The Only Real Thing



I attended Dundee Elementary School with my brother and sister
in the 1950s. Now my great-niece Desi and my great-nephew
Bowen are students there. Built early in the 20th century, 
Dundee was beautifully renovated and restored in the 
1980s. Architects, RDG Planning & Design, Omaha

SAFE PLACES

When I was six years old, I was afraid of

the Cold War, the Communists, nuclear bombs,

and whatever atrocities I could invent out of

semihistorical, quasi-true stories my brother

would whisper in sinister accents, with grisly

asides and horrific embellishments. Probably

he was as frightened as I was. Maybe we had an

unspoken agreement: I was the terrified child,

crying to break any heart not of granite
till Daddy gave in to annoyance or pity, I 
never knew which. In the warm, fragrant

nest of my parents' bed, I slept the sleep

of the innocent. My brother apparently 
got all the comfort he needed
vicariously. Somehow, in some way,
that must have been 
sufficient

for him.

No matter how sad, how extreme the calamity,

however scary the story might be, I was

safe with my mom and dad,

safe at the neighbors’,

safe in the chapel, and

flower-gardening-made-easy.com

safe at my school, where

forsythias, lilacs, and quince bloomed in spring.

The air-raid drills didn’t frighten me, only I

felt pretty silly when having to crouch
like a frog on the floor, with instructions
to lock hands on the back of the neck.
Even in first grade we knew that the stuff they called

nuclear fallout was more of a threat than our

six-year-old hands could deflect. Whatever—

I never imagined such desperate tragedy; one
that could walk in our classroom one day; one so
despicable, dangerous, angry and sick; one
inconceivable... and blow us away.

I thought I knew fear but I didn’t know this: The most

frightening things tunneled into my mind with the
monsters and witches and gremlins that rattled the blinds,
creaked the floors, and ate six-year-old girls for a snack
late at night, when the wrath of hell, multiplied ten million
times, wouldn't wake Mom and Dad. 

But then I, for a moment’s peace, never had need to
destroy everything that is childhood, breathing, heart-
beating invaders--the enemy--something that lives
in the mind--something I might be if my heart had
been savaged and left to bleed, wither, and die. To
imagine a vast, damaged, infertile land of aloneness,
despair, and insanity—I've never dared try. But
now, God, I want to see without being diseased
mind and body... how? How can it be that he
scorned his own flesh and he sought the abyss, and
he punished the agent by which he was made, and if
he had known how to he would have killed you?

Teach me to pray for this man and his family. Did they

know him, his grief and his anguish? His pain? Did they see 
the dark as his illness revealed it to him? When did his world 
start to dim, then go sunless and cold, empty and still?

Then show me two dozen children with guardian angels
as Heaven's door opens, as each is embraced. Please,
may the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers and 
aunties and all of them witness it too.

In your grace keep us safe, keep us loving and
certain of love and believing in what is the only real thing 
and the only truth, even today, when we can't comprehend
what we see:

Love is him

Love is them
Love is me
Love is you
Love is everything

'You are the reason for the unexpected hummingbird'

Van Gogh, Wheat Field Under Clouded Sky, 1890

Where None Had Been

 

Holy Light


Heaven wept so many tears
(the angel told us), there began
a waterfall, and streams appeared
where none had been.

Where none had been, there filled a lake
and angels gathered there to pray
for you; we grieved not for his sake—
He lives today.

Where none had been, now rivers run
of joy and sorrow, side by side:
sweet, healing streams of tears that come
from angels’ eyes.

Throughout the night the angels prayed
with him—Did you know he was near?—
until the first and bravest ray
of dawn appeared.

His soul (the angel said) is young
and curious. Upon his face
shine wisdom and compassion, love
and Heaven’s grace.

In this life or another, you
will know him; trust your intuition.
With him will go angels, too,
as they have done

through eons long passed out of sight
since God in love created him
to be a ray of holy light
where none had been.

In memory of Monty Fey 1936-2011

Follow Your Bliss


 

...AND DEMONS FLED

Did you know me when I prayed for you? I was the

   first and bravest ray of dawn that shimmered

     through your window; as you slept, I swaddled you
       in light, a tissue-cotton blanket... leapt and

    skipped (as if I were an acrobat) for happiness
  above your bed; swept down to kiss away your pain,
the way my mother did when I was feeling lonely or
had skinned my knee... but this was for the knitting
   of your bones; and demons fled dismayed by my

     caress. Your muscles, where they had been taut,
       began to soften like a stick of butter left beside
         an open window on a summer day.

'...and demons fled.' Michelangelo, The Last Judgment

          I played a little
        fugue and sang my way into your dreams—
               Follow your bliss... follow your bliss...
     —the song expanding to a symphony so lovely that
   the stars swayed, and the fading moon embraced you
just before it set. In that eternal second all the universe
  was rapt, a captive to the beauty of your spirit, gleaming
     and intact; the earth, the seas and mountains wept with
        love. And as you lay there, sleeping, still, by heaven's
      grace protected in a fortress built of peace and painted
   dreams, a smile as sweet as lilacs' fragrance crept across
your face.

John Atkinson Grimshaw, Spirit of the Night

I sped away; your private flock of angels never left your side.

   Believe it when you sense a something like a feather (velvet as

     a languid breeze) brush past or feel a something

       like a blessing as if fingertips of sunlight had escaped a

     wedge of leaden cloud to smooth a drop of salve across

   your brow

—for Jody

Sunlight

Sunrise from Pike's Peak, Colorado. Image: wallpapers-diq.com

O God, Make Me a Lantern

 

Sunbeams and goldenrods, Edwin Warner Park, Nashville
Image: wallpapers-diq.com

O God, make me a lantern... a light and not a shroud. Help
me to sing out loud your praises in a clear voice, crystalline
and bright with joy. Fill me this very day with levity and
laughter, and may everywhere I go be better for my having
been there. Lift from me the heaviness that grows in layers
and immobilizes me. O let it rise like morning fog, dear
God, and float away upon the wind.

