Quo Vadis, Domine?

There are books I've not yet read, and projects I've not yet started.

And yet, I've read some. And started some. And even finished a handful.

And at the end of this 30-second-century year, I know I am proud of three things:

• I have stayed the course
• I know I belong to the five
• 586 words

And now, with 2015 crumbling at the chasm of a new year, I'm not sure whether to look with great optimism or fear to the year to come. 

The tension in my jaw and the tightness in my chest don't seem to lend themselves well... and yet there is the weight of those three that whisper, maybe something is to come.

Emmanuel

Oh come

It escapes in a gasp,

slipping past the solitude, the sweet caffeine, the cold and the Word.

It comes, settling and whispering, "this truth underlies all."

Oh come

The heartache breathes it too. It's there, latticed behind it all, a picture behind a picture. 

Oh come

The worn fella makes a quip about the weather.

It's the same one I'm sure is heard the world over; one of those eternal truths it seems. We commiserate a minute, two people in on the joke, and he leaves.

I'm sure he drives a truck.

And the cold seeps again through this window.

And the sweet caffeine is gone.

Make this right

Fix this

Oh come.

12:34

That night the wind blew.

It feels as though it should be a quote, or at least an off-quote, but it probably isn't.

It's not the beginning, or the end, or maybe even the climatic centerpiece.

It's somewhere in the middle, past the exposition and before the denouement - the unpleasant suspense of a story not yet told.

Last night there were stars. Not many. But enough to count.

Tonight, they are hidden; covered with an electric city-lit shroud of clouds and rain. and wind.

Everything doesn't happen for a reason.

But at 12:34am, it's hard to distinguish the things that do from the things that don't. Or even remember why it matters that there's a line to be drawn.

All that matters at 12:34 is that sometimes they do,

and sometimes they don't.

and the stars are hidden.

and

that night, the wind blew.

Sludge

There's no point to me.

No point to this.

The world spins slowly, dizzy on the edge of consciousness, with a sluggish backwash should I move too fast.

There's just no point to me.

I want to have grit.

I want to have meaning.

To matter.

But I'm not sure I do.

I really doubt it.

Steadfast

In the hush and the roar it's easier to imagine the Galilean night.

Now, I don't know if they had cicadas, but they did know locusts, and fields, and wind enough to make a parable.

I lean back, listening to the popping and hissing of the truck and the peculiar quiet of a dirt road.

I can see Him sitting back on his heels in the grass surveying the convergence with a deep sense of satisfaction. He knew just where to find the three. He was there when their heart-fires were lit with a single breath.

And still - tonight - I see them right where He left them.

Jupiter, Venus, and Polaris shine brightly, hanging low in the west, and the horizons unfold, bringing the hopes and fears of all the years.

He breathes deep, savoring this creation.

And there's a deep sense of solidarity.

15

There is a rage that brews up in me.

Cold and crawling.

Desperate, frantic and cruel.

It claws its way

And everything is frozen, tamped down under a cold sheet of numbness.

"Man delights not me. No, nor woman neither," indeed.

And the rage flares again

Fueled by exhaustion, discouragement, and loss.

Paul

He was always so quiet with me.

So still.

I know he was other things to other people.

But to me, he was still.

A deep breath, a calm pillar.

A picture of the God Who Listens.

He seemed to know when I needed to hear that my earrings were "cool." When I needed to know that I was noticed.

So quiet.

So still.

It is - no - it was strange to think that on another man, on a different man, his size would be intimidating. That there would or could be something about him to fear.

When everything about him made me take a deep breath. To relax.

He'd always stop, always say hello.

Once he sat and looked at every one of my nearly identical prairie pictures from an afternoon's hike. He appreciated each one of them too.

Made sure I knew he was paying attention.

There was never a question that he was paying attention.

His words on my birthday, "Happy birthday, Amy!!!" "How your servant heart shows through in all you do is such a beautiful thing to see. Serve on in the Great Kings love and know that He is pleased."

His GI Joe still sits on my office shelf. He was a welcome present, just for me.

Just for me.

These Paschal Losses

I was dead in the grave.

It all suffocates. So deep, so choking.
Too much.
And the weight of not-yet-loss nearly breaks me in two.

I was covered in sin and shame.

I heard Mercy call my name.

He rolled the stone away.

Right now, that seems far too good. There's no way to process the words other than feel them out inarticulately to their ends.
It
is
Too
much.

Emotion howls its presence, and this death-quiet weight kicks up into a nascent storm. I look down, feeling almost as if I should be able to see it, shadowed in my skin along the faint cut I couldn't quite make.

I'm alive because He lives.

It's far too real

this aching Resurrection.

Far too real.

The sorrow of my own partings takes my breath.

This I know, this I have lived. This solidity of knowing. I know him who said it. He would not lie. If he is there... come hell or high water...

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

It's too much.

It's fear

it's loss

It's sacrifice and reunion.

And friendship.

I am unable to sort one Resurrection from the other - His from mine.

Or rather ours.

I know He holds my life, my future in His hands

Because He Lives - Matt Maher

Fernweh

It's a surprise, this God-With-Us. 

This is no place for the Holy. 

But.

There it is. There He is.

Unexpected, but inarguable. Sunlight filtering through shade, dancing in the shadows below. 

With apologies to Emily

Stupid Emily.

Hope is the thing with feathers?

It's hard to even type that without a sneering heaviness.

Feathers.

I've never known it to have feathers.

Unless they were coated with such pitch and tar that Dawn couldn't begin to cut the edge.

Hope is that thing that gives a half-dead flutter, like the skittering of dry leaves, or desiccated insects. That keeps skittering about at the most inconvenient, painful of times.

It's the questions that remain unanswered in spite... despite... the longing for silence.

It's the acknowledgement of time passing. Of labored breath.

It's more Dickensian than Dickinson.

It's stumbling forward when there's no memory left of 

why 

other than that you said you would.

Now, I long for it to have feathers, or rather wings. Even broken ones. 

But I'm not sure it does.

At least I've never know it to.