It’s The Wonder

Posted on July 2, 2015 by charissagrace

Lately it’s been getting harder,
harder to breathe…my chest
is burdened, weighed down,
constricted and heaving
and breath, a woman writhing in labor,
gasps and tears at air so thick
it only gives up in pieces ragged
and jagged and grippy.

The older I get, the harder it is
to breathe.

Doctors call it asthma, they say
I’ve had it all my life
(who knew? Not I!)
And me none the wiser, I just
worked so hard and suffered harder
and swam straight on thru strife.

But recently, I coughed real hard!
And what I thought was sputum
was really a fresh bud coughed up
and then spit out for good!

That’s when I realized, my lungs
have turned into a flower bed
of Mama’s Blossoms Fragrant
and oh so beautiful.

The Birds of Desire

Posted on July 2, 2015 by charissagrace

“She was like a forest,
like the dark interlacing
of the oakwood,
humming inaudibly
with myriad unfolding buds.
Meanwhile
the birds of desire
were asleep
in the vast interlaced
intricacy of her body.”
— D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Catacombs and Caverns

Posted on July 1, 2015 by charissagrace

I heard caverns deep behind your words of wonder.
I heard water dripping softly from wet ceilings
in those hollow places that you talked
so gingerly around…I heard your words resound,
your words of wonder…

in catacombs within so dark with dying
and dismal longing smothering and sighing,
the death to self and terrible becoming
in places of deep grief and self-discovery
those spaces once full, quick became so hollow…

I hear your hollow places faintly filling
with sorrow bleeding, and thus filled becoming
drained, emptied in the lonely tearful crying
that hallows fearful places looming darkly,
places of slow death so severely emptied,

bereavement fresh yet ancient,
everlasting and then grief become
dark resurrection hinted at
in every birth brand new,
in every dying….

I found your trails familiar, well worn, hidden
so deep within the kidneys of your words
and yet those trails well known in rising darkness,
(a left at that root ragged there, then quickly
around that rugged rock jutting sharp right here).

I have been walking word roads too, becoming
and finding that my caverns dark and thrumming
catacombs full, then empty, full then empty
more times than I can count or e’en remember
and I wonder in such a holy horror

when my wonder became wander…wander…wander!
Yet I am here! Alive and breathing! Singing!
I’m here to tell you, it gets better, Darling
But only on this singular condition:
the losing of your everything in dying

and thus it is
you can be born
again and live
so lively new,
again.

Today, as I sit, listening to your heart, Dear
I look back at what I have lost…oh my God!
The stuff of Titans, losses heaped and horded,
my trinkets, treasures tossed, honors awarded
all tumbled in the twilight, gleaming dully

in the hot noon listless sun, laying there lifeless
and in the evening gloaming calling mutely
midst catacomb become my living darkness,
that cavern now my womb filling with wonder
all finally lost…and now? And now…The finding…

truly nothing
can compare
to the all surpassing
wonder of a world
made brand new

and my
Catacombs and Caverns
filled forever,
never failing, filled
and brand new

every morning,
every mourning
every warning
made brand new
and full of wonder
full of wander
full of You.

Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism

Posted on June 28, 2015 by charissagrace

Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism. Dear Constance, this article will be good review for some, and a great beginning for those who are interested but don’t know protocol.

The one that is most crucial to me? The one that says my story is mine and not yours…and you have no right to out me to anyone…even though people have done this to me. It’s sorta weird to meet someone I knew then and hear that there is all kinds of gossip about me happening…that means that the paragons of virtue who told me I was beyond a river they refused to cross and that I was demonized?

They started the rumors and passed them along…and likely think they served Jesus in doing it. The trouble they caused me…I weep still at times over things that I could have shared in my own way and time that got shared and soo distorted… …but that’s the way it goes when you deal with the privileged…whatever they say is God’s will becomes God’s will…

because they say so (which makes them God, I guess).

To The Ones Twisting In Agony

Posted on June 19, 2015 by charissagrace

Dearest Hearts:

As time passes it becomes increasingly clear to me that you are incredibly shocked and perhaps even traumatized by recent events. What started as a journey rooted in solidarity and a narrative of history held in common, stitched together by memories of holidays, traditions, and countless days in the sun has been blown apart by a story describing a life experience so different and distinct as to seem like the most crazed and addled of fictions.

Except it is far more complicated than that…both your experiences of it and ours.

And trying to put the spotlight of truth on “what really happened” is as fruitful as running on the beach to try and catch a seagull…memory and our past flies up and away when we run hard at it.

Certainly there is a plethora of artifacts that buttress my own experience…but here is the rub for me:

So much of those days is fuzzy to me, blurred by time and by the assumption that we were pretty fortunate to have one another…but most of all so much of it was swallowed whole and robbed from me by a Leviathan called Dysphoria. In the bone-frying terror of trying to survive the assaults of despair, a lot of my memory is reduced to memories of just hanging on.

As you all have been processing things, you have gone silent, gone angry, but mostly, just…gone. Nothing. And what reports do trickle back have been shocking in their vehement accusations and recollections, have been utterly astonishing in the gaping holes where context tells a radically differing tale…and completely and totally devastating to read and encounter.

