How I love this, aspire to this!!
Tag Archives: Love
It’s true…
“And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”
— The Chaos of Stars (Kiersten White)
Intentional Unknowing
Constance, one more quick post, and then we are off on the bikes! Yippeeee!!!
So…I am learning to not call my body/soul/mind/emotion clash a prison, or sentence, or monster, or any of those other things…Mama has been quite active and specific in calling me into account and showing me that far from being the result of the conditions of the fall, and something that went haywire as I was formed, my being was very intentionally and soberly purposed by Them! Ever single last aspect!
oh, I was well acquainted with the Psalms which tell us of Their involvement and intricate knowledge of us…but I had pushed these things to a comfortable place theologically…as in there are many things that the Fall mars and wrecks…things that They have not intentioned, but have indeed accounted for with Their Grace. And I had classified my transgender being as one of those things: a result of the Fall and something to be redeemed and eventually cured when all things are made right. In the meantime, I despised myself. My body and its awful clumsy and large power covered in blechy hair and muscle…and that. And my heart…”weak and overly emotional and on my sleeve at all times side by side with streaks of snot”…and my soul…unwilling to hammer down on someone who needs correction but instead draw close and win them over, much to the ire of all the males in my life…I despised my swings from knowing I could do all things thru Jesus to thinking that They literally despised me for longing to have the body I felt I was denied…
…and worst of all? I thought, in my most secret thoughts, that They had done this to me, to punish me for being so bad…They had made this as scourging.
I am so thankful that They are overcoming all my evil with Their good! Truly…
…but this latest round of talks…She has been very specific, and letting me see some of the backstory of what things I have said, or done, or written which have been helpful and life-giving and of service to others…and She has shown irrefutably to my heart of shame and self-loathing that not one of those things would have been possible were it not for the unique balancing of all the various aspects of my being which are seemingly in conflict but are in truth the warp and weft of the very tapestry of life and grace They are making me into!
My experiences in male roles, and the accompanying policing and disciplines (used in a putative sense), the intense efforts made by men when I was young in efforts to “make me tough” or “teach me to be a man”…and later being in male spaces in our culture hearing the naked expression of men to one another, witnessing the truly unconscious taking of privilege and the aggrieved hearts when denied…and hearing men talk, when one on one with me and thinking me male…just different or weird and yet strangely comforting to talk to…
…and my experiences on the outside, excluded by minds and bodies and actions…female roles and spaces and bodies…which heightened my observational skills, and sharpened my inductive and deductive abilities…and gave me an ear to hear…
…and the null…the razor place of horror and emptiness where everyone else had a place and a person, and I had nothing, like literally nothing…and my lil mind heard about the God shaped vacuum? and assumed that was this (it isn’t, by the way, that space is where our spirits are still born and in need of resurrection)…and so pursued God and was pursued by Them,…hey, it was either that or kill myself. Those were my options…
and now…to see…to feel the wisdom and the divine risk They took in intentionally availing themselves of the developmental processes in human biology to make me…and then make me…Charissa Grace…so see that They gambled on Their love and grace and mercy being enough, and They gambled on me to be so slayed by one glance that I would be hopelessly in thrall forever??
No…never again will I call it a prison…and thanks to my bff who asked me once if I could choose one or the other, would I choose that? Giggle…most of the time the Q is which would I choose…but wise wise DDH asked more would I choose, if I could.
I choose Them. I choose Their glory and Their Plan. I choose Their Indescribable Comfort and Joy.
And now to my topic: I believe that God intentionally has chosen Unknowing in regards to relationship with us!
Yes! I KNOW, right???? That sounds heretical, and sounds insane! I mean, God knows all, sees, all, etc etc…They are freaking GOD! And when the One God in 3 Persons and the 3 in One God decide to manifest in Their Oneness, Their THEM-NESS…why then we see that fantastical and indescribable Entity referred to by those who have been in Its Presence as “Lord God Almighty”…and it is too too TOO to the extent that the people who see this fall down as if dead, and their eyes perceive “monsters” with multiple wings and legs and eyes and mouths that fly around the Entity Lord God Almighty and scream at It louder than all loud “HOLY! HOLY!” (and other things…shiver).
So where do I get off saying that God chooses to not know vast portions of relationship with us?
Well, Ima tell ya a story…years ago, I was out and about on a rainy dark clammy morning, soaked to my bones and chilled, and miserable beyond words. It was Oregon rain, and my baby who grew up in Wyoming swears to this day that 38 degrees and rainy in Oregon is a million times worse than 20 below in Wyoming…and I was out in a loud, smelly, noisy truck! Driving it, using it to work with my body so I could provide for my darlings 5. I hate trucks. I hate machines, and they hate me too. They bite me almost everyday and leave me bloody and wounded…and they hurt my heart too with their bellowing and caterwauling.
And my mouth and mind were with God…hey, I had nowhere else to go, it certainly wasn’t because I was any paragon of virtue or spiritual giant! Lol! No…I was more like the bum at the off ramp of God’s freeway with my sign and tale of woe to elicit a few coins…
but I was trying to talk to the Father that morning…and getting no where, because I was so despairing and so frustrated…and Ima be blunt honest with you, kay? This is how I talk to Them, cus I figure They know my heart already, so if I fake it and talk all pretty then not only will I have the regular failures and sins to deal with but the additional sin of lying to Them!! (Cantcha just hear it? “Don Pardo, tell Charissa what she just won!!” <Pardo’s unctuous voice>”Charissa…you just won LYING TO GOD!!!!!!!! No new car for you, girl! Nope…you get the nannygoat prize!” lol)
So, being bluntly honest with Father that day (and you here)… I finally had the following conversation:
Papa, why the fuck do I even bother praying!! It is just a litany of the same fucking complaints, the same awful feelings, the usual puking Pity Party! And the most frustrating things about it is You already fucking KNOW EVERYTHING!”
(yes, I f bombed to Papa…not proud of it…but you all know yo have done this, whether you have said it outloud or not…cus our hearts ARE F bombs, in their deceit and wickedness apart from Their Redeeming love)
Now, this is the distillation? Perhaps this rant went on just a bit longer? Long enough that I was hoarse and in a wrack of sobbing tears pulled over in a wide area beside the road because I couldn’t see?
And then as my sobs subsided (as they always did), as the tides receded and there was still the beach walk with Them to continue, I heard Papa sort of clear His throat and make a very gentle sound…so I listened.
“What makes you think I already know everything?”
“PAPA! Please!! Don’t fuck around with me today…I am not up to Your jokes and tricks and double-back hidey-behind pranks which result in your Wisdom being spoken to this fool! Everyone knows You know everything! It’s in Your bible, even people who don’t like You or believe in You know that You know everything (and by the way, I get super pissed at those idjuts who say they don’t believe in You, and yet ignore that You must be in order to not believe in…but that is a different rant!)!
“Does it? Does My Word say that?”
Constance, I have learned that when They ask you a Q like that it is best to shut up…and re-listen!! For the Bible is living, and so are we…and as we live and grow, so too the Word unfolds to us heights and depths and breadths that are there always, but visible only when we are in just this place…at just that time!
Papa said “What if I made a deal with Myself, with Jesus and Mama (Whom back then I referred to very impersonally as “the” holy spirit, and objectified Her)…and in that deal I decided that I would agree to “not know” vast territories of you and your life and existence…so we can have the Pleasure of joint discovery? After all…We have “unknown” all of your sins and iniquities in Our gifts of Mercy and Grace and Redeeming Metamorphosis…
“Think about your own self, with your own children…which is better…when you drag something out of them, or when you spy from a distance and figure things out…or when they come to you, unexpectedly and all on their own…in just that moment when you are feeling lonely and unnecessary to them or their life…and they begin to tell you their insides!
“The way that feels…the joy and gladness…the sense of miracle and wonder…and the way those things are your treasures and in your forever treasure box?”
and as soon as He said this I was PIERCED!! Whole volumes of reality clicked in for me…experiences lined up, and a whole new way of looking at Them was before me…so I laid down my f bomb boxing gloves, and instead asked in my open-faced and heart showing way…
“..Papa, is this true? How can You not know…but it FEELS true to me!!” And essentially He spoke to me about something I have called since then “Intentional Unknowing”. They chose to limit Themselves in many ways in regards to us….They have given us Free Will, and given us many other things that They have the ability to take back, but because of who They are, They never will, and thus “cannot” take back!
When it comes to our lives…our fears, our hurts, our joys and hopes? They can only know the depth of our specificity if we tell Them!!
Well, the rest is very funny, cus as soon as I grasped all this, I told Papa that I was gonna chirp and chirp forever and He was gonna regret ever telling me He wanted to know me! LOLOL (Hey DDH, can you relate??? giggles…or my baby out there?? or my own Daddy long dead…he is nodding in heaven and knuckle-bumping with the Father in solidarity, having endured the never ending Charissa chatter-flow! lol)
And I leave you with this: God has filled His word with countless exhortations to pray…and we in our foolishness and religious dumbassery have turned these pleas to talk to Them into duties to be performed in order to merit Their activity on our behalf giving us what we think we want!
Well, see it a bit differently…see Them, as you would your own children, pleading with us to talk to Them!! Let Them into our lives, into our thoughts and heart! They are hungry to know us!! They long to be given something that They cannot have in any other way, than that we give it to Them!! And then when you go to pray, do not think of Them as big know-it-alls who are checking things off Their list and tallying our score and computing our “answer to prayer effectiveness quotient!”
No…They are moms, hearts bleeding joy that Their babies are speaking to Them! They are dads, who so deeply yearn for the sharing of Their children and that dialogue which makes every sacrifice an honor and every blow a privilege!
And you wanna know something more? You yourself will come to know yourself better…and Them better too, cus They actually like to conversate!! They will talk back, you know…you did know that right? Right??
“Pray without ceasing” can be read as “Whaddya do t’day ‘Rissa??? Huh? Huh? TellMeTellmeTellMe!!)
Okay…I’m outta here for now…so how bout this? Shut off the computer…go for a walk…and chatter like Charissa!!
All my love and heart to you, and I can’t wait to hear your stories!!
Charissa
You Need Malcus In Your Life
It’s interesting to me…as I have written about before (Words Echo For Eternity)…the power of words. They are alive, words, and the power of life and death is in them.
Well, actually in us, as we are the author and originator of our words, especially those spoken impulsively or without censor as they just speak out of the overflow of the heart…we are the ones who have the power of life and death.
I have allus been so intrigued that in the garden of Gethsemane, when they came to provide Jesus with the opportunity to yield to their summons…Peter was there with a sword…and he got so incensed that he attacked one of the mob!
In fact, he attacked Malcus, a servant of the high priest {one of the villains of the crucifiction}. Jesus was horrified by Peter’s actions, and made a point to heal Malcus before He was taken, and then speak the famous words that if you take the sword you will perish by it as well. Jesus wanted us to know that when we take our words (swords) and try to bring about justice or righteousness by force, we end up rendering the very ones we seek to influence deaf to our efforts by cutting off their ears!
(I recognize that the commonly held understanding of this passage is that Jesus was making a comment about the morality of war, and I think that misses the deepest most salient point…far greater is the number of humans slaughtered and murdered in the death camps of the Dictator Tongue than every war in history combined…except that these casualties become zombies, shambling and staggering thru life biting and infecting anything that looks like life to them.
I suspect that is why Zombie themed “entertainment” is so popular…cus it tells us these truths in ways we can receive it and not do anything about it.)
And, we sow the seeds of our own destruction as well…we spread our evil heart’s “wild oats” into the hearts of others, and those stricken and misshapen bastards return with hatred to us…their progenitor…and demand the birthright of blood, and hurt…and death. Certainly I have experienced this over years…and I know you each have as well.
One last point about Malcus: his name in Hebrew means “my king, kingdom, or counselor”. Contemplate the possible significance there…you divide yourself from counsel when you attack with words…you separate yourself from your sovereign and all the power behind the throne when you use your words in battle…you lose your very place of authority and fruitfulness (your kingdom).
See, Malcus was a servant of a villain, a bad one. And he quite likely was acting upon the authority of the high priest, and thus appeared to Peter to be one who needed to be corrected, stopped, and perhaps even punished for his heinous acts. But God’s economy is upside down to us…usually we find those whom They have designated as our help and source of counsel in quite unexpected places.
Take a look into your life right now. Just for a moment, lay down your sword (words, convictions, passions)…and look around. See any Malcuses around? (and remember, Malcus was likely a slave, so he may have had no choice in his actions on the high priest’s behalf).
Back to me…I confess I had my sword in hand, and had waved it a few times…savoring its whistly threat and silvery shimmer and wooopy cry. I imagined the great war, me as Joan of Arc at the fore attacking the injustice and the blindness and the fat bloated privileged attitudes…and saw nothing but ears laying around me, and Jesus and Mama hustling around trying to match up ears and wounds, looking at me in consternation and disappointment!
So…I sighed and laid it down…
My heart is happy this morning, and overflowing with a good theme…and my tongue is the pen of a ready writer…
So how ’bout it…do ya want a sword outta yer mouth, which makes you a pretender to Jesus’ throne…or do you want the pen of a ready writer, recording good themes overflowing from a heart content and joyful?
Love, Charissa Grace
A truism and a signpost inferred
Constance, here is something I have noticed…about myself and about people in general, I think:
We judge others by their actions…we judge ourselves by our intentions.
Is this true? If so, I think you are canny enough to turn that signpost in the direction it should go in order to better be generous of spirit and kind of countenance and compassionate in actions…right?
Deepest Blessings to you this day, and I exhort you to try out a new thing: a conscious search in each person you meet today, for their intentions which may put a very different light on their actions.
