It’s over there,
down around
that small merry curve
duck your head, Dear
and be knighted
by mischievous holy
bows branching
into yearning twitchy
twigs
as you walk
thru the Sacred Arch
on your way back home
nestled
in the snowy reach
there on the
porch
of the
Last Deep Forest
round about
those happy fringes
a quiet roaring
carries me
into the
arms
of
deep
forest
mystery
a
silent
snarl at
everything
that injures,
that horror harms
rises up thru jade velvet
moss dark and pungent and drawing
me down
I
sit
running
my fingers
thru silent silver
fog
creeping
around
tree trunks
and caressing
their yearning
tops
with
misty
lips
and
I
sit
I
see
that
fog
enters
me
and
instructs
with
kisses
and
tickly
fingers
and
teaches
me
how
to
hide
with
Grace
This poem is about how the work of Advent involves a preparation of Empty Bequeathed…and it uses transition as its vehicle.
This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed,
revealed as the imposter
it still masquerades as.
I am empty of screams
but full of me and
ready to receive
the Promise of words
to give voice to
what’s unspeakable, unnameable,
to dress that wound
infected with nothing
and salve it with
the scratchy tickle of truth
and set free we
shadowbound, to be
our shining selves,
casting shadows
instead of being flat
and cast by them.
It is the season of emptiness, and places
prepared by pain are hungry
for the Presence
and the Promise
that only emptiness contains.
It’s the season to journey
to places we know so well
but haven’t been to…
and now it is time
in this never enough world
to declare the season has come:
it’s the season of enough!
ENOUGH!
Enough of the certified baby so boring,
our “gentle Lord Jesus so timid, meek and mild”,
enough of the muffled mage soft-spoken and sage
who wouldn’t say shit even if He’d a mouthful!…
I set off on this journey full of hope.
And wrapped in splendours of belonging here…
or there…it doesn’t really matter there or here
which far exceeds being nothing nowhere
But a…
Source: Advent Poem: The Season of Hope
Advent 2014
I’m homesick for a Blue Place
that might not be real…
but I know it is.
It has to be!
It floats here,
Azure in my silver
longing heart unsinkable
and it’s scarlet voice calls
from Beyond into beyond…
It’s time, it’s time for waking up from sleep!
Wake up from drunken stupor dull and cheap!
Embrace the road of pardon, so costly
the path of mercy rich, completely free
For mercy falls thick, unfathomable
in unexpected places, shattering.
Grace oozes to the unpalatable,
and ruins our sense of who is deserving.
God’s grace is lavish, prodigal and full,
prodigious in the Person of a God
who comes among His people glad, and gives
Himself in trust into their clutching hands…
hands desperate and fallen onto rocks
and reefs and broken in the tragic wreck
God comes, knowing the outcome in advance
exhausting, costly, God comes down in dreck
to simply be defamed, to squandered be
Ah…who can grasp this wasteful heart of God?
That Sacred Heart marked by Peculiar Grace
Disruptive Grace, unsettling the proud?
That Grace, that roaring Grace Alive and Loud!
And so beloved, do persist in love
when you grow faint and nearly overwhelmed,
persist in peace and persevere in grace
when rank injustice dark obscures His Face
for on the other side of justice waits
the grace disruptive, jarring and so thick
and lavish laid upon us, blow by blow
and matching every lash…wastefully so!
God’s grace disrupts our prideful righteousness
Grace summons us to choose, respond in kind
And our cheek naked, turned and tender there
And Grace, just grace, that covers every care.
a weighted invitation
a hush emerges,
pregnant time,
a sunlit drop
hanging on
the tip
of that
sharp green leaf,
capturing the sun
just before
release,
letting go
to join
desiring
earth
in
eternal
petrichor
blossoms
the moment
air becomes
breath
the moment
breath
dissolves
again
into
air
and the moment
pierces, passes
thru
into,
a silent arrow
stopping hearts,
that sharp and hollow
point piercing, sucking
hope and fear alike
in one fell
zinging
sssccchhhuuunnnkkk!