It has been like a pogrom on my history…and what is worst of all is that whatever or however it happened, you have come to this time and this place where you have these driving needs to tell your story and write your history thus.

And thus the heart of this post: I want you to know that it is okay.

I want you to be and do and say whatever it is that will bring you expiation and freedom.
I want for you liberty and fruitfulness.
I want for you life and wholeness.

I want for you what I have always wanted for you and sought to provide you.

And I love you…regardless of what you might think or not think, say or not say, remember or forget.
I will never not love you.

Never.

Perhaps someday there will be enough said or done that you might begin to feel those relentless scales within entering into a sort of equilibrium…the doors of my heart are flung wide open.

Perhaps someday you might be handling the artifacts that my fingertips and heart tendrils trace daily, and you might find the tracks of my tears and the perfume of my love…in letters, in cards and emails…in memories other than the ones who swell and swarm our landscape like Red Tides…

…and if that ever happens, please do not waste one moment of your lives in regret or remorse…while it is evident to me that it is highly unlikely that this will ever happen, there is a chance that you might feel as if you have in some fashion or way done wrong in the process of this becoming of ours, and if this is ever the case I say to you

I love you
I forgive you
I have no record of wrong
I believe everyday in who I know you are
I want the best for you as you are able to discover it and access it
It is my honor to have had a part in your coming to be and it is my doom to be accountable for the innumerable ways that I failed you and caused you pain and horror.
I hope everyday that you are finding the sort of strength in becoming that I am experiencing.

Should you ever glance my direction, I am here at the end of the lane of home, everyday standing on tippietoes and my eyes combing the horizon and my heart listening to the wind and my nose sniffing the air for your presence…

…hoping to see you, praying for your safety and shalom…and never ever failing to hold you in my heart precious.

I also want you to know this: whatsoever you need to write, need to shout, need to throw, need to yell, need to think or tell or believe…whatever you need to do or be in order to be whole, it is okay with me.

I refuse to ever be “a betrayed one”
I refuse to ever be “a wronged one”
I refuse to ever be “offended”

I choose you and your wholeness.
I choose you and your horror that you lay at my feet and at my accountability. Let it be on me, to make things lighter and easier and more fruitful for you it is my glad and sacred honor.

If the narrative is now that I was the worst abuser, a victimizer, a (fill in the blank)…whatever it is…as long as it is an assignation of responsibility that enables you to be delivered and put in a place where you can choose life and choose wholeness and becoming, then it is a sentence that I want to have over me that I shall do my absolute best to carry in the way that creates the freedom and deliverance and cleansing within that brings you the very best that can be brought.

May it be my meals for the rest of my days if in eating it there is even a modicum of relief and wholeness for you.

Everyday without you is like Kafka’s world with no exit…unless in the absence I have the assurances it is resulting in your liberty and gladness and joy…

…and in that case it is the greatest of honors to be in this place.

I think I know who I was…and who I wasn’t too, finally. I think I acted in good faith, but who really knows? When one is dysphoria’s ball of yarn it gets a bit discombobulating to be batted around for 5o years.

But now? I know I know who I am, and who I am not…and while I can do nothing about what has happened, the future is mine to write, each and everyday that is left in God’s coffers for me to walk out.

I love you with all my heart, and I am honored by each of you in your strength of voice, your commitment to one another, your loyalty to truth and your heart for justice.

There are many who could have loved you more perfectly.

There are none who could have loved you more.

I loved you utterly, totally…I still do.

And I always will. Love you.

Say on…it’s okay, let it rip…do what you must and need and want…be…become.

Cus I am here now: Charissa Grace, and I am finally free and not a helpless bystander any longer, and nothing can ever lock me up ever again.

Written in my blood and tears and sweat…and the tattoo ink of forever love,

Me…the one who was there and now is here…the one who engendered you…

Your loving parent

From The Writings of King David

Posted on June 10, 2015 by charissagrace

This.

Gives me hope.

Always.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

Mama With Me, Near Today

Posted on June 9, 2015 by charissagrace

Constance…

How I wish that you could know…know…the Love of God…the Presence of Them in your core essence.

God has been so polluted and trashed by the low things that oppose Them. God has been so misrepresented by complete morons who spin out of their corrupted souls a god made in their own image, and it is ugly, it is gross, it is cruel and it is crude…and most of all it is blind, dumb, and deaf, just like them.

God is Humble. They pounce thru every single crack in human perception that shows the least openness to Them, and They shine…oh how They shine.

They have loved me.

And that is a wonder that breaks me open again and again and again and again and…

Holy Spirit of God…Holy Spirit is Their Presence here in this creation. Jesus has ascended and is in heaven in this time and making all things ready. So Their presence is Holy Spirit…and oh the honor of Her drawing me near Her, opening the Word to me to see Her…

She is like one of my poems…layers, hints, indirection, inference, and sometimes subtle in its baldfaced straightforwardness…this is Her.

And She is altogether good, and I love Her.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Reader: I will never not love Her.

