The Wrong One

Do you remember the movies you watched as a kid? They were on these weird rectangles called VHS and you shoved them into another weird box call a VCR.  And sometimes if you were lazy it wasn't rewound all the way from the last time you watched it, and sometimes, if you were anything like me, you left the movie playing while you rewound it so you could watch Tarzan swing backwards through the vines.  One movie in particular in our house received this treatment an especially brutal number of times, but five-year-old, farm-animal obsessed me was unashamed to claim it as my favorite movie.  Do you guys remember the movie Babe?  You know, the one with the pig and the sheep farm and the grouchy old sheep dog Rex and Ferdinand the duck...oh Ferdinand... okay, so maybe I still love this movie, but there is one scene of pure gold in there that has come back to me over and over again throughout my life:

It is Christmas morning, and the farmer's grandchildren have come to visit and open gifts and what-not. And the world's brattiest granddaughter gets up to open this huge package.  It's beautifully wrapped, bigger than she is, and since we have been watching the story, we know that inside is a gorgeous, hand crafted doll house that her grandfather has constructed himself.  Her greedy little eyes open wide as she rips off the paper in one excited effort and -- promptly bursts into tears.
Her complaint?  "It's the wrong one! I want the one I saw on television!"

Now, when I say this scene is pure gold, I mean that is one of the most obnoxious five minutes ever produced on film.

But take a minute to think about it.

Don't we all do the exact same thing?

When I walked in my front door the other night after a school banquet, it was past 1:00 a.m., the whole house was snoring softly (ah, the joy of thin walls), and the only thing awake with me was the multicolored glow of the Christmas tree in the corner of my front room.  I kicked off my heals and removed the pins that were keeping my short curls in a form slightly better than their usual state of disarray.  And there I sat and watched the lights reflect off the packages beneath the green limbs and thought, yet again, of this scene.

Wrapped in the afghan and shadows of the cozy room, I wondered, not for the first time, why we all struggle so much with the idea of "the wrong gift."  And I'm not just talking about the ones that come in wrapping paper and red bows.  Every moment, interaction, friendship, family, smile, sunset, snowfall, beautiful song, beautiful night, beautiful second -- all of it.  It's a gift. Despite how trite that always sounds, it is completely true.  This world, this life, and all the good things in it are gifts.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

Yet not all gifts are quite what we asked for.

No, some aren't what we asked for at all.

Right now it is Christmas morning.  All the house is still, and the shadows and I watch the tree again.  I mentally pick out the boxes wrapped for me.  Here's this pair of shoes.  There's that charcoal set.  This one? I don't know. 

No, I guess we never really know until the paper is crumpled on the floor around and the anticipated item is in our hands.  Oh, if only we could know.  Know the gifts that we will be given.  To not wait so long in consuming desire.  To look ahead, look up into that timeless hand above and see oh yes, there are friends for me next year, oh, and look, there's love that won't leave me cold, and oh God, are those my kids? Really? They're beautiful!  

And no, of course that's not the way it works.  So I sit here on the floor by the tree, here in the mortal, finite world of what-ifs and maybes, hoping and poking packages, desperate and filled at inexplicably the same time.  And one half of my heart looks at the gifts I've already been given.  The "wrong" ones.  The ones I cried and schemed and prayed would magically change into something else.  The romances that were friendships.  The friendships forever that lasted a season.  The time I told God I just needed someone to care about whether I lived or died and he showed me a world full of hurting people and said "they need it more."  The time I pleaded for peace and was told "I am sufficient for you."  The time I pleaded for a sign and was told...nothing...  These are the gifts my inner brat opened and screamed, "IT'S THE WRONG ONE!!"

The wrong one.  Hmm.

The other half of my heart is filled with -- well I'm not sure we've really reached "joy" yet, but let's just call a deeper sense "okay" than I've known in a very long time.  And that half looks back at the wrong gifts and sees: holy shit! I cannot believe I wanted to date that! and how that short friendship was enough to get me through that time and how helping someone else healed my own scars more effectively than all the pity in the world.  How the scars I still carry -- reminders of shame and failure -- have drawn me to those who are scarred themselves, and how they keep me from ever convincing myself I can do this alone.  How the summer of sleepless nights drove me to my knees.  How the long night alone in my room...well...that one I'm still working out. 

