Give ear, sharp, perked up
Oh Lady Grace my Liege
to my words.
Consider my meditation.
Draw near, hover,
snuggle down over
my fear, pain,
anxious moments and
tossy topsy turvy turnings.
Hear my inner voice,
may it call true to You,
from mourning to morning,
may my soul learn to trust Thee.
For in the morning
will I direct my cries unto You,
and to you shall my inner eye
always gaze straight.
| — | Saint Augustine |
We have all heard it, have we not?
“It’s all good…everything happens for a reason.”
That line is used as a salve and as a panacea to any and all things not understood or sensible to us. And the implication is that we are supposed to just go with the flow and let this reason manifest. Far too often, this results in a sort of hollow fatalism which results in our justifying any action that we wish to pursue after we stamp our experience with that cliché.
But let’s stop a minute…what is the reason everything happens???
Is it always the same reason that everything happens? Does each thing happen for a different reason?
What if the reason is evil? Meaningless? Absurd? What then?
When atrocities occur, are those happenings for a reason, and if so, is there a reason to stop them? To let them continue?
See…it is the vague pithiness of that assumption that deeply disturbs me in my core. I think that it is a modern quan cribbed (as so much of our law, morality and guidelines for living in our culture are) from the remains of foundational bedrock spirituality bequeathed to us by Christendom, when it was vital, alive, and dangerous. I think that it comes from this truth, penned by the great thinker Paul of Tarsus: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose“.
Do you see that? There is a condition! Similar to our own experience when we wish to help someone mired in something bad for them–a habit, an addiction, a bad relationship, bad choices–it is impossible to truly help someone who refuses to embrace and receive that help!
Free will is a bitch! And it is the fulcrum that pivots our lives from one side of the truth that everything happens for a reason to the other side of it, which is God involving Himself in our lives and changing what is happening into something that ultimately is for our good.
Right now, it is true indeed that everything happens for a reason, and that reason is that this world is deeply broken and wounded by sin and death. No, not just the countless acts, great and small, which are mean, evil, venal, and self serving…sin and death are powers that have entered in and taken us hostage to their icy and implacable hold.
But it is also true that God has loved, does love, and will love us enough to get Himself dirty and covered in filth on our behalf, and through His involvement transform and resurrect our purpose and destiny into one that fills us with life, love and hope.
For those reading who already know that I urge you to comb back thru the recent events in your life and recalibrate…root out the sloppy thinking and fatalistic resignation to the happy illusion that it will all just work itself out…it won’t!
For those reading to whom the concept of loving God and choosing to be called according to His purpose is new: I invite you to consider asking God first of all what His purpose might be…what Love is…and for Him to begin to dialogue with you regarding the possibility of choosing to love Him.
Everything happens for a reason, and God, who loves us, cares enough to cause all things to work together for good if we let Him, if we open the door to Him by our free will and choice to love Him.
Pedantic words perhaps to some…but no less true for it.
Love,
Charissa Grace
I am sharing this post, and hope that you would click thru to see the story and video. It is a fabulous example first of all of how easily and literally without awareness it is for cis-gendered people to do things to transgender people which they would never ever even think to do to cis-gendered people.
Secondly, it is also a great example of how to handle things with Grace and Kindness…far too often I find that we are so very sensitive and hyper aware of any slight, no matter how small. It seems in our culture today that regardless of gender, sexuality, political persuasion, or religion we are by and large eager to take offense and cannot wait to grab those arrows of offense and stab our own selves with them! It is is if we want to be infected with that poison, and then we turn around and start trying to infect others
No wonder that zombie movies and shows are so popular now…they are a metaphor for a process in our time by which it seems that we make ourselves and one another into spiritual zombies, rampaging about biting and devouring one another.
Let’s all just stop! Step back. Take a breath…and then simply
be kind…be merciful…be full of grace.
Imagine…no not a world where there is no heaven, or religion, or any of the drivel that John Lennon sang about, for that very philosophy was already tried by the communists of Russia and Stalin’s regime, to the tune of nearly 100,000,000 deaths…that same philosophy was adhered to by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia…
No…imagine a world where each person actively sought to just be kind…to just show mercy…to just be full of grace…
What is required? Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly, and love your neighbor as yourself.