Never.

Your statements and judgments of Her are dust and lower than irrelevance.

Why do you fulminate and foam at the mouth because I love Her? If indeed She was just a myth, why would you even care? I love Her, and it is to Her that I have surrendered, and willingly laid down control.

Eternal Continuum (Part Two)

Posted on May 31, 2015 by charissagrace

a central point
lurking somewhere
between nothing
and all—
and infinitely far
from understanding
either…blind to nothingness
from which
we flashed
at the call
of Fiery Lips
and numb
to the infinite
glories that engulf
and hold us.

this point unchangeable
this chameleon point
containing all contradiction
and inconsistency

(desire to be a friend
the bent to manipulate friends
the being of a neighbor good
the compulsion to walk away
cold hearted without helping)

this point,
this tipping point
has honour enough
to erect the head
of the poorest bum,
and shame enough
to bow the shoulders
of the greatest king.

that Point,
that Mediator
of Merciful Hope

(drying the tears of a broken world
reviving the Image of the Divine within
overcoming the enemies
of our Death and Sin)

Sure, grounded
obviating and containing
all contradictions
in this point

that point provides
the only grounding
and offers hope
for the contradictions
within, and more
than mere hope
for escape.

That point redeems the tension this point is.

We have born
the image of
the man of dust.

We also will
bear the Image
of the One
in Heaven

overflowing
with
thankfulness.

Eternal Continuum (Part One)

Posted on May 31, 2015 by charissagrace

“What does it mean to be human?”

That’s like asking
what does it mean
to mean something!

Plumbing depths of humanity
and falling past microscopic random flaws,
thru macroscopic cosmic starbursts,
thru eternity’s barrier of sound and senses,
to find yourself again placed herein perfect setting

like golden apples in rings of silver pure
between micro and macro verses…
placed intentionally and sure,

well, the implications are far-reaching and intricate,
and I wonder at the cure for

a mind untamed
a soul intellectual
inhabiting together
a body become
an appetitive beast
a divided creature furtive
and creeping corpulent
and crepitating with
crepuscular compassion
and cruelty
all at once.

Is the dividing line
of mind and body
the line dividing
good and evil
that cuts through
the heart of every
human being?

and what is that?
Being human?

The Pools of Illusion

Posted on May 30, 2015 by charissagrace

Your bellies drag the ground,
crouched and coiled and waiting,
unsprung and deadly potent,
filled with waters, poison, imbibed,
ingested, indulged,
you lurk and lay in waiting
to pounce on me defenseless,
beside dark pools malignant
with memories, dreams, reflections
that sit off kilter, cracked,
those springs of tales seductive
retold and twisted…clockwise

(remember that we used to live
anti-clock-wise? You recall?
Remember how that was?
Can you even do it now…
re-member?Your tails lashing hazy air
your tales lashing me in here,
deep inside, they probe and seek
to replicate themselves,
like viruses, contagious
half-truths bitter, poisonous
in decade-long half-lives
hanging like a blade
of time left to be served
in a sentence undeserved. tumblr_nlo1ogBFSk1s2z59jo1_1280 But I swim rivers
pure and vital,
waters crashed on
clean stone, shattered
into liquid smithereens,
a million broken rainbow prisms tumblr_nb949v0kp41s1vn29o5_1280 clinging to the air together
to speak of wholeness
in the broken
gath’ring of them
all together tumblr_nmzdul5Y8W1qbe766o3_1280 and I breathe air, drink
the water of life immune
to your off-kilter philter.

So if you see me
(if you even bother
to look) and I am sick?
It is your own infected myth
I drain so you could simply stop,
quit worshipping the twisted past,
old box of pain, and you can join me,
once again beneath the stars,

beneath the moon in the spring rain
in the spring rain beneath the moon
the moon and rain so clean and pure
and free from stagnant pools. tumblr_m67b1gzLlg1qzn4kzo1_1280

Breathtaking Quote!

Posted on May 30, 2015 by charissagrace

tumblr_nnvtyxBU6W1qat5pio1_500 This. My goal when I create poetry.

“We want
to decipher skies
and paintings,
go behind these starry backgrounds
or these painted canvases and,
like kids
trying to find a gap
in a fence,
try to look through the cracks
in the world.”

— Georges Bataille

For Elli

Posted on May 24, 2015 by charissagrace

I have become aware that there is some good traffic for older poems/posts.

I also have had the genuine blessing to cross paths with a true friend at distance, but close at heart, my friend Elli.

I have decided that I am going to be re-posting some of my personal favorite old poems, to make accessing them easier for the traffic…but the real reason?

Jus mostly for my friend, Elli…may you find blessing and peace in some of these, and may you always have the faith to await the sunrise, and the courage to lift up your eyes to the mountains…

Love, Charissa Grace

With that…here are two…

Spitting Bones

Many Paths and Peace

The First “Contemporary Christian Music” I Ever Heard

Posted on May 24, 2015 by charissagrace

I didn’t even know there was this genre of music, and shortly after Mama did some miraculous things in my life, I heard about this concert of these dudes called “Lamb”…and I was like “what the heck, let’s go”.

