It’s a rainy Easter morning. I didn’t sleep well. I got up early, to make breakfast. The house was full of the sound of an action movie, the light flaring against the living room walls like bomb flashes.
I went outside and sat on the patio in the dark. It was mild, misty and dark. One cicada was rasping from behind the wooden fence. I watched the sky grow lighter. It happened in slow degrees. The birds woke up, one by one.
I thought about Him, of course. I’d been thinking about Jesus all night, what it was like, His Passion, His death. I kept relaxing back into Him. Sometimes, when I'm with Jesus and thoughts come up, and I’m trying to explain them to Him or to me, Jesus stops my speaking by an outpouring of love. There's no point in trying to explain them; He knows far better than I all about them.
I’ve been reading a lot about the mystics, lately, wondering. I want to be able to give away something of value, to pass it on.
I keep ending up writing poetry, because I don’t have the patience for anything else. I want to reach right through to the heart of the matter and grab it, and possibly eat it. Heh.
March 31, 2013, published blog
The Sowing of Meanings
See the high birds! Is theirs the song
That dies among the wood-light
Wounding the listener with such bright arrows?
Or do they play in wheeling silences
Defining in the perfect sky
The bounds of (here below) our solitude,
Where spring has generated lights of green
To glow in clouds upon the sombre branches?
Ponds full of sky and stillnesses
What heavy summer songs still sleep
Under the tawny rushes at your brim?
More than a season will be born here, nature,
In your world of gravid mirrors!
The quiet air awaits one note,
One light, one ray and it will be the angels' spring:
One flash, one glance upon the shiny pond, and then
Asperges me! sweet wilderness, and lo! we are redeemed!
For, like a grain of fire
Smouldering in the heart of every living essence
God plants His undivided power --
Buries His thought too vast for worlds
In seed and root and blade and flower,
Until, in the amazing light of April,
Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,
Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret
Too terrible to bear.
Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees
Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament
And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,
While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,
Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.
And then, oh then the written image, schooled in sacrifice,
The deep united threeness printed in our being,
Shot by the brilliant syllable of such an intuition, turns within,
And plants that light far down into the heart of darkness and oblivion,
Dives after, and discovers flame.
-Thomas Merton
April 2, 2013 Journal
Last night, I went to bed. I was exhausted from the party. I lay there, my face pressed into the pillow, hearing the dryer tumbling and the murmur of sound through the closed door, rimmed with light. I was exhausted. I did not feel Jesus anywhere, and I just rested in that. I knew He was there. I did not have to feel it. I could be fully in the physical world and yet completely known and held and kept by Him.
I remembered that He was my eternal Lord and Beloved, the One that had held me and known me and loved me and delighted in me before I’d been born. I could rest in the physical world with perfect confidence.
Then a feeling of melancholy crept in a little, as I lay there, cradled in the bare heart of the present world. I thought, I am thirty five years old, aging, childless, barren, uneducated, divorced once, now a military wife living in this random town in this random state, alone in this messy room on a Monday night in April.
Then I felt Jesus' hand rest on my shoulder. He bent down. He whispered, Not alone.
And I thought something like, Oh my word! He is so invested in my knowing that He is with me!
Then later, I spoke to Jesus. The last few evenings had been quiet and I had rested in the sleepy quietness of our being together. I had let it be, still processing that momentous experience of going out onto the grass and remembering Jesus again as my eternal Beloved, and holding Him while His sadness filled Him.
It was a lot.
But last night, I longed to be with Him again, so I said, I want You… and then I dared to say His name, even. I said, I want You, Jesus, I want You. You bright and morning Star, I said, smiling.
And He said, Come here. Just come here, then. He said it with such easy, loving confidence.
I thought, okay… and so I simply took myself there. I stepped right into the room, and Jesus was standing in front of me, and I was all, whoa. Then I went straight into His arms. I wanted just to rest my head against His heart and listen and feel how He is alive.
Then I poured out love and adoration and delight to Jesus, and we thought about what to do. I was curious about the room, so I turned around and there seemed to be an opening behind me, where I had come through and I went to take a step there, but He put His arm around my waist and pulled me lovingly back, so I didn’t pursue that fully, but I felt that if I passed through there, I would simply be in the physical room- I had a glimpse of how that would happen, in a quite natural way. It also seemed to be a hallway there, and the hallway went somewhere else.