But that half of my heart also looks forward at the doubts, still covered packages, and the gifts recently unwrapped and wonders "why these now?"

Why no love, God? I'm a romantic, but still no love.  Why no security, God? You know where I want to go next year, but still no word from them.  Why no peace at home, God?  Why did you take them away, God? Why do You feel so far sometimes?

But these are the wrong questions. 
For nothing from Him is ever "the wrong one."

Amid the crunched up balls of wrapping paper and mangled bows around me, there lies friendship, with all its good times and laughter, and there lies trust, heavy but warm to wrap around my shoulders, and there lies family, a gift I often forget to love, and there lies two new mentors that understand me so well, and there is God, with me where He always is, constant and immovable.  And he says, "Merry Christmas" and "I love you" and "I know what I'm doing; these gifts are what you need."  And I leave the two halves of my heart to fight it out on their own and run curl up in His arms and watch the flickering lights gleam off the colored ornaments hung from every green branch.  

And so we bring in the best Christmas yet, just Him, the shadows, and me. 

And five-year-old me won't understand all this yet, but I hope that you do.     

A Humble Hymn

You are the trembling before the storm
You are the waterfalls
The high towers
The thunder and the rain-soaked symphony
You are the highest arms of every oak
The deep rumbling of the earth
A shout over the mountaintops
A whisper in my ear
you are the everything I wait for
You are like downing,
You are the breath after a dive
You are like freedom,
You are the widest, bluest sky
You are the voice that spins the earth, twists hurricanes, Breaks oceans, crumbles continents,
And floats around the stained glass wings of each aimless butterfly
You move my life in dynamic waltz that I don't know
I stand on your shoes and be blissfully moved
As you will
In a love that is like You
Where similes have failed and there is nothing deeper to call it like
For oceans are as raindrops, clattering on the rooftops,
And galaxies a pin hole star on black construction paper held up to a 40wat sun and made to shine
For you are colors that Ive never seen
The songs I've never heard
The promises I hope on,
Trust in,
Cry to.
breathe.
Breathe in every lungful of this You
And sail through it like a kite
Without a string.
in purer love like flight.

Unthwartable

"Who are you?"


I waited.

"What makes you so good, huh?"

Still nothing

"JUST TELL ME WHY THE F*** I SHOULD TRUST YOU!"

There was only the sound of the engine struggling up the asphalt and the unnatural silence that inevitably responds when you scream at the dashboard and honestly expect an answer. And my white, angry knuckles gripped the wheel still tighter while my brain ran hot and furious as the engine under my heavy-footed management of the gas pedal.
No, if you couldn't guess, I don't like to trust.
Don't even get me started about trusting. Ugh, trust this and trust that seems plastered on the world like a tacky ex-girlfriend tattoo. We have trust circles and trust falls and trust building exercises where we all hold hands and sing kumbayah. And we trust our friends who invariably let us down. And we trust our special someone to be our warm and fuzzy forever, which invariably falls apart. And we trust that the earth is round and that spring will come and that the sun will rise tomorrow -- which despite it's track record gives no guarantee. And we trust our heads and we trust our hearts and how the frick does that help us trust?
No, I really don't like to trust.
Which brought us to that moment in the middle of rush hour with me swearing like a fiend at the dash board which I knew wasn't listening but was pretty sure God was so I guess that's who I was really swearing at in the middle of 270 with bumper-to-bumper traffic and a scowl fit to break a mirror.

In the four years that I've known God and especially now in the four months since I've been walking with Him, He has never made any demand on my heart harder than this:
"Trust Me."

"F*** NO! ARE YOU KIDDING, GOD? You know I don't trust!"

"Trust Me."

"Yeah? Why should I? Have You seen my life recently?"

"Trust Me."

"Uh, hello, do You know where I'm at? I'm lonely and empty and desperate and what have You done? Look at all this that You, You took away. See him? Yeah, I thought it was love. See her? Yeah, she walked out too. See them? I trusted them with everything, and you called them away. See that? Yeah, that mess in the mirror? That's me. Damn...who's gonna want that?"

"Trust Me."

"And who are You? Who are You that I want to trust? I don't want to be empty again and again. Please no. Not again."

"Trust Me."

"No, I can't, God I can't."

"Trust Me."

No I won't, God not with this."

"Trust Me."