Well, I started to cry about 2 minutes in and wept the entire time, just so moved by their down to earth love of God and love of humans.

If you put this on and let it play, I think you will be glad you did…

Bird In A Golden Sky

Posted on May 24, 2015 by charissagrace

Constance…in spite of the betrayal, in spite of the abandonment, the lies and distortions…this.

Just. This.

This is how I feel, like I just learned how to fly.

I am Charissa Grace, and I finally got here. I really did.

Twilight In Lavender

Posted on May 23, 2015 by charissagrace

Your love was inside me
rising, falling, sweeping in over
my dry beaches, rushing out into
my far reaches…

and your arms were all about me
like spring clouds soft and grey
and fat with rain milked from
fountains of the morning dew.

I woke, and there was nothing,
nothing but you…you in my heart,
in my thoughts, you like tides
in my veins. Image result for you like tides in my veins
Here’s what clashes inside me,
like tides and beaches under skies,
clanging loud and clear against crags
midst thunder and silky lightening:

I used to have everything anyone said
was required to be happy and content and yet
I was in despair
for there was nothing of me inside and yet
somehow I was there,
a mute witness to the horror of myself and full
of one long interminable silent scream… tumblr_nlw1naPDJh1sd2kbko1_1280 And now? Now I have lost it all
(except you, dearest one)
and yet gained myself within
and thus find joy unspeakable
midst this storm of tears,
clash of times and loss
of all (even my fears)
and utter failure…

Now I sit in deserts dry
(no oasis in this barren land,
that oasis is become me),
I sit still midst salt and sand
and snakes and smile, because I am
become a meadow here inside,

and poppies dance beneath the breeze
and sway in purple twilight ways,
in this velvet twilight, mmmmm
this twilight in lavender

“Everything we see hides another thing,
we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.
There is an interest in that which is hidden
and which the visible does not show us.
This interest can take the form
of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say,
between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

—	René Magritte, speaking about his piece, “The Son of Man”

I Talk Seriously About God…

Posted on May 21, 2015 by charissagrace

“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before?

“You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly.

“And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”

—	Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

The Truest Transition

Posted on May 21, 2015 by charissagrace

From the book of Job:

But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

That Feast of Friends Awaiting (For My Friend Stephanie G)

Posted on May 19, 2015 by charissagrace

the cold winter snows
of death and separation
fall over the earth
each year, fall over
us all someday.

but look close,
see the nails
in the boards
pried back hard
and away for good

our loved ones
wait on the other
side, where the
grass is truly greener

and He has gone thru
first and waits too
busy building
preparing
a House
a Table

a Feast of Friends
forever

Across the Rolling Plains of Time

Posted on May 17, 2015 by charissagrace

I laugh like summer breezes light and airy
at those cloudy fulminators who, like Old Faithful
blow off sulfurous steam every 75 minutes, or every 75 years,
even every 75 decades (yeah, this tired rant is that old)
and froth and belch all bothered about how Faith
is merely an emotional crutch…(can I LOL in a poem?)They are clouds who promise rain and then
just blow right on by bone dry, unable to accept
life’s difficulties, they, not I, are needing an escape
to another world, an other-world…it almost breaks my heart
in its sad naivety, foolishly blind and blinking hope in nothing.
Almost. tumblr_nig7g4fiat1r44q44o1_1280 They call me blind, my faith blind? When I am someone marked
by an inability to accept (no, an unwillingness to accept)
the cruelties of this world as status quo…

I have taken my raw courage in hand to declare this life marred
is not the way it is supposed to be! We must live alert, aware we were
created for something so much more, so glad and so beyond!It is the ones who call nothing something, who insist that life
without God is “freeing” and imbibe the fantasy that life
is of no significance and death is even less, who are blind and will
not see…and so they seek to dwell…where…reassured? With no one
there to hear, to answer, to see injustice done and judge accordingly?

(“Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”)

we attempt to dress such naked poor philosophy
in beautiful robes, but in the end we always find
it was all an act upon a barren storefront-stage. tumblr_nnxq6pweYE1sdqemdo1_1280 Well, this Christian(neé) does not make her pilgrimage to new abundant life
by way of ambulance, sounding sirens on its merry way to some lost fantasy!
Quite the contrary! Golden glimpses of new life can be seen even now…
glorious gifts worth searching for as if for treasure prized and buried
or silver wink of coins lost in a house long needing a great sweeping…

We can live as people gloriously transformed by the Humility of Christ
Who, Grizzled Bison on the banks of those stinky threatening geysers,
rolls in those flats sulphurous, then gallops off unstoppable
Across the rolling plains of time, across the Rolling plains of time,
across the rolling Plains of time, across the rolling plains of Time.