Then we talked a little bit more about these experiences. I expressed all my doubts, which are many- am I receiving these images in my mind? My heart? My spirit? My imagination? How am I seeing this? How do I know they are genuine? Why aren't they clear? Why do they waver so much? Is it possible for me to effect them negatively? How would I do that? How can I not do that?
Jesus told me that I must rest and trust Him and not try and determine in my own understanding how the Holy Spirit is leading me into and through these experiences, but to give myself over to Him wholly in trust. I must rest my whole self in the hands of the Holy Spirit and trust Jesus. (This is the Scripture for this paragraph. It is to make clear that the apostles had a profound privilege of seeing with their own eyes the fulfillment of prophesy in Scripture, which is far away and above what I have known, and to confirm in Scripture what He said to me at this point- that trusting the Holy Spirit is vital when receiving something from Him. This is not to say that we should not test the spirits; of course we must be obedient to the Scriptures and take that warning seriously. But when we are in the hands of the Holy Spirit who is glorifying Jesus in harmony with His Word, I have learned that it's crucial then to trust to the goodness and wisdom of God, because often we are taken outside of the box of our expectations.)
Jesus said that He knew everything He created in thought first, before He
brought it into being, and that while I was with Him, He enjoyed making a space
for me to try doing that. So I understood that this being with Him was like an organic, living thing which Jesus was leading me into, but which I was also
creating with Him, because Jesus wanted it to be that way- He wanted the
experience of what I was seeing to reflect or support or grow out of the
relationship that we had together.
In fact, it occurred to me that I was just learning to take baby steps in this kind of spiritual… way of being, like a child learning to walk, and not sure about balance and limits and weight, but learning these natural things by trying them, by participating, and also by trusting.
So then I thought, with freedom, what shall we do?
And I don’t know if it was Jesus or I, but suddenly, we were thinking of the sea and so I said is there one? Can there be one? And there was one- beyond the stream, there were some crumbling cliffs and a glimpse of a beach and shore line.
And I held back, I said, am I imagining this or is this a scene from a movie or a picture I’ve seen?- again, I questioned the experience, and Jesus said, have you seen that before?
And though it seemed familiar to me, I couldn’t say that I had ever seen that view before. It was its own view.
So I said, okay! And we went happily down the path, which was at first woodsy and then came to the cliff and we walked down it and He helped me over the hard parts and then I want running on ahead, and then I went back to Him, almost nervously- should I leave You behind? Did I hurt Your feelings? Should I stay by Your side and let You help me over the rocks?
But I felt only His overarching love, His gentle, steady presence. God is willing to be known, to be given and to be received- He makes Himself vulnerable. That is what it is like, to be present in love with Jesus. It’s like He holds Himself perfectly still, so He feels the slightest breath, the slightest breeze, the softest whispered the word, the speaking that has no words.
Jesus went out into the water and turned and I said, this is just like my story and He said, your story is just like Me and we thought that was funny, because it is too true. Those stories were the wrappings to hide Him in. He is the real thing.
I felt my fear of the ocean, so I hesitated and then I went running through the breakers and into His arms and we went out through the surf. I was carried, my arms trailing through the water.
We went out into the deep places, just off shore and the waves lifted and carried us. My love for Jesus was gentle as the water, but I was suddenly caught in the grip of so much love for Him I could not speak and or move.
When I could move, I looked at Jesus and His hair was soaking wet and His face was wet and His eyes were brilliant. I find it frequently shocking that Jesus loves me as much as I love Him. It seems like too much, and it offends me. I want to reject this extravagant love for the sake of His own dignity. But Jesus insists, so I accept, because I love Him.
In fact, it occurred to me that I was just learning to take baby steps in this kind of spiritual… way of being, like a child learning to walk, and not sure about balance and limits and weight, but learning these natural things by trying them, by participating, and also by trusting.
So then I thought, with freedom, what shall we do?
And I don’t know if it was Jesus or I, but suddenly, we were thinking of the sea and so I said is there one? Can there be one? And there was one- beyond the stream, there were some crumbling cliffs and a glimpse of a beach and shore line.
And I held back, I said, am I imagining this or is this a scene from a movie or a picture I’ve seen?- again, I questioned the experience, and Jesus said, have you seen that before?
And though it seemed familiar to me, I couldn’t say that I had ever seen that view before. It was its own view.
