I slept like a baby

Sometimes, I meet people in real danger.  I am talking about the kind that someone can end up in a coffin over.  I used to think that they were scared to come out.  Now, I think that there is something that they gain for being in the situation, even if the situation is bad.  I saw the danger a person was in and I knew that doing something about it, would destroy the thing she loved about it.  In order to help her, I would have to hurt her.  As I accessed, the look in her eyes pleaded for me to just be quiet.  She wanted me to allow her to continue in the awkward situation  and let it be.  Well, there was tears.  I filled out a ton of paperwork.  I talked to people and they talked to their people.  One by one, her world fell apart.  There was anger and veiled threats.  There was shaking fist and profane words.  There was a decision and nothing about it was pretty.  I didn't mean to make it pretty.  I meant to make it safe.  Even though her world was left in ruins, I went home and slept like a baby.

A friend that smells like rain

How dirty things can get

How grimy, how smelly, how wet

But she comes as a hero unsung

To whisper hope no matter how far flung

She sweetens my garbage dump

With a righteous sugar lump

My trial has run and she

Has done a job well done

Oh, how I sometimes pray in vain

For a friend who can make the sewer

Smell like rain.

Barbie Doll

I have spent over half my life as a motherless daughter.  I am super sensitive to the relationships between mothers and daughters.  My own mother was overweight and had big feet.  Though she prayed and prayed, I was born and I became overweight.  My feet aren't little.  I can remember thinking about her comments on my looks.  What did she think she was getting?  I was born with the same flaws as her.  I cringe when I hear women call their daughters names.  "She's too black", "Her hair is nappy", "She should have been a lawyer", "When will she get married".  Sometimes, the rule we use to judge our daughters, just is not fair.  They should not have to be perfect.  Sometimes, it is good to allow them to make mistakes, celebrate triumphs and learn from the life they live.  The Barbie doll, with the pink Cadillac, aquamarine pool and gorgeous boyfriend named, Ken, has never existed.  Love your daughter if she dropped out of school, cut off all her hair and wore a suit two sizes to small. 

As the ruins fall

As the Ruin Falls
by C. S. Lewis

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains."

Saturn

My life in the kingdom of God is like being in another world.  Though, there were struggles in God, they don't compare to struggles out of God.  I was young when I became a Christian, but I still remember what it was like to be in a room full of adults and unable to trust a single one of them.  I still can remember realizing that I would have to take care of myself.  I can remember getting dressed in the dark with no running water.  I don't recall hearing the word love from anyone in my family.  I can recall the culture of aggression where you had to walk around looking like you are mad and about to snap just to feel safe.  I remember seeing prostitutes on the corner with mesh blouses that you could see straight through.  I remember the park that I could not play in because the alcoholics needed a place to spend their endless days.  I remember the police cars going to yet another domestic abuse situation.  I remember the fears of being left alone, afraid of the dark, for days at a time.  I remember the bullies who were abused children used to the cycle and I remember the friends who got pregnant far to soon.  When I think of the culture of sin and deprivation, I am so glad I had another world to escape into and exhale.

Saturn/Stevie Wonder
http://youtu.be/p3KpUO6t9qQ

Silence

Today, I am thinking about the places I have been.  In some places, I was comfortable.  In some places, their obsession was a source of discomfort.  Some places, I have been, are places they perseverate on being thin.  I was not thin.  I was uncomfortable.  In some places, they perseverate on money.  I am not rich yet.  In some places, they perseverate on marriage.  I am not married.  Being pretty confident, I am living alright with my flaws and idiosyncrasies.  I make myself comfortable by keeping my mind on other things, but when the system you are in is obsessed with the thing you are trying to forget,  it can get under your skin.  In order to remain single without acting like a complete fool, I only discuss my love life with a dear friend in another country.  Everyone else is warned politely to mind their own business.  I find that constantly talking about an issue can create a psychosis that could lead to bad decisions on my part.  I think I am too old to make a bad decision in some areas.  What I like about God, is that I don't have to beat a dead horse with Him.  He knows what I need before I ask.  I don't have to remind Him, he is not senile.  I don't have to scream, He has perfect hearing.  What I really like, is that I don't have to talk.  Sometimes, my moans and groans are all that he needs.  I love sitting in his presence in complete silence.  I am not clapping and speaking in tongues and rolling on the floor or putting on a horse and pony show for him to respond to me.  In sweet compline, I just sit and allow the tears to roll and I know that how I feel and what I want to say has been communicated.  We don't have to talk about it.   We don't have to talk about my sickness.  We don't have to talk about my finances.  We don't have to talk about my career.  We don't have to talk about love.



We don't have to talk about love/Peabo Bryson
http://youtu.be/hLvY2nIMsek

Life after You

Though I have been a christian for many years, my relationship with God has not always been the best.  Having no authority in my early years that you could trust left me even doubtful of God.  He knew this and often times, he would choose to conversate about things he knew was wrong with me.  The result of those times, was me packing my bags and saying that I was done.  I was done so much that I had gotten used to the cycle.  In the back of my mind, I was waiting for God to fail me.  I didn't stop coming to church, I just stopped responding.  I went deadly silent.  I prayed for everyone except me.  I repented of my sin and I gave that precious tithe.  When God got personal, I went to sleep.  Those were undoubtedly the worse moments of my life.  Yes, the times when I wandered through religion walking the white chalk line, but refusing to kiss his presence.  God was relentless.  He never stopped trying to reach me.  He kept pulling for me.  The saints told me that God was through with me.  I accepted it because that was what I thought anyway.  I was well into my christian years before I really believed he loved me.  What drew me back every time, was the life I lived after God.  I was a robot just going to make the donuts.  I had no purpose.  My timing was off.  My schedules were off.  My life came to a screeching halt, and even as a christian, I contemplated ending it all. 

I came back.


Life after You
http://youtu.be/3RsirVKkkcA