Untitled

Posted on May 12, 2015 by charissagrace

the way Mama fills the void with light
the way Mama inhabits the space in my friend
the way my friend inhabits the holes in me
the way of Love
tumblr_o6d1vg2bh71qbushvo1_1280

burning the insides (For Jane)

Posted on May 10, 2015 by charissagrace

i am burning
the insides, today…
for you i am

burning my cleansings
the insides of my veins
the insides of my organs
the hidden, the deepest,
the most secret
places i burn for you,
for your faceyou are core inside core
inside me and the day
i chose to be
tattooed inside
by you inside
with you

was the day
my life was ever
set on high
and rendered ever
alwaysyou see
you remember,
rags of past
times torn asunder
from their loom
where they were
so careful woven
to lay precious
ones under

well i have
made a fire of me
my insides (you)
and see the smoke,
how it cleanses
your self-recriminations
from your lungs
and replaces

them with us
my insides
which are you
pulsing thru me
coursing thru melike wild horses
in spain
(see their flying manes)
under that rainy thunder sky
while torrents plunge
pelt pungent
onto the plains

so dry
and the smell
of hot rock
so dry
of heated flint
so dry
and flying dust
so dry

struck from sky
by fierce waters fallen
from on high

in our house
in us
we are made
clean in our love

forever.the best decision
i ever made was you
in all your icy-fire ways
fiery-ice inside and me
ever entranced and held
ever committed to hold
both nurtured

i’d do it over again,
all again
longer than karma

(see her?
cruel imitation
with her puny wheel)

Sleeping Easier

Posted on May 7, 2015 by charissagrace

I am sleeping easier these days
though haunted still by each day’s fading light
and dread foreboding in the dead of night
that clutched my bones and left me in a daze,
I’m detoxing from terror’s ghosty ways.The fear of sleep walks hand in glove with death.
The fear of not being awake is like
that cloying fear, the fear of not-being…
and who can really ever fathom that!
Because to not-be is to not know breath
or fragrance of red roses on the wind
or deep contented sighs at journeys end
or hearts melded forever with a friend.I used to lie awake at night,
too scared to go to sleep
for sleep was so indifferent,
and yet so sinister, so threatening
cus sleep seemed to be no different than death,
you know? You’re there, awake, aware
and then you’re gone…not there…

Not moving, not talking,
not thinking.
Not aware.
Not aware

(but there were nightmares in the air
and battles with the most horrific enemy
the world has ever known
as I lay there in my bed….
so still and so unable to move
while trying to fight death
and trying to wake up at last
for good)

Sleep is that disquieting reminder
of that which we try to deny each day.
For how much of our lives and livelihoods
aim at outrunning death’s finality?
We stock pile emails, push for more
make productivity our shield
against the wrinkles, against time itself,
against the aging
against dying

But now I know that sleep is the reminder
that we all need to remember our beauty
and revere life in its brief brevity…
Sleep can wake us up to what comes after
we fall fast into its steadfast grasp
and death uncoils and slithers like an asp
to sting us with its fearsome fang and clasp
us to its chilling breast and putrid rasp
of its reedy voice doing its duty…

and there, buried in slumber’s cotton arms
we wake forever more to heaven’s charms
and smell the fragrance precious in the air
of dreams more real than this harsh life’s cold cares
of riches more true than the wealth of worlds
and these magnificent words at death hurled:

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life
and all who trust in Me, believe in Me
shall live, though that bell toll for thee”

Someday I’ll sleep for my very last time
I’ll drift into the dark and dread unknowing
and be wrapped in the horror of not knowing
but from this slumber I will finally stir
and death will finally be forced to concur
that I am dancing, finally awake
and yes, the Good Lord came, my soul to take…

See…I am sleeping easier these days
Yes, I am sleeping easier these days.

Outgrowths of Purposive Grace

Posted on May 6, 2015 by charissagrace

“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try accepting yourself and see what happens.”

—	Louise Hay

On Purposive Grace

Posted on May 3, 2015 by charissagrace

Dear Constance…

Transition is the most incredible, revealing, testing and purifying crucible I have ever been in. It has taken every single area and facet of my existence into its cruelly loving, True Arms. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. It is revealing who I am and always have been, it is consuming who I was not and never was, and it is catalyzing all that I was/am/will be in that growth process that goes on throughout life.The greatest gift it has given me, though, is the gift of being…and knowing that I am a co-author of this being, in ways that I previously had no arms and legs to embrace and carry. I also lacked a deeper awareness of just how little the leviathan gravity of the past chains me to itself, and how much that same past grounds me in my choice of who I am today, tomorrow, the next day, and the rest of my days…

I have received the gift of Purposive Grace. Let me explain.So in the last 6 months, it has been shown to me very clearly that my experience of the last 31 years is totally divergent from that of other people in my life during this time. Words have been spoken to me, around me, about me that were/are very destructive, vitriolic, hateful, angry, cold, sarcastic, condescending, judgmental, derisive, and crushing.

Words from people that I think the world of and have endeavored with all of my might to love, sacrifice for, serve, and encourage. I had thought that in spite of imperfectness, I had done a faithful job in this…

…I have discovered that their experience was utterly other and that I am perceived as the most abusive, controlling, hateful, distant and absent person in their experience. I have been named things that hurt so deeply that I just went numb for a few days and then finally the indescribable pain was actually a relief because I knew that I wasn’t dead.

