My Forgotten Child, Dzhokhar (As I Grieve the Boston Marathon Bombing)

Sun-soaking in breezes like sips of fresh water,

hot light warms my hair and casts a halo glow on my crown,

dazzles my shaded eyes searching for light

through the winking gaps of vines grasping

the sky, which grasps nothing, but holds

everything underneath its blanket of wonder,

shelters the sinners and saints and sovereigns all the same,

brightly beams at me, and you, and the young boy in Boston

who bombed the marathon runners, mothers and fathers

and babies all trying to make sense of a race to nowhere,

a sprint that loops us 'round to the same ruminations:

Why pain? Why struggle?

Why hate, harm? What need for hope?

Why blood and blasted limbs, why a bastard child

of humanity to turn us, again, against each other?

Because we fear to see that his scars

are ours, on our own bodies and souls -

ours, because we all have assaulted one another with lack of love.

The threat of walking into a crowd of strangers

is less than the death that comes of never being known.

The threat to humankind that comes of crucifying a Chechen

in the name of public safety and justice

is greater than the risk of calling him our son,

cradling him in care, gently stroking his hair in sunlight,

holding him with branch arms that bring his

brightness to blossom, allow us to glimpse

his glory under gory wounds, and offer him up

into the expansive sky-love

that will rain down refreshment of forgiveness,

will remind us that no one is simply a spectator,

that "Victim" names each and every forgotten child.

.

erythros

So much blood has spilled...so much deep

red warm thick blood has seeped through

skin and delicate veins and has coalesced

in pools on floors   in forests   on hands -

touched tongues with taste of cold metal.

Iron forged in bellies of distant stars, dynamic

cosmic ovens, swims in the hemoglobin

of each human being, membrane body.

erythros: red.
kytos: hollow.

Only less than 200 years ago did we peer

closely enough to see the individual 

biconcave discs with no nucleus, a hollow

center, and scarlet miasma searing through.

Each second, 2.4 million new blood cells

are birthed in you. 60 million died
in the second world war and in Rwanda, 800,000

in only 100 days. No one knows how

many were killed in the Crusades, or

for countless unimaginable reasons.

20-30 trillion corpuscles navigate the thin

channels that traverse organs and tissue in

the field of your body. They carry the exhale

of trees to each part; they speed so that

each minute the cells cover the meandering

path three times. Tiny membrane-bodies that

coagulate into miniature rivers and streams ripple

and teem with your Life, are journeying those

halls of your mysteriously confined figure.

We forget that we bleed the same color, that

erythros-red is what we all are on the inside,

and that each cell is hollow at the center,

save for that mesmerizing sphere of light

that glows on every level, in each smaller

piece that comes together to form something

greater.

Madonna

I cradle her softly in my memory of Friday morning, as she stood bravely, silently, then spoke with a steady, even tone into the still room held captive. She was thirteen. Dark, dark, dark: her hair, her eyes, the teeming ripples of thought under her smooth, opaque surface as she brushed curls from her eyelashes and prepared to respond as the Truth that found her. Although she trembled, she gracefully gave in to the pull of power greater than herself and, in the surrender, spoke from a place of wide-eyed awareness, of keen and inconsolable connection to everything.

"She held these things and pondered them in her heart," the ancient book says. She received, and felt, and broke, and cried as her children hung on beams that ripped the fragile human fabric. She saw, she heard, she touched the scars and suffering, and let it all rush into the core of complacency's comfort. She was told she was to embody the divine nature of matter, and she, in her willing wonder, said "yes." Mary, who we call Mother of God, was probably about thirteen years old. 

This young woman who stood before me hears gunshots, sees drug deals, feels unkind words like pinches on the soul, knows the schisms between what is actual, what is real and what is true. She declares her life "indescribable," and in hearing in her witness the confusing clash of industry, violence, apathy and despair, you know it is so. The loss of what is precious pours from her being; each syllable screams that we have forgotten who we are meant to be. She looks at it all. She has made of herself a sacred vessel amid mundane terror, a voice of resistance to the wrong that met her with many faces of our world.

