Tag: violence

Afraid Our Words Will Not Be Heard

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…And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
~Audre Lorde from “A Litany for Survival”

We are all here so briefly, just trying to survive.

Although designed to live forever,
we are fallen,
running the clock out as long as we can.

Just one day more, we say. Give us just one more.

From the first, there has been struggle –
the pain of our birth, the cry of our laboring mother,
then feeding and protection of our children,
keeping them safe from the bombs of war
and the ravages of disease,
followed by weakening of our frail aging bodies.

If there is a reason for all this (and there is):
life’s struggles redeem us.

Heaven knows,
each life means something to God,
each death echoes His sorrow.

We fear we fail to make a difference
in such a short time.
So we speak.
Hear our voices.
Just one day more, Lord.
Please – one day more.

Tomorrow we’ll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn
One more day
One day more…
~from Les Miserable

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A-Sighing and A-Sobbing

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“Who killed Cock Robin?” “I,” said the Sparrow,
“With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin.”
“Who saw him die?” “I,” said the Fly,
“With my little eye, I saw him die.”
“Who caught his blood?” “I,” said the Fish,
“With my little dish, I caught his blood.”
“Who’ll make the shroud?” “I,” said the Beetle,
“With my thread and needle, I’ll make the shroud.”
“Who’ll dig his grave?” “I,” said the Owl,
“With my pick and shovel, I’ll dig his grave.”
“Who’ll be the parson?” “I,” said the Rook,
“With my little book, I’ll be the parson.”
“Who’ll be the clerk?” “I,” said the Lark,
“If it’s not in the dark, I’ll be the clerk.”
“Who’ll carry the link?” “I,” said the Linnet,
“I’ll fetch it in a minute, I’ll carry the link.”
“Who’ll be chief mourner?” “I,” said the Dove,
“I mourn for my love, I’ll be chief mourner.”
“Who’ll carry the coffin?” “I,” said the Kite,
“If it’s not through the night, I’ll carry the coffin.”
“Who’ll bear the pall?” “We,” said the Wren,
“Both the cock and the hen, we’ll bear the pall.”
“Who’ll sing a psalm?” “I,” said the Thrush,
“As she sat on a bush, I’ll sing a psalm.”
“Who’ll toll the bell?” “I,” said the bull,
“Because I can pull, I’ll toll the bell.”
All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin.
~Anonymous “Who Killed Cock Robin”

photo by Kate Steensma of Steensma Creamery
photo by Harry Rodenberger

Sighing and sobbing…

The times we live in now are surreal as this dark nursery tale rhyme about the killing of a robin by a smaller bird.

What do we do with the sparrow’s proud confession in the first stanza? Whatever happened to instigate such destructive violence?
Self-defense? Vengeance? Accident? Just for sport?
Or simple random cruelty?

Such boasting about a killing makes about as much sense as our being witness to the overt destruction of the rule of law taking place right under our noses in the U.S.

Hear the bell toll.
We are each diminished as citizens.
Let the mourning begin.
It is our own death we grieve…

Medieval Stained Glass of a robin shot by an arrow in Buckland Rectory, Gloucester, UK

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For Whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee…
~John Donne from “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

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We Will Remember Them

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
~Lawrence Binyon from “For the Fallen” (1914)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who died
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
~John McCrae “In Flanders Fields”

When you go home tell them of us and say –
“For your tomorrow we gave our today”
~John Maxwell Edmonds from “The Kohima Epitaph” 

November pierces with its bleak remembrance
Of all the bitterness and waste of war.
Our silence tries but fails to make a semblance
Of that lost peace they thought worth fighting for.
Our silence seethes instead with wraiths and whispers,
And all the restless rumour of new wars,
The shells are falling all around our vespers,
No moment is unscarred, there is no pause,
In every instant bloodied innocence
Falls to the weary earth ,and whilst we stand
Quiescence ends again in acquiescence,
And Abel’s blood still cries in every land
One silence only might redeem that blood
Only the silence of a dying God.
~Malcolm Guite “Silence: a Sonnet for Remembrance Day”

To our military veterans here and abroad –
in deep appreciation and gratitude for the freedoms
you have defended on behalf of us all.

No one is left untouched and unscarred in the bitterness of war:
those of you who died in service,
those of you wounded in service,
those of you who bore visible and invisible scars all your lives.

You are heroes to the cause of freedom.

As G.K. Chesterton said,
“Courage is a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”

My father was one of the fortunate ones who came home, returning to a quiet life of farming and teaching after three years serving in the Pacific with the Marines Corp from 1942 to 1945. Hundreds of thousands of his colleagues didn’t come home, dying on beaches and battlefields. Tens of thousands more came home forever marked, through physical or psychological injury, by the experience of war and witness of death and mayhem all around them.

