Divided

We’re living in hard times

where lines separate 

and people stop listening—

where people close doors

to listen to the rhetoric of like minded

to listen to their own definitions

Words are spewed into an arena 

and battle lines drawn

Yelling replaces dialogue

The other is penalized,

and demonized, shoved out,

caught up in someone’s fear

We’re living in hard times

where words are misunderstood

and people shelve words

afraid of the rush of red hot fire

We’re living in hard times

where license to hate

has new life

Finding that Place

          Pockets of silence

               Mark Rothko

I listened to silence

and heard the earth turn

My foot steps whispered 

My breath joined

a shaft of light

When I inhaled

I swallowed silence 

and then walked out

refreshed

Redemption

Who has not

Who has not asked

Who has not asked for 

Who has not asked for forgiveness

Forgiveness from

Forgiveness from someone 

they wronged, from someone

they hurt, from someone who no

longer takes a breath

Who has not turned away 

before asking, buried the words,

the deeds — until no corner shows,

no handhold to pull it up and look—

to stare, to wonder whether it needs

to be pulled up-a weed- in a garden

Prayers and Concerns

One woman gives thanks
for a first grandchild,
another  asks for prayers
for her sister, still others
need prayers for illness
One man says he will
undergo brain surgery,
while another gives thanks
for the attendant who takes
care of a woman trapped
in a contorted body
unable to do more than
utter loud sounds
Unsaid needs and prayers
fill the pews, overflow
into the aisles
Open our hearts to hear
silent needs here
Open our hearts to hear
cries for prayer
in our world

Pondering The Word Open

Does it mean to open

stories not yet told

or to stories buried

beneath passing time 

Does it mean to listen 

to an altered rendition

What does it take

to open a lid on an untold

story, spread it out

and tell it straight—

no editing, no revision,

just plain words

And who will you tell

and why tell the story

Why open the lid 

Lent

We wait
the way others waited
We help
to push aside the stone
to open the tomb
We too meet
him in the quiet
of our day,

Revelation.

       My computer turned gray and then turned black. A sudden and heart rending condition that left me feeling at sea. I make an appointment at Apple’s Genus Bar for 11:30 and pace in front of Flannery ( the computer’s name) until it is my time to leave for the mall. An aside—I dislike malls.

      This, my second time at Apple in a week. The first time a kind member of their team diagnosed  Flannery and declared software the culprit—not hardware. Diagnosis—my system quit and the machine needed a new system which meant that my computer, save for the new system, is scrubbed clean.

      All my documents, applications, photos—gone unless saved in that amorphous cloud. Were all the little boxes checked for iCloud?  Had I saved all my documents to the external drive—Millie?

     It took four hours of waiting: waiting to be seen, waiting for my computer’s documents, applications, apps, and assorted sundry items to be transferred to my external drive.

    I walk both floors of the mall, up and down stairs, have a burger for lunch, people watch, check my watch, listen for a call, share a small frozen yogurt, and finally the call. I need to check that everything had been transferred. 

Then more wait time before Flannery returns to her perch on a small table. 

    Too many people roam around the mall, too many teenagers spend their time at malls, and how do some of those stores stay open. It’s impersonal opium for some people— I expect that not everyone agrees with my perception.

   Once home I realize that I still need  to spend hours putting things back on—even the printer needs to go through the hoops before it can print. 2687 photos had been stripped down to 28. The photos weren’t in the cloud nor on an external drive. Most were landscapes and macro photos. At first I blame myself for not looking in the photo folder. 

    After checking everywhere, behind each icon and bemoaning the loss of the  ocean photos I snapped on a cloudy day or the twenty photos of lupines I had an epiphany. 

   Clean slate. I remember how I meant to include info about each photo— where taken and a short descriptive fragment. Now was the time to start that process with new intentions. 

   Fortunately many of the people photos had been printed. They wait in a box for a permanent home.

   Clean slate. New Beginning. The shedding of the old way. Maybe I even can delete some of the many replications and become more selective. Did I really  need twenty photos of the same lupines?  

     I’m open to change.

   

77 degrees in February

                                Walden Pond
                                Concord, Massachusetts


 Children filled pails with sand and emptied them and filled them again. They swished the water with tree limbs and waded ankle deep

    A thin layer of ice melted leaving holes for the water to seep out

    Mothers shared their beach blankets with coolers and tote bags filled with  sandwiches and snacks

    Four boys cast their fishing rods into open water and waited for nibbles

   Walkers circled the pond, some sat on rocks, some settled down and read,a few brought sketch pads or journals—perhaps to record the day 

An Open Invitation

my bones warmed

by the sun

and temperature

beyond February’s

usual range

reminded me

that spring

always

appears

even when

it drags

some

winter—but

today winter

dipped into spring

Be Open to Change

     After the last shooting
     After seventeen dead in school
     After nothing is done
     Students rally