noetics fall away
yield the moment
to Poetics…
Awaited
Invitation
away with the gimmicks
we’re done with your crap
the lies that you laid down
the manger a trap
we want a tradition
that’s living and free
and songs of thanksgiving
and fresh liturgy
that’s ancient and yet new
and still relevant
so profound, so simple
so “un-sycophant”
Entrance, proclamation,
the Eucharist true,
sending out, gathering,
preaching Good News
Restore the New Baby
the Time Bomb in time
the Bread come from Heaven
the Living New Wine
away with the gimmicks
the scripts and the lies
So faith, hope and love can
come open our eyes.
i like the rhythms when we love
the way we move in time as one
and yet distinct and separate
and yet not separated
they come, the movements, just like waves
we wash up on each other’s sand
and drink up each one’s offerings
from shallows and from fathoms deep
and fingers move like lacy spray
and arms and legs like breakers sure
and hearts like rocks, like booming waves
and souls like everlasting sand
yes…
i like the rhythms when we love
I cannot shake this snowflake-season
and its many unexpected discordant moments
of Christmas preparation somewhere between
red hot errands at the mall
and
the soul felt its golden worth.
But this discord can be a door to the kingdom
where Jesus is from, Jesus that Heavenly Immigrant,
Jesus that Redemptive Refugee come to our
dark little houses of trinkets and treasures
and useless electronics of technicolor
sentimental uselessness.
We wait like stones wait
(gritty and granite and grey)
to cry out in loud refrain…
we wait, we wait but we wait not
in vain and not diminished though we are
discomforted while we wait earthbound and heavy,
and grow large in excelsis deo expectations longing
for redemption and relief,
for peace on earth,
goodwill to all,
release from darkness
loneliness, disillusionment,
we wait for God comes near
to this world as we know it.
The end of exile and darkness
began at the manger of Jesus,
where seeds of sorrow sprouted
(sorrow Theirs and ours)
in Joyful Birth, and drawing
near to earth from heaven
as angels’ song is hushed
in holy hesitation
as Jesus Christ is born.
He, God’s seed of sorrow sown
into the earth in Hope
of such Divine rejoicing
and harvesting of many
children returned Home
and exile at last over,
that exile self-imposed.
God,
rest Ye…
here in the midst
of the mess and the malls
and the masses of middling
and the muddles of mercy
needed, so badly needed.
Let nothing
Masquerade as something
filling hearts so full
(of nothing…nuffin)
that they “feel full”
and still hunger for
bread become stone
For
Jesus Christ was
born upon this day,
again in the sound of muzak
again in the tread of tired
tramping feet tiptoeing
around grapes of wrath
unstored in stores
again…be born
again upon
This Day
O tidings of comfort and joy!
For the final word
is not dismay
and darkness shall not
have the final say!
here is joy
enfleshed,
mingled with
sorrow like
Holy Wassail Wine
So long ago and far away
e’en though the miles are under one
and echo still in wonderment
we trimmed a tree with love and grace
and feasted on such shining face
that echoed 4 in that bright place…
and in my heart I live there still
and see the shine and smell the green
and on those wings I rise and thrill
above these deserts low and mean
while angels gather near the earth
and I wait for the Baby’s birth
and understand this thing…at last
I am here to see the sights
and feel the joy and hear the song
I’m here at last…it was sooo long
and who can say what’s best, and true
to be locked up and yet have you
or be bereft of everyone
and have the birth of me be done?
In the midst
of this storm
of pain
these clouds
of hurt
these winds
of death
I stand and on
You do I call
and ever trust
and ever long
For You to bring
Your peace on earth
and those who call
upon Your Name
and love unfeigned
without reserve
Sometimes frost grips limbs
once lean and limber in the wind
now long grown stiff and creaky
and I hear them crack and groan
in those sticky clutching fingers
cold and frosty, fingers
cold and frosty.
Sometimes ennui (cold)
grips my soul (grown old)
and in its grip I groan
(groan old) and my soul
(my waiting soul) runs
around my heart and
around my heart
as the clock’s tail
ticks and twitches, chases
its tail like a cat relentless,
(useless) and that (waiting)
that frosty cold difficulty of waiting
remains there clinging tightly
in the fading day.
But Advent…
Advent
Advent comes again
and gives her gift.
In the cold and dead of winter,
trauma seems to sting much deeper,
and healing for the broken parts
of my life…and the people that I love?
