Daddy and Father-God

I’m one. Bald

and chubby, sitting

on your shoulders,

in pink jumper,

yanking tufts of

Beatles-like brown hair

as you slouch

against 70’s sunflowers

pasted to the kitchen wall,

your pebble-grey eyes winking

at woman behind camera.

And I don’t know God—You

are God.

To me. 

I’m four. Strapped beside

You in cockpit,

flying over Texas,

thinking I’m the real pilot

floating below heaven,

wondering if I can see through

cloud ceiling to God. I know

about God now. You told

me he’s up there.
Somewhere.

But I’m rolling through

lower heaven,

can’t catch Your

slate-eyes to ask

if I can touch God.

I’m seven. Cuddled

with sisters in

flannel nightgowns,

lulled by husky hum of Your

voice reading Little House

and I’m dreaming of Laura, of

Ma and Pa

in prairie grass.

They’re praying

to Father-God

for life.

I curl naked toes

under pink nightgown,

wondering if I know God.

Does he know me?

But your ash-eyes don’t look UP

So I don’t ask You. . . .

I’m nine and it’s Christmas Eve.

You’re sitting next to snapping fire

cracking nuts,

fingering guitar strings,

singing about

“That Marvelous Toy” that went

"Zip" when it moved and

 "Pop" when it stopped, and

"Whirrr" when it stood still!”

And I’m wishing I could

snatch the moment into

my pocket and pull

it out in the dark night

to savor the forever-family

feeling.

And I’m wondering why

Jesus-God birthed to death

for Me,

yet I can’t feel Him close.

Your granite-eyes are

fixed

on strings,

So I don’t ask You. . . .

I’m twelve. Sitting in the

den with all Five kids,

listening to the voices of  

Tom Sawyer and

Huck Finn,

imagining the death of

Ann and Dan

as the red fern of

love grows

between death.

And I’m wondering again:

Where is this God who

lives in my heart?

Who is this Father-God?

Does he love me?

But Your lead-eyes

stare at black words marching.  

So I don’t ask You.

And I’m thirteen.

And you’re working.

Working.

Stopping  

to preach how

God-girls

dress nice and Beauty

is fleeting.

I just need GOD-LOVE.

And I want GOD-LOVE.

But where is GOD?

And I’m eighteen

Leaving for Northwestern,

so happy

to be

leaving

the family,

leaving You.

but Not.

Cause you are still God.

To me.

15 years later,

4 miles close yet

FAR as East from West

I remember your

granite-eyes,

stone-eyes,

lead-eyes,

and I know You

are not God,

never were

God.

And I see

how I made one-flesh—

You and Father-God—

twisting God-flesh

into granite-cold

Man flesh,

making Father-God

untouchable

in upper heaven.

But, You, Daddy,

Aren’t Father-God.

And I’ve asked God—

“Come down from

upper heaven

so Far.

Come
skin-close,

scent-close,

breath-close.”

And Father-God says

To me.

“Because she* holds fast

To me

In love

I will deliver her*,

protect her,

because she knows my

Name.

When she calls, I will answer.

I will be with her in trouble.

I will rescue her and honor her.

With long life I will satisfy her

And show her my salvation.”

*Psalm 91 and male pronouns switched to female.

Naming and Becoming: Birth

Isaiah--March 23, 2010

Waddling down the hospital hall,  I feel the muscles round my protuberant belly tighten, squeeze until the pressure wraps round my back and I think the baby will just pop through my white, blue-veined skin—“hee, hee, hoo . . . hee, hee, hoo . . . hee, hee, hoo . . . .” The squeezing lessens, fades, and I straighten, waddle towards room 119, the birthing room—the get-this-baby-OUT-NOW room.

And this baby’s been floating too long, 40 weeks and 8 days too long, just like his brothers, and I want to see if he’s brown like Josiah, like me, or blonde and blue-eyed like Micah, like Jon.