So I said, okay! And we went happily down the path, which was at first woodsy and then came to the cliff and we walked down it and He helped me over the hard parts and then I want running on ahead, and then I went back to Him, almost nervously- should I leave You behind? Did I hurt Your feelings? Should I stay by Your side and let You help me over the rocks?
But I felt only His overarching love, His gentle, steady presence. God is willing to be known, to be given and to be received- He makes Himself vulnerable. That is what it is like, to be present in love with Jesus. It’s like He holds Himself perfectly still, so He feels the slightest breath, the slightest breeze, the softest whispered the word, the speaking that has no words.
Jesus went out into the water and turned and I said, this is just like my story and He said, your story is just like Me and we thought that was funny, because it is too true. Those stories were the wrappings to hide Him in. He is the real thing.
I felt my fear of the ocean, so I hesitated and then I went running through the breakers and into His arms and we went out through the surf. I was carried, my arms trailing through the water.
We went out into the deep places, just off shore and the waves lifted and carried us. My love for Jesus was gentle as the water, but I was suddenly caught in the grip of so much love for Him I could not speak and or move.
When I could move, I looked at Jesus and His hair was soaking wet and His face was wet and His eyes were brilliant. I find it frequently shocking that Jesus loves me as much as I love Him. It seems like too much, and it offends me. I want to reject this extravagant love for the sake of His own dignity. But Jesus insists, so I accept, because I love Him.
April 3, 2013 Journal
So, again last night, I thought, I want to be with Jesus, and again He said, but without words, to simply come, just to come to Him.
And indeed, I did and it hit me, with this kind of awe- how simple it was, as though there were no division at all between the spiritual life and the physical life and-
Boom!
I was all, oh my goodness! That’s right, there isn’t. It’s both true at the same time.
Jesus was laughing, as though He loved me so much and I was so adorable and it pleased Him so much that I had made this connection.
For you are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, He reminded me, and I was all "Indeed! So true!"
And yet, we don’t have to just sit there- the main part is that we’re with Christ in the heavenly places. That’s the delicious part.
But the image of Jesus and the room kept wavering, which always is disturbing, but Jesus reminded me that I have never been able to see Him with perfect clarity, and to remain in Him in trust no matter what happens to the image, and not to let it effect my faith in Him.
So then I said, what shall we do? And we talked about it, without words, in a way I can’t describe, which is frustrating, but it’s quicker than words, because it’s just heart to heart, back and forth. I remembered how much I loved the moment of meeting, especially after a long time apart or after a misunderstanding that has been cleared up finally.
And the upshot of this wordless discussion, was yes, of course, we can practice meeting. Deciding this and how to do this was like making plans with your best, most trusted, most beloved, closest friend- the one you love, the one who knows all your secrets and shares your dreams and you have history together and secret passwords and all that. Only that person is Jesus.
So, again last night, I thought, I want to be with Jesus, and again He said, but without words, to simply come, just to come to Him.
And indeed, I did and it hit me, with this kind of awe- how simple it was, as though there were no division at all between the spiritual life and the physical life and-
Boom!
I was all, oh my goodness! That’s right, there isn’t. It’s both true at the same time.
Jesus was laughing, as though He loved me so much and I was so adorable and it pleased Him so much that I had made this connection.
For you are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, He reminded me, and I was all "Indeed! So true!"
And yet, we don’t have to just sit there- the main part is that we’re with Christ in the heavenly places. That’s the delicious part.
But the image of Jesus and the room kept wavering, which always is disturbing, but Jesus reminded me that I have never been able to see Him with perfect clarity, and to remain in Him in trust no matter what happens to the image, and not to let it effect my faith in Him.
So then I said, what shall we do? And we talked about it, without words, in a way I can’t describe, which is frustrating, but it’s quicker than words, because it’s just heart to heart, back and forth. I remembered how much I loved the moment of meeting, especially after a long time apart or after a misunderstanding that has been cleared up finally.
And the upshot of this wordless discussion, was yes, of course, we can practice meeting. Deciding this and how to do this was like making plans with your best, most trusted, most beloved, closest friend- the one you love, the one who knows all your secrets and shares your dreams and you have history together and secret passwords and all that. Only that person is Jesus.
So anyway,
Jesus was all, shall I take my place here? I’ll wait here?- all without words,
just heart to heart.
I said, "Okay, and I’m at the bottom of the stairs." I went there and I went up the stairs and whoa!
Because of course, that’s Jesus, actually Jesus.
