I Am Entitled

"...to be afraid of oneself is the last horror..."  C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

I am entitled...
...to live unsettled and ever striving;
...to lose myself as a side-kick in other people's story, to show how serious I am about Your demands for servanthood;
...to never be at peace where I am, because there is always a better place where You could take me;
...to live a life praiseworthy, because when others praise me I can say demurely, "Not me, His is the glory." Never seeing that I am covet-beckoning all the more;
...to punish myself before You get to it, because Your punishment might not be severe enough.

I am entitled...
...to have the concept fail.
...to have the convictions falter.
...and then...

I am entitled...
...to find the treasure in the darkness
as the sun sets to a moonless night;
...to cling in the cleft on the cold barren mountain.

But most of all and in the end, I am entitled
...to remember what it is to be the child of a Father
who smiles.

The Hike

(a fable for my husband...for Father's Day.)




Once there was a man who went to a wooded park
to take a hike.

The park was large and filled with wonders
So much so that a map was drawn to guide
hikers in their rambles.

When the man arrived at the park
he received one of those maps,
and he took it to a little outdoor amphitheater
near the park's entrance.

Many people sat on wooden benches there
with all their maps spread out before them.
They discussed and debated their maps,
holding them all different directions.

They considered the best route to take.
They marveled at the nuances of the map's design
and anticipated how this would aid their hiking ventures.

The man listened for a while;
But then he grew restless,
Meanwhile the others began to argue over their maps.
They began to disagree strongly,
As some began to doubt the scale,
while others wondered
just how accurate the map could possibly be.

"Did any of you actually know the cartographer?"

Finally, some set the maps on the benches
and simply left the park entirely.

The man almost joined the arguers.
Next he almost joined the leave-takers but then...

He saw a little boy,
A little boy just waiting.

"Has it always been like this?" the man asked the child.

The child looked around, assessing the atmosphere all around him.

"Pretty much," the child said, dropping his head back again
resting it on the wooden bench where he lay.
He went back to watching the clouds roll overhead.

"What do you see up there?"
the man asked, amused.

"The only thing that would look the same
if I were actually hiking," the child said.

The child's voice
--as much as his words--
gave the man thoughts of hope and sadness
Like two trees, appearing separate
but whose roots intertwine deep under the ground.

"Sometimes, I wonder how much good that map is really doing," the child observed dreamily.

"They're forgetting the point isn't the map. The map is a tool to point the way.
The point is the hike!"
The man grew adamant and became quite frustrated.

But just then, the child sat up eagerly.
"Are you going to actually...take the hike?" he asked.
"If you do, can I come along?"

And so they went.

The Way of Treasure

Dear God...
I live in a world where people expect their pearls to float
their diamonds to be scattered across the surface of the mountain
and their gold to wash ashore on the waves.


Teach us to again the way of treasure.

A Poem-prayer for Easter

May the sparrow sprinkle cloud flowers
across your saintly pillow, silver stars
to keep you slumber sweet
till morning breaks eternal.

The Agnostic's First Prayer

How nice
that blades of grass
push through the cover
of dead oak leaves;
and all that's needed
is a bit
of Spring.






(This came to me while I sat recuperating
from yesterday's frailty.
Sitting and hearing birds and frogs,
bike tires coasting,
balls smacking leather
--all while I hid behind the sun-drenched wall of my eyelids.


How do I know You approve where I extend this scepter?
When I rose from my chair all to stroll
a woodland creek-bed,
You flanked my path with blue and white violets,
for the first time of the season.

How do You know I saw Your part
in the interplay?
I tucked the flowers
in my hair.)

Ode to the Soul's Equinox...

Seven days left
and Equinox...
But a season's change hardly slinks
to practiced eyes.

A stand of trees may flaunt leaves, all green,
but the whispered hint of another color is in their bowing:
this one plum, that one crimson,
a feathery spectral sight.

Rows of corn, mature and not dying--nevertheless,
their brown-tassel overlay promises
dry ranks and fading in a near tomorrow.

A field of beans, dappled green
gold:
these can not hide
that haze of mauve, dusting light,
a powder over the surface,
invisible up close, but even from a distance
never present until now.

Everywhere colors gone dusky--
too tired for the vibrant hues of days gone by, but still
not captured by that second wind of autumn glory.

And yet,
that rejuvenating wind
will doubtless come--
See!
Even now,
the overgrowth dies back to manageable mounds,
adding softness more than threat to the landscape;
and the heat of a once-nearer sun no longer wilts the best of life.
Even now,
the clouds pose across the sky more subtly,
making little more than textural change
in a faded flap of blue.

Clouds willingly demure,
Their shade now no respite;
for this sun
--this sun--
throws champagne gold
in beams wherever the lengthening shadows
of ground life
fail to interfere.
Clouds embracing high humility,
first to recognize
this sun's promise:
wine from the plum hills,
somewhere between the gold
and the coming frost.

It is ever a choice
--if you stop to consider for this brief moment--
whether to grieve or to glory;
and whether to believe the sun changed directions,
or you did.

My Mother's Poem

Not long ago, we began going through old memorabilia, and I found an old journal of mine--one so old that it had a demin cover and gnomes sat ruminating on every page. A friend of mine gave it to me when I was 15, and I periodically wrote in it through my freshman year in college. It was as much a part of vague memory as any other thing neglected for 25 years. Then, suddenly it is in my hands, solid and available for review. Strange, how lately I keep coming across both items and people (a la Facebook) from days long gone. But one unexpected and soul-stirring renewal wasn't due to Facebook. It couldn't be because Facebook only brings the living back across our paths. This was a "visit" from someone who died 13 years ago. This renewed contact was through the journal, through a note stuck inadvertently inside its back cover. It was a poem written on a piece of clean, uncreased cardstock--stationary engraved simply with the name: Patricia Reeves. Patricia Reeves was...is...my mother. She wrote this poem and apparently gave it to me at a time of life when it was relatively meaningless to me, so much so that I didn't even commit its existence to memory. Now, as I look at it again with today's eyes, it becomes something invaluable.

Borne along in no-man's land,
She gave her name in answer to "I am"
Oblivious of her own needs,
She echoes others latent and dormant cries
For freedom from mediocrity...
Then echoes this claim for herself...
Thus she became enigmatic,
And beckoned others to follow her
To their goals...
But the victory was short lived.
For in their victory, it was she they embraced
And in winning...
She lost.
And she stood near those who would speak for her,
Laugh for her, sob for her...
Until each one...disappeared.

The words, scribed carefully and cleanly across the creamy page. I wish I had more to work with in understanding them. Was it me she was seeing, the me of today, of tomorrow? Like in so much prophetic poetry, who can tell whether the story has a happy ending? It is a subjective thing.

In Saving Private Ryan, Ryan was asked to live well, to do so as an act of service for the sacrificial deaths offered for his rescue. How strange, though, when the commission for a future well-lived, commissioned by those now beyond the grave, comes personally and not just through a fable, a war story. Help me, God, to become the best of what my mother saw in me...