The Dance

There is a star, beckoning from the cold, dark sky. It is brilliant, piercing, insistent upon shining.
* * * * * * * *
Sitting in the corner of the bar, I can see the man I married and am divorcing. The fear washes over me, courses through me. I cannot do this....I cannot sit here....I cannot move.

Of course, this is not possible. One must move or one must be still. One cannot do or be both still or in motion. Frozen. In this dark corner, buffered by the table, I ponder these things in my heart. I want to experience the music; I want to be unafraid.

The irony of this evening is inescapable. This man I married introduced me to this music, these musicians, sang these songs for me. I was safe, so safe, so secure in love. His first words to me, We are going to dance. . . . They resonated. I imagined our life as a dance, swaying, moving forward, backward, together.

He was beautiful. Magic flowed from his fingertips. I wept when he touched me. Sweet release. Sweet acceptance. His gaze melted my resistance to warmth and light.

Surely, God loved me because He sent me this man.

Things change. What changed I cannot say. I believe it was the way he looked at me. One day, it was different, distant, far away as the star but in a different corner of the sky. We stopped dancing.

* * * * * * * *

I am afraid to move but the music surrounds me, at once a loving embrace and a mother bird shoving her baby from the nest. A broad-shouldered man takes my hand and leads me to the crowded dance floor. It seems odd, as if someone else is experiencing this evening and I am watching from the corner, or the ceiling even, as if I am not in my body. He can't dance but his joy is inescapable. He is like a child, excited and un-self-conscious. He is tall and strong and there is a moment where I feel safe. The saxophone is just above me. The faces of the musicians are brightly lit, they glow as suns. I raise my hands, my hips sway in praise. I am here, present, in this moment, in this body.

The fear is swallowed up by the joyful noise. I walk outside alone and it is raining, cloudy. The star is there; even when I cannot see, the star is insistent upon shining. This I know: Surely, God loves me for He sent me this moment.

Dance of the Snowflakes

Jeremiah 31:13English Standard Version (ESV)

13 Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
    and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy;
    I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

Winter

How I dread the winter, the darkness, the cold in the bones.

It was not always thus. I loved the gray days, the nights of wood stoves, the intimacy. Winter was safe. The smoke curled to the ground and the world was small.

Fear changes things.

The sharp edge of fear slices through the day and into the veil, a veil we do not wish to see beyond, the dark we do not wish to know exists. Once we know that fear, we are never the same.

I struggle to remind myself that God is bigger than the fear.

Love, trust, betrayal, fear -- love must be bigger. It must be. Surely it must be.

Photo by Denise Coalson taken from Ivy Green Church, Surry County, North Carolina

On Dying Young

Tutankhamen
King Tut
Boy King
Gilded Sepulcher
Silver Sarcophagus
Slender Corpse
Wrapped in White
Mask of Gold
Golden Grief
Grief so Old
Precious, precious, grief
carved into walls
Stone walls
Walls and walls and walls
Vaulted ceilings of grief
Not enough.
They are not enough
Not thick enough, strong enough,
high enough--to hold so much
emptiness,
to confine
such a hungry god

Guide Us

I want to believe in something beautiful tonight. I want to believe that love lasts. Forever. Forever and ever. I just want to believe it exists, that it is possible to be selfless. I want to believe that God really does hold the whole world in His hands. I want to believe that life can be beautiful and just. I want to believe in grace, the abundance of grace. Faith. Silver. Hope. Gold. Charity. White robes. Incense. Frankincense. Royal beauty.

Moor and mountain. Moonlight on the moor. Morning on the mountain. Morning. I want to believe in the morning star.

I want to believe in the better angels, our better angels. Angels we have heard on high. Angels among us. With us, with us.

But bitter perfume fills the air. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying.

But, please, no more myrrh. Not now. Not tonight.

Prayer and praising, all men raising. Raise us. Let us rise. Let us see the light. Overlook the blindness, hide our blindness, blind us so that all we see is light.

Guide us to the perfect light.

Every Fall

The brittle leave are clacking, clattering, chattering, speaking to one another of snow. They speak quickly, urged by the north wind, scurrying to finish their chores. Their conversation ebbs and flows, rising on the wind gusts.
Their words are the same as last year.They are the same every year. From gold-green to gold to the color of earth, until finally they become the earth, sleeping through the winter.

* * * * * *

The earth is damp and fragrant, soft and forgiving. The color of the fallen leaves blends into a mosaic on the ground. Yes, the very ground is as if Monet had chosen each piece, posed each leaf in a grand masterpiece.

 * * * * * *

It is good.

Photo by Sue Ann Seel

Widow's Walk

My friend is a widow.

The word is so timeless.

Widow. Widowed. Widow's Walk.

Her husband loved her unconditionally, as she loved him without reservation or limit. She misses him without reservation or limit. More than without limits. She misses him like the astronaut misses earth, no, no, more than that. . . . She misses him like Sunday morning coming down.

Another friend walks toward widowhood. She awakens each morning to the anticipation of not knowing. Her husband has been fighting to live for so long, and he has lived. They have made trips, had company, had arguments, had quiet moments that curled into sleep. She fears for him, fears for herself. Will I be okay? she asks because she is not okay now.

I know that both my friends will be okay, are okay, even through their uncertainty. I know their core. I know they are practical beyond philosophy and loss. They understand the sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, the need to make breakfast, the need to change the oil in the car. They will emerge from the Valley of the Shadow, and they will be changed, forever changed.

In a twinkling, all is changed.

From the widow's walk, you cannot see forever, but you can see the horizon, and there is always something beyond.

Painting, "Widow's Walk," by Rob Gonsalves

Sipping Coffee

The world had shifted on its axis and it had become fall. All was falling; the leaves, the sky, our spirits. We went to the truck stop for chicken and gravy, biscuits and companionship. It was a Sunday tradition.

The windows were steamy. The giant percolators pumped like a stainless steel heart. The world outside had become gray and cold, forbidding. Inside, the warmth was palpable. It filled our stomachs, fed our souls. We were content.

I swiped my sleeve on the window and peered into the drizzle. About forty yards away, a soldier was walking beside the highway. The trees behind him were gray, their branches one continuous motion, as if children holding hands and swaying on the playground. The asphalt was gray, fading into the gray ground. He was gray, almost indistinguishable from the landscape except for his walk. Quickly, evenly, he strode, as if with purpose, as if he had a destination in mind, as if the rain did not hinder him. The warm room disappeared. It was as if my spirit joined  him, as if I had left the white coffee mug with my hands wrapped around it.  I felt his legs, strong and tired; I felt the rain, soft and cold on his face.

He was quiet, solidly, determinedly quiet. He was so quiet it would have taken a drill sergeant's order to make him find words. It was a quiet from the core of the earth, from time itself, from all time. There was a rhythm to his loneliness.  He marched to a far-off cadence.  There were days, I thought I heard it, in the distance, just barely audible -- the command to rise, to march, to rise, to march.

I sipped my coffee slowly, looked around. No one else had seen the soldier. The windows were still steamed over and even the portal I had wiped dry was once more obscured. It was as if this soldier never existed. But I know he did. I felt his longing in every cell of my being. I have spent a lifetime following this soldier, sending up prayers for him, listening for the cadence, sipping coffee.