My soul glorifies the Divine,
my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.
God looks on the lowliness of his servant;
henceforth, all ages will call me blessed.
The Almighty works marvels for me.
Holy is God's name!
There is mercy from age to age
on those who fear God,
God puts forth his arm in strength,
scattering the proud-hearted;
casts the mighty from their thrones,
raises the lowly, fills the starving with good things,
sends the rich away empty.
God protects...his servant,
remembering his mercy,
the mercy promised to Sarah and Abraham 
and their descendents forever.

Her dark was rich and dimensional, glittering with sparks of something greater. In her wounded words glimmered the light of restoration. She closed by saying, "Someday, someone will care," and the way she carried those words to the ringing ears of those gathered suggested nothing less than that she was the one she had been waiting for, and still didn't know it. She stood vulnerably, emptied of the pain she held gingerly with fingers that stroked the wailing woe of isolation. She released the carelessness she could not control and chose to adorn herself in the strength of what she could: her willingness to receive. In holding it all, she was holding the world together for all of us. The stark, simple beauty of her love-act struck each of our hearts.

Eternity

Wedding anniversary gift to my husband - November 27th, 2012

ETERNITY

Someday, long after you and I have died, our bodies will burst

into a supernova so vast it envelops everything

we have ever touched, and reaches beyond

the farthest ring of our solar system.

At times, when I look in your eyes, I feel the brilliant boom

of the beginning,

The Beginning, the wonder of all

that came before and after the first moment

of Time, the spontaneous

unfolding of Space, the Light

of new stars.

Maybe I feel this because you and I, our bodies, were once

in the same arm of a galaxy, extending outward, touching dark.

Perhaps we were nestled in an intimate part

of the dust whorl that condensed to become Earth.

We could have swam in the same primordial sea before the first creature

with eyes had Seen.

There is a chance we were bark of the same tree

                that a deer nibbled

                                that a long-ago hunter arrowed, who

                                                became the ancestor of all living people.

Is that why I feel I am in the perfect place

when I lay my head on your heart?

Is that why my hand fits yours

like, somehow, our molecules all fit

just the right way to give life?

Is that why I see you as the teaching

of all I have known in my short life,

the path I am to walk, the reminder of who

I am at the root?

Is that why, to you, I say yes

forever?

September 6th, 2012

There seems to hang a film of light in the early morning air of this September 6th, a thin veil of particles suspended in the breezeless humidity. As if emanated by the tall, old trees I pass that wait to loose their autumn splendor once again, the soft gold halo enfolds a fresh layer of reality, the realm of what is to be: the coming day, the coming season, the just-beyond. The trees hold the tension, do not haste to what they must know, in some sense that supercedes my limits of understanding, is coming - the time of brilliant color, then release. Rather, they breathe from where they are to where they are to where they are, ever-present and ever-faithful (apart from any self-righteous faith to which we humans grasp) and ever-becoming, without hindsight or forethought.

As my feet step one in front of the other, walking under a canopy of oaks and maples, passing the dogwoods and crab-apple trees, their stillnes brings me to pause. On the precipice of my myopic vision, I see in the distance - or dream I see, in the muggy heat - a gentle shimmering, as if an unfelt breeze has disturbed the portal to a reality imminently close, but in a direction fatally foreign to me. The grainy apparition is clouded by the sheer glow of this pink day; I blink, and it is still there, but no clearer. I glance around as if the wet pavement or rows of houses could offer new perspective, to no avail. The trees are soundless. Though their unseen roots are gulping water from last night's rain and the pores of their delicate leaves are pouring pure oxygen into my lungs - although they exist undeniably in my physical presence - they also, I feel in the tingling quiet, live in a place to which I have rarely, if ever, been.