See these two amazing human beings, and glean…maybe you too will be inspired as was I to strive to be a kinder and more gentle person.
Blessings,
Charissa
Unquenchable, I sally forth in song
Unbreakable, I shatter into view.
Unmakeable, I plop onto the wheel
Unanchored now, I give myself to You.
Come down, come close, come change this mottled clay
Into the Living Woman that I am.
Take every barb and barrier stinging sharp
And give Your song, that bright celestial jam
Let Heaven flow into my tattered soul
Let earth be rent and give up all my dead.
I rise remade, renewed from sorrow’s bed
Your daughter, touched, delivered, and made Whole.
Look. Past appearance, past hair and smell
and braying wheezing dischord as my soul
Strives to sing.
I am HERE!
Singing, dancing and waiting.
I groan and ache.
Who I am is not here,
Who knew that emptiness,
null could be so
concrete, so staunch,
so unyielding and
sternly hard?
My absence is a pit that breaks my teeth.
PULL ME OUT OF MYSELF ALIVE!
Let me live, be.
Please? Deliver me.
God grant me grace,
chance to let the knife
Cut away the bray
and set my heartsong free.
She spins,
drawing down and deep
from her most secret treasure.
She carries with her silk,
gossamer strands and strategy
and patiently she makes
from who she is inside…
her one and only option.
And need. Her One Desire.
She gets life, sustenance,
exists for transformation
and creation
of her web of life.
And I watch, fascinated
by her patience,
her diligent patience,
her perseverance.
Mama, teach me
to take the traumas,
desires, longings,
emptinesses, hurts, wounds,
deposits and experiences,
Teach me to yield
and let this whirling
confusion become spinning,
and spinning out of who I am,
that I might spin a web
to catch Your Sacred blessings
and life.
I walk slow on a
road that bears leaves in mountains
on the peaks of spring.
#1
rain-filled ruts reflect
an apple-red summer sky
that highlights brown hills.
in the wind my skin
revels amidst bitter-sweet
echoes of that day.
wind, you will have a
terrible time smothering
my soft clarity.
#2
in fog a tree steps
back graceful, allows passage
shedding misty skin.
light fall of the moon
gently caresses the tree
and subtracts some dark.
silver sliver slides
through dark blue breaths of still night
on a cricket’s song
#3
voices of snowmen
call the white-haired children home
then melt in their mouths.
beggar’s withered hand
stretched out inert, silent as
if already dead.
The old ones, bookends
whose bodies encrust their lives
find peace yet again.
#4
a good poem somehow
makes what’s true a little more
DISTURBING/PROFOUND.
melting candles drip
with hidden light most precious
a grain-growth of gold
Poem within the poem
Grace inhabits this body–
Image finds its Source.
#5
I love you, but it’s
not the finish, not the end
but the beginning.
flow’ring thru silk sleeves
are come memories of all
the moments of life.
You say “I love you”
a sound so tender that the
dead could even hear!
#6
I raise my hands high
to have them remember you
they trace you in air.
together they sway
like a small boat on a lake
hull snuggling waves
there is no rainfall
no wind’s taste nor full moon’s touch
soft enough for you.
#7: Final Call
Come. Walk beside me
Heads held high we’ll sing into
the difficult dark.
River meets river
They meld, one to another
our beings, the streams
We journey slow, on
a long road that leads to a
Final, Always-Dawn.
They move, they flit.
I have felt Them.
Lumps of Life weighty, inert
thick points of presence.
Though there was thick stillness now
They have wriggled,
struggled and groaned
their way free.
I accept them.
I receive them.
They are me,
and I am free.
And I sit, pondering today,
tomorrow, but yesterday
Yesteryear looms large.
The shadow cast of those events shines
inverted and bright
Light on Darkness Backdrop.
Crystal clarity and
pure purpose precipitated,
linger now,
surge now,
stay now
inside me.
