To Be Confronted

To be confronted 
to have my failures named
to be blamed and shamed

it is a thing noble, perhaps,
in intent, but nonetheless is felt the sting

and hope and love and kindness, just
a cup, just a sip, the confrontation
does not bring in any way that
can be seen, measured, grabbed hold of

yet in the aftermath
an ash-like arisen thing
comes forth – not brave
it is small, this thing
that looks like it just
might become
hope
kindness
love

and somewhere amidst
the afterbirth of this
new rising, there does
reside a tiny mustard-seed
of a kernel of something
that just might be
the dawning of
the new day possibility of
the resplendent chance of

full thanks
and
recognition
and
acknowledgment
and
honor
and 
indebtedness
and 
grace



_______________
A lectio reading of Matthew 18.15-20, taking the position of the one confronted, the sinner in need of making recompense, all I could feel was the sting, the wounding, of the confrontation, which prompted this reflection on what just might come after, if I am very open, very willing and very lucky.

What Does Peace Look Like?

Like two enemies or ones who should be
sitting on the porch and talking about
things ordinary and extraordinary
finding understanding and even camaraderie

Like misunderstandings, ship-in-the-night
mishaps being worked out among friends
or those who might become friends simply
because they both decide trust is possible

Like hands held across the generations
as each looks at the other with fondness
and desire – desire to know and see and
learn just what makes this mysterious
other tick and tock its way through life

Like joy in the success of the other
with no thought or idea that what
is theirs should be mine or mine
theirs and happiness at the just
because of it all bursts forth

Like streets quiet not because of
guns and tear gas and batons and
threats or even exhaustion but
because one man dared to cross
the imaginary line and walk alongside

Like a family rent with grief made
public given the space and time to
merely grieve without incessant
chatter from those not in the know
about what should have or could
have or must have been

Like people on a mountaintop
starved and fear-ridden looking
skyward to find even the possibility
of rescue and believing once
again in hope, hoping once again
in normalcy and possibilities and life

Like big people with big guns
coming to their proverbial senses
and pulling back from the madness
we too small to resist would follow
them into not knowing what else
to do

Like ancient squabblers stopping
the incessant chant mine, mine, mine
and seeing in the other that there
is room even in a small land for
all and more when ‘mine’ and
‘not yours’ are left behind for
the dream that peace is possible

The Perfection of Moments

A man – young and old at once

walks side by side with his wee girl

she coming barely to his knees

raindrops on the grass sparkling their walk

she stops to park herself along the low rail

of the fence and the companionableness

of them is something you want to reach

out and touch with your hand, holding back

lest you burst the bubble of a moment of a memory

father and child lie side by side on the couch

she with that sprawl of innocence the young

carry with them in to their sleep making our

hearts break with the sheer goodness of them

the smell and the shape and the touch and the

breath of them taking our breath, our shape,

our touch in their wake and making us and

our problems petty and small in the presence

of such a big thing in such a small package –

and he, well he just lays there still in his love

present in the moment of the grace of her

and I know it will not last but in this moment

she . . . he . . . they . . . are perfect and to behold

this . . . this beauty . . . this perfect moment

is to be blessed beyond measure and maybe it’s

okay that it will not last and yet tears crowd

my eyes for I know that it is not okay 

may yet still be but it is not and why is this

perfect perfection not hers forever?  I so

want to know

***

and I in inner dialogue chastize self for its

insistence on seeing the perfection, the beauty,

knowing and well knowing all the else that 

lies around it like the detritus of what could have been

but why should I not see thus?  for is this not how 

God sees?  is this not how God knows?  

what is can be – we know this and yet fail

fail to cling 

fail to believe

and in our failing

the possibilities that perfect moment presents

fail to imagine what it – life – this – could be

so easily forgetting how it is

in the moments

the perfect moments

and there live my tears

in our forgetting

of what God sees

and sees through

A(nother) New Day

I love the potential of a new day – opening its sunshine welcome through the curtains – the promise of possibility like an infinite blanket of hope – small things come to mind mostly – maybe today I’ll finish the ironing – I actually like to iron – it’s pleasing somehow to press out the wrinkles and the smell of clean linens a bonus to the senses – maybe I’ll finally begin repairing the quilt I made for Mom and Dad more than 30 years ago – I am old enough to have created something now time worn – how well I remember my own pride at the gift when given – satisfied with what I had made passed down through my grandmother’s hands – maybe I’ll start walking again – it’s been too long – I will mail a letter that needs sending – maybe I’ll actually schedule that long-overdue hair appointment – that will feel like progress – I will look upon the mountains and be refreshed – their presence my comfort – I will listen to cat’s purr and smile benediction upon her contentment – maybe I will tick a few things from the list – my perpetual write-down of the next indicated things – or not – I will read – glad that I finally can again – leaving behind the tens if not hundreds of books begun and set aside – it’s a perfect laundry day – my only regret that I have no laundry to hang – so many roads spread out before me at the beginning of this new day – it matters not much which I take – for now – in this moment – the promise – the possibility – is enough and more than enough – and I am grateful – it is tomorrow and I am begun again.