Wrestling Stones
I remember the smell after flood waters start to go down. It’s not something you can forget. We had floods almost every year where I grew up in the Philippines, and they usually did nothing more than turn low lying fields into muddy lakes around houses perched on tiny green islands. But when the water receded it left behind a decaying film of brown on whatever it had touched. Sometimes a storm changes everything. When the wind blows and the water rises, the landscape becomes unfamiliar, and whatever isn’t destroyed may never be the same again. A storm can roll in and out like a freight train, leaving us just grateful to be alive. It’s afterwards, when the losses start to pile up and the smell of uninvited change makes it hard to breathe that the weary plodding...
Read MoreWhy We All Own Charlottesville
I’m trying to find words for the images on my newsfeed of the mob of hate-shackled bullies darkening the streets of Charlottesville, VA, this weekend. Nauseating. Terrifying. Hellish. Infuriating. Convicting… Not because I’ve ever agreed with any of the poisonous, white supremacist garbage they stand for. But because the root of their sin and mine is the same. Pride. How many times have I elevated my humanity above someone else’s? How often do my actions show that I value myself over another person? Racism, at its core, is unchecked, profound, toddler style self-centeredness. Me. My kind. Us first. It simmers and spreads, dressed up as politics, tradition, culture, even religion. Its stench runs deep and wide in American society, but it isn’t until it marches...
Read MoreHeaven at the Edges
I’ve seen it I’ve seen Heaven poke its toe in under the curtain There where light meets water and waves dance glory I’ve seen it where the sun peeks round the fireline edge of a cloud Like a groom looking shyly for his bride I’ve seen it at the place where spring kisses winter to bloom And where green gives birth to cooling gold I’ve felt its silk in newborn skin And breathed its ache at the side of a grave Where flesh meets clay and the veil thins I’ve heard it catch in a throat as a sob becomes a laugh And it’s risen out of flames where ashes end and beauty takes flight Heaven’s horizon isn’t far off It’s here and here and here In familiar lines and creases At the tips of fingers and in the pulse and stretch of hearts It’s where we see And the seeing pulls us...
Read MorePlease Don’t Get Over It
We sat with our friends exactly two weeks after they buried their firstborn son. Baby Ollie’s bouncy seat was empty by my feet as we looked through pictures of his gorgeous almond eyes and rose petal lips, and his daddy told stories about the two days they were face to face with him. Ollie’s daddy talked and his mama smiled gently, and their faces looked changed from the last time we saw them. They’ll never be the same again. Time heals, yes. Life will continue and even be sweet again. They know this. But their eyes will always hold shadows that weren’t there before. As if they could be anything but different after laying a part of their hearts in the Indiana soil. There are things about this world that knock dents in the core of us. Broken, terrible things like...
Read MoreIn All This, Grace
Our friends suddenly lost their beautiful baby boy this morning. Just two days old. Big, with lots of hair, they said. We were going to make the trip to Indiana to meet him next month. My eyes are red and swollen. I can only imagine what theirs are like. And somehow the sun still makes its trip across the sky and another day dawns and sets, and this is grace. Somehow a sweet young mama is still breathing, even though the breaths sometimes feel like fire, and her hand still finds her husband’s in the dark. And this is grace. There’s no way to understand why things went the way they did. But there’s freedom to ask, to yell it, to groan it. Why, Lord? Why? And this. This is grace. There’s grace in the night falling as the crickets sing their song announcing that...
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