Love and grace to you…
Charissa
The Temptation of Nationalism
Dear Constance…
I have had an experience that has unsettled me today. I want to share it, find out from you if this is a common experience for you online, and make an exhortation to you as readers here. Okay? 🙂
So…I stopped by a site that I enjoy, one I visit regularly as I am delighted by the content on a nearly daily basis. This morning, drinking my early coffee and thankful for an easy day on vacation with nothing to do but write, ride my bike, and see my naturopath (all systems go! Yaaayyy!!), I stopped in there…
…and read a lil nugget which I since discovered was a headline from a news feed and presented as a “found poem” (I have those, but never in headlines! Mine are usually lurking in wind chimes and waterfalls, mists and moonlight, meadows and mountains)…and then said headline was added to something that I later had defined to me as “just a fact”.
Aside: Constance, is there such a thing as “just a fact?” or “just a fact?” What was meant by it, I think, was that it was a common bit of information that everyone knows is so. Certainly mathematical values are true…maybe facts? “Fact” is defined as “a thing that is indisputably the case.” Now, there is at least the fact that we all do find foundational the notion of an absolute truth…even those who argue there isn’t. Just tell them they are silly and you don’t need to listen to them because they are right, there is no absolute truth except for that they stand on when teaching us there isn’t any! Giggle…even to ditzy me it is obvious that this is a self-defeating rhetorical position. So yeah, we do know there are facts, but here is the complication:
“Facts” are perceived and interpreted by human beings…with a particular point of view in a particular historical context and a particular life experience! When you assert to a person, in the effort to validate your p.o.v. or your argument, that it is “just a fact”, you have stepped out onto ice that is deceptively thin and treacherous There are countless ways that this can be falsified. One merely has to think back to historical times when it was “just a fact” that the sun revolved around the earth, or that witches always floated.
Or let’s be close and contemporary: a white middle class male might very earnestly assure a black economically challenged male that it is “just a fact” that the police are your friends. Interview nearly any black male regardless of class, and you will discover that their “fact” is that the police are definitely not your friends.
My point is not that there are no facts, but rather the use of such a phrase as shortcut thinking employed to dismiss the need to consider and apply much needed nuance.
As I read the lil nugget which was the combination of a so-called found poem and a headline there was a link to the story the headline was about…except that the link took me to a political document designed to draw attention to the ways that educators were being treated unjustly (in this person’s point of view, likely also definitely just a fact(s).) Which puzzled me even more.
But it was after, on the comments that followed, that my heart was increasingly hurt and distressed, and I was filled with a hurt and disappointment…I think mostly with myself, as I had attributed a much higher level of discourse and orientation to this place than I was seeing. I was disillusioned, and this was my own fault.
Snarkiness and that odd form of inside-the-group glee that seems to take over with groups as they can “other” some other people group, nation, social class, spirituality, or you name it. We see it most commonly happen with issues of race, and issues of nationalism. And I am absolutely undone as I watch intelligent people who would never ever broad brush one another glibly and without thought get carried away in the comments.
Of course, a group that I am a part of by birth was the butt of the derision, and of course I felt hurt. But I was not hurt that the put downs and one-ups-manship was directed at the group I was born into…rather it pained me to see what I had thought was an intelligent and sensitive person with a far more open hearted orientation to people on the basis of their humanity slowly emerge to me over the day as more deeply entrenched as a nationalist thinker than I had imagined. Not once prior to today had the person’s nationalistic membership occurred to me. I don’t recall if I ever saw anything like this in the comments, which I read due to the witty and sensitive replies by the site administrator.
I wrote in, expressing my surprise and dismay, expecting (naively, apparently) that the person would consider my comments and moderate their own.
Instead, I got one of those cut and paste emails (you know the ones, right?), where my words were pasted back to me, and then the rebuttal to them proceeded with a cherry-picked interpretation of what I meant in what I wrote.
All in all, very distressing, and the clincher? I had referenced my being transgender as an easy example of my broader point that it is far too easy and hurtful to judge people and groups by the labels attached to them…and the reply concluded that I was objecting to the misrepresentation of a whole nation on the basis of labels because this misrepresentation has happened to me because I am transgender.
In other words, it was not possible that it was wrong, and a violation of grace to broad brush a people group…no, I had the issues with it I had due to my deeper issues and past hurts.
OK: Scene is now set. You are up to speed. Two points I wish to make:
First, I was stupid and naive to write and expect something different when the evidence was staring me in the face that the snarkfest was far too delicious to listen to a different take…bad on me.
But second…here at GraceNotes, if there is ever anything like this going on? I will be gravely disappointed in you, Constance! And even more gravely disappointed in myself, for being blind to it and allowing it to appear unchallenged or just flat out banned.
There is no place for that…times are too short and the issues are too grave with what we are about here, and the rewards for persevering in grace too grand to miss out on!! I have come to know this readership as diverse, generous, intelligent, and above all united in the common determination to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly! Comment after comment has proven this out. Here, the broken, the outcast, the alien and stranger are not only welcomed and received, but honored and lifted up.
If this is not so…if I have ever, ever “othered” you, policed you, treated your feelings casually and dismissive, then I beg your forgiveness and want to dialogue with you so that I can apologize and then make restitution to your heart for such insensitivity on my part.
If I have ever placed my group, my country, my politics or spirituality over our common bond as human beings sacred and invaluable in our existence, then I was badly wrong, and out of tune with Them whom it is my greatest desire to represent with accuracy and fidelity.
I will tell you the rest of the story: I turtled and ended the conversation. I don’t have the stomach for debate when generalities and tropes are called facts and discourse and attentive respect are the currency buying deeper connection and relationship. And I came over here to write about it, to write it out and think it thru.
Lol…my best friend tells me that I write things out and process my thinking by writing them out…
She smart.
She right! lol.
Constance…please come here. Please when you do know that we are here for joy, for grace, for progress in bringing light and banishing darkness…and above all as a place to grow, together. Be diverse in your thought and opinion…we blind need each other’s piece of what the elephant is, and monolithic thought in almost any capacity is extremely dangerous to the discovery of Truth…
…but in the diversity of your thought, always be monolithic in your commitment to love, to do justice and love mercy, and to walk humbly!
In sorrow over the day’s distresses, and gratefulness for your shoulders to weep on and even snot on a lil.
Love, Charissa Grace
Charissa is Content
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Psalm 131:2
Wean: to deal out bountifully to, to recompense fully, to ripen
Weaned: to have been dealt out to with bountifulness, to have been recompensed fully, to have been ripened
Each and every day, my Mama, the wonderful Lady Grace and Great Holy Spirit of the Almighty God of the Universe has dealt with me generously, recompensed me with great favor and grace, and has and is ripening me.
She has given me Herself, and ladies from Her courts as sisters, friends, and companions.
I am ever eternally grateful to you all
Thank you
for saying yes to Love’s call, and more yes to Love’s great lands and territories High and Honorable
The Chisel’s Hungry Bite
laying on the workbench, half carved.
clamps grip my “here and there”
there…here…anywhere I move or
slide away to from
under the chisel’s hungry bite.
wood shavings lay strewn about,
results of carvings complete,
curling locks shorn
from a recruit
on the first day of basic…or
from the denizens of Dachau
on the first day of chaos.
the view from here is clear by half…
…half:
done
undone
too smart by
falling short of the other
done with this
but incomplete, in the hole
of halfway.
a rocking horse, there, high up
on the shelf, intricate carved
curves sleek and defined,
It is there.
Safe and knowing its place done.
it is not here, clamped and halfway.
a train taught its shape
with that chisel sharp and knowing,
with that auger licking hungry
and this drill sublime and hole-y…
trained to whistle and to
click-clackity click-clack
down tracks laid by hands
and connected to ground
and come round again
displaying always it was here
but it is now there.
jaunty paint glistens red,
and yellow, and blue with glad
waiting for strings,
and plucking fingers
that move carved arms,
kick knife-hewn legs
and blink eyes saw-made
and staring…
staring at here unseeing,
staring from there.
and parts jumbled
pieces present and
full of purpose yet unfolded
sit still, calm and unclamped
I wait too, in pieces along with parts:
midst dry cedar shaving clouds scented
midst ordered clutter and stilled clamber
midst bunched silver sharp-toothed oily tools
sitting sleek, and sleeping with one yellow eye
open.
the chisel croons its tangy tangled song
in my ear which is indeed there
and waits to taste me…here.
it promises to take me
it promises to pierce me, rend me,
spread here splayed and waiting
to be taken…there.
i dread the coming dawn
and the chisel’s hungry bite
i yearn for it to touch me
and shiver with delight
because it takes me…there.
yes, at dawn,
the chisel’s hungry bite, oh…
the chisel’s hungry bite
The Story They Tell
“Every time you open your eyes
I fall deeper in love with the story they tell.”
— Michael Faudet
Phoenix Rising (For she who knows this is for her)
She woke, arms reaching to the singing moon
that glimmered in soft velvet star-streaked air.
Her heart lept joyous, woken from death’s swoon
Her face wreathed by her effervescent hair.
She stirred, she rose by trees there, sentinels
of sacred sleep, of metamorphosis
who reached to resurrect her fulsome soul
and clothe her in green boughs and woody kiss
and there she danced, unclothed, absolved, untamed
and kissed the moon with hungry clear desire,
while ardent winds caressed her, unashamed,
and she took wing on tongues of Blazing Fire
Arise my love, leave sorrow’s crucifix
and fly to me, your Resplendent Phoenix
2013 at last makes sense…
thank you Mama, for your faithful love.
thank you Dani, for walking the folds
Love and gratitude,
Charissa Grace
I wanted to hear from you
(I go to see HR today…I am frightened stiff from the unknown. And it is 3 AM, the worst time of all times in every day of times. I wrote this in the attempt to loosen the grip of anxiety that tears inside…alas, it knows the teeth tracks of years and finds them effortlessly. To be honest, I think this poem sucks…it is too much a mirror of me, bound and terrified in this moment. But to be more honest, I think the act of sharing this poor bound baby poem is a stance of courage in the face of fear and my challenge hurled back, that I will never ever drink that hemlock escape.)
When I was sparkly fire and glow, and scintillating with insight
I heard from you.
I wanted to hear from you.
When I was prescient and perfect, precise and plenary
I heard from you.
I wanted to hear from you.
When I was funny and tickling and a madly capering jester
I heard from you.
I wanted to hear from you.
When I was torn and teary inside, and still like lakes at midnite
I didn’t hear from you,
I wanted to hear from you.
When I was thrumming stiff and stark, helpless in fear’s talons
I didn’t hear from you,
I wanted to hear from you.
When I was mute from sorrow and deaf from grief
I didn’t hear from you,
I wanted to hear from you.
I face unknown guillotines,
strange purveyor of power
whose lifted finger could be life
or the executioner’s twitch.
Does it mean life, or
death to my dreams and me?
Your words uncork my heart
unlocks my jaw
undeafs my ear
pour wine and set table
they calm, gentle me
I wanted to hear from you
I wanted to hear from you
Matters of Heart and Bloody Core (for Kat, whom I love)
She rides today, shotgun
in matters of heart and bloody core,
matters of blood, matters of bone,
her flesh become word and wing
and flight to wider blue skies
and pastures…
…rides shotgun atop
treasure boxes soon emptied
but not until
the very last second…God forbid…
please.
She sits, still shielding
but fingers open
and heart unclenched
in the green ritual of becoming
yet again repeated,
yet again echoing
those who flew before by thousands,
swarms searching for Capistrano
and finding college and career and clouds
gathered…and clouds parted.
She rides shotgun,
she, shotgun,
rides with diamond frozen tears
pinned back callous
behind both barrels
cocked and loaded,
her tender torn eyelids
primed with tearshot
(frozen tears rip as they sit
gathered, bunched, clenched)
Waves, washing by, wistful,
irritated, emotions
mendacious and mirror walking
around that carriage of connection
to futures unseen
swirl and caress her face
with terrible talking fingers.
Her heart is still,
on hold,
(she holds him in her heart)
what was once,
and is, and knows
what will be comes…
(Que Sera, Sera!)
…but not yet.
Because across miles, time,
her blood calls to bone,
her soul and spirit moan
remembering, loving, memorialized
and set in stone
forever.
Miles will pass. Time
will roll by, and that
return of body and bone
will glad at last be known…
and her laugh, her squint,
(shotgun)
her head toss
and still wonder
will echo to her heart
from babies to be born,
but still bone of her bone…
and heart will thaw and
throat unclench
at last and swallow
that diamond lump stark and
glistening with inevitability.
But now…
Across miles, time
she rides…
shotgun
Dara Hoffman-Fox and Me
Constance, I want to tell you about a very important resource for your education and growth in matters transgender related. My new friend Dara (who getting to know is like coming back to a childhood home from long ago, and having memories flood back clear and full) is a therapist, specializing in transgender humans.
(I love this photo of her, because it shows the Peace she carries on her shoulders!)
Dara is a true bright light, and her energy and commitment is literally saving lives that otherwise quite likely would be miscarried and malformed, or even lost altogether. Dara has a sense of mission that is of the ilk I refer to when I plead to you cis-gender people to pluck up your courage and conviction and make a place for the dispossessed and stranger and alien.
I truly believe that real significant cultural transformation will only occur when the current possessors of power willingly insist on the inclusion of the outcast. Dara has that vision, that passion, and that calling, and dives in whole heart. I was fortunate enough to first encounter Dara thru a podcast. At the time, I was at the crisis point, that place where all has fallen apart enough for the power and life in the seed to burst the hull and come forth.
