From the Belly of Hell Cried I.

I want to spew out curses honest as Peter's betrayal - overflow of this black-burnt heart spat through unclean lips - four-letter nails cutting holy flesh. Screaming

this body You gave,

why, oh Potter?

Screaming hatred at the malformed clay that cages my soul - screaming hatred at me - screaming hatred at You. Screaming

how long, how long, how long

I want to (oh God, I don't want to)

wallow in

my infantile selfishness,

my petulant greed,

my suffocating shame

my

I want to (oh God, I don't want to)

close my eyes against the tides

that always 

pull me back 

to the starting line

and (let me (please don't let me))

drown.

I had a dream

I spent everything I had, kicking out against thick waters. So close

to safety, my fingers clutching the dock's splintered edge. But

my arms were far too weak to carry my own weight. And

a creature, dark and hungry, was swimming up from the depths.

...

[Epilogue]
? ? later

When the morning came,

it came with sunlight

weeping mercy.

If Only We Were Squirrels, & Could Sleep These Months Away.

Mid-October in Southern Georgia, a chill has finally taken to the air. I pull my jacket tighter, and welcome it. I welcome the season of thick socks and sweaters, of ear-warming beanies and noose-tight scarves. I welcome the change.

Which is a rarity, for me--I, who, most days, am such a resistor of change in any form. I , who, at the first sign of the season's turning, would often much rather stock up my goods, bury myself in a cave's warm belly, and drift into the sweet bliss of hibernation, than wait out the months among a world made bitter and barren with cold.

But there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven*, and hibernation has never been an option. When our time to be born is exchanged for our time to die, when our time to plant is exchanged for our time to uproot, when our time to search is exchanged for our time to give up, when our time to keep is exchanged for our time to throw away--these are the seasons our eyes strain for color, but are filled instead with only winter's gray.

What we are always forgetting is--how quickly the seasons shift. How soon the pain will pass--how inevitably the frost will melt--how marvelously those colors will be born again--and how deeply we will breathe in, that new and infinite expanse.

*Ecclesiastes 3:1.

When Dying is Gain.

The bitter, holy night that I surrendered, it felt like loss. Dreams, slaughtered on the altar.

(There was no angel to stop me, and all around the thornbushes were bare.)

I did not stay to watch the blood collect in pools, did not wait for it to curdle in the heat of the coming day. Though, when I turned away, that knife-twist of pain--the final heart-spasm of mourning.

(Having not-quite forgotten, yet not-quite the ability to believe: I never give anything to my God that He does not return a thousand times over.)

After years of holding on, it took only a moment to let go. And from that dead seed I buried, in awe I watched a garden grow.

The Sadness That Didn't Belong to Me.

Alone in the kitchen at half-past ten, I was crying out my eyes, the tears long past control, when the thought came piercing through--

I wish I could take all their pain. Bear it myself so they wouldn't have to. So they wouldn't have to.

And then His voice, so quickly after--the clear, deep stroke of thunder following lightning's flash--

I already did.

My heart that night was the heart of the Father. The anguish I felt for the ones I loved, His anguish. And how much more He must feel--to have borne the pain of our sins on His body on the tree, so we wouldn't have to--and then to watch as we reject that gift daily, to walk in the curse instead of freedom, to walk in death instead of victory. I believe He watches, and weeps, with a heart infinitely more broken than mine as He calls--

I took all your pain. Bore it Myself so you wouldn't have to. So you wouldn't have to.