Seems so much harder to obtain…
When it comes to these things
things so staggering and important,
healing, peace and goodness
on the earth, freedom from suffering,
well…waiting is hard, so hard and painful.
But in these moments I’m remembering
I’m troubled in soul and looking
for something transcendent, greater
than the hurt and pain and suffering,
something, someOne warm enough
persistent, faithful, warm enough
to breathe on us
to break the ice
and give us life
Long familiar sweet hymns play
wherever I go, I remember
I am poor, imperfect, waiting for
the God Who comes down,
Comes Down, God With Us
Emmanuel! Hosanna!
In the Highest Holy Fire!
and I feel again
the gentle nudge
of a knock deep
at the door
of my small
and icy lonely
heart.
Advent is the time of waiting
waiting for the One (the One)
Who embraced body, embraced sorrow
Came to show us all the fullness
of just being home, present, and real.
And we are long reminded in
our cold dolorous longing
what we’re longing for actually
a Who, Who, Who we long for,
God…always coming nearer to us.
I have found a place
inside (in Advent, inside you)
that place where once
you die, you…
you come Alive…
A place where pain
and pleasure weigh out
just the same
and all that’s left
is only Love,
And every sorrow touched
by the wild gold Promise
that in this very place
(of waiting)
Jesus has been born
(is born)
and will be born
again and again,
and again
breaking thru
that icy grip
thawing out
our longing hearts,
melting all
our sin and deaths
so we can
laugh again.
open me to new ways
of looking at old wounds
without examining them.
give me grace to recreate
loving space and mercy great
for childhood, home and family.
nourish me, here, I belong
and have a place to call my home
me…I am my home now…and so is She.
and old familiar fretty ways
so curious and strange
may they grow cold with un-use.
no more shall I be trapped
in ancient fear and panic
a creature of their whims
but asking Them to help,
to break that siege on me
and lend Their power pure.
I know now,
there is another way,
kinder, gentler, simpler.
there is always something
some thing that stands
between me and the fire
and casts a shadow that lies
on my face, a caul, a veil
it’s been called mask
and I bat at it, swat at it
the ninja master of
when you walk face-first
into spiderwebs
you never saw
but flail to no avail
to claw away this veil
(the caul)
me and my desire
(the fire)
and the thing
(whatever fits)
between me and the fire
me and body
me and love
me and longing
i cannot get to it
(the fire)
so i can dive into it
(and burn and burn and)
so instead i move sideways
around the thing and to the water
that waits for me placid, peaceful
yielding inviting thirsty
for me
it will drink of me
it will be one with me
it will give me itself for my body
it will marry me
(not just the idea of me)
and the flowers will sing
(they float)
and my dress shall dissolve
and my veil shall away
so that my breath
and my body
and the water
at last
become
one
believe in a virgin birth?
implausible, absurd, immature!
a miracle problematic and troubling!!
inconvenient, that! disruptive!
Why, I don’t prefer it!
go walk on water, or multiply yeasty slices!
but inside…my body…my body…MY body!?!?
Nay! Do as You please with Yours but
git Yer greezy paws offn mine!
(it’s my precious!)
what’s that? why not?
Why not this birth inconvenient and impractical?
Why…because there is no mystery about this whole mess!!
Simply:
somehow, somewhere, sometime, someway
there was a soup
(not mine, I assure you, and whose?
well that ain’t my department!!)
a group of molecules
(from somewhere, sometime, someplace)
got together without knowing
(because: before knowing, ya ken?)
they just got together and became self-replicating
(i don’t know about that…
but we have that problem yet today:
self replication…ah self, you cursed demon!)
Hmmm…this sounds ummm,
well, I don’t want to be a smart ass
but I will risk becoming a talking donkey
and ask you:
If there was a Virgin Birth, what happened?
Molecules insensate unknowing
tasting soup without primordial tastebuds
and becoming out of nowhere
the Bread of Life?
And that’s different…how?
(except it excludes Love, oh such Love contained therein!)
Our smartest blindest tell us this:
‘…the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something
rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.’
(ima duck my head now and giggle!
and the tome called The Grand Design…
design…
by a not-Who
in a not-Where
for a not-Reason
but Grand.
and Design.
lol…molecules just laffed out loud)
Look: this never happens, not anywhere.