Then we tried it again. I took my place at the bottom of the stairs, and was like, action!
If someone ever does read this, they are going to think that I am crazy. But trust me, if I was crazy, the two licensed therapists that I’ve seen in the course of my life would have diagnosed me that way. I understand that people might be more comfortable thinking I’m crazy than thinking that Jesus might be like this- or perhaps thinking that I’m making this all up. And that’s okay, I don’t blame them. I would think the same thing if it wasn't happening to me.
So anyway, I was all, action, and I went running up the stairs and at the top of the stairs was Jesus.
Jesus. Right there. Standing there, and looking at me and recognizing me and loving me, as Himself.
So I was overcome. I threw myself into His arms, clinging to His shoulders, and just started pouring out my adoration and relief and love, just over and over again, remembering who He was to me and who I was to Him.
I was all, "I’m never leaving You again, and I can’t believe I found You, and I love You, I love You, I love You, I’m Yours, oh my God, oh my God. My God, my God!"
And course He was holding me so tightly, and returning the love in this outpouring, and I knew that it meant just as much to Jesus that I had found Him, that I was there, in His arms, recognizing Him.
So that was just utterly delicious.
So I said, my goodness, what else should we do?
April 4, 2013 Unpublished blog
So I probably won't post this.
Last night I was with Jesus, in whatever way that happens. It seemed we were in that room, curled up upon the couch. My arm was dangling off the edge; I was touch with my fingertips the smooth floor just in reach.
We were talking and Jesus reminded me of all this writing I've been doing, the thing I've been working on lately. (A very large poem.)
You're getting to the good part, He reminded me. I knew Jesus was looking forward to this part of the poem.
"Yes," I replied softly.
I could see how the poem is beginning slowly to curve around a long, painful bend toward its destination. But the destination seemed even more difficult to write than the journey to get there.
"Yes, soon I will be describing the love of God," I continued, lost in thought. "I'm afraid of doing that. I don't think I will do it very well."
It will come through you, naturally, as the rest of it has come through you, He said, comfortingly.
"Mm. Yes, the rest has come naturally. So this should come naturally. I must simply let it out."
I drew my arm up and tucked it around Jesus and settled in closer, my head on His chest. I remembered that He was and is my forever beloved Lord, my companion closer than words, more dear than present life, and my best friend.
April 7, 2013 Journal
I’m falling behind on this journal, but I wrote a huge poem that I posted on the blog. It made me shy with Jesus all over again, so for the past few days I haven’t been able to let myself trust in such a way as being with Him there requires.
I said, "Okay, and I’m at the bottom of the stairs." I went there and I went up the stairs and whoa!
Because of course, that’s Jesus, actually Jesus.
Then we tried it again. I took my place at the bottom of the stairs, and was like, action!
If someone ever does read this, they are going to think that I am crazy. But trust me, if I was crazy, the two licensed therapists that I’ve seen in the course of my life would have diagnosed me that way. I understand that people might be more comfortable thinking I’m crazy than thinking that Jesus might be like this- or perhaps thinking that I’m making this all up. And that’s okay, I don’t blame them. I would think the same thing if it wasn't happening to me.
So anyway, I was all, action, and I went running up the stairs and at the top of the stairs was Jesus.
Jesus. Right there. Standing there, and looking at me and recognizing me and loving me, as Himself.
So I was overcome. I threw myself into His arms, clinging to His shoulders, and just started pouring out my adoration and relief and love, just over and over again, remembering who He was to me and who I was to Him.
I was all, "I’m never leaving You again, and I can’t believe I found You, and I love You, I love You, I love You, I’m Yours, oh my God, oh my God. My God, my God!"
And course He was holding me so tightly, and returning the love in this outpouring, and I knew that it meant just as much to Jesus that I had found Him, that I was there, in His arms, recognizing Him.
So that was just utterly delicious.
So I said, my goodness, what else should we do?
April 4, 2013 Unpublished blog
So I probably won't post this.
Last night I was with Jesus, in whatever way that happens. It seemed we were in that room, curled up upon the couch. My arm was dangling off the edge; I was touch with my fingertips the smooth floor just in reach.
We were talking and Jesus reminded me of all this writing I've been doing, the thing I've been working on lately. (A very large poem.)
You're getting to the good part, He reminded me. I knew Jesus was looking forward to this part of the poem.
"Yes," I replied softly.