In my medical training in the 1970’s, I cared for veterans hospitalized for mental health care after serving in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I witnessed for myself the sacrifices of these soldiers, and the limits of our therapies.

No matter how one views wars our nation has fought and may be obligated to fight in the future, we must support and care for the men and women who have made, on our behalf, the commitment to be on the front line for freedom’s sake.

Even our God died so we could stop fighting each other (and Him). What a waste we have not stopped to listen and understand His sacrifice enough to finally lay down our weapons against one another forever.

Support for wounded veterans:

Disabled Veterans National Foundation

Wounded Warrior Project

The Oldest Tree

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Lately, when I awake desolate
feeling half-swamped
by runaway currents I name—
dread, for my children, and theirs,
and this planet—I backstroke
through time to rest my palms
against the delicate skin
of the gingko tree, the one
and only, in my home town.
Rooted in siltish sand,
come autumn, it flaunted
10,000 golden fans:
a waving descendant my uncle said,
of the oldest tree
to inhabit the earth. Memory
replays three fluting sighs
of a mourning dove, high in the canopy,
that vast fretwork alive again
with rustling endearments—yet
ghostly, too, as his unseen hand
almost rocks my skiff of a self.
~Laurie Klein “Lately, when I awake desolate”

So many reasons to awake in the night,
eyes wide open, searching the dark seas of trouble
for some sign of hope
for calm and peace in this stormy world.

Rocked to sleep again, I float among abundant
golden gingko leaves, each waving like a sail in the breeze,
before it tumbles, swirling, to the ground, forming
deeply cushioned and comforting pools of yellow.

Navigating these brutal times, desperate to
anchor within some safer harbor – I treasure
the old ginkgo as it reaches over each cherished child
with its golden cloak of love and protection.

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Edges So Sharp

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The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one 
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something undone.

Today’s edges
are so sharp

they might cut
anything that moved.

The way a lost
word

will come back
unbidden.

You’re not interested
in it now,

only
in knowing
where it’s been.
~Rae Armantrout from “Unbidden”

I wish for you the blessing
of a room where strangers sit
breathing unashamed
into a chosen silence

Not the gasping breath
of travelers on a crowded plane
or the tenuous wheeze
of the waiting room

May you know the power
of those who have decided
to submit to the silence
to enter the mystery
be consumed by it
and emerge transformed

May you belong among those
who inhale the stillness
as if it is keeping us
because it is
keeping us alive
~Bethany Lee, “To Enter the Mystery” from Etude for Belonging: poems for practicing courage and hope

The grace of God means something like:
Here is your life.
You might never have been, but you are…
Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid.
I am with you.
~Frederick Buechner in “Wishful Thinking and later” in Beyond Words

Twenty three years ago,
a day started with bright sun above
and ended in tears and bloodshed below.

This is a day for recollection;
we live out remembrance of
the torrential red that flowed that day;

Two decades later, far-away streets still course
with the blood of innocents.

What have we learned from all this?

That terrible day’s edges were so sharp
we all bled and still bear the scars.

So do not be afraid: we are able to still breathe and weep.

A Mind Blurred

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For all
the pain

passed down
the genes

or latent
in the very grain

of being;
for the lordless

mornings,
the smear

of spirit
words intuit

and inter;
for all

the nightfall
neverness

inking
into me

even now,
my prayer

is that a mind
blurred

by anxiety
or despair

might find
here

a trace
of peace.
~Christian Wiman “Prayer” from Once in the West

We all have times when nothing makes sense. The mind blurs with stress or fear or a sense of unreality – all focus is lost and the world becomes simultaneously fuzzy and prickly.

If that happens here in these pages, through these words and photos I share, it is because I need reminding: things often don’t make sense to me when tragedy, pain and suffering happen to people on the other side of the earth, or just down the road from here, or to those I love.

Or to me.

It still makes sense to God. He has clear vision I will never have.

He doesn’t make bad things happen; He grieves it too.
He is the focus when all else is blurry.

God calls to us out of the haze that obscures. Only then peace begins.

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Under the Sheen

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So many want to be lifted by song and dancing,
and this morning it is easy to understand.
I write in the sound of chirping birds hidden
in the almond trees, the almonds still green
and thriving in the foliage. Up the street,
a man is hammering to make a new house as doves
continue their cooing forever. Bees humming
and high above that a brilliant clear sky.
The roses are blooming and I smell the sweetness.
Everything desirable is here already in abundance.
And the sea. The dark thing is hardly visible
in the leaves, under the sheen. We sleep easily.
So I bring no sad stories to warn the heart.
All the flowers are adult this year. The good
world gives and the white doves praise all of it.
~Linda Gregg, “A Dark Thing Inside the Day” from The Sacraments of Desire

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray–
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch–crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;–
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
~George MacDonald from Diary of an Old Soul

My cracks seem to expand with age:
do they not heal as quickly
or am I simply more brittle than before?

