the wind is blowing harder now
the fragrance of earth and sea…
the dirt of my birth
the water vivid blue green…
the melody is clearer now
you are singing over me
the sound of my birth
the song of my dreams…
you know all of my stories
you hold all of my tears
my wonder of glory
my Champion of fears…
let the wind blow harder now
I am watching on the shore
my heart can hold what will be
and all that has gone before…
…I could see a long white road coming from the gatehouse in the East. A long bailey stretched out both to the east and west, enclosed by a strong stone wall. A rose-gold sun was setting as the last of day was dying but all I could feel pumping in my veins was a pulsating voice that sang, “Life, life, life!”
The closer I approached the higher the walls beyond the gate appeared to be. I knew there would be no chance of my acceptance in such a grand place. It took all my nerve to continue walking. In a lifetime before this moment, which now seemed merely a few days total I had been crushed by the pain and joy of life yet something inside my heart kept me on the journey…as I stood trembling unable to proceed a man I thought to be a beggar on the road spoke to me, “Why do you linger daughter?” His tabard, though of fine wool, was tattered and worn and soiled. Upon it was a coat of arms that I knew not what it meant. The coat, I could see, had once been a rich majestic purple in color but now was faded I supposed by sun, rain, and travel. Upon the coat of arms in fine gold embroidery stood twelve golden crowns upon the head of a magnificent lion standing on its hind…
I fell to my knees and begin to weep. I did not know why. The tears were a mixture of relief, grief, joy, and blood with the salty taste of the human mixed within. They were my tears…they were peaceful, restful, relieving tears.
This man must surely be noble I thought as my tears subsided yet my mind raced. He did not look handsome like I always thought a royal would look nor was he tall in statue. This must not be a princely man I thought, perhaps he stole the tabard. I began to panic a little but as the beggar prince approached me I felt more and more peace within and I simply whispered are you He? A scarred and rough worn hand reached toward me and lifted my face up and the man gently said, “I, AM.”
By way of Christ’s suffering God became real to me. His human-ness, his longing for life and his longing to help and love others draws me to him. I think sometimes it is easy to shrug off, so to speak, Christ’s God-ness. It is a given right? His Divine nature, the Alpha and Omega in all his glory seems somehow more familiar to one who grew up in a Christian home. It is hard to wrap my head around is this man who is able to sympathize with my weakness, my so very fragile attempts to be good for him. He, as a human being sees my offerings that fall so short compared to what He offers and gives so freely.
One tradition of Lent encourages us to “give up” something for forty days. I was not raised with this tradition so it interests me to hear people say they will give up candy, soda, or a certain food or activity for the Lenten season. This action has caused me to ponder the suffering of Jesus. I have concluded, not for others, but for myself that any offering I make seems so small in comparison to Jesus, who gave up his God-ness and put on human flesh only to have his Father God turn his face away while he bore all the sin for the entire world. Somehow giving up candy or something else seems absurd but I understand why people want to do it. I understand that because they love Jesus they want to honor him in some way even if it seems silly or small. I certainly am not belittling this tradition or the act of giving up something for Lent.
The Lenten season is about honoring the sacrifice Jesus made for me. It is a time to reflect upon whom Jesus is and what he has done for us as well as contemplate our own Christian character or lack of it. Lent should not be a legalistic or showy event. What you give up or don’t give up is between you and God because we who are believers already know there is NOTHING we can give up or do that is worthy of the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
So for me this Lenten season, I continue to reflect on that fact that “once I was blind but now I see” and I am going to reflect and adore the ONE who took my sin and death and gave me life.
I am a daughter of the Gulf Coast
its deep inside me like the Holy Ghost
from Texas oil to Pensacola Isle
calling me softly to come and sit a while…
Have you ever been in the Gulf of Mexico at night? Ever tipped back your head and felt your body rise and sway with the motion of the sea? Looking up into a star filled black sky ions above you. In between that vastness of The Milky Way and all the water below there is a connection. There is the sweet melodious song of God, the Creator that astounds you into an unspeakable romance with Him. You feel you are in a dimension of awareness between antiquity and eternity. There is no fear. There is no dread of this power that you know can take your life in an instant…There is just the sea, the sky, and the smell of brine, and God singing over you…
The surf faithfully sweeps toward the sand dunes that line the shore. You cannot see them in the night but you are sure they are there holding the island together and budding with beautiful golden oats. There is a rhythm to the beach where the days and the nights of your life seem easy and make sense. At least for me it does. There is a canopy of fluid above and below. A heady cup of wine and that cup indeed runneth over…
Nautical wheelers
Hemingway readers
Shell seekers
memory keepers
The Ocean calls to me
from the deep
The blues and greens
dreams unseen
Ancient voyages
shipwrecks buried deep
Stories passed down
treasures asleep
A Holy cathedral
tidal pools of prayer
The Sea comforts me
I want to be there
We have a label for people who predict terrible times ahead…we call them “doomsayers”. This conjures up different ideas for each of us. I remember the first time my parents took me to the French Quarter in New Orleans. I was fourteen years old. I was so excited to see Jackson Square and all the sights but I was unprepared for the paradoxes there. It was the first time I had seen a person passed out cold in a gutter holding a bottle of some kind of alcohol and then only a few feet away stood a man preaching “repent, for the day of the Lord is near!” I held tight to my Daddy’s hand and said what do we do? He said “just keep walking.”
Later that day Daddy and I had a conversation and the wisdom of it has stayed with me…You see he said, “while society caricatures the two different types of people we saw today and often makes fun of them the important message is missed.
A true prophet may pronounce the prediction of doom and judgement but God always offers a way “out of death, judgment and doom. God, through His Son offers the SOLUTION…He offers Hope. Hope for the man in the gutter, hope for the preacher with the hard message.