I hear light, athletic steps in hall behind me, Jon running in from parking red mini-van.  Knowing better than to touch me he says, “which room?” I point to 119 and he walks beside me the last couple steps. Inside 119, I lean against the cool, metal bed-arm, breathing through another contraction squeezing that baby down. A blur of blue enters room, walks to bed and says,

“When you finish this one, Hun, get in bed and I’ll check you.” I nod between hee, hee, hoos and focus on nurse’s fingers as she slips on rubber gloves, one pencil-finger at a time. Then as I roll my whale-ish self into hard, slanted bed, nurse moves to check baby’s progress into this world. Nurse’s head pops up quickly from bed end, walks to door, yells down hall:

“We’re complete in here! Get the doctor!” And nurse asks me, “Were you planning on an epidural?” I shake my head “no.”

Jon relaxed-laughs: “She was at the gym an hour ago, just had to finish that work out! We almost didn’t make it in time!”

And my belly tightens, and it’s all a rainbow of colors and voices. Doc is in surgery and can’t make it. Nurse velcro’s a monitor on my arm, feels arm for a vein--I’ve got plenty, big and blue, just like my mother’s. But there’s no time to poke needle in vein. Baby’s coming. I’m gonna push. I’m gonna push. A doctor comes, not my doctor, and I push and push and it hurts, the ring of fire, the curse of Eve—why did she eat that apple!? Fire and burn, and tingling in my face, arms, legs, and the thump, thump of baby’s heart pounding in my brain. Then a scream, not my scream. And he’s on my belly, all white and slippery and rooting, and he’s blondish and big, like Jon, like Micah.

“What’s his name?” says nurse in blue.

“Isaiah.”

Isaiah, his name, and it means “the Lord is salvation.”  

As I caress white-ish skin, slick with birth-water, I wonder:  Will he live his name?  Will he know the Lord’s salvation? Isaiah.  

And in the dim light of birthing room, naming happens, like Adam naming in the garden, we name our son.

And with the naming, the becoming begins.

Making He/She, We

Nine years ago today we said “I do,”
our he/she began melding into we.
Nine years ago we declared:
“I love thee freely, I love thee purely,
with all the breath, smiles, tears of all my life!”

Yet we learned--
the course of true love never did run smooth,
You said, “It’s ten minutes to everywhere!”
I protested, “We’re late for everything!”
I suggested, “How bout some hummus?”
You laughed, “Hummus, shmummus, bummus!”
You said, “Let’s read Ephesians before we doze.”
I said, “Ok . . . ” yawning,  drifting to repose.
You said, “I’ll be a trader-discipler.”
I said, “A what? Seminary was? . . . I do not concur!”

And God looked down and said,
“What fools these mortals be!”  
Me trying to stay she.
You trying to stay he.
This he/she melding into we—how can it be?

We asked: “How do I love thee?”
Embracing your he!
Accepting my she!
Loving our very own
We.

Making together–love, we-love
an ever-fixed mark that
looks on tempests and is never
Shaken.

Making together-love, we-love
strong as death
fierce as the grave
Unquenchable.

And I said:
“Follow your dreams,
And I’ll follow you,
Wherever.
Whenever.
However.”

And you suggested:
“Macbeth is playing in the park—
Out! Out! Damn Spot!—
Let’s see it,
under the stars,
sipping Riesling.”

I affirmed:
 “Your soul-caring
Ways—reading the Word
to me, to our boys,
and Praying.
Always Praying—
I love those Ways.
Never stop.
Never change.”

You offered:
 “Can I wash the dishes?
Change a diaper?
Watch the kids?
So you can go for a run?”

I prodded:
“Help me understand
Your trader-discipler
Dreams
Your heart
Your vision.”

You gave:
“Here’s a cup
of coffee.
Made it French Press,
just as you like it.”

We-love, together-love, says:
I love thee to the depth and breadth
And height
My soul can reach.


*Blue text=quotes/paraphrases of Shakespeare, Elizabeth Browning, Song of Solomon.

Loss and Life

My husband’s Grandpa, 92 years old, breathed his last breath Easter Sunday. Fitting, I thought, when Jon told me the news, to die the day Jesus rose and gave eternal life to his own.

Grandpa was alone that Easter morning, in a nursing home that smelled of urine, cafeteria food, and bleach. We’d been expecting that last breath for months, and now it had come and gone, like a whisper in the wind. So we packed our bags and blue cooler to travel North for a funeral—to honor Jon’s memories of fishing and camping and cards with a Northwoodsman who’d survived a depression, war and hard labor.