I know how my eyes leak over the beauty of the morning,
my heart feels more porous
then world events break me to bleeding.

Yet the Light pours in the cracks
to illuminate wounds old and new.
Let the world know, let the world know,
after a hurt comes healing.

May I become the perfect offering.

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The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Ah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen from “Anthem”

In the Best Possible Way

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Let us go forward quietly,
forever making for the light,
and lifting up our hearts
in the knowledge that we are as others are
(and that others are as we are),
and that it is right to love one another
in the best possible way – believing all things,
hoping for all things,
and enduring all things. 
~Vincent Van Gogh from “Letters to Theo”

We like to blame our DNA for our tribal nature, to justify setting ourselves apart from the “other.” We tend to be discontent with whatever we are given — but that belief is exactly how humanity’s troubles began.

Every election and convention season only intensifies our sense of “otherness”, further putting wedges between us, driving us apart and further into the darkness.

We are slaves to divisiveness: even worshiping it in the name of “becoming great again”, emphasizing our own “truth” in the name of “unity.”

I simply can’t listen to it.
There is so much anger in the voices of our self-appointed “leaders.”

I want to know it is still possible to love each other in all our differences in the best possible way, with quiet endurance and hope. No shouting, no shootings, no need for a cascade of dropping balloons, and no ridiculous rancorous rhetoric.

We are as others are — others are as we are — denying it is folly. Believing it is the beginning of a selfless love for the “other”, something God did intend for our DNA, as His children who are no longer animals.

Indeed, God Himself became the “Other” living among us to show us just how it can be done.

It’s in every one of us. Now we must make it so.

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A Fallen World

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On the second day of fog, she goes to meet it

sits on the broad root of a broken down
apple tree, remembers being a child
in such fog, searching for fairy houses.
She hears movement in the grass,
keeps very still while the veil of haze
rises to treetops bronzed
by the burn of the sun. Slowly
horses and deer appear all around her,
they graze close together,
nosing fallen apples, until she forgets
this is still a fallen world.
~Lonnie Hull DuPont, “On the Second Day of Fog” from She Calls the Moon by Its Name 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~Wendell Berry “The Peace of Wild Things“

When our grandchildren come to visit,
I watch as yet another generation rediscovers the mystery of
what we know about the joys and sorrows
of this fallen but redeemed world.

I am reminded there is light beyond the fearsome darkness,
there is peace amid the chaos,
there is a smile behind the tears,
there is stillness within the noisiness
there is rest despite the restlessness,
there is grace – ah, there is grace
as inevitably the old gives way to the new.

And Through Eternity: Facing the Storm

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A front of thunderstorms had sought you out.
It vowed to run a diabolical
black line through all that you were sure about—
the ordinary, sane, the sensible.
You raced to get the loose stuff off the lawn,
with purpose rearranged and stacked the chairs,
relieved, almost, when the phenomenon
of gray-green storm clouds simplified your cares.
And though it couldn’t miss, it kind of did.
Darkness at noon gave way to sun at one.
Catastrophe and doom had been short-lived.
Embarrassed that your fears were overblown,
you faced your mundane day-to-day concerns,
vaguely upset that normalcy returns.
~Robert Crawford “Squall”

Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions,
beneath our religion or lack of it,
we are all vulnerable both to the storm without
and to the storm within.
~Frederick Buechner – from Telling the Truth

I watch the storm fronts roll in, threatening my outside and inside: heavy damaging winds, thunder and lightning, torrential unpredictable rains, mudslides, horrible forest fires destroying what is familiar and routine.

Inside my own head, the storm clouds of news headlines overpower day-to-day mundane concerns: devastating wars and violence, crime and protests, homelessness, rampant starvation and disease, man’s ongoing inhumanity to man.

I want to hide under a rock until the storms inside and outside blow over.

In the midst of the tempest — while wars rage on the planet, while a bitter election season is underway — a miracle may be wrought.
Brilliant light exposes how heaven weeps from heavy clouds. A rainbow touches the earth in holy promise.

God assures His people: this storm too will pass, even the storms of our own making. Darkness is overcome by Light.

Painting of snowy Cascades by John Hoyte

He stilled the storm to a whisper;
    the waves of the sea were hushed.
They were glad when it grew calm,
    and he guided them to their desired haven.
Psalm 107:29-30

This Lenten season I reflect on the words of the 19th century southern spiritual hymn “What Wondrous Love is This”