First holiday alone

So after 30 years I had my first major holiday as a single person. I had a good time because I was with a family that cares about me. Because all the holidays in the last five years I was alone even though I was married. Now as a single I have the freedom to celebrate holidays the way I want to. Freedom to enjoy life....

from He remembers the barren by Kristi Leckband

"If my source of contentment is myself, then my world will constantly make me unhappy. I am a sinner, and my feelings will often lead me to pity myself, to covet the gifts others have received, and to be angry at God. None of that could ever lead to happiness because it is subjective. There will be no contentment for me when I focus on my selfishness. Things go wrong. My life is not always a happy place. If I’m going to trust contentment to come from within me, then I’m going to be sad nearly all of the time. There is suffering in this world, and Satan uses suffering to lead us to despair."
http://heremembersthebarren.com/2011/11/10/contentment-is-not-perpetual-happiness/

Hearing

When the ears close in age,
Will the sound echo against my bones?
Will they vibrate, transform, to words?
When little machines whirr and rasp
in feedback?
Will the tick, tick, tick of clocks
or clack of a keyboard,
the whistling of a fan
(white noise),
pushing back air
and surrounding the hairs lining my inner ear.
(vestibular hair cells)


To HEAR your Word
Through my bones,
Dead bones,
Reverberating – shaking loose cerumen words
Of unbelief.
Your Word:
Body. Blood..
Water.

Sacred tones,
Up and down body scales,
Unsealing
My ears,
Waxed shut.

Life, by itself,
Shuts up the body.
Shelves it in caves:
Dank, dark, bat-ridden.
Guano stench or’ powers
Olfactory senses.

II.

These 5:

Sight.
Hearing.
Smelling.
Tasting.
Touching.

Shut down
in death.
Black to sight.
Ear rustlings
Amplified
And ammonia paralyzes smells.
The bruising hard rock
Barks my shins
And salty tears of fear,
Trickle,
Drop,
to form
Stalactites
and stalagmites:
crosses
crucify the floor, ceiling.

III.

Yet,
God’s Word is efficacious.
Creates a reality-
Of faith,
Of forgiveness,
On His Terms.

Baptism of rock,
Washes clean guano drippings and stains.
Blood flowing from His side:
Clefts in cave walls.

Only the Spirit can ping walls of resistance,
Can navigate for me,
my way to You,
Hung on those rocks
Those crosses of limestone.
Stalactites and stalagmites of our own making.
(We hung you there, left you there to die-)
We put the stones to keep you in that cave.
But we could not keep that rock from moving-
From rising.

This echolocation of His Word-
Brings me
To Grace-
His body, His blood,
Water of baptism
His Word.
Forgives my sins.

Sin –
Weighing heavy like the earth and rock above my head.



And even if my ears close shut in age,
Your Word vibrates in my bones…
Sets free
Me…..

To be continued?

November 6, 2011