And as we drove up North we told the boys: “Your Great-Grandpa died.”

And Micah asked: “Did he love God?”

And Jon answered, “I think so. He said he loved God.”

And I thought: I think so. . . .

And I wondered: How can you know so ? . . .

Standing with Jon and the boys in the funeral home, piano music playing over the intercom, boxes of white tissue on every end table, plush pink flowered couches scattered about the foyer, the brown casket open—Grandpa’s body displayed on white satin—skin translucent, blue-veined; eyelashes mashed together under unseeing bifocals smudged still; hands folded across blue tie (I’d never seen him in a tie), and the neck, thinner than I remembered, disappearing into blue dress shirt--and I wondered:

Where is the 92 year old soul that breathed inside this body?

I wrestled a squirmy Isaiah in my arms, as Micah stood solemnly beside the casket, as Josiah clung to my dress pants.  Jon reached down and lifted Josiah’s warm three year old body over the side of brown casket. Josiah’s warm brown eyes gazed on cold 92 year old body. Josiah talk-whispered: “Grandpa’s dead? He died? He’s dead!” Grey-headed relatives near casket smiled—thankful for the distraction of young life from old death.

Micah talk-whispered: “Yeah. He’s dead. He’s in heaven, with God, . . . I think.”

I think. . . .

I wandered away from casket, set Isaiah's flailing feet on carpet--he squealed and ran towards plush pink couches. Grey-headed relatives smiled again at new life, fresh life, innocent life. And as my son wandered free, chubby fingers exploring floor vents, knocking over tissue boxes,  I pondered: 

When I die, will people say, "I know she loved God more than life!" ? 

And I asked myself:  Do I love God more than life? When my body lies cold in a casket will my boys say: "My mama loved God, this I know!"? 

Does my life love my God? 

"They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love."

"Let us not love in word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We shall know by this that we are of the truth and shall assure our heart before Him." (1 John 3)

Does It Make You Cry?

3pm I hear kid fingers fumbling with the front door, and I nearly trip over myself reaching for the handle before the little guy on the other side rings the doorbell twenty times, announcing his red haired, freckle-faced presence, nearly waking the sleeping baby, and making me nuts because I missed my last thirty minutes of divine silence.

I open door, whisper, “Hey kiddo. Home from school?” He nods. “Want to play with Micah?” He nods, reddish curls blowing in the wind that rattles our flimsy black metal porch railing. “Ok, you can go down in the basement. Take off you shoes and be quiet—the baby’s sleeping.”

“I know. I know. I remember,” he says, pulling off his Pumas as Micah calls up the basement steps, “Is that Ben? He can come play Star Wars with me. Come on, Ben!”

And so begins another afternoon, the neighborhood kids coming home to no

one . . . come home to us, looking for a friend, a pat on the head, a “how was your day, kiddo?” They tell me our house is “heaven” because we don’t “scream at each other,” and we have “family time.” Their words make me sad and thankful and scared—sad for the pain of a five year old neighbor boy (and others), thankful for the gift of three boys, scared because I too hurt my boys with wild words.

Boy words drift up as I stand at kitchen sink, sudsing lunch dishes.

“Ben, are you thankful I let you play with Darth Vader? If you’re not, you’re not gracious.”

I smile. The blunt words of a five year old, tact not yet learned.

“Ben, do you want to be like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Satan?”

What? Holding yellow plate with painted blue flowers, suds floating down into water. I pause.

“Cuse Dietrich Bonhoeffer died for Jesus. Do you know ‘bout Jesus?”

“Yeah. I know. I know.”

“You know he died for you?” pressing . . . pressing. (I wonder where he gets that, the pressing?) I smile.

“Duh! I know! I saw a movie ‘bout it. He died and went up in the air,” tone harsh, saying “get off my back,” without actually saying it, and the kid’s only five. Only five.

Micah won’t let up: “Did it make you cry? When Jesus died? Did it?”

Silence.

Voice of red haired, freckle-faced five year old Ben, “Are you gonna let me play with your Star Wars legos or what?”

Deflection. Avoidance. My soul swells—with joy that my Micah sees, with sorrow that Ben does not . . . then I think . . .

Does it make me cry? That Jesus died? . . . .

Does it make me cry?