I face fears,
uncertainties and self-centered acts
that will wound and rend.
People of agenda which is
dark on light’s backdrop,
people of ignorance
who assume all things.
My heart quakes,
my bones are water,
my thoughts are anxious acid
that etches my soul.
I pray thee,
Precious Christ Child,
cover me in such a way
that all that is
etched away leaves you
Shining thru me
The Christmas Star.
There is a style of life that is aggressive, taking and conquering and always advancing and planting the flag of one’s own orienting Structure…the beam of one’s being, the beacon of your way of meaning, whatever it might be. Many find what looks like success with this style. Many who are humanist, atheist, positivist, even Christian.
But I find this to be a style that when it is all said and done is still oriented with humanity at the center, at the pivot point, at the crux.
Is that a sufficient foundation? Can it hold, neath the stress and strain and weight of all existence?
There is a style that is passive, one that embodies the heartfelt axiom that all is fated beforehand, and beyond influence or control, and thus one must surrender and simply allow the waves to wash and crash and carry wherever they have whim or are driven by other forces impersonal and random. And I find this style to still be at its core one with humanity at its center, for if it is true, why even say it? It is spoken with the notion that its articulation will help others…but help them…why? To what? If all is ordained already, it is moot whether you help or not help, and thus vanity.
Humanity itself is a declaration of meaning!
So there is a 3rd way, the way of Yielding. This is one that has at its core a white hot passion and confidence, no…a KNOWING that there is meaning, there is pulsing and throbbing like a quasar a Heart that is the Signifier from which all things are signified! In this way is the understanding that this Heart is able, is willing, and is active to constantly work to show forth Beauty, Truth, and Mercy. To do other than to make an active choice to yield is to inhibit the actions of this Signifier.
It…the source of all water.
We…the faucet, and we may or may not be tapped in depending on our choice of faith (yes, you all, everyone, have made faith choices).
Our will the spigot, cranked by the choice to yield or not, either open or closed.
Not my will, but yours be done is a statement of a way of life. One simultaneously so easy and so difficult in that simplicity. And yet, in that yielding is an austere mountain to conquer, and that mountain is the notion that we somehow can do something in and of ourselves and our own innate strength that has more significance and permanence than merely adding to history’s catalogue of vanities.
In stating my life mission, I invite you to participate in the simplicity of its towering Glory and yawning Depths of Grace.
Yielded vessel, Yielding Blessing.
Not that I have obtained it, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, I press on towards that upward calling of The Hope of Glory in the Father of Lights.
Won’t you join me?
For upon my heart will I play my song,
plucked and strummed and tapped
with fingers of faith-full thoughts and Hope,
Assured that I belong.
For Hope’s not hope that only wishing
waits in resignation.
Hope sings, soars, and gladly yields
And echoes Faith’s Vibration.
I dare not hope in my own strength
for strength is but illusion.
I rest instead in Their own Rest
and dwell there in Collusion.
HA! Trite and amusing rhymes
occupy my busy and anxious soul…
And give space and time
To Choose, to know Whom,
and Play the Harp of Hope
Amen.
| — | Michelle K, It Has Been One Hell of a Year |
Light, fragile, buoyantly beautiful
and strange they emerge from
woolly woven tombs and skins
of hairy fur and no wings.
Just legs, too many and multipede
in creepy ambulation from plant to twig
avoiding the crushing boot and pecking beak.
Do they know, what they are and will be?
Do they crawl in faith, miracle filled
and waiting?
Or do they toil, in their
earthbound blind and brown dimension
to fall into chrysalis, not knowing that
Emergence waits?
Oh Mama,
may my cocoon be wrought
by Your Faithful and Loving Hands,
May my tomb be rent
by His Faithful and Fierce Sword of Light,
and may my cage be carried
and left behind in moments
of metamorphosis
and eternity.
I watch carefully and slow
and peaceful.
Stress claws constant, gnawing gnashing
teeth sharp and white
and tipped in red.
And yet I live, sustained and filled
as I am drained and killed…
Grace-God reigns and wreathes me
in Comfort-Smoke-Incense
and I am watching
for the page to turn.