Just hearing Dara, this cheerful certainty that transformation was possible, was enough for me, and I began to nose up once again…and knew in my heart in that moment that sometime in the future, somehow, somewhere, Dara and I would cross paths. I was filled with the conviction that our nexus would be significant and that together we would be able to have great impact. I am mindful of that old prophetic declaration “…and one shall put a thousand to flight, but two shall rout ten-thousand!”
I signed up for Dara’s newsletter and went to the website where I found links to educational materials, resources for my own growth and mental health, and just that indomitable cheerful strength that Dara simply exudes. And then flash forward one year…
…and Dara is asking for input from readers regarding different resource ideas. Well, I felt that “baby” kick in my gut, hit the reply button, and jabbered away for 10 pages…apparently those words were a similar lil power bomb in Dara’s heart as that podcast and other writings were in mine! Dara liked it! Which thrilled me, obvi…it has been a struggle in my life to ever know I am liked.
One thing led to another, and we emailed in fun flurries of fancy and vision, and voila! I had an article written.
This article is aimed at you, Constance…you cis-gendered individuals who might find yourselves tapped by transgendered people who desire to have you in their life as a pillar of support. It lists a few points that explain why you are the one that has been chosen to come out to, it details what the trans experience is like from a transgender perspective, and finally it gives counsel in ways you can be present and help your loved one to live…and not die.
Please? Head over to Dara’s site?
There you will find a wealth of resource and support…and my own lil article called
Gender Transition: The Leap of Brave Beginnings, and 8 Ways You Can Help
Dara and I have been brainstorming in a beautiful serendipity over creating some things that would be available for a small fee with all proceeds going to those without anything so that they could live and transition without having to partake of destructive things just to survive. We have lots of ideas…
…but we are finding that when cis-gender people who are curious about things ask, well it gives us such good direction and focus…so as you read, as questions arise or topics surface, let us know? You can reach me here at Gracenotes and charissa_grace@comcast.net and Dara has contact information easily available over on her page.
Think of it…one snowflake sets off an avalanche…will it be you? And if not, will you take your place so that the “one” can have a place to land and set it off?
Thanks Constance, and blessings to you this day
(Dara and Charissa brainstorming! Lololol!! 🙂 )
Clues
Okay Constance…I am gonna confess a lil indulgence of ego: I really like my new poem “Her Door, Her Red Door“, and frankly I am a little disappointed there have not been very many likes on it…but I am also not surprised for it is inference, symbol, veil, subtly blatant while blatantly subtle…
I actually and for real think it is one of my most skillful poems to date.
But I get that it is not necessarily appealing…but consider, if you would, the poem itself in the context of the work of the poet: I once said “The poet is a desperater man than most. He must get it all down before the ages are up. Which, as any poet will tell you Is A BITCH!” (waaay back in 1982)…
…I was trying to say that there is a “job” in poetry, or perhaps a better word is quest? No matter…if you consider yourself a poet (and I do) then you find this inability to see life as any other thing but a poem and events/circumstances/happenings are all snapshots into the heart of the poem.
Thus, when I write I try to emulate the layers, hidden and revealed, that comprise this Mystery we swim in.
In “Her Door, Her Red Door“, you find me operating on a few very intentional levels…I do not want to just lay it out there. That is a bit too clinical, sort of like the difference between sex education class in Middle School Health class, and the wonder and poignant pain of Love’s First Kiss. But I do want you to have some sense of the structure, the themes and the interplay of them. I can be obtuse…lol.
First of all, consider that it is a poem written by a trans-gender woman who is in the midst of transition. This overall context puts the other elements in perspective and frames the picture.
Secondly, it is a poem dedicated to a person whom I have openly spoken of and the role she has in my life. That role has permutations and multiple facets when considered poetically. What is her “business” with me? What is mine with her? What is our mutual end? And more fundamentally, Constance, what is your position in all this as well? Are you somehow about the same things, in the salient areas of becoming that you face?
Next comes the unfolding of my view of our essential business: becoming. She is a facilitator of mine, and as I participate in her provisions I aid hers as well…and each of you, as you become day to day, may perhaps find touchstones in this poem’s point of view and approach to that becoming. You will, of course, have to make inference and feel your way under the sheet to the true bones of your own transitions in this life as a sentient, conscious being stuck between the macrocosm and the microcosm infinities, and with eyes…
I choose a physical aspect of her and invest that with meaning far other than the expected trope culturally in our pornography laced times…there are only three capital letters used in this poem. That is on purpose.
There are obvious references to musicians…why specific ones? Why them? What are the specific characteristics of those humans? (Remember to ask this inside the “frame” of the picture I mentioned earlier). There are single words that link back to lyrics, and those lyrics in turn echo back the essential business of this magic woman, which echo back to my own quest of becoming.
There are many puns laced throughout, intentionally slanted in relation to the core…that way they can make the connection and then…like leaves in early autumn, gracefully drop away once their purpose for the tree is completed, and reveal the strong and vital branches of the tree beneath that leafy veil…
The door: resist the temptation to skim over this, thinking it is obvious…no? Perhaps, like usual with me, it is a sonar reading on a larger diamond lurking in the dark of unknown knowns…but if you will try, you may very well enjoy letting those things bubble up inside you…from your heart.
Lastly, and remember that I have said before that wine and the process of creating it is for me the central metaphor of the universe, think about the poem again, in entirety (which means you can reinterpret the words on the 4 layers of existential being: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)…and once you have that palate built? Start to pull elements from one read through, and combine them with elements of the other…sensual elements mixed with sacred elements…becoming and unbecoming mixed with living and dying…
…and always, always: Communion. Bread…Wine…in the presence of knowing knowers broken and shared.
We are given our birth…but we have to achieve our being, and enter in.
I hope these clues assist you into at least understanding why I am so proud of this one. It was “easy hard” to write down and weave, and it tested my limits at this stage of my becoming…as a poetess, as a prophetess, as a woman, and as a lover of God.
In heartfelt passion,
Charissa Grace
Looking for Alaska (not mine, but SO me!)
Like food every day, once one time is never enuff…
Today
“Today, be the reason someone feels loved.”
My Son Wears Dresses and That’s OK With Me | xoJane
My Son Wears Dresses and That’s OK With Me | xoJane.
Hi Constance…pretty sure I pressed this already? But just in case I didn’t, here it is again.
Mama, please bless this father…a true confident and faithful man, who refused to be his child’s first bully.
Love, Charissa
When You Weren’t Looking
I pulled a funny rubberface, and played waggle-ears and goggli-eye
when you weren’t looking.
The birds saw, and hopped, skipped and ran to tell the king
but I shushed them, cuz you were looking.
After you turned, I cheeky smiled and pointed behind my palm at you
and then they rained upwards to water a hungry blue sky and
fill the empty air with the symphonic sound of wings with secrets
and I watched, waved and sighed, and wanted to go
when you weren’t looking
When you weren’t looking, I checked out your legs, slim and faithful
steady, temple gates and castle pillars, twins of presence and joy.
I saw them move (oh!), saw them work faithful on the outside
and put Joffrey to shame with simple knee bends and prayers
and I raised my hands in ecstasy
when you weren’t looking.
Your plate was like a wagon-train unguarded, and french fries were the cattle lowing
so I snuck up slow and careful and snagged a handful
when you weren’t looking.
they tasted like the grapes of Pericles! Like sheep roasting in Plato’s cave
and I moaned in delight when you could hear me, but only
when you weren’t looking.
I would have despaired, this life being what it is and me being what I’m not
and turned aside, to cliffs and pits and gnashing jagged teeth upon which
to founder, but that would require you to be asleep,
I would have to
find that moment
when you weren’t looking…
but it never came.
and it never will.
So I will content myself with french fries and wagon trains, and birds a wing
with messages of wonder, with legs and swaying hips
and pulling one of my most amazing and useless comic faces
(or maybe even two)
and fit myself into spaces benevolent and overwatched
by you…
when you weren’t looking
Mama’s Clothes
Mama’s clothes are alive, like meadows over dirt,
like dew over meadows, like sun kissing dew,
like sky holding sun, like night holding stars,
and then there She is, outside the inside and
with me too.
Mama’s clothes move, like wind thru the trees,
like waves on the sea, like swans in the air,
like fish thru the water, like boats on a voyage,
like banners in the wind, like mercy over sin,
like gratitude in me.
Mama’s clothes rustle, swirl, and make my way
to snuggle close, tussle that soft edge to my face,
curl, close and hear the breath She takes, the
breath She gives, the song She croons, as She
sings over me.
Mama’s clothes glow, like rainbows in sun,
like silver in the clouds, like diamonds in my eyes,
like peacocks in their glory, like a single color story,
Refracted in Her eyes and a living quick surprise
to delight me.
Mama’s clothes, my refuge in the storm,
my anchor to the norm, my banquet in the fear,
invitation to draw near, so I do, I snuggle closer,
inhale Her strength, Her Kindness, Her Grace that
pours over me.
Mama. Strong…Soft…There, not “there”.
Deep, serene, intent, inquisitive, powerful
Grace Incarnate. Wisdom manifested,
Means of Creation, Healer and Nurturer of
Her daughter, me.
Mama. Charissa Grace.
A match made in heaven, designed from
the beginning, a leap within Her Heart to
spark in me and bloom, alive and growing free
my Mama and me.
Mama, can I wear Your clothes?
I wanna be
just like You.
When someone you really like texts you back superfast
Wrinkles In Time
Good Morning Constance Dear…gosh what a difficult night it was for me!
The deconstruction of my self in order to conform to who I must be in order to earn money is a very rough thing.
It tears me apart!
One of my helps that keeps me centered and knowing myself is the devotional writings of Jill Carattini…I share this morning’s here for you.
Love and Grace, Charissa, who is suffering
“Uncanny” was one of the vocabulary words on my sixth grade vocabulary list, which was to be found within the book we were reading as a class. I remember thinking Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was exactly that—uncanny, peculiar, and uncomfortably strange. Yet I also remember that it stayed with me—the story of a quirky girl named Meg, her overly-intelligent little brother, and their time-transcending journey to save their physicist father with the help of three mysterious beings. Madeleine L’Engle, the writer whose books invite readers to see time itself differently, passed away not too long ago. But her stories will continue to perplex sixth graders, and stay with us long after we have set them aside.
L’Engle is the writer who first showed me the incredible difference between two words in Greek, which we unfortunately translate identically. To the English reader, chronos and kairosboth appear to us as “time.” But in Greek, these words are vastly different. Chronos is the time on your wristwatch, time on the move, passing from present to future and so becoming past. Kairos, on the other hand, is qualitative rather than quantitative. It is time as a moment, a significant occasion, an immeasurable quality. The New Testament writers use the word kairos to communicate God’s time, it is real time—it is the eternal now.
So it might be said for the Christian that when Jesus stepped into time to proclaim the kingdom of God among us, he came to show us in chronos the reality of kairos. “Jesus took John and James and Peter up the mountain in ordinary, daily chronos,” writes L’Engle. “Yet during the glory of the Transfiguration they were dwelling in kairos.”(1) With this story in mind, L’Engle describes kairos as that time which breaks through chronos with a shock of joy, time where we are completely unselfconscious and yet paradoxically far more real than we can ever be when we are continually checking our watches.
Whatever your view of religion, it is likely an experience you can recount; a moment so sweet or magnified it seems to stop time. But L’Engle presses the Christian to see it as something to be expected. “Are we willing and able to be surprised?” L’Engle asks. “If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.”(2) If we have the courage to see it, the kingdom of God is close at hand,kairos breaking through like Christ into the world.
I imagine Jacob, too, discovered the difference between chronos and kairos when he set aside the past which was about to catch up with him, along with his paralyzing fear of the future, and found himself living in “none other than the house of God.” The prophets and poets describe similar moments of waking to the present and finding the eternal dimensions of time. The shepherds in Bethlehem were going about their ordinary work when the glory of the Lord captured the moment. “Do not be afraid,” the angel announced. “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you” (Luke 2:13-14). At this invasion of kairos into the routine of chronos, the shepherds chose to respond with action: “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about” (2:15).
Uncanny encounters with time are a part of the human experience. The Christian is given a language to explain these encounters. We live somewhere between the already and the not yet, caught by the eternal now and the one who dwells within it. The implications are both temporal and unending. Will we have the courage to look for glory in the ordinary? To release control of our calendars and watches and note the eternal in our midst? The apostle joins every prophet and poet who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah in history and the return of the king to come, “Behold, now is the time (kairos) of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
Like Christ, glimpses of the eternal come quietly and unexpectedly; they come and upset our very notion of time and all we discover within it. Why should we be so unreconciled to time if the temporal were our only concern? Or could it be that the eternal Word stepped into flesh, into our bounded realm of time, and literally embodied the reality that time is meaningful because of the eternal one in our midst.
The Christian insists that kairos is breaking into chronos and transforming it. With Christ it proclaims, “The kingdom of God is close at hand”—and the temporal world invited to break in along with it. In ordinary moments that hint at such a radical invasion, might we have the courage to be surprised by one who comes so near.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
(1) Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: Bantam, 1982), 93.
(2) Ibid., 99.
Her
(found online…so appropriate, considering who my dearest darling has been, is, and God willing will be for many long years to come and transitioning effortlessly into eternity…I love you darling…Charissa)
“Her.
