MAMITA: a Poem/Reflection for All Saints Sunday 2020

The Gospel lesson for All Saints Sunday is the Beatitudes from Matthew's remembrance of the Sermon on the Mount, about how people find blessings in this world. I was thinking about my grandfather and how he found blessings taking care of my grandmother. She was a difficult woman, presenting a fragile persona. She had a breakdown while attending Mount Holyoke and returned to the home in Western Pennsylvania to recover.  She met my grandfather at a small local college and  he devoted his life to taking care of her and others. 

He had grown up on a farm and his father during the 1880's and 90's kept leaving to go to Gold fields to "strike it rich" in the Yukon,  Arizona, and other locations, leaving his wife and kids behind to take care of the farm. He never struck it rich, but would return for a couple of years and father yet another child before the next strike was made public and he would rush out. All the children did well, but never felt the need to get rich but were raised by their mother with the idea that they had a responsibility to care for others. They all left the farm and had successful professional lives but success was never measured by how much money they made but about the caring for others, even difficult people.

MAMITA

Mother's mother displayed airs of a delicate flower,

with thorns, preparing to prick ripping disapproval,

if we failed to meet her needs of attending approval;

shimmering weakness underlying source of power.

“Mamita” was what we were instructed to call her ,

a diminutive name, implying that she was adored,

while fearful she's walking on a Swiss cheese floor,

which she'd fall through holes should mishap occur.

We were to be careful, as my mother and her father

taught over decades, if life upset her in any way;

resentment, by us, wasn't allowed to imply or say.

When she died, I dreamed relief for my grandfather.

But he did not, for her care was his silken glove;

needing to be needed, was how we show love.

Friends

Friends

Learning, weak by week, friends aren't nouns,

that just sort of sit there and take up space,

but they are verbs, running in our life's race,

with us everywhere we go as love abounds.

We have found what when things get harried,

it is by their acts of simple generous kindness,

that our fogs of self pity lift over our messes,

after being treated with O'Briening, Gualtieried,

and bouts of Tuckering, Joe and May Louing,

Tom and Bething, Nick and Dawning, Wayned,

and treats of Tessed, Sadlering, Browned, Muaed,

Brehonying; all fine fabrics of connection glueing.

Don't have enough lines for all the names reporting

as our verbs, but we'll be to others verbs supporting.

Anniversary 31

 

Anniversary 31

On Holy ground, Moses' lover said: “I AM.”

Wandering in my own wilderness, found you,

I heard, “She is who she is, and that's true!

You'll not give her a heart entrance exam!”

You are who you are; all part of one gift!

My passion? Find ways to give thanks for

wholeness of you without keeping score;

of pluses or minuses that I'd want to shift.

The space between us is as Holy ground,

as any place that we have stopped to pray,

to hear “I AM” urge us take moment to stay,

treasuring each other, all the world around.

More than three decades of memory filled,

past isn't past when we've a future to build.

There Arose a King Who Knew Not Joseph

 

There Arose a King Who Knew Not Joseph

I have a habit of not caring what went on,

before I entered the room, assuming history

begins with my first squalls passing for oratory,

when I dare to command, “Shine out fair Sun!”

Confederate blood runs in my veins, warming

“lost cause” memories passed to me by father

reverently speaking of Jackson, Lee, slaughter,

chivalry and glory of Pickett's charge swarming.

I first have to learn Faulkner's past not being past,

healing begins when I let Word of past incarnate

my very flesh, hopes and dreams. Try sublimate

as much as I can; it must still be faced at last.

Denial, tearing asunder past monuments is easy;

but refusing to change the present is just sleazy.

The tellers of the stories who later collected Joseph stories in the Book of Genesis to lead into the Book of Exodus set Joseph's relocation in Egypt as part of the Hyksos, an influx of Semitic people coming down from Canaan, dominating Lower Egypt, ending the 13^th Dynasty and beginning the Second Intermediate Period. The Hyksos rulers tried to blend in and adopted Egyptian names and manners. When Upper and Lower Egypt were reunited under Egyptian control in the New Kingdom of the 18^th Dynasty, there was a move to purify their History, which is seen with this opening statement of Exodus that the new Pharaoh tries to forgot the past, feverishly working on a version of MEGA,“Making Egypt Great Again”, a racist message of building monuments to glorify himself, to escape the stigma of having to depend on the help of Semitic rulers in the past.

When Pat and I were in Egypt we were so impressed by the building patterns of Ramesses II of the 19^th Dynasty. One of the things he would do is to to take the name of a previous Pharaoh off a monument and replace it with his.

There is an old saying used by people in recovery, “Denial is not just a River in Egypt.” As I thought about this lesson, I was thinking about the individual, and national, habitual need to purify history to fit into our legends, instead of facing the truth with honesty in order to change the present.

The Gospel of John begins with the statement that Jesus is the Word made flesh. My faith journey is to try to be open enough to have the Word incarnate me on a daily basis.

Tom Murphy: Taking the Next Dance

 

Tom Murphy; Taking the Next Dance

Got the word that Tom Murphy died,

a man whose passion I respected and,

shared laughter about, the clergy band,

who pledged having same divine guide.

That guide would take us into the places

our egos would rather not we be seen in,

allied with losers, outcasts who did sin,

except our guide calls holy, sacred spaces.

Tom had trouble with pious professionals,

who wanted to clear the church's riffraff

out of the buildings, so a new golden calf

might be set up to lead the processionals.

His calling wasn't to preach and altar prance,

but to joyfully join in God's compassion dance.

Trying On Joseph's Shoes

Trying on Joseph's Shoes-- Poem for 16 August, 2020

The Joseph story continues in the Lectionary. The name Joseph comes from the Hebrew meaning God adds, God increases. In the story this week, Joseph reveals himself as the loving brother to the ones who had hated him. Five chapters later after their father, Jacob, dies the brothers are afraid that Joseph will now unleash vengeance on them. But Joseph tells them that no matter what they had done, they have all been able to increase through those difficult times. A reminder that it is when I have been hurt that I have been able to grow, and when there is honest forgiveness both sides grow.

Genesis 45:15 And Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Genesis 50:20 Joseph said: “ . . . you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

Trying On Joseph's Shoes

Looking at the Joseph story, I am both;

one who sinned or one sinned against,

wants it forgotten, or, to stay incensed,

but it is forgiveness that brings growth.

The hard part is to give up being right,

like Joseph I learned that in being hurt,

wasn't a time that I'd give up as introvert

stuffing everything down, or go for fight.

I had to learn a third way, how to love,

to work to do what's in my enemy's best

interests and still be honest and blessed,

as if we're both under a descending dove.

Indeed, enemy and I both, an image share

of Divine un-rationed love, increases care.

Thanking God For Helen Van Laer

Helen Van Laer

She and Nick'd sit correcting each other

over items small or large or between

as if it were a really important scene

to see who first conceded out, “Mother”!

Both of them used to being the smartest

person in the room, so they were perfect

for each other to be the one either picked

to perform together before host or guest.

We got used to her because there's balance

in how she was opening their hearts to us,

and to those who needed some help, plus

working against greed's grasping advance.

Remembering how she'd plead for trees, deer,

raccoons and God, not being overlooked here.