Behind the set the Makers Move,
Hear, Feel and Pray.
Grant grace so I too this day.
And every day to come remain
Faithful to turn the page.
I’ve swum and I have paddled
For years, all senses addled.
To finally break thru
And surface, all things new.
Today is a beginning
I’m somber and I’m grinning
I’m in, but coming out
Grace protect this tender sprout.
When light struck my soul and I blazed
fierce and exultant into awareness,
I bled radiant joy like the horizon
bleeds the sun at dawn.
And when I gazed into the glass of exultation
(seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was
glad and wonder-full.
Until it rained
titters tinkling,
then rebukes raging, lashing at my roof
and thrumming drumming until
I saw no more darkly and thru a glass,
but thru the storm and eerie green glow
of radioactive remarks and careless cerulean (cruelean) comment,
alas. I came to know what I was not,
and I was awful (dropped an e I did).
Into days long and same,
passing people of 2 kinds that
belong and never see beyond,
never see within.
But still I pluck
throbbing buds, thorn
blood price cheap,
and hold them out
on my side of the glowing glass
(dark, through)
and wet with stormy tears
and the washy rivers of assumed presence.
But flowers fade and grass withers…
wheat words last forever
dying and reborn
to die and be born again,
as life and glacier glances grind
and move without mercy
till I am caught
between that frozen moving flow
and the dark rocks.
Bones strewn around me
in pick-up sticks of
careless hands and players
who tired of children’s games
(forgetting they must become a child)
until at last long
awareness bursts yet again
from heights dizzy and brilliant
and bleeds over me in fullness
and in terror tinklings,
thrumming and cold and stark
and cold blue clarity.
And I remember who I am,
and know what I am.
A lass.
Will you find the mercy today?
Will you find the care?
Will you go gently into our long night
and rage, rage
together with us to bless
the living of the light?
You too are dual natured,
all ye who sing sanctifications’
sweet and austere song
(old and new in one fighting)
(dead and alive in one struggle)
(corrupt and incorruption deadly dueling)
You….are US.
and we are you…but
without arms,
without eyes,
without mouths
we scream loud
and cry for release…cry out for
midwives of mercy to meet us,
make us beautiful for situation
and delivered of our awful charge.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND EARS FOR US.
See us…
hear us…
do not fear yourself,
to stare down your stormy floods,
but see, glean and grow glad.
Oh Pharaoh’s Daughters, reach down
and lift up from the reeds and mud.
Light strikes in blacksmith blows again
and soul sparks chip off and away
As She sings and joys over me
(and you).
And on this day
I intention and remember,
remember the radiant flood
and bleeding light
of day’s eternal promise,
remember the rolling thunder
and frowning floods of painful
gushing gouts and waterspouts
in the long years walked in
the country of lost men
(and despair),
remember
the pangs,
the waves,
the start of labor as I,
pregnant with my own mystery
and full of knowing
began to emerge
and break forth, touched,
warded by Grace,
and kept from the pit
which has tripped so many
and eaten them
like Goya’s devourer
chews and rends
(let their fate haunt you and give you holy hush and silence).
They too are
Eve’s sons,
Adam’s daughters,
trapped
and
yet aware…
who fell by dreadful hands
and eyes of no symmetry.
Dare. Look. Feel.
I will too, and somewhere
we will fight off the things
that so easily entangle and be
free again to fly and
Bleed Radiant Light.
When light struck my soul and I blazed
fierce and exultant into awareness,
I bled radiant joy like the horizon bleeds the sun
at dawn.
And when I gazed into the glass of exultation (seeing darkly thru that glass)
I knew myself and was glad and wonder-full.
Until it rained
titters tinkling, then rebukes raging
lashing at my roof and thrumming
drumming until I saw no more darkly and thru a glass,
but thru the storm and eerie
green glow of radioactive remarks and
careless cerulean (cruelean) comment, alas.
I came to know what I was not,
and I was awful (dropped an e I did).