I could see how the poem is beginning slowly to curve around a long, painful bend toward its destination. But the destination seemed even more difficult to write than the journey to get there.
"Yes, soon I will be describing the love of God," I continued, lost in thought. "I'm afraid of doing that. I don't think I will do it very well."
It will come through you, naturally, as the rest of it has come through you, He said, comfortingly.
"Mm. Yes, the rest has come naturally. So this should come naturally. I must simply let it out."
I drew my arm up and tucked it around Jesus and settled in closer, my head on His chest. I remembered that He was and is my forever beloved Lord, my companion closer than words, more dear than present life, and my best friend.
April 7, 2013 Journal
I’m falling behind on this journal, but I wrote a huge poem that I posted on the blog. It made me shy with Jesus all over again, so for the past few days I haven’t been able to let myself trust in such a way as being with Him there requires.
But this morning, I woke up serene and loving and Jesus had been close and loving all the day before, over and over and over again reassuring me and talking me through my fears and telling me to turn to Him and to give it over to Him, etc, etc.
So I went to Him, but I found myself walking through a beech wood and Jesus was there and I ran right to Him and I said, lovingly, “What are You doing in the beech wood?”
But He just caught me up close, filled with joyous, strong love, and I knew that He had missed me. That is the thing. The extraordinary thing. Jesus loves to be with me. He loves to rest in trustful, delightful love. He misses it.
And I always long for Jesus, so I gave myself over to the delight of being with Him. It was so delicious.
I remember looking over at my hand on the leaves, and He put His hand into mine and interlocked our fingers together and I turned my face to look at Him and I saw His eyes, so light, so full of love, His face close enough to touch. It was very clear.
I asked, "How is it that I can sometimes see Your features so clearly, but I don’t know quite what You look like altogether?" The answer was a little bit beyond my current lessons, but it has something to do with love. It was as if, when I am resting in complete trust, then seeing Him is perfectly natural. But self-awareness sort of disturbs the natural flow. Not that that’s terrible- it’s only natural in the learning process. That happens.
I moved a little away from Him once and I looked at Jesus, a little ways across from me. Just resting there, just being there, looking at Him. I reached out my hand and He reached out His and we took hands. Then I went back to being curled up with Him.
And I realized something- Jesus meets me where I am. It’s that simple- that’s why I can simply go to Him- because He’s right where I am. So whatever setting happens to appear, He’s going to inhabit it. Because He inhabits me. It’s not complicated.
Then my father posted this article and it talked about how Christ is sometimes referred to as “the Second Adam” and I thought something like, Oh my goodness sake!!!
That explains everything. That explains the garden, in my poetry. It was the garden from the Song of songs and it was the healed Eden and He was the second Adam, and I am made new again. So it’s all brand new and He is my beloved Lord, not just the gardener.
So how about that? Extraordinary, yes? But everything is. It all is. And I’m very drunk on Him.
*
As usual in the afternoon the clouds rose up to play behind the pines
and the sun held me heavy in the chair,
the fan moving the air, barely.
My daughter played at the corner of the house,
sun washed limbs rosy against the grass-
she lives close to the ground and the heat hardly touches her.
The trickle of liquid that runs from under the fern,
just watered, is a gift she looks for each morning.
She stands under it until her hair glistens in strands.
She catches it in plastic cups,
sprinkles the concrete with water drops like a benediction,
singing softly in her own language.
Her hand prints mark the glass door where she leaned in,
confident, her eyes searching me out through the shadows
She knows I am there, somewhere in the kitchen-
all seeing, frustrating, the source of love and redirection.
The evening comes in with thunder before the rain,
the clouds have risen up right out of sight,
only silver seen below,
the trees showing the way the wind is blowing-
eastward, toward the middle school, as it happens,
hardly visible through the undergrowth.
I think of You.
I always think of You-
a glass tipped over the edge
where the clouds in secret form
into great white scallops piling up
within the blue leagues of the sky,
drawing unseen all the water from the air.
You, in the sun warmed earth holding fast my feet against the lawn
You, in the cold water rushing into the glass, melting the ice.
On my bedside table, the fading pen marks of my journal,
scrawled at inconvenient times in the night
waiting to be deciphered in the morning, when, nearsighted,
I hold the page to my face and squint.
All that You gave and could not be contained
in ink is what will remain
of us after the rest returns to dust,
when I see you for the first time,
at last beyond all words,
the Word made visible.
-May 31, 2015