I love everything about her. I love the way that her eyes sparkle when she looks at me. I love the way that she’s not afraid to stare back into my eyes. Honestly, I love the way that she makes me feel like I’m the only person in a crowded room. I love how she always stays focused on us and our goals, no matter what hell we have to go through. I love the fact I’m the only thing that makes her truly smile. She may not know, but her smile lights up a room and instantly brightens my darkest days. I love the way she giggles and laughs when she is being a total smartass. I love how she jokes around and tickles me randomly, or when she just gives wet kisses all over my face just to hear me laugh. I love the way that she literally knows exactly what to do to make me feel amazing. I love the way that a simple stroke of her thumb across the top of my hand calms me instantly. I love the way her and I cuddle in totally random pretzel like positions. I love her legs, they’re like my personal heaters for my always cold feet. Most of all, I just love everything about her, and she makes me a better person every single day. I will never know why she chose me, but I am sure glad she did. I am head over heels, hopelessly in love with my best friend. I cannot wait to spend the rest of my long life with her beautiful soul.”
Haunted by a Lovely God
(NOTE: If you wish, you can click here and be taken to a page where I emboldened certain words to try to convey the rhythm and meter of this poem, which is literally essential to it. But: if you wish to just wade in, first time thru and let the rhythms and meters rise and fall, fade and disappear and then come back, well that is ideal because that is literally written into the work as its own “poem of rhythm”. In either case, I hope you are able to read thru it…the things in this poem literally happened to me, with me).
Okay.
I get it. I do…in spite of what you might think, maybe
several of you, maybe dozens of you, maybe
hundreds, or thousands or millions of you
have endured deserts and mirage oasises
vanished in life when it comes to the subject of God.
I hear your stories, the bitter rants of some, the tired futility
of many others, I have taken venom, been covered in acid,
as I lead face first and I listen to tales of one
thing held in desolate common.
“God’s not here”.
“God wasn’t there”.
“God isn’t real”.
“God doesn’t care”.
I bleed when you cry in anguish, and weep as I
hear your recitals, and then in dark rage, and then
finally in grief, that pools on the dark other
side of the desert, in that null empty kingdom of
Ozymandias the great ruler of Vanity.
You might think I weep sanctimonious, sorrowful
supplicant of righteous standing, who’s crying for
those destitute and benighted, the distant, the stranger and
other, from my tower of ignorant pie in the sky…
You’d be wrong.
I weep in guilt.
Yeah…guilt.
For my tale of dark woe is so anti-tragic,
a Mysterium Tremendum, of a wretch so
shattered and shipwrecked in this desert island
…my body…
My story is different, and I feel so guilty,
confused as to why even in existential
despair I am still on the outside of
the common narrative swirling around me?
Contrary to you, in your longing and noble long
struggle to live, and to surmount desertion and
lost lonely silence by God in Their Heaven above…
I have always been
Haunted by a Lovely God.
When I was little and in my first dawning awareness,
and ageless, I recall that I always heard This Voice,
and at first I thought it outside me, I thought the wind had a
voice, or perhaps it was Trees, but it
never was dirt under my feet, no,
dirt is a tongue-tied dull mute.
As I grew I realized that the voice was inside me…in my heart, and I came to
treasure its company and the glad beauty of thoughts, and of musings. Then
I told my parents what it had told me, and,
flabbergasted, they asked where did I hear that?
And I told them “God. God told me”
(for that is Who the voice told me They were
and …Jesus like a Shepherd led me).
They laughed! LAUGHED! And while they were
not mocking, they merely thought
I was mistaken, had fantasized wonders.
So I cried then, and thought that
maybe my parents were right.
And then came the break, the thirsty sword stroke
that cut me to ribbons, my soft girly heart left in shreds…
then the slavery started with harsh words resounding, those
prison door words…and God was still there, holding
me in my tears, wrapped
around my hurt heart…and I longed for death, wanted to
jump in the river from that tall steel bridge I crossed
over each day but God asked me “please”, and…
well…
who can say no to God when They ask “Please?”
Then They would give me a joy for that day…and They
gave me a dog! Oh! How she and I bonded!
But you have already heard some of the tales of Millie…”Good Old Dog!” No…
this is the story of me being Haunted…
Haunted By a Lovely God.
One time, I was alone outside our house
(the one in the Pear Orchards down
near the cold creek where my Millie and me chased those
skimmer bugs and slippery pollywogs all live-long day…)
and it was warm in the soft early evening and dusky and glowing ethereal gloaming,
the good dusk…and wind softly rustling thru fruit trees so
heavy with life and the sounds of the living earth echoed around me…
…and then all was silent…
Suddenly, and it caught all my attention immediately! Slowly I
walked to the pear trees and stood, just to listen…and I heard it…something!
The call of a Mourning Dove
(or is it Morning Dove? I can’t distinguish the
One from the other, it seems to shift
back and forth always and ever).
It cooed and it called, and it seemed to me as if it spoke to me,
saying…”Come out to Me, Baby… Come out to Me. Come home to Me.”
(Lady Grace, She calls me Baby now, here today)
I was so skert! I thought it was a ghost! And this ghost it was longing for
my tender spirit and if I went out there, it would get inside me and
I would belong to it, always and be its flesh, its living body for
it to inhabit, its dwelling place then and forever.
I wasn’t far from the truth… I look back, I think it was Her, Lady Grace,
Dove come down, Her Voice was calling me, claiming me even then as Her own…
I wonder what would have happened, my life had I heeded Her,
gone to Her, run to Her heedlessly on that first day?
It’s not coincidence that our trees now, all around our house are filled with
Morning Doves (Mourning Doves too), calling, cooing…and pestering people in
our neighborhood, but so comforting to me as totems and emblems,
reminders of Mama’s first call to my hurt lonely soul and my soft tender heart.
Then: it was Veteran’s Day, fall, 1969.
We went to town several miles from home for the parade…I insisted that
Millie come with us, and after the music and marching had ended, we
went to the movies: “The Love Bug”. But Millie was left in our Volkswagen van.
(the one that was faded red
with canvas roll back top
and that relentless bamboo pole that
Dad used to poke us and hit us with
when we were clear in the
back and too rowdy and rude.)
and when we came back to the van…
she was gone.
I cannot tell you what that was like. I nearly fainted. I ran in the
street screaming her name, as cars screeched stop and Dad chased
me hollering “Get Back Here!”
We drove the streets hours and hours, me, head out the window, her name become
my tongue protruding and flapping and desperate in the cold wind.
I screamed that name loud, again and again until I was hoarse, and I kept
screaming, my grief-expiation for killing my dog with my stubborn insistence that she come along.
I tried to bargain with Them…in the sibilant cold and the darkness, I lifted my face:
“I will scream her name until I pass out and can never talk ever again, and then
You will receive my burnt offerings of me and give me what I earned with
desperate grief, what I bought with my service…my heart, Millie come back safe home.”
They remained silent, aloof (and I wonder if this is where They were in your tale of sorrow…).
Finally Dad said “she’s gone”…so we had to go home, in that cold rainy dark night of loss
on that day that we remember and honor the valor of
those who faced their fears and endured for me.
I threw up. I do that when I get distraught…I always have done…I cried, and
cried and I cried, and when I had no tears I groaned and keened, inconsolably moaning…
crying til dust poured from my eyes in place of the tears long drained empty by
grief so stark it was a terror strong, threatening to crush me forever.
My folks were hurting for me, so they used what they always had carved me with,
thought was the best for me, raw in my towering emotions and gaugeless deep passions…
words, stern and cruel, words so full of dark violence, and those words’ incarnated beast,
gawd…the spanking…well…yeah, the Red Raving and Hungry Beast.
I was forced to eat my dinner, and I threw it up…on the table, on all the food
laid there for others to eat. Then I got spanked and sent straight up to bed…
where God was silent and no where to be found… but hey, Ima talker, right?
So I cried out to Them into the darkness thick…
(now get this, and understand that I’d been thru the
wringer of Sunday School, Hellfire Sermons,
Damnation Devotions, and I knew enough to be good or the
devil would get me. I once was told: “I will not spank you…
I’m just gonna let satan get you”…and I roamed behind my mom
hours, and wailed agonizing in fear and stark terror, and
begged her to spank me, deliver me from evil on the cross
of my butt, and her hard paddle the hungry
propitiation for my sins and my wrongs…and
I knew that so many times I had done things,
hell-things like say “shit” or steal cookies, or
sneak out the window to sleep with my Millie and
her wriggly puppies though I was forbidden to,
or watch cartoons on a Saturday morning so
early and low before anyone woke up and caught me at it…and I’d
never been sent to hell…God had not bothered to notice or
even to thunder at me, or make trouble over me, and I
knew lots of people thought God was a fairy tale, which, frankly,
mystified me cus They talked to me so much when I was so little.)
That nite…I cried in a jagged blood whisper, my voice bleeding raw, and the
words, still they linger there, seared deep in me to this very day, now, here with you.
(and now, in this moment… I feel so damn guilty!
Why me??? Why did They talk to me of all people?)
I cried out “God…if You’re really there, real…bring my doggie home…PLEASE!” Then…
somewhere, somehow, I moved past bargains, and buy-offs and bribes…I had cried my way
thru the stark castle of filthy rags and entered into the place of no exit, the
inner sanctorums of grace, where there’s nothing to buy there with money, and
there is no bargaining, no supplicating, no pleas, there is just the
beginnings of Mercy Free…
and crying out the word please in that dark night, eyes
gummed shut with sorrow and tacky tears I at last faded off into sleep
dreamless as I grieved and wished I was dead, like I did every night, and at
last I knew nothing, released and insensate and absent within the lost
shoals of sleep’s gift of respite from my agony, sorrow and grief.
Until I woke, instant and on point, into an electrical dark of night
black glowing bright-black that cast light and filled the still air with a
presence, thick, substantive knowing, and threatening to
rend plain reality like the quick ripping of shrouds in the
hands of the dread faced and tall grim deliverers….
…and I heard scritching, and
(oh oh oh)
her whine (that lil ki-yiy-yiy she always used to call me heart to heart)
and I jumped from the top bunk with a thunderous thud loud enough to wake
even the dead and I got up and ran thru our house in that miracle moment:
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!”
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!!”
Babbling over and over again like a babe, Bartimaeus had nothing on me!
Shattering slumbering sundering darkness and giving voice
to that One Thing that I am:
Haunted by a Lovely God
Fumbling feverishly I rolled the gravestone away in my heart and threw
open the back door where she called me eagerly whining in joyous returning at sunrise…
she’d jumped a 6 foot fence out of obedience so she could come in thru the
Eye of the Needle: the back yard garage door. She limped and jumped on me
and I went down to the ground, I was crying and kissing her and she was
kissing me too and I ran my hands over her, scarcely believing that she was real,
she was returned, she was home and alive, and my heart was restored unto me.
Then she rolled over, so I could scritch her tummy like she loved
and when I ran my hands over her precious side, my fingers slipped inside
her skin and I drew them back from her side which was pierced and torn open…
(I swear!
I know, the metaphor seems so damn cheesy, right? It really
happened this way! That’s the kind of thing I feel so
guilty for… it’s like They shouted it from the Bright Heavens that
I was not ever escaping Their Undying Love never ceasing and
new every morning. I’m telling you that I have always been
Haunted by a Lovely God).
She had torn open her side, and I’d thrust my hand in just like Thomas and drawn it back,
bloody and warm and changed and I collapsed,
(cus I can’t handle blood, even though it has
handled me, covered me, branded me,
marked and commanded me
forever Under the Mercy)
I murmured brokenly “God hear my prayers, God heard my prayers, God hear my prayers,
God heard my prayers”.
Later, my parents made sure I knew that this was highly unusual, God has more
pressing concerns than my dear dog, or listening to me scream and demand…
yeah, there are all kinds of other prayers over the years, that went up and bounced off…
you know the kind…yeah, those
…and life went on…went on…until
Puberty hit and then hell came home hard to stay…in hair and voice and a
horror-beard (and oh god oh god, oh god down there, oh god please no).
And life required again its cruel ransom, and I wanted, longed to lay me on the gears and cogs
that turned in schools and the church groups that seemed to me incomprehensible
strangers, in their innate knowing of how to move and how to laugh and to be… again
I longed, desired to do away with me…this gender-joke…absurd and ugly mistake, just an
ironic blight on “There” and “Here” because I was neither…here or there, just a null thing
…and then…
…I had another time, deep in the darkness of night and numb tears and dumb talking to Them…
…Them…
1973…14 and awkward and lonely and numb from the bashing I gave me to
un-know who I was and was not supposed to be, allowed to be, allowed…
On that nite, cold and alone in the darkness I told Them that I was not going to follow Them.
I was resigning from being a christian and that I was leaving Them once and for all.
“No offense”, I said. “It’s not you, it’s me”
(I’d yet to discover how this trope is used when we
want to abandon an unwanted suitor or
how its thrown out…to hurt and to wound a familiar dull
lover become coarse and rank and too shrill)
“You have done nothing wrong, You have not failed me, no it’s I who’ve failed You, and
what’s worse, I cannot BUT fail You…always, because I’m a
“horrible boy, I’m an
absent mute girl, I am
nothing, and I count for
nothing and I live on
nothing and I mean more
nothing, just more black
horrible, lost empty nothing.
“I am not going to church anymore,”
(for in those days I, like others around me, assumed that if
you went outside and climbed into the
chicken coop then such a fat happy bird you’d become.)
“…when school starts up again, I’m going to say yes instead of
no thanks when they offer me pot, and offer me drinking, and
offer me bodies and no clothes and company there in the darkness and then I’ll be
numb and feel wanted at least…
“I cannot do it, walk blameless and upright, for
I am a constant habitual wallower in my sin
all the time in my heart, in my mind as I fail ceaseless,
besides, I don’t even desire to be in on this world full of Leavenworth walls…
“I will not fake it! I refuse to be like them, sitting in their pews…
“with hallelujah on their lips and wanna screw ya in their hearts!