Into days long and same, passing people
of 2 kinds that belong and never see beyond,
never see within.
But still I pluck
throbbing buds, thorn blood price cheap,
and hold them out on
my side of the glowing glass (dark, thorough)
and wet with stormy tears and
the washy rivers of assumed presence.
But flowers fade and grass withers…
wheat words last forever
dying and reborn to die and be born again,
as life and glacier glances grind
and move without mercy
till I am caught between that frozen moving flow
and the dark rocks.
Bones strewn around me in pick up sticks of careless hands
and players who tired of childrens’ games
(forgetting they must become as a child)
until at last long awareness bursts yet again
from heights dizzy and brilliant and bleeds over me in fullness
and in terror tinklings, thrumming and cold and stark
and cold blue clarity.
And I remember who I am, and know what I am.
A lass.
Will you find the mercy today?
Will you find the care?
Will you go gently into our long night
and rage, rage together with us
to bless the living of the light?
You too are dual natured, all ye who
sing sanctifications’ sweet and austere song
(old and new in one fighting)
(dead and alive in one struggle)
(corrupt and incorruption deadly dueling)
You….are US. and we are you…but without arms, without eyes, without mouths we scream loud
and cry for release…cry out for
midwives of mercy to meet us, make us
beautiful for situation and delivered of our charge.
OPEN
YOUR EYES
AND EARS
FOR US.
See us
hear us…
do not
fear yourself,
to stare down your stormy floods,
but see,
glean and
grow glad
Oh Pharaoh’s Daughters,
reach down
and lift up
from the reeds and mud.
Light strikes in blacksmith blows again
and soul sparks chip off and away
As She sings and joys over me
(and you).
And on this day I intention and remember
remember the radiant flood and bleeding light
of day’s eternal promise,
remember the rolling thunder and frowning floods
of painful gushing gouts and waterspouts in the
long years walked in the country of lost men
(and despair),
remember the pangs, the waves, the start
of labor as I, pregnant with my own mystery
and full of knowing
began to emerge and break forth,
touched, warded
by Grace, and
kept from the pit
which has tripped so many and eaten them
like Goya’s devourer
chews and rends
(let their fate haunt you and give you holy hush and silence).
They too are Adam’s sons, Eve’s daughters
trapped and yet aware…who fell by dreadful hands
and eyes of no symmetry.
Dare. Look. Feel.
I will too, and somewhere we will
fight off the things
that so easily entangle
and be free again to fly and
Bleed Radiant Light.
the so called church, by religion, by those who take the Wonderful and Graceful Name of the Blessed God of Grace in vain, I am sorry…
Please do not hold the behavior of these Pharisees against the Father, and know that what this pic shows is anathema to Them!!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live. He will never desert those who trust Him.
The Holy Spirit, Lady Grace is my ward and my protector. I love Her and trust Her always.
God is my refuge and my strength, a very present help in time of need.
The road rising from
earth to eternity
carried on by
terroir and terrain
a zigzag of
gush and glory.
the road from
heaven to earth
is trod by
brass brazen angel feet
who carry
hints and clues
of heavenly vintage
and teach us
that from grapes of wrath
will come forth
vintages of grace…
I ran across this in a folder of poems, and I honestly cannot recall if I wrote this or not…I always include info about the author as a footnote when I save someone else’s poem, and I did not with this one…and yet I just do not think I wrote this. It is in my style, yes, but some of the words are words that surprise me…but then again that often happens to me.
At any rate, this poem is about me and my inner woman who longs to be set free…and also about my inner eternal self, encased in this carnal cap waiting to manifest the metamorphaeo that is ongoing, and soon to show forth.
Chrysallís
She is more
Than the
Chrysós of
Her word shaped
Cocoon
Swivel behind
Each syllable
And feel the
Moving segments
As she atones?
Is she soundless?
