On Bouncing Back

Who puts laughing gargoyles on the rooftops?
And where are these people now?
For today don't we all put covered guttering there instead?

In other words, what's the equation that on the one side of the equals sign reads:
"Hopelessness?"
Is the other side littered with a couple of whoppers?
Or an endless string of paltry addends?

I sat on my bed yesterday, crying;
and when my spouse inquired as to my state of mind,
I didn't blame him
for his reaction, that is
when his shoulders shook
in silent laughter--no,
at least he attempted
to respect my dignity.
In fact, I laughed with him.

But first, my tearful tirade:

"It's that--
I mopped the floor--twice over--today.
And in no time at all,
here is a sticky Popsicle puddle,
a bulls eye right in the middle of it.
It's that--
I vacuumed, too, and spent a half hour cleaning the stupid vacuum filter.
And in no time at all,
the 6-year-old decided to clean out his backpack,
and dumped a pile of cheez-it crumbs
all over the carpet. "Oh, forgot those were in there--" he said.
It's that--
I got a migraine headache
(out of the blue)
that barely gave me time enough
to throw the half-made supper on the table
and run to bed
before visions of pulsing prisms
turned to nausea and pulsing pain.
It's THAT and more of THAT.

The Cheez-its were what broke him.

Trivial, eh?
Well, the sum total (when like terms are combined) is more respectable, I think.
Because here's what it really is:
It's that--
I don't appear to be making a difference, no matter what I do.
Where do things progress
from bad to good
to better to best?

So when my husband sprawls across the foot of the bed, he says:
"What's the problem, honey?"

And propped against the sturdy headboard,
I resettle myself cross-legged, sitting tall,
and the words congeal.
"The problem is that
I should have different problems by now!
Problems that matter!" I cry.
"So if I'm hungry, shouldn't it be
that all my food was passed off to starving orphans in Calcutta?
And If I'm tired, shouldn't it be
because I've been fixing
corrugated tin roofs on Tennessee shacks all day?
But noooo, I've only been cleaning the trash out of my own van
and pulling weeds from my own garden,
the food from which
I might
share with a few close friends?
And tomorrow there will be more french fries on the floor,
and more clover in the dirt--
and THAT is my problem.
How can I possibly accept that my own trials and tribulations
don't even come
with a price tag
of altruism?
Nor do they come with a guarantee of staying 'fixed'."
How can You be satisfied with my life, Lord? I can not help but wonder.
But that was last night.


Today, I visited an unfamiliar church.
And such a venture reawakens the senses.
God said, "Look around and consider.
Here,
where you have the eyes of a visitor."

And so I was given a coin from the hand of God,
one like I've been given before.
(one to put in my bag for things eternal.)
On one side He inscribes shame, but on the other relief.
They can't help but travel in tandem.
To spend it brings a trinket for a holy mantle:

This place was the home-church of
my six-year-old's best friend,
and the two small boys like fish
squirmed all the while we sang.


Above us, works of art like Michelangelo's?
No, painted white, the steel supports.
Out the window, mountains majesty?
No, a steel guard rail running along a plain road.
The congregation, a diverse city of race and age and economy?
No, one of modest size and modest diversity.
For accompaniment, the noise of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal?
No, an upright piano and a small side keyboard,
giving chords under our singing.
Communion served from a heavy silver chalice in the hand of a glittering priest?
No, a basket and tray of wafers and juice.

(After partaking,
the six-year-olds aforementioned
traipsed the aisles
collected the juice cups
under smiling nods and pointing fingers
of their elders.)

What of all this?
I acknowledged,
my joy was full in that place.


So, I found myself presented, yet again,
with this question,
and I've been asked it before.
(In fact, a question asked of any whose
open eyes see
Satan's greatest lie ever plied
against the church)

God asked me, "Why?
"Why should you require more of what you would call substance from this life I gave you, than I require of it?
And who should take the measure of such things?
If you will demand
such high esteem
for all your intricate parts;
how can the temple that is you ever be
representative of priorities that are Me?"

I thought of my equation again,
and remembered that
in some places,
hopelessness
is ever an imaginary quantity.