“I’ll stay alive, take my medicine straight and deserved and so bitter…and
maybe if I try I will even manage to conjure up a hearty yummy while
I drain the draughts of despair bone-dry…
“I know You’ll send me to hell…I deserve that, and even more so…I don’t
hold that against You, for You are and You always have been so Beautiful…
no, it is me, blight and curse, it’s just me, a disease in this world and pure poison.”
Fountains of sorrow again welled up, even as I wondered why they could
never be fountains of joy? And I cried and cried…softly so no one could hear me…
my brother sleeping…as always in these cut-off times…and
Millie was newly dead, gone to run free in the fields of her dreams, yet another cruel
tribute collected by Usurper death…that left me so empty,
so cold, so cut-off and bereft.
Until I heard it…the Voice!
Calling me gently (as always), so I held my breath, listened to be sure it was Them, then
I heard a soft quiet question asked so plaintively…
“What would it take?” (Ummm…whaaa? I didn’t get it)
“What would it take, Precious One? Child, what would it take for you to not check out,
not go away, but to come here and spend time with Us everyday?
Talk to Us, listen and just be for Us… just be Ours always,
just as your dog, Good Old Millie was your friend, and she belonged
only to you?”
This was a careful and startling question and it was quick,
coming at me curving sideways! So I had to really think!
Something absurd, something so damned unusual, that there was no way it
ever could happen, I mean, don’t get me wrong…I still wanted to be with Them,
wanted to share in Their sweet soft communion, cus I LOVED my Jesus, my Shepherd who
I always dreamed someday would leave the 99 and come to rescue me, I dreamed that
He was my Jester to make me laugh joyously, dreamed that He was my best Friend
…I just wasn’t…His best friend…and I couldn’t fake it. Nope.
So it was crucial I create conditions that even the Almighty God couldn’t meet
…you know…
God cannot make a rock so big that They cannot lift it, but They can do anything
so They can make this rock so big that even They cannot lift it…wait…
I was searching for that Rock that God couldn’t lift… right? So
I said to Them “If, when I wake this morning, and my dad says ‘Kids we are moving’…
if there’s a strange town so distant where nobody knows me, and no one has
seen me, and I can start over, start fresh and anew, then I’ll choose you forever and
give my heart freely…lock, stock, and barrel, completely to You… I’ll be Your Millie,
all of my days till I die and my sentence is over.”
Silence gave answer…then after a bit…I drifted away breathing
deeply again as my tears crooned soft lullabies
to my hot cheeks, they ran down in such ancient deep
canyons of sorrow…down my face, down my heart,
down my soul to end up glistening in sorrowful streamers.
When I got up the next morning, things didn’t sparkle or gleam, and I didn’t
remember the Voice, the Epiphany…I was just staring at breakfast my mom used to
“cook” me in those days…Shredded Wheat with skim milk…and feeling
…that gulf, that dark feeling. That feeling. Yeah… The relentless sharp
razor slash cutting inside my soul, forever aching and Constant.
I wasn’t list’ning, as Dad droned on talking of somethingorruther… until I heard
him say the word…“moving”…something about that word…
why did it stick out?
Then in a quicksilver windstorm of memory-shredded, each piece was
hitting me, sticking, unripping its way to become one
coherent experience, and I recalled my reply to Their inquiry…
so I turned quickly and asked my dear father what did he just say…and he
said it again! He confirmed it! Just as I’d laid forth, to a T!
Haunted by a Lovely God.
(I feel so guilty… why am I treated thus?
Why me? Why not the prayers of parents
whose children suffer and die in horrible pain for
nothing that they ever did?
Why not the prayers of wives for soldiers
Cain has already marked for death’s dark
gaping foul maw, prayers supplicating
deliverance, protection, but
they go unheeded and
Death eats again?)
And of course, we moved, and I did…commit myself to Them…
once all for always…yep, I was in…And I’ve hated it sometimes, and loved it at others.
I’ve grown and I’ve changed, seen Them change before my eyes as they were
opened and I could see other than my own idolatrous self and that
small god I fashioned, so stunted, blind, deaf and so mute in the
vanity of my self worship when my box, my image of Them I had
made was so gloriously broken!
I’ve sorrowed and railed… I’ve been outcast by mean so called
spiritual family, been stunned by the towering cruelty of those who should
know better, done blindly in the Most Wonderful Name of Them…
Lovely God to me, and so ugly and coarse, buffoonish in their mocking mouths.
I met my darling, and we had our babies…
she/they are amazing miracles…I watch the
lives of my college acquaintances shipwreck, their
marriages foundering on the black jagged rocks of their alluring
careers and blood money…and I watch the children of
hard working salts, such dear people around me, more worthy than I, better
people than I, quaff drugs like their hearts are on fire, and join themselves
numbly to anyone there in those earthquakes of loneliness,
wreckages strewn in their wake and their orphans tossed
careless like litter abandoned.
And I have prayed with these people, so passionate, supplications far more
suitable than my own bumbling tongue-tied petitions and tall ebenezers…
and seen them bounce off, with dust poofing, dry-cloudy in
dull drifting mockery…
…and I feel so guilty.
Such. Guilt.
Because They have haunted me… They’ve apprehended me… taken me…
They have not let me go, not let me drift… and I,
transgender woman held in such derision by
most of the offspring of the Blood of the Lamb…
The Holy Spirit has even shown me Her Name and Herself, Lady Grace,
and She’s drawn so near to me, to be ma Mère…my Mama, and teach me
my secret heart and my self, so young and emerging.
And yet still I ask myself why am I haunted?
I could go on, forever recounting the
stories of Their faithful presence and meddling hands…of
Yosemite Sacred, cathedrals where mountains became the
Triune God, and I fell asunder to claw at the dirt in despairing blood-guiltness and
crying for mercy… and wonder of wonders!
El Capitan: Papa…Half Dome, cut asunder became My Friend Jesus…
Yosemite Falls: my Lady Grace, flowing and washing forever until I am pure…
Bridal Veil Falls was me, shifting emotions and prevarications blown
lacey and wandring across rocky faces but always to Them…
rising up from the ground, clean and unsullied as
Waterdeep sang for me They have been nothing but
Good in my life!
Each time I hear someone’s tale of woe filled with despair or with cynical bitterness flowing,
or just fatigue and futility…I am worse than any teller, and merit less than the askers, more
toxic than anyone else whose had issue with God, or
issue with Their present absence, or make issue with Them because
“there is this construct God which has come
out of nowhere, seemingly and thus doesn’t exist
(unlike anything else which its knowing of testifies to its being)…”
I have not told you this tale to shame you… I who am shame incarnate for so long.
Nor to claim privilege or power, position… I do not have an iota of that.
…I have not told you to lobby, convince you… or
proselytize, or evangelize you. God No!
I have made my expiation to you, my confessors…
The sin I am guilty of? Of this I Charissa Grace stand blood guilty:
Being
Haunted by a Lovely God.
Kitty Quote of the Day (in the Phileo sense of the word Love, in Greek)
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride…” Neruda
Love ya, friend!!
Charissa
I told myself that this “happens” to other people — not me. Wrong.
Hi Constance…I found a cool article about yet another parent who has the vision, courage and love to raise her transgender daughter with love, acceptance, and support.
She made a statement in her article, and it so resonated with me, because I remember that fateful late March afternoon just last year (!!!)…after extensive reading about transgender people and lives…I was so lonely, and so separated from everyone and everything. Surrounded by people who loved me, but not me me…just who I posed as for their security and happiness, and yet I felt totally alone.
I was worthless. I had no meaning. They had actively and intentionally sought me, found me and time and again healed and sustained me…and I still just wanted to disappear.
And on that day, rain drizzling coldly outside, heaters ticking and popping, I read of the loneliness and alienation of my trans sisters and brothers…and I was soo struck by how their stories jibed with mine, how people whom I had never met wrote as if they were inside my head! My compassion welled up, and I wept for them, because I truly knew what they were suffering…and then the stories of the people who decided to transition instead of kill themselves, and such a longing consumed me…a longing to feel something normal, a longing to be “right”, a longing to know I belonged to someplace…
…belonged to myself…
and then I heard Mama say to me in my heart, that if I was totally honest with myself, I would see that I too was transgender, just like the ones I was reading of.
And that is where the statement that Julie Ross makes came out of my mouth…”No Lord…that happens to other people, but not me. I mean, I have always thought I was a girl trapped in this male body with no way out, but that doesn’t make me transgender! lol!
But She persisted, and besides…I knew, right then that she was right. All that had to be dealt with was the constructs of immorality and perversion that had been formed in my mind and heart due to the childhood experiences I went through.
All of that is going to be avoided for Julie’s lovely daughter! She will still have trials, and heartache like every human in this shattered world…but she will never feel the emptiness, the horror of nothingness where there ought to be life.
May Mama shine on each of our hearts with Her convicting love that upholds us, sustains us, and washes us everyday…and may we find the courage to go out of our way to ease the journey of someone else today.
Much love and rejoicing, Charissa
Raising a Transgender Child: A Star is Born
Posted: 04/20/2012 5:08 pm
Eight months ago, my 9-year-old son tearfully shared with me that “his whole life, he had wanted to be a girl”. Pressed by the therapist (who, thank G-d, was in the room with us) to clarify whether he wants to be a girl or is a girl, George immediately replied that he is a girl. And so began a crazy-ass adventure that I never, in a million years, expected to find my child or, frankly, myself, on.
To be clear, my husband Rich and I always knew that George (who is now Jessie) was different from not only our older son, but from other kids — male and female alike. With sparkling eyes and a wildly observant and funny personality, he was known by everyone everywhere we went. Never one to shy away from a conversation or situation (particularly if it involved dolls, dresses, wigs or mermaid tails), he captured the attention of anyone he came into contact with. When behaviors that concerned us in preschool and kindergarten — including, but by no means limited to his self portraits (a frequent drawing assignment) consistently depicting a girl in a dress with long, flowing hair — continued with even greater vigor in first, second and third grades. We concluded that he was probably going to grow up to be gay, yet didn’t quite buy it ourselves. He was a boy who greatly appreciated a beautiful girl and what she was wearing. He never met a doll, wig, dress or mermaid tail that he didn’t feel a total compulsion to own — no matter how strongly he had to fight for it. And despite the fact that he was not even slightly effeminate, there were several occasions that he harassed and harangued me for hours on end requesting everything from hair extensions to wigs to dolls. It never added up. And then he asked for (and by “asked for” I mean “demanded”) a pierced ear.
Our initial reaction to the earring request was that “little boys don’t wear earrings”, but he was having none of it. As he obsessively pursued this request, it became increasingly clear that it was not a desire, but a need. Since growing out his traditional little boy haircut was going to take some serious time (we had agreed to allow him to grow his hair — anything to stop hearing about hair extensions or wigs), a single pierced ear seemed an easy enough allowance in hopes of placating him. Of significant note was, just prior (and I mean as the alcohol was being rubbed across his lobe) to the piercing, he implored the piercer to be sure to do it in the ear that doesn’t mean “gay”… clearly he was building up the courage to tell us something, we just didn’t know it yet.
It was not long after the newly-pierced ear that our confusion was put to rest and we were told of George’s truth. It took me about a minute and a half to absorb what he was saying and to give myself a virtual whack upside the head. It all started to make sense now, except for the part when I told myself that this happens to other families — not mine. Wrong.
We continued along with our “if-it-was-ever-normal-it-isn’t-now” lives for a few weeks, noticing a huge change in our child’s mood and temperament. Clearly, an enormous weight had been lifted. And then there came what we refer to as “the article”. It was a Sunday in December, which also happened to be George’s tenth birthday. On the front page of The Boston Globe there was an article about identical twin boys, one of whom had identified as transgender and was now living fully as a girl. I, not surprisingly, was raptly reading the story when George came up behind me, noticed the photo and asked who they were. Upon telling him he responded, with his mouth agape, “You mean I’m not the only one?” It was at that moment that Jessie was born, moved in and has since made herself comfortable in my house.
The following day, I dropped George off at school and told him to be cool; we would come up with a plan. He was cool. Until 11 a.m. (not bad considering the school day starts at 8 a.m.), when he simply could not keep the truth to himself and, without fanfare or drama, told one of his teachers about his “secret”. The cat, ladies and gentlemen, was out of the bag. The next day, as it happened, was pajama day and, after a hasty, late night trip to Target, I successfully outfitted my “son” in head-to-toe pink, purple and green polka dotted pajamas in which he ran (not walked) into school with zero hesitation and without so much as a glance over his shoulder for support. Jessie had been waiting her whole life for this day. I almost wonder if that was why she felt the need to share when she did… just to ensure the perfect little girl pajama ensemble for what will likely (hopefully) be her last school sanctioned pajama day ever.
Since those first crazy days, we have had her second ear pierced and have had countless meetings, discussions, questions, plans and concerns hurled in our direction. At times we have laid low: mostly at the beginning, when we were nearly immobilized by the mere thought of what it meant to have a transgender child. Other times we have been “out there”: when, for example, we announced on Facebook (with her encouragement) “George becoming Jessie”, complete with a photo of her in her inaugural dress. This was a means of survival for us and done mainly so that we weren’t forced to explain the situation to everyone, everywhere, every time we left the house. But no matter how people learned of Jessie having identified as transgender, the response has been consistent: total acceptance with a healthy and appropriate dose of trepidation — both for us and, frankly, themselves.
Our family has been lucky. We know that we are just getting started, but are grateful that Jessie’s social transition, thus far, has been as seamless as we ever could have hoped for. She has that sparkle in her eye and a new confidence which is the envy of many an adult. We take each day as it comes and have as little an idea as to where this will land as we did eight months ago… but at least now her self-portraits make more sense.