By this time my refusal came out on the breath of a whimper. "Please no." But the silence stared back without sympathy. I grew cold and clutched the wheel like a life preserver, my last grasp on reality. And He waited there in the front seat beside me, patient and quiet till I'd worn myself out. And He waited still longer as I spent another 12 hours in mortal existence. And then He still kept on waiting until I sat at a computer keyboard and vented my fears in times new roman. And He's here, standing beside me, above me, around me, under me, through me, with me. With me and I'm not alone. And He's saying the same thing I heard all day, gentle and soothing as to a wounded animal or frightened child. And I cling to His legs and say "Daddy, there's something under my bed." Not because something's there, but just so He'll look and say, "It's ok, you're safe." Because sometimes all I need is that "you're safe."

"And God, I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe, I feel scared."

And that's when He takes me by the shoulders, stares right into my eyes, and says, "I promise you're safe. I'm holding you now, and I promise I'm not letting go."

"Oh, but God, God, it hurts sometimes. Life hurts sometimes, and I just don't know. Why can't I know? Why did I have to go through that and that? And that, and that other thing, God, why would You let that happen to me? Why can't you just show me what You're doing here so I know?"

And He looks in my eyes and says, "Trust Me."

And I close my eyes tight because I think I might cry. And I know I don't have a choice.

"Who are You? Who am I trusting?"

"I am the Way, follow Me and take my hand. And I am the Truth, embrace Me and you'll understand. And I am the Life, and though Me you'll live again. For I am Love. I am Love. I am Love...

...And yes, I am worth trusting."


"Then Job replied to the Lord:
“I know that you can do all things;
No purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me to know."

 

To Whom It May Concern

To whom it may concern:

Why do they make the shingles black?

Seems an ugly scar across the skyline, seems a boiling tar pit in the summer, seems a waste of color.

All monochrome 

All melancholy

And me 

So many were the times I waited there.

Only black to burn the hands and rough to grate the knuckles

And daring knees who scaled the drain pipe or the leaning shed out back.

All hot and baked, sun soft tiles

All rough and gritted pitch,

All empty

All black

And me

To wish into the autumn sunset and bleak midwinter sky

Oh many were the days I waited there

And as the summer fell away with light turned gold then slowly white,

To cast the shingles milky grey in fog.

I spread my arms across its warmth  and let the grit dig in my skin.

To take the last memory of sun 

To take the pain

To face the longing 

And learned to love the black

All empty 

All lonely

Like me

So many were the times I waited there

Now I've clambered back up here and wait on the black

I slipped a little on loose tar and cut my hand on a hail chipped edge.

A thin red line appears on my palm and the air around me turns as black as the roof,

All melting together.

And suddenly the stars seem close.

So close they're all around and I could reach them

Could pluck one down with my bloody fingers and hold it in my fist

Oh I wish... I wish...

...perhaps if I was taller

Or got a running start...

The Whore That Is Me

You whispered my name in the darkness
You held me in strong bleeding arms
The red trickled down, staining my skin
But it love to wear this color

I opened my eyes in the morning
Woke up in the gutter again
But you carried me home, I hear your heart through your chest
And it's breaking.
I did this

But the whore of my heart is still walking these streets
Desperate and used like before
You built us a house and we both settled down
But my eyes are just fixed on the door

I stagger around in the bar lights and taxi cab life
The red now an evening dress easily shed
The smear of red lips have tasted too many,
Advertising tonight, just tell me you love me
Baby I love you so much, hehe, oops! I just kissed you,
I think I'm pretty drunk, hehehe
Oh What the hell? Lets just call it love tonight! hehe! C'mere...

"I love you"

and the whore of my heart is still walking these streets
Desperate and used like before
You built us a house and we both settled down
But my eyes are just fixed on the door

"I love you"

Oh shit! It's his voice and he's found me again
I vomit, I'm bleeding, bleary eyed and filth-covered, hideous, half naked, wretched--oh he won't even recognize--
Me...please don't recognize me

Oh God, no, no, please go away.
I mean it, God, please go away!
No I'm filthy! No! Stop it!
Please somebody help!
Don't come near me.
You're all spotless and perfect
And handsome
And clean
And I...
I'm me...