In short, it seems that I have been a complete and utter failure in every way and everything that I had as my guiding vision for how to live, and that is that, game over…see you, wouldn’t wanna be you.

Add in the other experiences come my way since I chose authenticity over mere existence, those wonderful accusations of being demon possessed, in rebellion towards God, back-slidden, a sexual deviant, etc. etc. and you have the sum total of the majority viewpoint of who and what I was and am.But:

…my own experience of this time was very different than what I am hearing now, and it is in this disconnect that my sanity and my soul was truly tested and put into the fires of refinement.

I have asked myself: what is my mission in life, my own self-defined, self-desired one true and central throbbing purpose? Is that changed or different? The answer is no! I am still me, and I took the name Charissa Grace because of this vision/purpose/passion!!

Yielded vessel, yielding blessing.Since I was a young child, I have had a 3-fold prayer that I have never stopped praying, though I have many times had reason to regret it due to the pain and suffering that have followed it in the preparation for its reality.

1. I freely chose to give up my free will as my one and only true gift of love to God…it is the only thing that I have that is mine and mine alone that no one can control or take, including God…so I reasoned that it was the most valuable thing I had to give Them in order to show Them my love and gratefulness. That has been since I was about 9 years old or so…

…the choice to have no choice but belonging to Them.2. I asked Them to please let me be a real christian, and what that meant to me was that I wanted to live out the reality of being the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle-hearted, faithful and patient person I could be. I wanted to truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls. I wanted to truly forgive everything and do so with the power to enable grace preeminent in a person’s life afterward.

“With the measure you use to measure out, so shall it be measured out to you.”
“You will be forgiven in the same manner that you yourself forgive.”

Those words haunted me then…and do so now as well. God knows how badly I screw up…everything.

*Sick, rueful chuckle*…God knows, and so do I, now…it seems that I have totally and completely utterly destroyed the lives of those whom I would die for without even a flinch…

…so you can see my deep awareness of the need to be forgiven, the utter necessity of grace for me…

…that is what my prayer to be a real christian meant/means.3. I asked if I could know a true death to self and alive-ness to God. I took Philippians 3:8-14 as my life verses, understanding the “fellowship of His Suffering” to be that daily embrace of death to self, so that one day I could honestly say “it is no longer I who live, but Jesus who lives in me!” tumblr_nmunmqYryk1s4uwt4o2_r1_540 So, all that…and now today, in the ashes of the reports about who and what I was, am and was thought to be…

Has anything changed, regarding my future?
Is there anything I can do to change the past?
Most important, do the experiences and judgments of others define me? Or do I retain the power to define myself and determine my own being in the midst of the future’s yet to be revealed manifestation?

The answer, of course, is that the words and deeds of others ultimately have no bearing on who I want to be.Thus: there are 2 different possibilities:

A. I was completely guilty of every last accusation. I was an utter failure.
B. I was essentially who and what I thought I was, and given the fact that no one is without error and flaw I am not guilty of what I am indicted of.

I am confronted with a choice of what to do…how to respond, how to live, how to not respond and not live…and it is clear to me that my original 3-fold prayer and my current life mission statement are still viable and legitimate!

If “A” is true, then my daily quest is to learn from that bankrupt experience and use it as a platform to be a different person: to be

“the most gracious and kind, most tender encouraging, gentle hearted, faithful and patient person….truly live out loving my enemies, living a sacrificial life in joy (not that supercilious martyr-spirit sanctimony), being enthusiastic, being kind…always kind, and giving grace out as if it were as plentiful as the sands of the Sahara rather than so rare and precious as the most valuable pearls…truly forgive everything, and do so with power to make grace preeminent in a person’s life afterwards.”

If “A” is true, I have lost for the rest of my days in the earth the most important and truest treasures of my very marrow…and so that loss and pain shall become fuel to purpose to forever be better to others and give to them what I failed to give in spite of my highest and best efforts to my deepest hearts…that loss and pain shall make me tender and kind, and utterly forgiving of all wrongs, for God knows how deeply I stand in need of forgiveness.If “B” is true, then I am dealing with the complex combination of intersecting vectors involved with the becoming of other people and their lives chosen and lived out daily…and I have the greatest opportunity any human being can be given: the power to disappear wrong and hurt and cold love! I have the chance to “bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things…”. The chance to discover a true love, and live out the fulfilment of my 3-fold prayer.

Constance, have you noticed anything yet?

In either case, the past is past and has no power to keep me from the future I choose for myself!!

There is nothing…nothing…that I can do to change, undo, redo, do the first time when it comes to the past!

But there is everything I can do in terms of going forward.

This is Purposive Grace. The things others think or say do not define who I am and want to be. I do.

And thus I chose to be…Charissa Grace.May everyone who reads this understand this is the true meaning of my name: it is a promise of a hope and a future, and an undying commitment to choose God always, die to myself, and be a real christian who looks like Jesus.

My love always and ever, Heart, if you ever read here…ever.

