the sky pushed

I settled on the couch in the foyer…giving us each readying space. Something about the light, the breaking and mending of the clouds, steel-blue in the coming evening, held my gaze. 40 foot glass walls framed their flight across the sky about me. The world moved ( apart from my help.) Rachel Held Evans, a native of Birmingham and an admired post modern voice, wrote a post this week that resonated with me. In it, she shared her struggle with what is foolish and unproductive and just totally unhelpful that we in the church seem to think matters, at all, or to anyone outside our walls. And… her need to just do what she can, to live better.

That kind of pondering and protest absorbs a lot of my energy…sometimes too much. I compose arguments which I dream of posting for my pond of readers or about the edge of some sea at another’s blog…when offered. I rant internally, sometimes outwardly as well, but as I relayed to Rachel, a winning, but weary lieutenant of our time whom I follow freely… “Good things are coming cross our skies…things not of our doing, but surely of our dreams.” I listened to Hannah, 18, practice runs of songs that she has learned ( this week) or has written and will, no doubt, rearrange as she musically meanders about this court of her peers in minutes. I am sensing the sobriety and joy in her spirit, a co-mingling not consummated in mine. I know the night will be nakedly raw and real, and I asked myself  WHY do we ( old ones) always have to go to them for that?

The sky pushed the clouds before me, they spread, fanned-out a bit, but they did not push back, resist, reroute their own direction. I could see them well; 40 x 40 is a pretty big lens. You’d think I could not miss the message.

I wrote out my sermon for Wednesday, last night. It is competent, ordered, structured, the metaphors match the content. But, I don’t feel the edge of apprehension just before intimate connection. I don’t sense my words – my person extended, like cloud: as steel but blue; broken, mended, carried. I feel like I wrote it…it seems sound and solid and something I don’t need in my depths to hear, either.

So, tonight, I will sit high in the skyline with those young-guns who dwell there and stand in that wind and be reminded how to ride, not resist and rewrite that sucker.

a sweet discovery

For a while now, I have been rethinking this blogging thing. I still blog somewhat privately. There, I rant and wrangle. There, I work out ideas not ready for prime time and those who don’t well speak my lingo or ably fill in the words that I sometimes fail to speak as I discourse.

But, tonight, I saw that my friend, Kim, has finally conceded to some public display of her writing skills and that makes me so very happy. She is a fabulous writer…she who owes us all a book or two. Maybe such is finally beginning its journey out of the ground. I hope so.

So, in honor of her fabulous and soon to be famous words, I wish to repost something she conceded to write when I begged a while back. I called our exercise slam poetry, it’s just emotive poetry. I have been asked by another friend to help her 5th graders navigate the genre, so I’ve been reminiscing about our little foray into such last year. I cajoled some excellent examples from my literary gang; Kim’s was my favorite.

Here it is:

The only one I could be more excited about introducing than one of my young guns, is my first best friend, Kim. I know a few things in this life. One of them is that Kim loves me. Consider her introduction a Christmas gift from me.

Kim Perry December 11 at 11:42am

I decided to take your “grown folks challenge”

On Embracing

I love her face

Weathered, creased,

Soft with age.

Ninety four!

Still a powerhouse

Moving too quickly to hug most days

Queen of two castles, north and south

Still on her own

Angel of mercy

The designated driver for

Friends whose children

Have taken away their license

To drive

Big white Florida cars.

She is still so “young”

Confused and frustrated

By the mirror’s reflection

“That is not who I am”

But there is no denying

The great grandchildren

And so,

She lies awake at night

With three generations

After her to worry for

Blessing.

Curse?

I wonder about me

Will I thrive at her age?

Will I embrace or disparage

(Or even worse

Be ungrateful for)

The years on my face?

Can I cheat

The menopausal destiny

Of sleeplessness?

(I so enjoy a peaceful sleep)

Can I escape

The tendency

(Nature? Nurture?)

Of my family’s women

To worry

About the generations?

Hear me now.

I vow

to limit Mirror time.

Just a glance

to check for spinach and boogers

(lest I offend)

Yet I will peer deeply into

the eyes and souls of

Younger people

To find myself and

To influence

Their impact

on the generations

I rest in and claim

The Peace of God

I will pray for my kids

(and theirs and theirs)

I will leave the worrying

to another

On sleepless nights

I will create

So that I will have more

In the morning

Than coffee and yawns

(Though, I do love coffee)

12/11/10