Even with so many things resolved as they are, I am still looking, still willing that God use me as He can if only what I get in return is the use of His Eyes for just a little while once again. Even with so many things resolved I still bargain though I know that we cannot. I still argue though I lose. I still wrestle, even with this broken down obese mass of flesh I have become. I, still beautiful in the sight of God, am no longer the beautiful youth I once was. I notice that I turn very few heads any more. I never was the popular man in any way. There used to be some who called to me. Now no one does, though many are kinder than I deserve.
To save my life God raised me up and placed me on His lap. That was so long ago now, forty-six years. I gained that much life beyond my coming certain death, all in my opinion a bonus, a second life.
What I do now, I record my passage in the facets that rise up in my imagination, my poems and thoughts. As I write, I don't really know what is important. I have been wrong about that so many times that I assume anything I know is subject to major revision tomorrow. I am a scientist in that spirit, but prayer works, you know, and I need a myth, many myths, many gods and goddesses. And if my life is any proof, standing toe to toe with God and holding a stare down also works. Like Jacob with his wound, I am wounded and carry sacred scars. Like Job, I live a naked life and carry the buffets of an indifferent and crazy world. I too have been told that I should keep to my place, and yet I do not.
There is the sin of pride and there is the grace of integrity. They both reside in me. I am, I believe, mostly the right size, though I am on track only by faith. By any other measure I am lost, a total fool. I stopped housing the terror of this position decades ago. I hold many phases of passion regarding my place but terror is no longer among them. There are many moments now that I stop spontaneously and rest so still that I have to push to rise back up into my life. This is suspiciously like a meditation state, though I have always felt I had little capacity for meditation. I have chanted for years in hopes chanting would be an acceptable form of entraining my spirit since I could not meditate.
Sometimes I feel the presence of the others on the path. I know they are there. I read the work they leave as traces as I leave my own.
Marriage
You invited me,
offered your life and I knew
the bargain I was
making, a secret
kept in a copper box, latched
and locked tight on pain
of death, never told
until you passed that way, when
it no longer mattered.
April 24, 2010 3:42 PM
I love you my friend...you are so much more then you give yourself credit for...you offer grace at times of dire need!
ReplyDeleteChris
this is why i ache with you))) because of all of it))
ReplyDeleteyou say, "I am still looking, still willing that God use me as He can if only what I get in return is the use of His Eyes for just a little while once again." what if instead of using his eyes, you are his eyes? what if we all are?
there is an incredible poem, still blind, by yves bonnefoy, from his the curved planks book. oh, holy holy. james has just introduced it to me but it seems to have become a part of me so readily. if i could read it to you aloud today i would. i know you would listen.
The theologians
Of that other country
Deem that God does exist, but is blind.
That he searches, groping
Between the narrow walls we call the world
For a little body crying, floundering
With eyes still closed,
That will allow him to see-
If only,
With his clumsy hands from before time began, He can open its eyelids...
No, God does not seek
Adoration, the bowed forehead, the spirit
That invokes him, that questions him - no, not even
The shout of revolt. He simply seeks
To see, as the child sees: a stone,
A tree, a fruit,
The vine below the roof,
A bird alighting on a cluster of ripe grapes.
God the eyeless
Seeks to see the light, at last.
oh, it continues and is gorgeous. i am only learning it but it seems to speak to me and how painful it is, in this poem, to be God, to not be human. how blessed we are even in this tumultuous tiny state.
you must read this poem. we all, i think, should read this book.
i'm so glad to know you)))
much love
xo
erin
You are both of course among my dearest friends. I love you both openly. And of course that changes nothing of the other that I express here.
ReplyDeleteYes, Erin, except that God is not blind, I am Witness. That indeed is a crucial piece. My personal myth is that I intend to place my Visions before Him and say, "See? This is what I mean!" That lies at the heart of my journey and it has to do with Justice and its lack here which can be seen clearly in the human frame.
As I know from so long ago, the God's Eye View shows the eternal balance and its price is the loss of the humane. It is not our job to fix that loss. Not really. It may be "our" (and certainly is my) job to reveal it and on God's Holy Altar there is a holy place reserved for Humanity's Revelation, and for mine. That is a piece of the agreement in which I participate as I earn my holy keep on the planet.
I don't really know what is important. I have been wrong about that so many times that I assume anything I know is subject to major revision tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI know this now as my own thought, and I am unsure I would trade the pain in attendance for the knowledge. I am incapable of "fixing" things. It therefore cannot be my job. Loss or gain. I've little to do with it anymore, or at least it seems. For now. I am that small. Your post today mattered to me. Thank you.
Annie, it's been a long time together in the blog world, you and I. You too are among my dearest friends here. I would be happy meeting you and Erin face to face. Wander I already know very well, just saw him this evening. We were happy and at peace amidst the storm.
ReplyDeletebeautiful and poignant work here, authentic and tender on so many levels. it remains a deep privilege to be connected to your work as a reader and admirer, and to be touched by the journey you live.
ReplyDeletenamaste
you were happy and at peace amidst the storm.))))
ReplyDeleteand perhaps some day it will happen. perhaps we'll meet. i do not do very well in person. i love people very much but unless i am quiet, walking and observing, i don't translate. will we walk together one day? either way i have so much love for you on this journey)))
it is all necessary, isn't it, christopher? all of it. all of it. it is all necessary in the world. this is the balance.
xo
erin
(((Erin)))
ReplyDeletePerhaps. But as you read me I am sure you are getting how I am falling behind, no longer moving so well in the world. I will not journey easily to other places, am really happy that I took a couple vacations a few years back...the last time. Medical issues make leaving home for lengths of time not so good an idea any more. I need special sleeping conditions and some other things. Just what it is. I am okay with this, amazingly.