Just know there is already forgiveness and welcoming heart, and utter commitment to giving what is in my power to give. Of course I am aware of your “aught against me” and I am utterly committed to taking responsibility for every wrong action, every action undone that should have been. But should it ever come to it, you never ever need to revisit any word spoken that you may later regret. It is already heard, received for what its heart cry was, sucked dry of all that is good and discarded into the seas of forgiveness for all that was other than good.

I love you always, and remain the one who treasures you for you and you alone, not anything you have done or did or not done or did.

Constance…how about you?

How do you choose to live? What hold will you allow the past on you? What vision will you grip and be gripped by? Please join me in this quest towards a life lived in Purposive Grace…ya never know: there could be miracles ahead!

Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
Charissa Grace

Trellis of A Future

Posted on April 30, 2015 by charissagrace

Hush, Angel…
what? Oh, that…
yes, you are my angel
and always with that stardust
brushed on your heart’s eyelids
like Heaven’s mascara decorative and blessed.

I know you
built the walls
(you used my flesh
and blood as brick and
board and stone and mortar)
and your hands are covered in the stain and effort.

Never mind,
do not try to tear
it down, or dismantle
what you did not see you built.
I HAVE A PLAN! See, Ima grow
up and down and in my Lady’s Chambers

and cling
to divisive bricks
and cursing stones
and hangman boards
and bloody bones, in beauty
and covering all with fragrance

the fragrance of forgiveness
and love forevermore.

I Will NEVER Not Believe

Posted on April 29, 2015 by charissagrace

I will never not believe,
my dearest one, who, sitting there
in lashings out and shifting blames
and broken memory
and cursed names…you hate me for most everything
and hate the things I hold most dear,
the only Things that kept me here,
for that you hate the most, I fear
for I did by Them to Life cling
and midst death’s horrors tune and sing.There is nothing I can say
I have no avenue or road
though if I could I would,
and time thus slowed
to return to each and every time
to lay me down and pray the Lord
my soul to take in payment there
to give you wholeness now, my dear.but to not believe? Never…
it’s not that I would not give you
the gift you think you need, I would
but I cannot, because They can
in “my life”, this dead woeful run. tumblr_mxg4a0SSTf1shqs68o1_500 No matter what is said or sung,
no matter every fist that shakes
or heated voice above the fray
I always wait for coming day
to shatter this long “marish night”
oh this is me, Childe of the Light tumblr_n10ceb4aZy1rxq5upo1_500 and I ever will believe
that Jesus will my pain relieve
and heal the wrongness of my hands
and gather all the scattered sands
and run them back into the glass
and help you regain memories
of glad joy, life, of you-and-me’s… tumblr_ndqdibPKdN1skelofo1_500 I will never not believe
I will ever just believe
while ravens pull my innards out
may this restore something in you
if there is anything called grace
may it give you back your face
and everything that got ripped off tumblr_nn65aprWoq1tbs5tuo1_1280 restoring everything to you…
mostly I wish you had your history true
and shared together with us but

I will never not believe.

Never

Blue Beneath My Feet

Posted on April 28, 2015 by charissagrace

this old stone house,
so grey and brown,
rough in texture,
tough in time,
shingled by
moments.

I finally got
the electricity on inside,
I finally see
from room to room
and everything
between,

and just when I found
the windows and
the verdant greens beyond and
the aqua blue beneath

it all went orange and then
began to change to red.
All red, all around
and blue beneath my feet.

The doors are locked (for now)
and windows blocked
and I am trapped inside

the stone and brown
beneath the shingles scratchy
and surrounded by the red
that fades to brown
and then to nothing

But it flows,
that blue stream
alive and cool and sweet
and whispers to me
of a place where all is true
a place where all is blue

blue beneath my feet

Haunted, Haunting Beauty

Posted on April 26, 2015 by charissagrace

and now, here in
these modern spaces
defined by “beholder’s eye”
and beauty tenuous and lost
somewhere in between
there and nowhere
we only feel the loss
of that ancient place,
that ancient ideal
equally abstract
but oh so much more real!The place of Beauty
in a broken, breaking world,
how to recognize it
rather than define it,
those moments that stop us
dead in our fatal tracks.

Do you know beauty
is conducive to stillness?
It isn’t that which excites
or makes us want to replicate it.

No, it simply makes us exist,
makes us be, as though this being
is our deep quest and meaning
to exist for just this moment
and always just this moment
in longing, in fulfilment
in full participation
together with the aching
the longing for another taste
the needing just another glimpse…another glimpse
of haunted, haunting
Beauty.
much deeper than what’s pleasant
far starker than the pretty,
the common ache of beauty!
the common wound of beauty!

It’s beauty that transforms us,
it’s beauty so divine, like God.
For God’s beauty is such a beauty
able to embrace life as well as coming death,
a beauty both heart-breakingly
entwined with our sad brokenness
and offering us something more
transforming, more ne’er broken.My precious dear, draw close
and listen with your heart:

wounds are meant to heal us,
broken parts of life are not okay, no
wholeness is our stubborn longing
and a most profound brave calling.

We were made for wholeness, dear
and beauty with us, in us near
Oh Beauty, Precious Beauty.