So, accepting that mystery, well then
we’re all the same and somewhere we leap
in faith.
‘Cept I leap at Mama…not molecules.
I eat of Miracles, not primal soup,
but I will dunk such Living Bread
as given to me
into the cup of suffering
for the sake of Love
and a Baby
born of a virgin
and my Mama dancing.
the arrival of that miracle
our hearts all know lurks
just outside this skein of time,
practicing its own waiting
for the miracle moment of emergence…and
redemption of yet another season of waiting.
Revealed.
A God
shouldered It’s Way
into the world today…
This God, revealed
rough and roaring
and wrapped in the skin
of this baby asleep,
hidden here in our heart
Revealed.
Reunion waits for me and you…
That towering act of redemption
Resounds throughout all of creation, today
Revealed.
Lion, Lamb and Baby through the smoke
Paying every Promise that They Spoke
Revealed.
God has stepped into our world
to dig us out of every prison
we disguised as snug burrows
and cozy hobbit holes
Revealed.
This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed…
Revealed.
Time will never simply pass by
without engraving its mark
in a stab to my heart or a tender sweet touch
or a mortal wound bleeding and dark
Revealed.
Kneel where you are, for that is where it is,
that lowly manger unseen by the great
and in that manger, there inside of you
your face upturned and wet with Heaven’s dew
the Christ Child comes to make all things brand new
Revealed.
They…hungry…ready
to come to us now.
Them with us
move in us
empty us
to satisfy us
dine with us
and hunger ever sharp and sated
all at once
Revealed.
…and we?
With gratitude we enter, invitation tightly clutched to aching breast…
we kneel hushed and astonished safe and sound as we are changed
by this Child’s Gift (or is the Child Himself the gift that’s given?)
Invited to approach and revel, knowing what we’ve always known
is finally here and shining present, Sacred Heart Alive Forever
in the season of fulfillment pure and everlasting…
Revealed.
…and so we yearn, together, aching
in the lonely moments waiting
perfect timing of those winds
to blow away the mists
and let that mountain shine again
in solid clarity and splendour promises
that someday the Divine Loneliness
and human grieving longing
will be overcome by
Faith and Hope and Love
Revealed.
I am mindful of
many things I hold in faith,
committed to God
Revealed.
For here it is we sit and wait,
for the coming of our Heart
Their meaning to our Core impart.
Today, the Life Revealed,
the Heart of God Revealed
utterly different than the heart of man
revealed.
And you?
Here in this season of Revelation?
Do you dare?
Look within
Look without
and see what is revealed.
Today hubbub and hustle
tramways trollies and trellises
crammed with travelers, trophy-takers and talkers
the cacophony joyous ascends, surrounds, spreads
and in this din great tidings of cheer resound
and rebound, and return round again.
But at the core, where I sit,
(you are sat there too, you know. Just listen)
it is silent. The Quiet is here.
Thick. Palpable, wooly white and
smelling of seasoned woods and wet forest kneeled
and of the hush in the heart of the Snow-Covered Fields.
It descends, swells, covers and crawls
(on feet like Sandberg’s cat)
and fills the core of cheer with substance
The substance of Silence.
The presence of Anticipation.
For here it is we sit and wait,
for the coming of our Heart
Their meaning to our Core impart.
And as the night stretches out and goes on
and the din dies down exhausted and content
the silent sound of labor has begun.
The shriek of sweat trickles down
(fingers down life’s blackboard revealing white beneath)
her face, contorted in composed intent concentration
Bearing down, the groaning of contractions
and the towering soundless shouts of no one there with her
except her earnest clumsy man so loving, so full of silent fear.
*me sat here, throat lumpified and choked,
mummified and heart stokes,
smoke stacked up, backed up
and no where to go but inward,
no words to say no deeds to do
no place to go no getting away
no arriving new just sat here,
enduring, waiting*
The silent moment flexes hard and pushes
Her face a rictus of the wrenching passion
of the passage of a God, her baby
and then deliverance and everything on pause
every heart breath held and chest unmoving
until the night is pierced by One Small Cry that echoes still
across our darking skies,
in the fullness of Anticipation
In the Season of Silence, this Holy Present Silence.