Oh, to have that deep knowledge of a life lived in an upward direction, then immobile, yet omnipresent; to regard this moment, as I stand in their wake, as parallel to the time when families in the 1940's were moving into these new homes, or when surrounded by cool forest in all directions before Europeans came, or when first breaking through the hard shell of a seed to the rich, damp earth; to live in this world and another, and to perhaps know no distinction between them; oh, to radiate light, and a constant invitation to pay attention to the possible hanging thickly in the still air of this and every morning. I continue walking my linear path, thirsty for the gift of submission to now, now, now.

Later, the pink morning yields to blue; the branches sway gently overhead as I sit on my porch. The sunlight is clear and unfiltered, distinct and bright. A breeze caresses my cheek and moves my hair. The trees seem to speak, This is our world, too. 

- Written 9/6/2012

Watercolor

I drag this line, that line across the boundaries
of shape emerging from the brushstroke of learning
to be open, and awakened, and new.
Sharp, dark edge - I want definition, for once,
a harsh divide, a beginning and end,
somewhere to stand and assert, "I know what I am."

But color doesn't move like that, he says,
only the thought patterns of the mental plane,
or the unnatural paths people have carved
into the sides of perfect hills,
or anything we suppose we can control.

At times, I see the world as a contrast between
the linear vision of all the ideas humanity has collected
in the vast, expansive plane of consciousness
that, nevertheless, has its limits,

and all we can never understand, hidden between
lines that never travel in any unwinding way,
but flow in and out of Being and Nothingness
and lead us to a path that pulls us farther and farther
away from our Selves, into the heart of Everything.

In this way, each movement is a poem.
Each hue is a song.
Each dip into water
becomes a drink of release.
Each touch of brush to paper
asks less and less of me,
and more and more of something greater.
Maybe the colors of my heart will always bleed
into everything, will always seep outward
to touch the edges, will absorb
the rainbow of the immensity
I artlessly embrace.

Perhaps this is how we learn
to dance in liminal space.
This is how one might, without trying,
find veridian green in a sunset
and magenta in her heart.
This is how, within and without,
the Dark makes the Light.

At Home

This article was written in May 2011. Although I no longer work at CrossRoads Ministry, I am still connected to the work facilitated there. I am also still connected to my friends at St. Vincent de Paul.


I stand in a line of huddled bodies, taking in sights and smells that have become familiar. I catch the eye of a stranger or two and smile – “How are you?” I ask. “Hello.” The chatter of friends murmurs amidst the clang of pots and pans from the kitchen. I scan the rafters, the stained glass windows, the tables with vases of bright flowers. We fall silent and remove our hats as a prayer is offered, blessing the food we are about to share, and declare “Amen!” together as the line begins to slowly file along. Those who have come to eat – old and young people of all shapes and colors and creeds – resume their talk and make their way through the lunch bar. I find an ease in this space. I am at St. Vincent de Paul’s Open Hand Kitchen. Here, once again, I know I will find good food that nourishes me and good friends who enrich my spirit. Here, I will break bread with strangers and friends…and, more often than not, I will break open my heart in profound ways. Here, I will discover people who are on a journey, who I can connect with and learn from. Here, I find wondrous paradox in the faces and stories of those I meet. Here, I have found a home.

I remember when I first came to eat lunch here at the Open Hand Kitchen, when I felt apprehensive and unsure walking into a soup kitchen to eat a meal with strangers. Such apprehensions are now far, far gone. I search the tables for an empty seat, shouldering my backpack and carrying a tray loaded with lunch. As I settle into a seat across from a new face, it feels like second nature to strike up a conversation, always of mundane beginnings – “Hi, I’m Mandy. How is your day? My, it sure is cold!” – that oftentimes flows to remarkable revelations.