In her Chrysallís
Or simply
“along with,”
“among,”
“after,”
“behind,”
“beyond,”
She is mine… not mine
She is pupa to imago
In each split-second
I wrestle with her between
Each wing expansion
Sharing the veins
Of Pure (H)ellenian
Blood
You, who haunts my world
Echoes of meaning sounding like doves
Calling and cooing ‘cross the tumultuous river
You come walking
High fiery chariot flying
Wreathed in ribbons of flame
Yet where you burn ruin undoes
And the torrents tumble up and back
Source drawing all to Thyself
A great diamond draught
OH! Emissary eternal emerge!
Dare to glitter bold and green
And translucent
Dare to transcend and leave behind the fears of them
Who would equivocate and dilute One Truth into all truth.
Stand stark! Reek of Eternity-fire, my Smoke, and FEAR NOT!
Coals from that altar seek lips, seek kisses…
Press past blistered parchedness and decimated crispy ashes!
Glide, RISE!! Singular, unafraid and distinct!
Set apart, and unstoppable…
You…who haunts my world
Dearest Haunter of my world
WE are all about ourselves.
So freely we spout to each other
that we love one another, but this
is really only a way of saying we are
attracted enough to someone to want
to keep them around because they
fill some need in US.
But true love involves
sacrifice, and discipline
to do what is best
for the other person
regardless of how
it helps or hinders
ourselves.
And if you do not wish
to do that, it’s ok…just
don’t say you love them.
If you are carnivorous and
in love with a vegan,
will you insist
that they eat meat,
just because YOU do?
And yet that’s what’s done
all the time, regularly…
“Well, I myself simply
MUST be honest,
so if it hurts YOU
too bad”…
honesty is good,
but it is a lot like acid…
useful if used with wisdom
and applied properly,
and corrosive if strewn
willy nilly.
Sometimes being honest
leads us to share feelings
that in and of themselves
are incorrect, incomplete,
or self centered.
Thus the act of honesty is merely
a magnifying glass on our ass-holery.
Speak the truth in love.
THAT is true honesty.
So…
you see walls blowing out
Hurricane Charissa has come
pressure changes,
waxing, waning
antiforce of nature
Hurled at walls
are my heartbeats,
my words, my
face-first running
slamming.
I will shatter
your fist with my face
Face like Flint
and resolute.
I do not swerve.
I do not turn aside
Comet Charis
flashing fiery
in your sky
Portents of doom
to your darkness…
or to you.
your choice false one,
prevaricating one,
sneering
you will wear
that sneer inside out,
and find it smeared
on your visage permanent
while you scrub
with this cloth…
no wait,
THAT cloth…
no wait,
wrong gloves
and name.
LEAVE OFF FAITHLESS FEARFUL one.
Stop.
why?
?
You stand at a precipice,
crystal and sharp shards
behind you, dazzling you
with a million reflections of yourself
Narcissus indulged
but before you…
walls blown out
I pay no mind to walls
and yawning beneath you
the gaping gorge down
and down,
with whooshing whispers of…
…something…
Step off.
I dare you.
Step off and
fall to me, and
find yourself
rising in my arms.
For my world is upside down to you…
to live,
you must seek
to give away your life.
To be first
you must be last.
To be the greatest
you must be the least.
To be strong
you must be weak
To be wise
you must be foolish.
To fly up with me,
you must
Fall
with Charissa the weak
with Charissa the fool
with Charissa the last
with Charissa the dying
For I am falling up
and though NONE
go with me
I will fall…
up
Till I am flying away
and ever enter In,
higher up
and deeper in.
Being transgender has given me a different perspective on life than most people…it is a terrible burden and tortured place to live…
BUT:
It is also a huge gift, for it gives me insight into a greater spectrum, and in the long run has been a crucible of great value and worth to form me into the kind of person that I desire to be.
See…I desire to be a surrendered person, yielded to the Good and Love and Grace of my creator. I desire to show thru my life that God is indeed Good, and that every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
Aside: I am using the traditional pronouns for God…simply to keep things simple. Anyone with half a brain knows that God transcends male just as much as he transcends female…I will post on this later, but for now, assume that my pronoun use is knowing and intentional, but not rooted and bound in religious tradition.