I set off on this journey full of hope.
And wrapped in splendours of belonging here…
or there…it doesn’t really matter there or here
which far exceeds being nothing nowhere
But as I walked the crowds all fell away
and cruel branches raked across my face
disfigured me, tattooed with brutal scars
my garments stripped and used to block the stars
and so my world grew dim and I alone
and my companions left me trapped within
The last straw to which I desperate, clung
was dashed from my hands, hope was trashed and flung
to the four winds and blown away in dust,
left me un-moored, an object of disgust.
But hope is funny, indomitable
and it is sneaky, looking empty, full
and when I dried my eyes, what did I see?
But hope returned to heal and rescue me.
That Absent God so silent and so cruel
had made a move, become the Supreme Fool
and suffered as a lost and lonely peasant
and in absence became Supremely Present
It’s Here, in this fog, everything in shroud
Listen, hear that coming footfall loud
Lion, Lamb and Baby through the smoke
Paying every Promise that They Spoke
There…wet…thin…starving and alone
that’s me abandoned wet, drenched to the bone
and nothing beautiful, nothing of worth…
to this manger…that’s me…comes Christmas birth
And so I will press on, and I will grope
thru deep darkness in this season of hope.
To a meeting long destined,
long remembered and yet
ironically never lived…
well, that is not quite true,
my Heart, T’was lived
repeatedly apart…
you in your chamber,
in the air…and me?
Marooned and shipwrecked
here!
Nothing to give except this scrap
of paper brittle…it’s a map
to an island lost at sea
X marks the spot to look
for me!
Yes? You know where to dig, right?
in the hubbub, hullabaloo,
Reunion waits for me and you…
That towering act of redemption
Resounds throughout all of creation.
so with that in mind…
a perfect advent season
would involve this place
that has this room,
and other corners
full of cushions
and spice piney boughs
(and incense heart bows),
and it would be
a small place so large
where we
would sit,
and sip
(coffee, tea,
you and me, and
writing…writing…
of what could be,
should be
will be
and writing…),
silence would be
such sweet symphony
as voices ancestral
and ancient and future
speak in silken tones sonorous
and thunderous tenors trumpeting,
the old grandmother clock
slowly keeping time
(I am so grateful
for grandmother
who keeps time,
she saves it up
for us, dear)…
and then this room unfolds in space
to wonders in this magic place
of fireplaces stoked with wood
and laughter warm and food so good
and families mingled full and wild
and always watching is the Child
who designated you and me
and whom we love, and that big tree
there, frosted perfect with excess
surrounded with the gifts to bless
each other and to bless Them too
Reunion there…of me and you.
This is my heart’s Christmas wish
Reunion is it’s serving dish.
Love you…me
just an ember
in the ashes
in the hearth
in the midst
of a fireplace
cooling off
stones grown cold
in the midst
of a big
empty room
full of sheeted
furniture still
petrified ghosts
frozen in the chill
of indifferent interest
and neglect so still
in the midst
of a house
full of voices
merely echoes
of those voices
long ago
when the ghosts
were thawed and human
and limber in
the room so warm
the fire bright
the stones so hot
and embers glowing
and their skin shining
and their bones throbbing
like maps of knowing
to the way that heaven
felt back then
and where they’d gone
and where they’d been.
Where is the promise and news of The Coming?
Where are the answers we need?
Where is the end of suffering and fighting?
Where is the peacemaker’s pen?
When will we find deep reconciliation?
When will our cynical lies
Cease and desist so true transformation
Delivers us from deadly despair?
Is there a hope in remembering Advent?
Waiting for God to show up?
Is there a reason to watch and to wait
For a God who arrives in disguise?
Advent proclaims God is born in the manger
Of waiting for Them to appear,
But as what? A King Mighty? A Warrior? A Sovereign?
A helpless baby laid there?
Shall we accept Advent’s great Invitation
And wait for this God to draw near?
Shall we allow our masks to fall away
And lift up hearts and our faces bare?
Dare we celebrate Christmas instead of consuming
like ravenous wolves on a Kill?
Will we with shepherds and Kings and with peasants
kneel and beseech the Babe there?
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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