The Day of the Lord is coming. God is very clear about that in His Word but He is also patient with us and extends us the gift of Life through Christ with a Grace and a Mercy that trumps judgement every time for those who believe in and call upon the name of Jesus. Always remember your Hope is in Jesus.”
The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places. Habakkuk 19:3
I can feel my self becoming removed from the conversation, from the room, from this place. As though I have been here many times before yet am now born into “such a time as this.” It is easier to let my self be free when I realize this story is not about me. I do not have to carry the answer, the load, the laughter, the grief, the joy…I get to experience it but I am not the atonement… but I am worth a telling.
I am the spring day when the daffodils and hyacinth bloom after Winter’s death and fill the world with the heady scent of new life. I am the dark rich dirt that lies thick undercover in the deep forest with moss and fungus growing out of it. I am the bright orange fall leaf that gets to trip and twirl down the city street in front of two lovers taking a walk. They try to run and catch me but they cannot. I am not their love affair.
I am the stark bare trees of Winter’s blast. I dance among the stars and sit upon the moon whenever I feel like it.
It is really not a mystery yet remains mysterious. It is truly not difficult to understand. I do not have answers regarding quantum physics nor the dimensions that I live in, for they are many and some are not of this world. I only know that my heart provides my body and brain with new oxygenated fresh red blood more than one hundred thousand times a day! Imagine such a miracle just for a moment or two.
So then you must tell your story. It may or may not help someone. It most likely will but either way you are worth a telling.
I leave you with this final thought from a writer Hunter Thompson…
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
For nearly a century she has participated in marching season. Today she will not be there to celebrate the protestant fight in Northern Ireland for religious freedom. She will at last be truly free from all of man’s inhumanity to man. She has seen many a protestant kill a catholic and vice versa.
It has never made any sense to her… She watches her skin float up into the ray of sunlight in the window, like dust particles. She knows her body is disappearing. She hears soft footfalls and whispered conversation. These are the by-product of leaving an old world and arriving into the only new one.
As a little girl she would sit in the sunlight in her bedroom and try to catch floating dust particles. Now she realizes perhaps this was a lesson in leaving. It is very easy. She would like to tell her loved ones so but they have not learned the floating lesson.
I am the girl in the dream, the girl in the hour-glass.
I am every blue on the color wheel.
I rise on a great floating bubble that a child just blew out of a plastic jar of soap.
The bubble is robin egg blue and I am continually moving toward you.
I am the girl in the dream, the girl clasping turquoise ribbons attached to the moon. My skin looks silver blue like the moon. My heart is an open door and the door is deep blue like a navy school uniform blazer. I turn the glacier blue door knob and I am permanently moving toward you. I am the girl in the dream, the girl who is every blue on the color wheel. I am soaring up toward the baby powder blue stars, the blue-gray fog is lifted and my blue gray eyes finally see you and my Faith has been made sight.
So my youngest daughter (I have two daughters) had her first baby on March 6th…can I just tell you to say it is surreal is an understatement. This young woman, Allison, is my baby…life has come full circle once again. I know it happens every day and this cycle makes the world go around but honestly it overwhelms me. I sit and watch her hold her baby boy, Collin, and I think in my head, “did you know I held you just that way? Did you know I remember that feeling of what do I do now? I can see you with your thumb in your mouth. I can remember the color of your eyes, your distress cry, and most of all your smile.
I can tell you it is a full-heart yet empty nest feeling when your children have their own families. It is harder than the empty nest of college. This empty nest is for the rest of your life. I know it is a good thing and all is as it should be. They have good men who love them, children who are masterpieces, and they have many family and friends who love them.
I just feel a little lost to be honest.
It is not self pity. It has a mourning/grief component. The reality is distorted sometimes because obviously they are still my daughters and always will be. Their children will always be my grandchildren, yet each are a family unit in and of themselves and I am not part of that intimacy. I am in the next best intimate position however and for that I am eternally grateful. So why the sadness at times? I don’t think there is any other answer but that it is part of life. My life ‘s scope is narrowing and my daughter’s and their families are racing off to catch up with their dreams! My life is slower and the sphere is smaller now. I have more time to remember, think, and ponder life than I did twenty years ago. Those years have flown by as everyone who has ever lived will tell you.
As a true empty nester I find I must stay in the joy when I am able to have my sweet family around me. I cherish each time a grandchild is with me, even if it is for just a couple of hours or a vacation together. I love seeing my daughter’s text on my phone or getting a call to come over or go to lunch.
When it is just my husband and I there is a quietness that honestly makes us sad at times. At other times the kids have worn us out and we are glad for a rest but always looking forward to the next time.
Some may respond to me by saying, “get a life!” My response to that is that I have a life but it is not the same. One thing that younger people don’t know yet is that core friendships had in your twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties can get lost or changed for a myriad of reasons and building new relationships as you age becomes much more difficult. It is not as if we now go to bars and parties to meet new people. Oh yes we can join clubs and churches and hope to find new friends but the cultural climate makes this difficult. We have tried this and continue to try.
It is different and now that I am in my sixties I am searching for what my life will be. So I guess my point is we never stop developing and growing our life. It takes work to persevere and serve and fulfill but I think it is perfectly okay for me to say it feels hard some days and I am okay with that.
This stage in my life also confirms to me even more that there is something innate in us that knows there is something more…there is a unity the can’t be broken but there is a unity that does become more distant, as it must.
I have no complaints. I am grateful to God for all of his gifts and I will journey on to see what lies ahead. Here is to all of you true empty nesters that know what I am attempting to say…journey on! Peace.