O Father-Mother, send your angels here to keep my
lantern clean and clear. The fuel is pure, it is your own
abundance; smoke cannot obscure the flame. But
sometimes I feel small, and fear that I cannot be seen amid
the throng. Then may your angels carry me upon their
golden wings to where the steeples, tall and proud, point to
the endless sky, and keep me strong and bold and
unafraid to hold my lantern high.

Sunrise on Wizard Island, Crater Lake National Park
Image: wallpapers-diq.com

Dear God, I pray that all your children know what flame
they carry, be it hidden deep within or fearlessly
uncovered, shining steadily, the light of love and life, uniting
everyone. Is this too much to ask of you, Almighty God?
Can this thing, call it harmony or peace on earth, be such a
weighty task for your omnipotence? We daily pray “Thy
kingdom come,” so certainly it can be done, dear God, if
you will show us each and every one our part.

O God, your kingdom is not far away; there is no limit to
your generosity. We cannot fail to shine; our lantern light is
infinite. It warms the heart and lights the path that leads
unerringly to satisfaction — in our work, our fellowship, our

Sunrise from Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains
Image: wallpapers-diq.com

service, our communion, gracious God, with you. Now may
my lantern guide me to my place in your Creation, God,
and may it shine not just for me but for the blind whose
prayer, sincere and offered with humility and trust, it is that
they might see. Amen

--------------------------

Big Stone Gap at Sister Alma Rose
Has the Last Word


 

The Big Prayer on Write Light

Terrified of Bliss

Angels with the Blessed Virgin -- Botticelli



 A PRAYER TO MY ANGELS



O ye angels, fly to me
and lift me out to sea, above
the waves that rest but never sleep
while there is work undone.
Perhaps the sea’s an angel too;
it has the timeless job to do
of cleansing this untidy earth
and birthing it anew.

Galatea — Raphael

O ye angels, carry me
upon thy wings, a brief escape,
then stay a bit, I beg of thee,
and help me concentrate.
My mind, it likes to creep away;
in vain I order it to stay
and serve the purpose I’m about;
but it’s gone out to play.


O ye angels, lend thy power
to my responsibilities;
I seek the effort of an hour
before my labors cease.
I have no gold to save or spend,
nor do I want thine, angel friends;
instead I need thine energy
when lethargy begins.


At last, ye angels, when the task
is finished and the cottage neat,
I’ll have but one more boon to ask:
my prayers lay at God’s feet.

THE JOY OF THE LIGHT OF GOD



Alleluias rolled from the east



What are we waiting for? Why do we

hesitate? For here and plain as dawn

when every demon of the night has

fled, we see the joy of the light

of God. We need only step out of

the mist—no odyssey have we

to undertake or foe pursue, no

secrets to discover. There is only love to

be accepted, met with gratitude... now

only happiness to claim. Anxiety, regret

and shame—these were the evils

that evaporated as we watched. No

sooner were they gone than Alleluias

sweet and strong rolled from the east

and would have swept us off our feet

and carried us aloft, had we not clung

to earth, so terrified of bliss we are if it

should cost surrender of the shreds

of skin we still identify as “us.” The

lungs, the bones, contorted hands

and feet; the pain, disease, decay are

us, we say? As if God meant us to be

temporary, having used up our

allotted days, too old and slow to

overtake the measured plodding step

of entropy. But we are woven of a

better fabric, one that grows more

durable with wear and time and testing.

Still we hesitate, though faith has been

replaced by certainty.

St. Francis of Assisi with Al Kamil -- 15th century

With reluctance mixed with fascination

do we draw a little nearer, inches at a time.

We cringe when light falls full upon us

and the unfamiliar frightens us. We are

accustomed to the cold, the dark, and sink

into delirium as we might fall upon a rotting

pallet in a beggar’s squalid inn, when our

soul’s comfort and security, clarity of sight,

the soundness of the body, heart repaired

and spirit whole are certain, not mysterious

as once they were, remote, the whisper

of a promise too ethereal to tempt the

desperate, the wanderers in need of solid

benefits, of food and shelter. Isn’t it more

sensible to hesitate? God isn’t going anywhere.

 LOVE STICKS

Love comes later, in the wake of pain,
like rescue after piracy. Sometimes the

buccaneers escape with their ill-gotten
gains and damn the bodies and the sailors
who survived. These are forgotten or
outshone by treasure seized according to the
code of honor thieves and brigands go by.

Guardian angels

I have love. Sometimes I keep it chained but it escapes eventually. The chase is
futile. I pursue it anyway, at
least to see where it alights. I’ve little
hope of catching it but I can sabotage
attachment anyway until it flickers
out of sight.


Both love and I know which of us is wiser,
stronger, and more patient. Truth be told,
I’d really rather give the game up, let love
lead, but ego won’t permit me to, not
yet at any rate, though soon, I’ll wager.
It feeds on my weakness, and I’m weary
now, as one becomes from filibustering.
Its loyalty is oddly given, not bestowed where I would choose. It forms unsuitable
alliances and clings tenaciously. I
win, it says and flashes me a saucy
grin, and so do you. It’s only face you
lose. I’ll get it back to you.


Love is like a tireless suitor, one who
could have gone away for good but stays to
tease me, plays a waiting game. I
wonder if it plans to catch me up in
some transgression. Hardly likely, as it’s
had a million chances. Still it sticks as if to
lure me, which is curious. It surely knows
I don’t deserve it.