It was on a retreat at CrossRoads Minstry, an outreach of St. William church, that I was first invited to spend time with the folks at St. Vincent de Paul. As a sophomore in high school, the thought of knowingly entering into the company of someone who might be homeless was foreign, and the idea of initiating a conversation with that person went against every notion of “common sense,” caution and culture. It was acceptable to volunteer, serving food to those lining up for a meal; my Catholic upbringing invited such “compassion.” Didn’t Jesus say to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty? At the time, I was more than secure with charity. I didn’t mind reaching out with plastic-gloved hands and a ladle, comforted by the barrier between me and “them,” sharing a smile, passing a tray and moving on to the next person in line. But walking down the street, I avoided the eyes of people who might ask me for some spare change. My life connected to theirs only to the extent that I was present to serve them. Otherwise, I would rather be safe than sorry. If I offered an opening, who knew what might be at risk.

What I found the summer of 2004 opened my eyes wide and shattered my selfish complacency. In a few short days of playing, laughing, sharing and loving, my life was utterly transformed. In the men at St. Vincent de Paul, I found true friends. I found vibrant human beings with complex stories, with families and hopes and struggles and fears. I met people who opened their lives and welcomed me when I felt most isolated and afraid. I found companions who cared about my life, who felt gifted by my mere presence, with whom I loved to spend time. The veil of dissimilarity slowly lifted, and instead of feeling anxious, I grew more excited each day as I walked up the steps to the metal cafeteria doors. I looked forward to seeing my friends again, people who the world labeled “homeless,” but who I now saw as much, much more. As I hugged Ricky and laughed with Russell, I finally understood how self-centered I had been to exclude these precious people from my life, and how desperately I needed them. In trying to live a safe and careful life, I had in fact been leading one of great harm, both to myself and others. These men revealed the deep, divine truth: that I was the one who was hungry for community and thirsty for connection, and they were the ones serving me. While it is holy, necessary work to attend to the needs of others, I had been missing the root: We are profoundly connected.  They didn’t need me to serve them lunch and then forget their faces; it wouldn’t help to pass them some money and move on; their lives would not be helped by my shallow, distant pity. These friends needed me to care, really care for them. And I needed to look into their eyes and see my self reflected in their being. I needed to wade in the depths of their stories to behold the God-light blazing at the core of their hearts. I needed to hear their songs of pain, of friendship, of failure, of love, because they are the same songs I am singing. I needed them to remind me that my life could so easily reflect theirs on the surface, and that although they look dissimilar, our life-threads are woven into the same tapestry, overlapping to form an image incomplete without one another.

If we take some time to discover it, our paths as human beings intersect in profound and remarkable ways. Mother Theresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” These magnificent men reminded me what we all so desperately need, and humbly showed me, in precious moments of care, how a world of peace can look.

Seven years later, I now work at CrossRoads Ministry and am privileged to bring retreat groups of high schoolers through the doors of the Open Hand Kitchen. I offer them the invitation I was offered those years ago: to have a conversation, and perhaps a radical conversion of heart. In these short visits throughout the year, I continue to find new friends and visit with old. I’ve met people who are urban and rural; those with Master’s degrees and those who only completed grade school; people who have owned restaurants and have driven trucks cross-country; those who fell on hard times and those who were born with mental illness; young people, old people, veterans, brothers, fathers, grandpas, professionals, students, addicts, musicians, extraverts, introverts, sports fans, men of faith…in short, I have met human beings. All come hungry to share a meal. Some stay for a while and move on to the next phase of their life journey; some continue to come back again and again. I keep coming back, too. In conversations with these homeless men, I know I will find refuge in our common struggles, needs, and dreams. In relationships with men who have no shelter to call their own, I find a safe haven for altering my life for the better. For me, St. Vincent de Paul offers sanctuary from a world that screams praises of division, of separateness, of self-centeredness, of complacency. These men are my teachers, and in each encounter, I learn a little more about what it means to love. They continue to make me kinder, more open, more compassionate, and ever more in awe of the profound responsibility we have to care deeply for one another.

As I look around the dining room, I see how a world of peace can be: a world much like this holy space, one in which even the most unlikely people sit at tables together, well-fed and cared-for, reminding each other of who we really are, and who we are meant to be. Here, I am at home.