PS: At this point, it is noteworthy to tell you that it felt strange to refer to my child as George or to call her a “he”. “New normal” surprises me every day…
The Doctrine of Trans, Part 2
The Doctrine of Trans, Part 2.
Good Morning Constance…Part 2 from Trans-girl at the Cross.
Prolly of interest only to my readers who are Christian, but even if you aren’t it is worth a look, for it gives some insight into the subtlety of biblical interpretation, and the importance of letting the text speak for God instead of the reader reading her own opinions into the text and then taking the name of the Lord vainly by claiming that God has said something He has not said.
Praying that Lady Grace prevails in the hearts of the Church, and that a place for all LGTBQ people is warmly secured at the table of Their Communion and Fellowship,
Charissa
Tears of Joy…
Mama just spoke this verse to me…and I found a cool image to post for it.
To be loved…nothing is better.
To be loved by Her, a birthday gift beyond compare.
Suzanne Grossman Writes: “Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian”
Suzanne Grossman
via Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian.
I love this young woman’s faith, courage, and orientation to grace!
Hang in there Suzanne…there are fellow believers who realize that Faith thru Grace in Love is the winning recipe for connection with Them!
Please…read the article, and then think if you had those obstacles in your faith journey, in addition to the common difficulties we face.
Grace and Peace…
Charissa
Exhortation (1981) edited 2008
EXHORTATION
Listen
I who have dwelt for a season
at the root of a scream,
I who have read my heart like one
with no hands reading a book
whose pages turn with the wind…
I say Listen, hear me.
When you play at “strife-in-eyes”
and you stare to see which will go
under first–PLEASE PLEASE
be the first to smile.
Do not harden yourself…yourself…
Though it mean surrendering all
Turning yourself out
To Be Known at the world’s mercy
You may lose your name, you may not know
your shape, even the words
you breathe, spoken out so clearly
will loosen and disperse
possibly forever
all given over to the wind crying upon distant seas.
Moment of terror, should the
Moonlight name you a profile
Among Fallen Flowers
Yet you may survive, for many have done so.
You need only to close your eyes…
(Beautiful, Feminine Gesture)
And do not be afraid of the strange woman you find
Lying in the Chamber of your throat
So it will be: Dark. A Long Vigil.
far among splendours of despair…but
everything will be true, pure,
your love most of all.
But now, please, open your eyes.
Have we not said, down with all tyrants–
even our own?
ESPECIALLY OUR OWN!
OPEN YOUR EYES!
They will glitter with knowledge of the other side
of the moon–their light of such
a quiet intensity that smiles and frowns
will fall away like shadows of
wild birds flying over–
Yet a degree of affection remaining, like
when you find an old Bible in an
old cupboard in an
old empty house–so it is.
Freedom and Beauty. Do not be afraid.
Assume the freedom of those
born in captivity
who find the purity of being.
Do not be over-modest.
Wear the delicate beauty of those crippled
at birth who earn the grace
of their maiming.
You must look and you must seek
in the dreamless dark.
But I await you there…
The Dark Light Of My Eyes Burning With Patience
And then, my eyes will answer…
but they will not command a summons.
My Butterflies, Myself
…and free they fly, finally…
while with shining earthbound
feet we dance watching
hearts aflame, yearning…
fates alive, turning…
death, forever spurning.
CGW
7/9/2014
Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition
Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition.
Hi Constance. I was delighted to run across this article. It is a decent essay regarding relationship with God and being transgender. It speaks also of the pain and sorrow of the religious reflex which kicks in and then kicks us in the butt when the fearful and narrow-minded and deeds-based church culture people decide to be judge, jury, and executioner over other’s faith status.
I am posting it because I am hopeful that if you find yourself in this place, as a person of faith who is weirded out by a transgender person, or if you have always assumed that a transperson is mentally ill, trapped in sin and sexually perverted. Hopefully you will see Meggan’s heart, hear her voice, and realize that she has a life lived in the Redemptive Arms of Love.
Me? If you really want to know? As far as being judged by other christians, I don’t give it a second thought. The presence of the Lord is simply too “there” everyday for me to even entertain the notion that They do not like me. They draw near, each morning and the conversations of our hearts is edifying and encouraging. Sometimes They are silent…and Their world sings to my heart of Their beauty and truth and love.
Besides…I have already been judged soo often in the past by people over basically everything you can think of! Sometimes on the same Sunday morning I would be judged for the very same thing by people who saw it from the opposite stand point! Sometimes my sermons were too full of scripture! Sometimes my sermons were not full enough!!
I got to know Abe Lincoln’s famous saying about pleasing people very well…
The last straw for me, the one that set me free, was when we were in the midst of a vicious power struggle as leaders with a spiritually abusive pastor who was far far FAR past his “pull date”, and knew it…but just…couldn’t…let…go…and I was one of the very few who refused to back down in the face of his rage and anger and horrible ways of making people pay. Many times the wrath would flow…the congregation was about 85% solid on moving on with our new leadership team (leading by plurality), but about 15% were the old guard…didn’t like the new fangled ways like playing guitar and singing choruses and raising hands and waving flags…yunno, really evil things like that.
So…during this time, my father suffered and died from frontal lobe dementia, a rather nasty variant on a nasty phenomenon.
It was so trying, so painful for me. I loved him so, and still do.
And…after he died, someone sidled up to me in order to “comfort me”, but managed to tell me that he was certain that the Lord would not have killed my father if I had not been in rebellion against the old pastor!!!!!
Yeah…that is why I really could give a rip whatever people think…except for God, and my family, and my friends, and those I serve everyday. Haters gonna hate…and show their black hearts like simpering socialites at the Cannes film festival.
Just remember…unkind words are never ok, for any reason…especially from those called to speak in the Name of Love Himself.
Love, Charissa Grace
If I Could Explain The Love Of God
The Love of God is literally the one thing that transforms all things. There is nothing that is greater. Nothing can stand in its way or resist its power…
…well, except for one other thing: the human will.
The human will can say no to this love…and yet, even human will, no, especially human will, is but the ultimate extension of the Love of God. Because God would rather have children who are free instead of children who are slaves. That liberty is so important that They even found a way to show the Ultimate Love by laying down His life for us all.
It is the one and only thing that has kept me alive all these years, that kept my finger off the trigger and the barrel away from my brain, that kept me getting up everyday and walking thru that gender prison camp I was locked in for so long…the Love of God has been underneath my wings when I can no longer flap them, it has been miles of pillows and cushions when I have cast myself from the precipices of despair and resolved to never ever smile again or ever look someone in the eye.
The times on my bike, when Mama drew near me in the high mountains and loved on me and in me as I slogged mile after mile up 10% slopes, and then came careening down at 55 miles an hour, nothing between me and the pavement but thin tires and bike shorts and the Love of God.
The times I was in my kitchen, hidden inside a big, awkward, hairy temple that was so defeating and monstrously final…and She would touch my heart and light up ingredients and show me how to put together food preparations…and speak to my heart as I did about what is true food and drink.
The vineyards, and the life surging there and the insights She gave me.
When my precious precious doggie was lost, miles from home, and I cried all night at 10 years old and begged Them bring her home…and I said that if You are really there and You really love me You will hear me and have mercy…that same prayer that millions have prayed in one form or another, but never got anything but blunt silence…and in the morning, she was there, my Millie…and I cried so hard, and words cannot express that strange mixture of relief, wonder, and yes a bit of shame for my naked doubt…and literal overwhelming wonder and confusion that They chose to answer my brokenhearted plea.
The night at the end of 8th grade that I cried all night, wanting to die, and finally resigning from being a follower…I told Them “no offense, this is not Your fault, but mine…I literally am not good enough and I am not strong enough. I am not going to live a lie, so I am checking out and will become like everyone else and bury my sorrow in drugs and alcohol and sex”…and wept some more…until She whispered soft but completely clear, asking me what would it take as a sign to me that They would be my life, and my strength, and my hope…
…and I said the wildest thing I could think of: “If Dad gets up this morning (for it was after midnight) and tells us we are moving to a completely different town, where no one knows me, and I have a brand new start, then I will still try and follow you. I will be Your child and always stay near Your side…but what a joke! Who does that, just up and moves to a different city?” And I cried more, until sometime just before dawn I drifted off to a troubled and thready sleep, wishing I could die…
…and when Mom got us up to get ready for school, Dad came in to the table where we ate our cold cereal, and said “Kids…I have some big news for you. Mom and I decided yesterday that we are moving to Gold Hill. It is closer to the house I want to build, and closer to Mom’s school”…and I burst into tears again and they all thought I was distraught from the move, when really I was shattered by the overwhelming, generous, graceful Love of God given to me, ton after ton after ton.
The night, when I finally cracked and admitted what I am, who I am, and Mama sang over me as I cried so hard that the sheets were literally wringing wet…She sang “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Our mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning! Great is Our Faithfulness!”
My dearest darling…the amazing manifestation in human form of Their love…
…but mostly, the tears that pour down my cheeks whenever I, the whore at the feet of Jesus, washing His feet with my tears and drying them with my hair, think about Their love…higher than the highest hills, deeper than the sea, broader than the skies above…and those words, vibrating at the core of all things: It Is Finished .
Love, Charissa Grace
the girl loved without measure
for reasons ever mysterious
A-maze-in- Me
Those years,
early and freshly spinning
out of the Mystery,
or fresh to me,
blessedly unknowing
how ancient, how creaky
the turning sun as he blazed
across the hot and endless skies
of my childhood…
and how mournful and shadow-soft
the moon’s glimmering
elegy to my innocence
as she
with unblinking open silver eye
saw me there,
hidden and trapped
in the maze of myself.
Slowly I woke up…
and found cruel mirrors
making carnival claims,
barkers of snake-oil siren songs
seeking to snow my heart
white and cold with icy lines
written for what I looked like,
not who I was, heart warm
and red and pulsing,
throbbing to know and be known
in connection and union with
that unstoppable yearning,
welling, bubbling, running out
on thirsty ground.
I figured out I didn’t match
the carnival caricatures’
deceptive drifting distortions…
I realized my designated place,
in the shadow of the freak show,
or somewhere far away…
I was forbidden the Deep Well,
but Grandma showed me paths
unknown and long forgotten,
and I peered into the Well,
under soulful moon’s argent gaze,
under different sheltering shadow
of silver comfort and lustrous grey
grace streaming, I saw me there,
shimmering and free, and rising,
and I leaned forward to let my lips
be blessed with the kiss of life,
the kiss of liberty,
and happiness…
That awakening kiss,
it never came then,
for the sun growled,
groaned and poked
and peeked long before
I could rise
from the Deep Well’s depths,
under the moon’s blessing lament,
to find me standing,
yearning in the dry dirt,
and breathe, tremble,
touch, kiss, mingle.
Under his harsh and razor light
I ran ragged and breathing rough
thru tears of salty-sorrow,
racing to beat that searing
pumpkin-threat of outing me.
And just in time
I caught the bus
to school, still dreamy
and mindful always
of that Deep Well
and her starry night
Living Water pool.
Sadly I ran
under sun
those days,
stick in hand
and hoop so simple,
while wistful I watched
myself under moon
those nights,
complex and intricate,
intuitive and knowing
nooks and crannies
of souls and hearts
and minds.
I watched me,
I was blind to myself.
I ran that Labyrinth
lurching longingly
between
Pasiphaë and Theseus,
but really just
the monster in the maze,
and bellowing blind
and wandering.
And no one knew,
and no one saw,
and no one heard,
so on I ran under sun
and waiting for
the moon’s soft voice,
running my fingers
thru her light
and desperately feeling
with my heart
the braille she beamed on me,
so I could find at least
the realms and rims and limits
of the maze of me.
Those years have trudged by,
feet dragging under sun,
but days dance and spin
and whirl beneath
the moon’s soft care
of this lune-enchanted girl.
I have found my hovering place
twixt night and day,
glad in my graceful
gloaming time, my gleaming
gloaming years.
Grandma’s paths were always there,
within me hidden, in that maze
whose secrets are at last revealed
by moon’s insistent pulse and gaze
in me, and I go so unerringly
to that well
Deep and Purple and Silver,
and I see myself
and touch myself
and kiss myself,
at long last
become
amazing me.
The Footprints of Ghosts (commemorating my first Father’s Day as myself)
The fire crackles and pops
its diphthongs and phonemes
in that hot and feisty
rapid-snap delivery.
“Dad! Dad! Daddy! Father!”
It says this in living
letters of merry blazing
iterations of what,
repetitions of who,
and smoky, hazy eye-burning
questions of…
how?
I shiver and draw close,
grateful for warmth
this late spring day.
It is still early, and summer
slumbers in the dawn,
as I sit shiva with spring …
and the fire sings, keens,
quests, warms and shows us
the way of all things,
fading natural-like, and
giving up its ghost.
Ashes drift lazily,
footprints of wandering ghosts
free at last from their entombment,
in limbs of wood and sap,
and finally I see ashes
are ghostly release,
are seeds, promises of Phoenix,
gathering, bunching,
heaving and inevitable.
Smoke gets in my eyes,
clears my eyes, blurry and stinging
and stirs my memory pools
as I think back on 31 spectral years,
as a ghost encased in a word,
in a role, entombed
in limbs of alien thick
coarse wooly flesh.
Those long years of walking on water and anxious,
with no idea
what was a daddy
and inherent universal
knowing of love so deep it makes
the shores of the galaxy seem shallow.
Love was my fire,
my ghost, my ash-seeds,
and I my own Phoenix
sleeping, waiting,
looming, wanting.
I gave myself, my blood and sweat,
my upturned nose to fear and downturned face to them…
I threw me on the fire
and I screamed silent,
solitary inside no-one-else-here land.