Back to my thoughts…to be a real Christian, to truly live as a child of God: what does that look like? Whole libraries have been conceived on this, heaping up requirement on requirement and burden on burden.
I think the whole thing can be reduced to this: Yielded vessel yielding blessing.
If we but yield, and allow Love to flow into us, inform us, heal us and renew us, and then flow out of us so that we do not stagnate, then we can truly be little children of the great God of love.
So…as a transgender person, I an positioned and gifted with a wider spectrum of tools to use, and have a greater potential to truly empathize with the plight of men and also the plight of women. I chuckle as I think of my daughter who has told me that so much of what I used to tell her when she was in high school now makes sense to her…it was a mystery to her how her father could give her insight into growing as a woman and being strong as a woman.
In my job, I work around men who are macho types and high testosterone fueled…our job is stressful and dangerous, and takes people who are both independent and reliable, yet able to meld as a team. These men are so lonely, so cut off from themselves and from others in their life. I am able to be received into their hearts because I wear the skin of a male…but then once there…I can give them the nurture and love and care that they are starved for.
I am especially aware of just how enslaved men can be within the palace of White Male privilege in our society…keeping up the front, keeping up the image, bearing untold burdens and stress and never ever being allowed to talk about it for fear of being perceived as weak or …GASP…FEMININE!!!!
But they will talk to me.
Similarly, I have counseled so many of my sisters in how to deal with their husband,s brothers, fathers, co workers, helping them to know what men are like from a woman’s perspective, because I can move unseen through their camp.
It is a lonely place, for each one is glad for me, but each one thinks I am strange and apart.
Someday, I shall be released.
I recently posted the first part of the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, and we left off with our heroine/victim/criminal face down in the dirt, and Jesus…you know the Guy…the only One without sin, and thus the one person who by right could cast the first stone…that guy. He was knelt in the dirt beside her and gently shaking her, rousing her from her stupor of broken, desperate despair and empty lonely barrenness.
He asked her where were her accusers? And when it finally penetrated her paralyzed mind, she hurriedly gave a harried look around, and saw…
……….no one……except the One who was without sin.
Jesus smiled, and I am totally certain that His eyes glistened with the tears of compassion and love for her…I am sure that He identified with and empathized with her pain and sorrow and desperation…after all, He knew that He would be accused of being a “religious whore” and “caught in the act”, and He knew the pain He would endure, all so we could be in the dirt before Him as the woman was, naked and ashamed…
….and unaccused!
She looked back to Him, and He asked her “Did even one of them accuse you?” And she mumbled, barely audibly, “No”.
And He sat awhile, writing…have you ever wondered what He wrote? I think He was writing her name, and that He loved her.
But after a bit, He told her “Then neither do I accuse you. Go your way…and sin no more.”
And that was that.
Now…flash forward a bit, to an important dinner at the home of a wealthy religious leader who threw a dinner party in the attempt to win favor with Jesus, and standing in his own social circle. They were at the table, eating…
…and suddenly there was an intruder who broke in, and rushed to the feet of Jesus and threw herself down at His feet…
…weeping…
…sobbing…
…and she unbound her hair and cried on his feet, murmuring under her breath nearly incomprehensibly (I think it was “thank you” over and over again). She got his feet completely wet with her tears, and then used her unbound hair to dry them off…all over…completely.
The leader was highly offended. He knew this woman…she was the town whore, and he had heard rumors that she had even been caught in the very act!! He hated her for intruding into his house, and for interrupting the dinner party. And he was also beginning to despise Jesus, feel contempt for him, because he was supposed to be a prophet, and if he were, he would know just what manner of evil was touching him.
But Jesus did know…who she was, and what the leader was thinking…
So He asked a question of the leader…
…”Suppose there are 2 people, and one owes $10.00, and one owes $1,000,000.00? Suppose that neither one has the means to pay, and then further suppose that the one who is owed decides to forgive each one’s debt. Now…which of the 2 people will love the man who forgave the debt more?”
The leader was so caught up in his offense that he totally missed the flinty gleam in Jesus’s eyes…and he roughly and blithely answered, “Oh, I suppose the one who was forgiven the million.”