if the adults can’t get anything done

if the politicians can’t get anything done

if the gun lobby buys everyone off

and the adults act like children 

then the children need to take over

and tell it like it is—

they need to shout,stomp, stamp

their feet and demand change

and they are beginning 

they tell the truth

call out the politicians

who grumble

who argue

who offer prayers 

without feet

who accept gun money

who turn their backs
and simply offer
condolences

Open and Shut Case

     My computer presented a gray screen and then turned black—India ink black—and then the screen flickered, shimmied, and grew unresponsive. I turned it off, waited a few moments until it lost its petulant exterior and turned it back on. As if to punish me it grudgingly started and immediately turned to gray.
     So I did what any one would do— put my laptop in its case and headed over to the geek group at the Apple Store. An exceedingly helpful computer expert turned on the recalcitrant machine and it performed slower than ever and proceeded to prove that it was ill. A diagnostic test was run and something on the software was corrupted. At this time it appears as if the hardware is still chugging on.
     I’ll be returning next Thursday with Flannery, the name of my machine, with both Flannery and an external hard drive. According to the expert they’ll strip her of her innards and then reboot her. This entire project is fraught with angst.
      I asked if there was any other way  to get her up and running. No. A simple no. “ You’re fortunate,” the computer expert said, “ that this is a software problem and not a hard drive problem.” And I am thankful that my hardworking and congenial hard drive continues to power on.
   

It’s Not Enough

    And for me, that utterance may be given unto me,

    that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known

    the mystery of the gospel.

       Ephesians 6:19

it isn’t enough to tell the mystery 

if you live as if nothing’s true

just words, you need to live

the gospel, every time you

see anyone as less than, each

time you forget the hungry, or

when you forget the homeless

or when you deny others their beliefs

you deny the gospel—

the gospel changes lives

if i don’t see that 

your bold words

carry little weight

Live the Word

         ...God will open up to us a door

            for the word...

                    Colossians 4:3

and they invited God

to have a seat at the table 

to partake in the conversation

it’s hard, they said,  to speak 

of violence, of children 

dying by gunfire, it’s hard

to listen to the babble

of a people who don’t

listen to one another—

deep listening is hard

and God listened to their

anguish, heard their pleas

and reminded them that

they needed to do more

than read his word

they needed to live

the word in the world  

  

Intransigent

     not everyone is open to compromise even when  the choice between refusing to move a bit toward the center creates a dire situation for 800,000 young people who wait and wait to know what tomorrow looks like

     sometimes it’s necessary to take an absolute moral stand—but this is not about taking such a position—this is about demanding your way, about holding hostage to get what you want— this is about forgetting the other

     have we forgotten the stories of welcoming the stranger, of being open to the other

     have we forgotten that we or our parents or their parents or back to the first settlers were once strangers in this land

     have we lost our way, mired in a place where guns are worshipped, violence in the media is commonplace, where the alt-right gains followers, where racial and anti-semitic remarks are made too frequently, where people are demonized, where white is lionized, where discrimination against LGBTQ people is acceptable, where the rich get richer and the poor lose out, where too many people are homeless and we call hunger food insecurity instead of hunger

     have we lost our way 

     maybe we can begin finding a pathway back by welcoming the dreamers, by remembering that we were once strangers

     “ ...you know the soul of a stranger”  Rabbi Sacks 

     

Indoor Botanical Garden

a fish shape emerges 

amid corkscrew tendrils

without a marker to reveal

the name or natural habitat

is this jonah’s whale 

will the wind howl

will the ocean churn

does this fish bare a message
will i be open to the words

Lesson on How to Atone

     

        O Lord, Open my lips,

        and my mouth will declare

        your praise

               Psalm 51:1

It’s time to clean up

change my ways

find those I dissed

and get it right

Walk right up to

those I ignored,

those I laughed at

and set it different

Find those I need

to say sorry

Loosen my tongue

let me set it right

and then just watch

me raise my arms

shake my hands

shimmy and shout

and offer you praise

Hallelujah 

Atone I

        O Lord, Open my lips,

        and my mouth will declare

        your praise

               Psalm 51:15

O Lord loosen what’s inside

hidden beneath the detritus

of time, of the everyday

Who can on their own

uncover, put to light

what they need

to before they

go forth

Sunday Fellowship

Not everyone knows how to read

A few read words with a staccato

tempo while others stand mute—

spoken language too complex

They share their worship 

We sing the hymn they sing

How much does God love you

and they spread their fingers

inches apart and by the time

it is sung a third time 

the congregation opens

it’s arms as wide as possible

We are all God’s children

The Realization

 Open the door

to possibilities,

to the unexpected

to having the world 

tilt, to discovering

the smell of a flower

the sound that the wind

makes when it surrounds

the cattails around the pond

Open the door

Of a Certain Age

I discover the I within—

dance to my  own melody

My feet trace the edges 

of the past 

I touch 

familiar ground

stare at exiled places

Time collapses

and I stand before

open memory

A divinis

they stand 

in silence

wait

with bowed heads

until the music 

calls for voices

space opens

and they enter

Open vs Loose Words

my father loved words

their sounds when spoken

how they looked on a page

when he wrote a note

one letter sliding into the next—

each word, he said, plays a role

he knew arcane words, simple

words and those with complex

family histories and pedigrees—

he said to find the apt word

you need to soul search

words, he said, tell the truth

but sometimes people choose

words as a way to alter

or masquerade the truth 

when a politician says  

some people 

live with food insecurity

we mean that they

know how hunger tastes

to say food insecurity

camouflages the truth 

with loose words—

Open-Ended

     tomorrow the meteorologists predict snow,

     snow that turns into sleet and ice—

     before it ends unexpected events

     will happen and lives may change

     uncertainty follows behind us

     dragging stories 

     along with endings

     we can’t imagine

     we live in this moment

     we create our lives 

     from single moments

      single moments

      create our lives