I popped and hissed
and seethed and whistled
and snapped as I
gave up the ghost each day,
turned to ash each day,
diminished, but growing…
disappearing and becoming
until I walked
free and disembodied
and covered with ashy afterbirth
and filled with knowing
I could do nothing more
than give the love of one called father
even if I could not bear the
name of man.
Summer stirs, and my reverie is snapped
by the sharp chirp of robins
wanting to scritch thru the fire remnants for sowbugs.
Spring has closed her eyes,
her breath has slowed
even as mine has quickened
and I stand to face
my first father’s day of
fully knowing me.
Love calls 4 times.
And I know that somewhere,
somehow, someway
that feisty fire-voice
was naming and liberating
and I have been reborn
from all ash,
a ghost no more
but bodied, present,
and turning in my joy.
Not Mine, but I wish I had thought of it!
“If you were a book
I’d lick my fingers
and flip your pages,
until your spine creased
and you lay spent,
with nothing else to offer.
Then, I’d cup you in my palms
and read you again.”
I’d lick my fingers
and flip your pages,
until your spine creased
and you lay spent,
with nothing else to offer.
Then, I’d cup you in my palms
and read you again.”
| — | My Favorite Bedtime Story |
High Spring Pastiche
We had just finished our ride,
and we were parched and pressed
to sling a leg off the back of our bikes.
Salt crusted jerseys glared flat and dull
in the sultry sun of High Spring, falling
all shimmery clear and gold, splashing
on the hot black radiant parking lot
like wedding rice.
Across the street
the stilted and dumb
rain-birds spit water
on the swollen
green baseball field,
which was so happy
in the drizzle
it reeked noisily
of lazy drinks at twilight
and kids at play.
We looked on silently,
and then drained our own draughts
and added our tired joyful scent to the melange.
Soon, bikes bunked again in the van
and our 455 air-conditioner at a lazy 45,
we rolled towards dinner and wine,
and the lovely sleep of the dead a bike ride bequeaths.
My soul sang and hummed along
with the soft sibilant tires,
and I knew my favorite pasture
was soon to jump up into me
from across the ditch.
I hung my head out the window,
let my tongue taste the air
and the wind bury wild
sensual fingers in my hair.
And then she was there,
smelling ancient and new
and fresh and fertile and pulsing,
eager like love making on an endless afternoon
sweet and free under plush rustley blue skies.
I heard her song,
I felt her tug in my guts,
I tasted her tang in the wind
and shivered with delight.
She was shorn, fresh-mowed
and relieved, light and lively
and sprawling in mystery,
cloaked in new nakedness
and hidden behind beauty marks revealed.
She breathed…
deep rhythm
and spin and pulse…
deep.
Silly Samsons thought
she was Delilah returned,
so they came for
assey jawbone revenge,
and left with her full
alfalfa tresses tamed and taken.
I think she just laughed.
Because, blinded by the usual,
they had no clue that my Deborah,
my delight, my paradise
had wonders not touched
or dreamed of save by dreamers
and by trackers and wonder-holics
with the DTs of delectation
who would sell their mama’s souls
for just a whiff, just a taste, just a touch
of beyond the Beyond…
she is there for us always.
Time stood still as we passed her,
and birdsong wove wonder-ways
into her chambers, and there,
in the deep back,
where her leggy tree thatches
came together and merged,
where her center throbbed,
supple gloaming dark,
soft and silky rose
from beneath the wood,
seeped black and creamy
from the edge of field
and trees.
And I knew that I beheld the center,
the wellspring of beauty and
the font of her rivers,
her fertile forever flow,
her temple, her womb.
And I felt her curve
round her children yet born,
even as she reached
and caressed my cheek
as I flew by with kisses
of a queen to me her
handmaiden.
Soon we were passed,
hurtling headfirst towards tomorrow
while she moved and danced
and stayed rooted in her everthere.
Light just so, wind just so,
I knew that door
would never show again.
I sighed, licked my salty lips
and ached fiercely with heart
full of her sweet always song.
The Crucible of Disappointment
Constance…have you ever been disappointed?
“Yeah, riiiiggghhhht, ‘Rissa!” you are prolly thinking! “Who hasn’t!!?”
And that leads me to my topic. See…lately I have been experiencing a lot of disappointment…plans made with loved ones and deeply anticipated, only to find that they have changed so the loved one can serve someone else…understandable…but disappointing.
Or trying hard to nail down an appointment, only to get no reply regarding which of a number of dates would be best…and then worse, feeling like I am making a pest of myself in seeking to simply get this thing scheduled…wondering if I am being avoided, if I have been intrusive or over-bearing…and yeah, disappointment.
We all experience it, but here is a secret: disappointment can be a crucial and pivotal agent of transformation in your life…or rather, the way that you handle it will lead to radical transformation.
I think the most crucial thing to grasp is this: Disappointment is divinely planned to result in death. Think about it…frequently when we are disappointed, something inside us dies–a dream, a desire, a hope, a plan…but as has so often been the case for me, the death of those things opens the gateways for the resurrection of those things in some far more pure and properly motivated form.
It is a tool that is similar to a surgeon’s blade. It is wielded with great skill by the Ones who love us best. But there is a team aspect to passing thru the death of disappointment and int the realms of resurrection! Like so many things, what is most crucial is not what happened, but rather how we choose to respond. The power to choose is what separates the Mandala’s from the Mansons!
Generally, we tend to deal with disappointment in one of two ways:
#1: Fear. I know that I am guilty a lot of being so confused when I get disappointed, and then to think, and react in fear…fear that I am being rejected, fear that I am unloved, fear that I have driven someone away with a careless word or mis-timed joke, fear of pain or sorrow.
#2. Faith. Faith that love bears all things, and never fails, and Joy will always find a way. When we are able to faithfully continue to the person we wish to be, to keep our eyes on the vision and keep them off ourselves, it is miraculous how disappointment becomes the catalyst for the transformation we so deeply desire.
I am struck by a series of contrasts in the lives of several Bible characters, and please, remember that the things in the Bible contain truths that we are privileged to suss out in our day and age. It is possible to learn from the truth of the stories without necessarily subscribing to a specifically Christian position or theology.
I see a vast difference in the lives of 2 men, who at one time were very close, who both were destined to rule as king, who both endured disappointment and sorrow…and yet one of these men we have heard nothing from or about other than the things recorded about in in the Bible, and the other of the men wrote poetry and prayers that are still to this day echoing in the highways and byways of the human heart and soul! I am talking about Saul, and David…one walked with fear, and one walked with faith.
Saul is said to have encountered a big disappointment when the prophet Samuel did not show up when Saul had planned for him to. Samuel told him to wait…wait until Samuel arrived! But Samuel delayed several days…and then the people began to grumble, began to demand that their king take action…and Saul’s disappointment became infected by fear, and he began to move and think and decide from a basis of fear.
In the midst of the crucible of disappointment, Saul fearfully decided that he could not rely on or trust anyone else, so he chose to embrace self-reliance, in a twisted way. And within a few chapters he is in the grip of self-deception, which bore the bitter fruits of despair and ultimately destruction…and we see this cycle of disappointment/deception/despair/destruction repeated in Saul’s life over and over again.
By the end of his days, Saul is alone and finds himself in the house of a witch, seeking dark and sinister remedies for disappointment. A few days later, Saul commits suicide, and the life of a talented and promising human being came to a tragic and futile end.
David, on the other hand, found himself in the crucible of disappointment over and over again just like Saul…but instead of responding with fear, he responded with faith. He made a choice, to delight himself in whatsoever was true, good, noble and worthy. He spoke of his choices to do this, to trust, to have faith. He wrote about them, and about the Ones with the power to deliver him according to Their riches and mercies. David declared over and over again that even in the midst of disappointment, God is good.
And ultimately, David experienced deliverance from that crucible and resurrection into a more yielded and humble vessel.
Disappointment met in fear=> deception=>despair=>destruction=>death. The root force behind this whole path is self-reliance, in its unbalanced and unhealthy form. The soundtrack to this path is the song “What about me? Me, me, meeee!!” Tragically, death here is the ultimate and final end.
Disappointment met in faith=>delight in what’s right=>declaring what’s true=>deliverance=>resurrection and life! The root force behind this whole path is a yielded spirit. The soundtrack to this path is the song “I Surrender All”. Miraculously, death here is the gateway to life, and is just a new beginning!
There are many other contrasts available for your examination…consider the man of fear (Samson) vs the man of faith (Samuel), and how each one dealt with disappointment, how each one walked a road that was determined by their choice of fear/faith, and the fruit that came from their lives by the end…
…or consider Judas and Peter (who aren’t that much different! After all, both men betrayed the Lord in His hour of travail!). Judas encountered such disappointment that the Messiah was not setting up a physical kingdom in which he would be an important governor, but was instead setting up a kingdom that was not made from wealth and fame, but from love and sacrifice and kindness…and so he stole things (out of fear), and justified it to himself to betray Jesus (deception), and then when he saw that every attempt he made to force Jesus to show His power physically and save Himself had failed, he wept bitterly (despair), and then hung himself.
Peter, on the other hand, entered into the same crucible, and was guilty of the same things, having taken up a sword and cut off the ear of another person (it took the touch of Jesus to heal that person!)
And as an aside, have you ever noticed that before? When Peter got militant and angry and attempted to bring the Kingdom in by human strength, he effectively rendered another person incapable of hearing! Ask yourself: how many times have YOU with the best of intentions but firmly ensconced in your own strength and agenda taken your sword and hurt someone, deafened them to the very message you so deeply wish to communicate? I think we need to take a hard look at ourselves, and consider hard the lesson Peter learned here!
So when Peter did this, he was rebuked by the Lord, and got disappointed, and even more so when Jesus allowed Himself to be taken away…and then he walked in fear, which led to deception that he would be safe from harm if he just kept quiet…which led to his denial of Jesus vehemently…which led to his despair as he saw His friend and Lord taken and tortured…
…but Peter then found the space and the grace to hold on, and a few days later, the Risen Lord appeared on the shores of the sea and called to Peter who in faith took action! He dove into the sea and swam to the Lord, and there in faith he let disappointment be turned into resurrection as he found his way through delighting in the Lord, declaring Who He is, and thus being delivered into new life.
Constance…I encourage you to take a ramble thru these stories. Whether you have a Bible or just use aan online tool like Bible Gateway…whether you consider the Bible authoritative in your life, or a collection of wise spiritual stories…do not lose the opportunity to glean some wisdom and a skill set to assist you in dealing with a very common assailant in our lives here in this time and place.
The contrasts between the two ways of dealing with disappointment are stark and meaningfully salient:
Fear seeks to escape…Faith seeks to embrace.
If you have chosen a lifestyle that is fear based, this is sort of attempting to save yourself by yourself, and essentially that is tantamount to spiritual suicide eventually. Ultimately, none of us is big enough to bear all our burdens all by ourselves! We need each other, and in my own world view, we need They who love us utterly and completely!
But if you choose to take the risk of responding in faith to disappointment, and to embrace your life rather than attempt to flee, then you will find the peace and relief in laying down your life into Their loving hands…trusting Them that you can be who you really are with Them, and that They will be who They really are with you!. You take your eyes off of the fires, off of the hurts, and you fix your eyes on the promised prize waiting on the other side…waiting thru the crucible of disappointment.
Disappointment: it brings us to the crossroads…and we can travel to that cross, and then thru that cross and into new life and deeper peace and joy.
Thank you so much for reading, and may you be blessed this day with oodles of grace, and boodles of joy, and blankets of peace.
Love,
Charissa Grace
Summer Snapshots in Haiku
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
a good poem somehow
makes what’s true a little more
disturbing/profound
Poem within this poem
Grace inhabits this body…
image finds its Source
I love you, but it’s
not the finish, not the end
but the beginning
You say “I love you”
a sound so tender that the
dead could even hear!
A Futrospection
There is a tenderness
in your eyes
in your voice
a trembling
so I can never
tell whose mother
or little girl
you might be
and even I
must believe it
tonite, remembering
in your eyes
such a tenderness.
Wyoming Woman
you have such beautiful western legs.
when i see you walk away, i love you.
when i see your back, the curves of
your shoulders…
love is the exact reverse of self-desire.
in the act of love…
…and goes forth
continuous. fluid.
what is tomorrow, that it cannot come
Today?
Time Spent With You
now and again
here and there
then and then
again and again
more and more
‘Neath Marvel Skies
I sit, quiet in morning, in a fuzzy gold dawn of…yet another.
This day, like them all, like none before, stretches out horizontally
(my cramped and sleepy legs), stretches out vertically
(my free unfurling soul), hums with eternity’s pulsing center
and calls my name with its wafting breezy mouth.
My heart pulls, rises with the sleepy sun and warms
to its task of pulling me up to the easy estate of becoming.
Flowers send fragrant potions in answer to beckoning
gestures from cloudy gentle giants floating in graceful skies
bluing up for warmer dances coming when the sun opens its eyes.
There is a space for you here…beside me on this soft and leafy bench.
But you must turn a quarter turn, and step three times to your left and hop,
and fall up out of that dreamy safe sameness and routine slumber.
You must say the words and rub that dull and tinny lamp
that stands beside your desk, your bed, your chair, and then…come here.
The air shimmers, blades and branches sense your approach, your desire.
They lean, beckoning, they sing and lark in this breezy vibrant dawn.
There is quiet at the heart of this singing day, but deeper, within that quiet
burns an ever-flaming core of wonder-song, facets flashing, gleaming, fiery
like some magic carpet woven from Auroras and last night’s wild starry strays…
I wait in the quiet, I wait in the core, I wait ‘neath these plush and pearly-gold skies
swimming before a broadening emboldened sun. I wait for you…
I feel you turn, your first, second, third step, your hop…
I see rose air displace and bulge and nearly tear,
I hear that lamp purring ‘neath your eager hand!