BAM! Fish on!! Jesus then gently but sternly rebuked this man, reminding him that the man had not washed His feet, or shown any kind of gratitude to Jesus, but rather had sought to enhance his own social standing, while this woman had washed His feet with her very tears and dried them with her hair…
And He ended with this: he who is forgiven much, loves much…and he who is forgiven little loves little.
Now…we are all forgiven much…but we are also blind to that, and it takes a work of grace to perceive just how much we are truly forgiven for…
Grant us the grace to see how great our debt, that we can then be set free to love even more than we owe.
I am thinking this morning of a woman who lived long ago…a woman caught in adultery.
In the very act.
She was dragged by her hair thru the streets, naked, weeping, screaming.
By men of so called righteous character and religious standing (not a lot has changed there over the years, the white-washed tombs!).
She was thrown at the feet of the One person on the planet who had the power over sin, but not as an offering, not to be healed…but as bait.
Objectified and made the personification of their own lust and self-loathing, they sought to use her to trap Him into an act of evil, an act that would join him into their religious system of oppression and abuse and control.
They threw the law into His face, like a handful of glass shards and demanded that He rule regarding the consequences for her.
She lay in the dust, face down, and tried to die inside on the spot…willing herself to non-being but only achieving that wretched state of being filled with her failure to the brim and overflowing…her brokenness, her loneliness, her rejection, her bruises all raised their voices in a cacophony of rage against the fact that she dared desire something better and more than what she had…and what she didn’t have.
Then, she tasted the dirt with her tongue, and realized that dirt tasted better than life and she gave herself to oblivion…
But He just sat there and stared at the monsters who, bloated and puffed up with rage and hatred and religious pride strutted around like erect raping cocks seeking any orifice that they could ravage and leave their caustic acid behind rendering each place barren.
His eyes saw…SAW…and then He turned to the dust and started writing in the dust with a finger.
Oh finger of God you write in our dust daily, you redeem our days with your touch, you humble yourself and draw near to us in our pique, our pride, our hurt and lonely lies!
The monsters were silent, and then again clamoured for a ruling…
His famous words…Let He who is without sin cast the first stone.
We have thrown that phrase at each other in self-justification for our own selfishness, thinking we can hide behind it to do what we want since everyone else has fallen short…
But what He was really doing was claiming the right that is His by LAW! He was telling these mind f***ers, these heart rapers to get the f*** away, because He was there…the one without sin…and it was HIS RIGHT, HIS PLACE…to cast the first stone.
And then He was silent again…and wrote…
He writes today in the dirt of my heart, in the dust of the floor of my lonely and bereft spirit as I lay and eat dirt and seek oblivion, seek escape from my prison of days…
The monsters got bored…no pain to eat, no life to suck, no hearts to rend…until it was just her in the dirt, naked…bruised and torn…a hot mess of despair.
And then He touched her shoulder, with a hand that would later be rent, His heart already rent for her and flowing to her, and He got her attention and asked her where were her accusers? Where?
She didn’t even know He was there, they were not there…she didn’t even know SHE was there, or where there WAS…
But she looked up and saw him, and nothing else…
If you want to know the end of her story, keep reading here…
But for now, understand this: Redemption is real. It comes from Love, and love comes from the one who writes in the dust, and has since time began.
Brrr…I am a lil skert, starting this blog. It is the very first baby step towards being out as who I really am, the me that I was born to…I am frightened, and yet so excited all at once. I love this picture, because it shows how I have always been…gazing out, yearning, standing off to the side, there but not there…and I like that there are 3 women down in the shelter. They represent my core support…bless you ladies who love me with your hearts!
And I love that we are all surfers in this pic…waves are toys and funland rides to surfers, skimming along on stormy waters and dancing.
I have no idea where I will be in 3 months, in a year. I have no idea who will be in my life besides the ones who are with me, and who will be out of my life.
May God give me grace to welcome all in, and never shut any out, and then I can have peace, knowing that I have lived in integrity and shalom, and that I am literally not responsible for the choices of others.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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