town park and I could almost feel the pride of community coming together on the coach-pitch field while the littlest ones dug their grubby fingers into packets of M&Ms. I saw a levy half dry, factories abandoned in piles of bricks and rebar. Shoots and conveyors stretched across the tracks from the cliff face on the left to the plant on the right. Soaring bridges of modern engineering meant to connect these small towns with the rest of the world.

How easy it would to be able to close the curtains in the coach and shut out the world? How easy would it be to ignore the “wrong side of the tracks?” The abandoned houses, the rotting vehicles, the crumbling factories. How easy would it be to turn my head from the window and only look when the purple blossoms on the hillside or the swaying leaves of the summer lush trees appear? But, I am part of this world. I am part of this creation that has been divinely formed and humanly corrupted, this marvel of brilliant innovation and ruthless natural selection. How can I not look? Here is a soaring steeple reaching to heaven, cross at the pinnacle. Here is a teenage mother, pushing her baby to the local market, learning how to nurture “on the job.”

It’s all part of the world. It’s all part of creation. It’s all part of the Kingdom of God. As a resident, I have a role to play. Perhaps it is to look out the window and “see.” Then, to live as if I have “seen.”

Shades of Pain

It's hard to classify pain. I told the dentist that my tooth hurt and he asked me if it was a sharp pain or a dull ache. I said both. He asked how much it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10. I said sometimes 7, sometimes 3. Honestly, I don't know how to classify pain. Childbirth was pretty painful. Pulling my peroneal tendons was pretty painful, too, but not in the same way. There is some pain that hits hard, then subsides quickly. Other times, it gradually builds until you are suddenly aware that you've been clenching your teeth to keep it at bay. Sometimes you can identify immediately and accurately where the pain is coming from and other times, the pain travels and you never know where it will hit next.

Emotional pain is similar. It's easy to inflict pain. You don't want to, but you do anyway. Or, maybe you want to and that's why you do it. Sometimes you attack with weapons that you know will strike hard. But, sometimes you use weapons that cause a prickly kind of pain.

I think it's easier to see the fault in hard strikes - whether they are intentional or not. When the pain is obvious, both parties know - and suffer.

It's harder when the attacks are nit-picky. Sometimes neither party knows what's happening until one person has a chronic ache. Sometimes the offender can't see how they are inflicting pain on the other.

Stabbing pain from a wound inflicted hard and swift or pin pricks that drain your essence and energy? Which would you rather have?

Growing Edge

So Bess, my dear friend, I am going to try to start writing again.

I have been thinking a lot lately about "growing edges." What exactly IS a "growing edge?" I've been using the term frequently in relationship to a difficult situation with which I have been dealing for the last several months. I have been thinking of the "growing edge" as confronting that with which I am uncomfortable or doing something with which I have very little experience. I suppose that is a good enough definition, but I have been wondering where this "growing edge" will take me and when it will stop. How many "growing edges" can I have at one time?

My mental picture of a "growing edge" is like that of caramel or some other viscous substance being poured out of a bowl. It starts with a fall of gooeyness and an edge is present and begins to spread, but as the substance continues to pour forth, layers form, adding more edges on top of or overtaking the bottom edges. Sometimes the top layers remain distinct atop the bottom layer and sometimes they melt into each other to push the outlying edge even further from its original place.

Lately, I feel like there has been a lot of extra goo pouring out of the vessel and pushing my "growing edge" toward the outer regions of my comfort zone. Then again, if I don't get pushed out of my comfort zone, the goo could just pile up higher and higher, bearing down with an enormous weight. I suppose it's better to be pushed out than to be suffocated.

Surprisingly, I do feel empowered by my spreading. Perhaps I am becoming more transparent. I am certainly more vulnerable than if I were to hide under a fortress of layers. It would take extraordinary measures to cut through the piles of hardened stratum to get to the bottom edge that has essentially stopped growing. But, it wouldn't take much to touch those places that could shift the trajectory of my "growing edge." A poke here, a swipe there, and suddenly, I am off in a different direction.

To grow, can I be thick enough not to simply splash against the surface and land on life willy-nilly? Can I be thin enough not to simply pile into a heap and refuse to learn more than I already know? How do I find consistency?

I've been blended into who I am by the ingredients that are my parents. I've been mixed with care by experience. I've been alternately boiled and cooled. And, I am being poured out. Poured out onto the surfaces of my home, my family, my work, my friends, my church. Perhaps on some surfaces consistency depends on where I land. I congeal when I hit a cold spot. I spread wildly when I feel the heat. I settle into contentment (or is it complacency?) when the surface is just right and I can continue to roll forward at a slow and comfortable pace.

What is a "growing edge?" I am.

Storm

Caught up in swirling
winds whipping rain in
all directions.
Wondering where to find
the tesseract.
And if I find it
where it will take me
this night.

Thunder growls deep within
me wanting to
rumble up through my
throat to release in a
song of longing.
Electricity runs through
me as if I am on fire
tingling with anticipation
burning with desire for
what I don't know.

Wild and primal storm
raging stinging my skin
with raindrops hurled at me
from the sky.
Lifting me up in a cyclone
wondering where I will land
on earth or in the heavens.

And when it is all done
I am left panting and
satisfied for I was
transported to lands unknown
through the invisible
tesseract.

But I don't remember
what was there
only what I feel now.

Walking Past Maples

Ancient and stoic these trees
Wrinkled trunks
Lopped off limbs
Gaping notches

Home and comfort these trees
Grass padded nests
Woody, flaking skin
Arching canopy

Wise and abiding these trees
Embracing sun and snow
Enduring scars
Propitious and auspicious

Artistry and anguish these trees
Walking slowly
Searching for insight
Longing for silent counsel

Driving Through Pain

Twisting curves and switchbacks,
Straightaways with hills and dips.

I know these roads so well,
It's easy to let the wheel lead
And become complacent
In life and love.

Engine grinding climbs,
Falling in neutral from mountain passes.

Must I trudge to the top
To know what it is to
Soar on the way down
To life and love?

Pedal down, brakes at the ready
No hands, hovering above 10 and 2

What road will I choose when
I know both are paved with pain.
What road will I travel
To life and love?