And I join the flowers, blades, branches,
birds to herald your arrival, here ‘neath marvel skies!
F.I.G. L.E.A.F.
Ever lived a life of cover-up? A life that maybe you were even hiding from yourself?
I have. And I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that I was authentic, honest, and transparent to God, others, and myself.
HA!!! Just as my father and mother from eons ago, I had fig leaves for coverings. A fig leaf is anything other than the glory of God that you take refuge in. When the scripture says that Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed, it wasn’t talking about that they suddenly knew they had no clothes on! What it meant was that the inner life of God, the Spirit of Life that Shines and gives Life had been extinguished…had died.
They had died, spiritually. And now they were dim, burned out, diminished, and it was obvious to one another, Thus, they sought a cover-up…fig leaf…just as we do to this day.
Thankfully, through the love and mercy of God Jesus who is the Second Adam has made a way for us to get a bulb change, and get our god-light turned back on, and gain in our confidence and faith in His work to the point where we can discard our fig leaves and stand boldly with unveiled faces.
But they are tricky…they are subtle and insidious…and of many and divers forms. I guess I was/am sorta an expert in wearing them and hiding. But no more! 🙂
As I was/am walking away from these, LG has given a funny little acrostic as listed below…do you see yourself there anywhere? I know I said OUCH!
Love, Charissa Grace
F ear
I nsecurity
G uilt
L oneliness
E xile
A nxiety
F rustration
Beautiful King (Zephaniah 3:8-20, song from March 1992)
This song comes next here, for though I had written it a year earlier, I had not done it publicly, but rather worshiped it in private. You see, some men in our congregation, influential and controlling guys who ran the congregation, got very uncomfortable with my songs…they were either too tender, or too tough, or too sappy, or too sharp edged. Whatever.
It was very painful, and also confusing, for the sweet Holy Spirit would hover and draw so close, and when I did the songs with the downtrodden, they loved them!
So I had been holding out…but in the same meeting that Arise our God was played, this one was the song that led us upward again, and out of the trough of despondence and repentance and back to a place of hope and confidence in the Lord.
Later in the night (and after the obligatory drawing aside by the “leaders: to rebuke me for my over-emotional songs), Lady Grace drew near me, and as I cried myself to sleep She nestled over me and I knew that They were pleased, and that was enough. (I never could figure it out…why they criticized virtually every single thing…and yet continually asked me to lead worship. Go figure. I guess it is evidence of the verses in Psalm 27
“Teach me Your way, O Lord, And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
12 Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence.
13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
14 Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”)…yeah…YES LORD.
PS: there are 7 lines in each verse on purpose lol!
All ye who weep with hearts that are broken, lift up your eyes to your King
All who desire Holy Devotion, Bow you down, and call on His Name.
And He will give to you purified lips.
And you will give to Him purified lives.
And He will remove from you dullness of heart.
Pour out your lives to Him,
Your Beautiful King.
Shout for Joy, Oh Ye Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, Oh Israel!
He has taken away all His judgements against you! And He dwells in your midst, let not your hands fall limp!
He sings over you in joy, mighty and tender!
Victorious Warrior, gaze on His Splendour!
He turns all your shame to song, He brings us together!
Pour out your live to Him…
Your Beautiful King.
A Love Song (May, 1981)
Wow, Constance…this journey I have been on the last several days, per LG’s exhortation to me to despise not my past, has been a mind blower…the things I have been thru…the growth, the reducing (both part of sanctification).
Don’t worry…I will get to some new poems I think, soon enough, but for now I am sorta sharing myself with myself, if that makes sense.
This song was written very shortly after my darling and I firmed up our wedding plans, and were officially engaged! I read the lyrics, remember the time, but I don’t remember writing this, though it is my hand in my notebook…but omfg, the rhymes so trite, the p.o.v. so young, so callow…Ah Lord…teach us to number our days! Honestly, I cannot even remember the melody of it.
Crappy song, true heart!!
The gentle touch you bring, like flowers in the spring
A twinkle in your eye, as we kiss ‘neath golden skies
These things are my love song…my simple love song to you.
I’ll sing in soft green meadowlands as we walk together hand in hand.
Yellow moon is the harmony–but you–you are the melody.
You’re beautiful, you’re the melody of my love song.
I’ve been given a priceless gift, your precious, gentle love.
A love that heals, and understands, how I thank the Powers above.
You’re more to me than just a lover true–with a love that never ends,
You’re my dearest darling–my companion–you’re simply my best friend.
Honey…
I’ll cherish you in gentleness, ‘n touch your brow with my soft caress
I’ll laugh three times, and laugh some more as I watch you and as I adore
The simple purity, the strength and dignity that is you.
What I’m trying to say in this stumbling way, is that
I love you, it’s true,
And I believe you love me too.
All My Days (April 1996, a song)
This song was written when I was in a very good place. I still remember the peace and comfort of Lady Grace (who was then to me, in my religious “formal” addressing of Her, The Holy Spirit. lol…imagine if someone called you “the” before your name…would be an obstacle to intimacy most likely, eh?), and how She was revealing to me the completeness and all surpassing nature of the work of the Cross…and the last words, spoken in triumph, and not in defeat or despair…It is finished.
So, I found this really flowy melody and the lyrics just jumped from me like birds to the air…I am certain that I was re-reading Song of Songs, as much of this is lifted from those verses…and again, people…read the heart of the scripture here…the Kisses of His mouth, etc, are speaking of spiritual intimacy…look deep: as if it were a poem! (you do look deep into poems…don’t you??? 🙂 )
All My Days
Jesus, I love You, my Lord and my King.
My heart beats for You, my love, my Everything!
Just a glance from You, a single touch, and I am captured evermore.
Then I hear You call “Rise Up, My Love”, and I come running to the One that I adore!
Chorus:
I will sing unto you, sing a new song to you,
for You are worthy of my praise!
I will give You glory, and I will give You honor,
I will love You all my days.
Here, in this moment, Your presence is so sweet.
You’ve overcome me, my tears of love wash Your feet.
All the deepest longings of my life, my portion and my great delight
are revealed in You, Beloved King, I bow down and worship You with all my might!
Chorus: (2x on the chorus)
Lord, as You pour out Your Spirit in this place,
Jesus, please remember that we long to see You face to Face.
Every mighty deed that You have done, for us in answer to our cry,
Cannot take Your place, for we want You, and nothing less and no one else can satisfy!
Chorus #2:
Not just the Living Water! Not just the Oil and Honey!
Lord none of these can satisfy!
Only knowing You, Lord! Only loving You, Lord!
Only this can satisfy!
Draw us after You Lord! Let us run with You, Lord!
We want the kisses of Your mouth!
Not just the things You do Lord, not just the gifts You give, Lord!
We must have You and only You!
(flow ad lib, and fade…segue into spontaneous singing and/or prayer)
He Cares (Song from Isaiah 43, 1988)
In 1985 I got very sick with a kidney disease called Nephritis. There was no cause that could be found, but there was a prognosis of immediate dialysis, followed by transplant at the first available organ.
For 9 months before this manifested on October the 4th, 1985, I had been getting a specific biblical reference virtually every morning during my prayer time. It was Lamentations chapter 3. This is a famous passage where the prophet Jeremiah is vicariously repenting to the Lord on behalf of the nation of Israel, and also lamenting his own personal hardship. The verses that stood out, as if in flames to me, were 12-13…
“He has bent His bow and set me up as a target for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of His quiver to pierce my kidneys…”
Of course they were a huge puzzle for me, and I delved into the chapter, and had fruitful study for months, but could not for the life of me figure out what was so significant about those fiery words…
So there I was, in the doctor’s office while they laid out my future for me, and by then, I knew the meaning of those words, in all their dread. I knew that this was some sort of trial/discipline/classroom/reproach/something that was from God, and only God would be able to help me. I had a deep certainty that I was going to survive this (and I was not very happy about that, to be frank. It was during this time that I tasted gun oil on a barrel, if you get my drift), and I decided before things got too far, that I was going to seek Them and beseech Them for mercy and see what happened…why it happened…what was happening.
I refused the options they laid out. The doctors told me I was crazy…but I didn’t care. When they asked me what I was planning, I simply told them the verses, what God had been putting in me for 9 months, and that this was something divine that had to be dealt with on that level. Of course they ridiculed me, sought to belittle and demean me for my stupidity.
It was rough to take. I knew how it looked…Jesus Freak outta yer mind etc etc.
But I was firm in my understanding, and knew that anything else they did would be futile, so instead I sought help through natural means and prayer and repentance. I did intense research and found several herbs that had verifiable healing qualities for kidneys. I prayed a ton.
And I had to work during this time. I had no time off available, and my new wife and baby needed to eat, right? So I went out to my very physical job picking up trash in our town, and I slogged zombie-like through the days. I had a constant 101 degree fever. My muscles constantly ached like the worst flu you have had. I felt so sick, so full of toxins, and so absolutely alone.
Imagine the silence, after virtually everyday for 9 months there had been active voice in my spirit from Them.
Imagine the horror and lonely realization that I was literally dying, and I had chosen to either live or die by Their intervention, and They were not talking.
It was bleak…for real.
But in a few weeks, I began to hear stirrings, and eventually They established dialogue again with me, and then came weeks of gentle revelation to me of my own carnal dependence on religion, theology, and the word itself. They showed me that I basically worshiped the Bible instead of Them. I could quote the word 9 ways to Sunday, but I didn’t properly care for Their down-trodden and weak and lost sheep. I was self-righteous, boasting in my credentials, my position as a life-long christian, and my status as a “good person”. They showed me my dependence on my own abilities and gifts (which THEY gave me, btw), and finally, how I had put my trust in an ethic of law and right behaviour, instead of trusting Them in relationship, with an ethic coming from righteousness equaling right relationship with Them.
These revelations were in some ways more painful than the physical issues I was dealing with. OOooohhh my pride was sooo stinky and offended! But They were right…They always are.
There was no immediate relief, no instant healing after I got the message and began to pursue repentance…repentance: simply a changing of the mind resulting in traveling the opposite way you were traveling. Metanoia. But there was a coming along side, an empowering while I was so weak, to complete each day, everyday, and slowly but surely embrace the fellowship of His sufferings (sanctification and death to self)…until finally…the day this song was born.
I was working in a neighborhood in our town, and as I was picking up trash, I saw a young woman in her mid twenties come out of her house, and walk to her car. She had been weeping, and was bruised (literally). She was smoking a cigarette, and was somewhat unkempt. And above all, underneath the veneer of hurt, pain, sorrow, and slow hardening of her heart, I saw that she was incredibly beautiful. Now…I think what happened is that They gave me eyes to see her as They see her! And in that moment, the lyrics to the song came into my heart, and the melody out of my mouth, and basically I got the song in about 5 minutes. I quickly pulled around the block and jotted down the words, finished the day, and went straight home to the guitar and firmed it up.
I went back to that house a few days later. I intended to sing that song to that woman…but the house was empty. Whatever violence that had occurred had flowered into its bitter and deadly fruit and no one was there any longer. I went back to my car and sat…and cried. I cried for her, for whoever hit her, for the sin and brokenness we were hemmed in by, and I prayed loud and without thought for how I appeared to others or what words I used or how spiritual I sounded or looked…and I begged Them to watch over her, draw her to Themselves, and other things as well.
The tears finally stopped, and I was ready to leave…and I heard Lady Grace speak to me, and She said that what I had just experienced was why They had pierced my kidneys with Their arrows…Their discipline had at last resulted in the good fruit They desired. She basically told me it was the first time I had ever prayed for someone else with a whole heart aware only of the person, and not of my own role as the spiritual champion, warrior, super-christian, etc. etc. And that I was incapable of hearing that song from Them previous to Their scouring and wounding stripes.
I will never, ever forget that…and the lesson of Their Faithfulness. “For I am confident of this very thing: that He who began a good work in you shall be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ!”
In light of my posts taking a very sharp prophetic stance against misogyny, I think it is timely that I found this song today in the annals of my past…“He Cares” (it is in waltz time in a country gospel style)…
Don’t let the world steal your beauty.
Don’t let the world take your joy.
When you’re too hurt to cry, and your spirit is so dry,
oh don’t let the world steal your beauty.
When you pass thru ferocious deep rivers,
when the water is chilly and cold,
Though the floods be so grey, you will not be swept away,
when you pass thru ferocious deep rivers.
Chorus:
Cause He cares, He cares.
Jesus cares for you.
He will gently lift you up. He will fill your empty cup,
Jesus cares for you.
Don’t let the world steal your victory.
Don’t be defeated by the pain.
When you’re wounded in the fight, when you can’t see any light,
oh don’t let the world steal your victory.
When you walk thru the lonely hot fires,
and dark flames of despair lick your soul.
Do not be concerned, for you will not be burned,
when you walk thru the lonely hot fires.
Chorus:
Bridge:
Do not call to mind what has happened before,
don’t ponder the things of the past.
I will make a broad roadway in the wilderness,
and rivers of life in your deserts.
What My hands hold, none can snatch away.
What I do, none can undo.
By My Blood and My Name, you are fee from all shame,
Oh! I LOVE you, come to Me!
Chorus:
Cause I care, I care!
My people, I care for you!
I will gently lift you up, I will fill your empty cup.
Oh My people I care for you!
Don’t let the world steal your beauty.
Don’t let the world take your joy.
He will gently lift you up…He will fill your empty cup,
So don’t let the world steal your beauty.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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