And the whore of my heart is still walking these streets
Desperate and used like before
You built us a house and we both settled down
But my eyes are just fixed on the door

He just looked for a while at my utter disgrace
And the pain in his eyes made me flinch
I can't now remove that last sight of his face
When he said, "I still love you"

"I still love you"

And he carried me home in bloody arms yet again.
Somehow washing and staining all at the same time
And I cried down his broken heart, breaking my own
And swore I'd never go back,
God ill never go back!

Now I'm back...
Damn...

And though the whore of my heart is still walking these streets
Just as desperate and used like before,
I dream of the house where we both settled down
And know here I've found something more

Oh chase me down.

A Grey Matter (memoir of an undead)

It came as a bit of a shock the day I found out I was dead.  I mean, how would you feel if you had been lied to all your life?  If you discovered your brain had deceived you with seventeen years of perception, taste, and touch.  If your pulse had continued the lie approximately 72 times a minute, echoing the soft lub-dub of a treacherous heart.  If all the sinews and veins hissed in soothing deceit, “you are alive” to the hearing ears of a rotting corps.

That was me.  And on that day I realized just how dead I was.  True, I was walking, moving like the others through the busy street, but I was no more living than a flesh-craving cadaver, shuffled right out of Dawn of the Dead and roaming the world of living.  Looking around, I began to wonder if they could tell – the living I mean.  I looked at my reflection in the darkened shop windows and gagged at the image.  I was decaying, decomposing, putrefying slowly away into ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust.  The intense precision of the eye liner pen and Vogue coppied lips now turned the reflected visage yet more horrific as I saw the bulging, blood-shot, lidless eyes beneath and the toothless, black-green gums contorted in a gruesome mockery of a smile.  My skin peeled and tore away and all around the exposed flesh of my heart, maggots wriggled in the nauseating foulness that was their host.  Of course they could tell.  I was completely dead. 

Yet they took no notice.  Not of the stench of moldering bodies.  Not of the revolting creature pondering its condition.  Not even of the blood staining the lips and chin around an insatiable mouth. 

Then I was stuck by a yet more shocking realization.

They were dead too.  Every last one of them.

Dead as I and staggering around on broken legs and moaning like starving creatures for blood.

“as for you, you were dead…gratifying the cravings of [your] flesh and following its desires and thoughts.”

All dead and groaning, this graveyard population reached and ripped with bare-bone fingers.  Eternally starving.  Eternally thirsting.  Eternally unsatisfied.  Eternally craving.   I must have it.  I want it.  I’ll take it.  I’ll kill for it.  I’ll shred you apart to get—

…something…

I need…something…

Something…what is it?

Oh God, what do I need?

All they need – all I needed, for I was just as undead – was a taste of the living.

So I took one bite.

And found it consumed me instead.

 “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.”

How Long is the Night?

"And the sorrow may last for the night,

but joy comes in the morning."

  

Or so sang the radio while the tears streamed down my face and the taillights danced and distorted in my blurring vision.  With a tight grip on the steering wheel and absolutely no grip on my life, I cried the river of a drama queen all the way down 270-south. And somewhere under that flood of teenage emotion a thought began eating its way into my heart.  A little thought.  An increasingly bitter thought, formed as a question: "how long, huh?"

How long is the night?

The cause of my tears that day was nothing spectacular or noteworthy.  Neither was the cause the day before, nor the day before that.  I don't think many of these causes are.  They usually avoid the theatrics and infest our hearts with humbler ingenuity. But whatever the route, they slip in through the fissures in our delicate, porcelain condition of "okay" and bubble up into salty poison, and we call it tears.  Tears that hurt because they mark out clearly our serpentine cracks like highways on a state map.  Because they shatter that flawless, glass figurine of ourselves and show us the pitiful creature left cowering inside. Because they just hurt, and sometimes we don't even have a reason.  

How long is the night?

"When I felt secure, I said,

    “I will never be shaken.”
…but when you hid your face,
    I was dismayed."

How long is the night?

    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning?"

How long is the night?

"Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me."

How long is the night?

"By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life."

How long is the night?

"To you, Lord, I called;
    to the Lord I cried for mercy…
 Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
    Lord, be my help.”

And I never found out how long the night is.  Sometimes the night seems so long you lose hope and slip a little because its pitch black and you can't see where you're going.  And all around things still seem pretty dark, but someday there will come a time when you look up and realize it got light all around you, and you didn't notice because you were busy staring at your shadow. And on that day you can open your eyes and more fully love the sun. 

I'm waiting for that joy.