If Only This Could Be Said

Of Arrows and Holes and Other Bizarre Products of 'Natural Theology"

Extending a comment I made over at Bilgrimage about the nature of sexuality, relationships and complementarianism.

"Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place."

I dedicate this poem to my 2 daughters,

 

THE TYPE
    by
Sarah Kay

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
You can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands or windows of mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like;
They may never have seen one before

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
You can let them touch you.
Sometimes it not you they are reaching for;
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwhich, a Pulitzer, another woman;
But there hands found you first.

Do not mistake yourself for a guardian or a muse or a promise or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman;
Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat.
You are not made of metaphors, not apologies, not excuses.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
You can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving
It still feels unatural;
Still strains the muscles, holds firm the arms and spine.
Only some men want to know what if feels like
To curl themselves into a question mark
Around you;
Admit they do not have the answers they thought they would.
But some men will want to hold you
Like THE ANSWER.

You are not THE ANSWER.
You are not the problem.
You’re not the poem, the punchline or the riddle or the joke.

Woman,
If you grow up the type of woman men want to love
You can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love,
It is discovering the ocean;
After years of puddle-jumping,
It is realizing you have hands,
It is reaching for the tightrope,
When the crowds have all gone home.

Do not spend time wondering
If you are the type of women men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a ‘car-alarm’ heart,
You learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean,
Even after it has left you gasping, salty.
So forgive yourself for the decisions you’ve made,
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night.

And know this,
Know you are the type of women who is searching for a place to call yours.
Let the statues crumble. You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You were born to build.

Intimate Absence

There are legitimate experiences of absence within this ever-present world of God's grace,
but they are forms and modes of love.
Such were the experiences of the prophets of the Old Covenant, of the Son of God on the cross and in the darkness of his descent into hell;
Such are the experiences of all those who, in their several vocations, follow the Son.
These are the redemptive paths of love as it traces the foot-steps of sinners
in order to catch up with them and bring them home.

~ Hans Urs von Balthasar

 

 

photo: Untitled / Wintertales by nikaa

Love Me, Love My Dog

My Service dog, my right hand (or my left-I don't know the difference), my right foot to my two left feet...Asher.

Count to Ten

Count to Ten

 

Four.  Seven Nine Ten!

    and she giggles at her childish joke.

I take a breath to correct her,

    but I stop. Am I handing her a knife,

signs to heavy for anyone to wield?

Am I teaching her tools that will become deadly?

One, In the beginng…,

Two, male and female, guns, 

Three in One, an equation that lit fires,

Five, to commit wrong with impunity,

Seven Nine Ten Twelve.

What sign is Forgiveness?

What symbol is Love?

That Mercy has no cipher

    is a wondrous Truth.

 

 

Photo: Taken in Helsinki, Finland, 2012

Daily Dyspraxia* Moment -A Confession

Once, when someone asked me directions to a place I know well, I pretended I didn't speak English.

And yes I have had to use my GPS to get home many times when I was within 2 miles from home.  

Remember that scene in "Inception" where the street folds back on itself?....welcome to my world.

 

 

INARTICULATE--A Poem about conversation in Sacred Places

INARTICULATE

 

And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

-T. S. Eliot

 

Words I speak, laid out in lines

    never seem straight; what I say

twists and turns and never seem to end

    in the place I set out for--an certainly

of uncertainty that is almost a comfort;  This trustspeak

    dares to plumb unsounded wounds 

chimeric hopes; a game of roulette with words; Yet

    I have come to to feel safe, playing.

With presence, breath, language, so sharp--

    it cuts away, with love and gentleness

the heaviness, dead weight of what is lost----

    shackles that keep us low and still.

Even now I have I glimpse, a sense of that morning,

    that day when the sun will not set----and we will rise.