Never Ending Irish Rain

Posted on April 26, 2015 by charissagrace

You still look cold.
You should probably
come closer
to the fire before
it burns out.

I know you don’t remember,
no, you can’t remember,
can you?
But you love this
Never Ending Irish Rainpouring down so green
and soft all cloaked around us
no matter where we are
in all of the whole earth
or time from the beginning blue…

you have jamais vu, my darling:
not remembering something
you always see each day, but
you forget as soon as
it is out of sight,and then you turn your head
your beautiful estrangéd face
to the other side of midnight
and behold that silky rain
(as if for the first time)

that Never Ending Irish Rain
fell green across the golden waters
and washing down those greying sands,
quiet, themselves ablaze, a-falling
like stars straight thru the night
your eyes glow with delight
your heart goes green with grace
and all time is this moment
on your estrangéd face so wet
til you forget again

this sweet and spicy curtain
this velvet mist refreshing
…this cry of your true Celtic Heart…
Never Ending Irish Rain…
your Never Ending Irish Rain

My Stance Regarding The Past, and The Distortions That Are Clung To

Posted on April 24, 2015 by charissagrace

“Just because your pain is understandable, doesn’t mean your behavior is acceptable.”

—	Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience Keep this one in your back pocket for the next time someone acts like an ass and then tells you they’ve been through a lot of stuff. Respectful and yet still firmly keeping respect for yourself.

Respect for myself…this is new to me, for I have not really ever been aware of a “self” to respect! The self I knew was more a naught than a presence. What I was not plus who I was not added up to me equalling naught, and thus I never respected myself.

I do now…and taking responsibility for shortcomings does not make me responsible for the distortions and poor choices of others in reaction to them. I can joyfully embrace my opportunity to express my true remorse in not being the perfect person I desired to be and not being “the best (fill in the blank)” I could be…

…but then letting someone add cruelty to this? Allowing them to dehumanize me, devalue me? Diminish me?

Nah, I don’t think so…not going there anymore. Respect for myself means that I own my behavior and let everything else go, and oddly, I think this sets other people free by placing them in accountability for their own choices in how to respond to my shortcomings and places a responsibility to respect themselves by acknowledging their own failures.

Hey, if Victor Frankl can overcome what he did, choose a proactive life in spite of those grave horrors? So can I…and so can you.

Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace

Disconnected Fists

Posted on April 23, 2015 by charissagrace

they’re visible, don’t worry, it’s now clear.
you’ve made them known to us, you’ve brought them near.
you’ve parted the black night to show their flurry
you’ve pierced the darkness with them, they are here
in front of me, swinging in violent sphere
and they connected judgement with rank fear.

those hard bones writhe, they crawl beneath your skin,
those bones now brittle with the pain within
and become sharp-edged, cutting thru the din
with angles, planes, indictments of old sin
imagined, perceived lurking deep within
and cloaked beneath your tattooed skin so thin…

and seeing those determined self wounds glare,
those prison house tattoos inflicted…where?
haha! where not is more the likely question!
those long years harboring the things you think
and living with that historical stink
to birth your athenaeum of hot ink.

I see them hanging, disconnected fists
I see the ritual mutilating notes
written on you, canvas once so soft
and now a record of your fists aloft
and shaking clenched, like Charon’s fated boats
attempting to defeat the smothering mists…

I beg you…let your hands let go of you
and let the ink run backwards up your arms
and let forgiveness work her healing charms
and let your face be wet with grace’s dew
whatever…regardless, I love you

The Spirit of The Lion

Posted on April 22, 2015 by charissagrace

Even in the midst of tears.No.

Especially in the midst of tears, my Red Tailed Hawk so fierce!! tumblr_njdkjrIYel1qif1wro1_500

If You Are A New Reader…

Posted on April 22, 2015 by charissagrace

…I want to invite you to look back thru the months to dip into prior posts. There is a plethora of plenty there! Poetry, posts about a wide range of the issues faced in life that are poignantly illustrated by gender orientation, theological musings and spiritual experiences recounted.

You can discover who “Constance” is…and you are invited to join her if you wish.

You can definitely see growth and development in me, as I live and breathe in transition from a not-out but self-aware very dysphoric transgender woman who is perceived as a white male of power, position, and privilege to a more congruent and out transgender woman who is now regularly othered, policed, and yes occasionally even perceived as who I actually am and received in joy.

You will see the journey of nearly every transgender person who endures the loss of so many things, so many people, in the desperate quest to gain themselves. You will witness how this quest is defined by the defenders of the paradigm as selfish and self-centered…when it is far more about finding a fort of safety from suicidal ideation and death.

But above all…hopefully…you will find a person who is making the transition that every single human being must find a way to make: that transition from death to life…from works to grace…from self-centered ego-oriented pursuits to other-oriented sacrificial service.

And maybe, just maybe? That life motto of mine can at the end of it all be found true:

Yielded Vessel Yielding Blessing

Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.
Much Love,
Charissa Grace

PS: The best way to investigate the archives of Grace Notes is to use the calendar at the bottom of the blog page…or utilize the search function in the right hand margin.

this lil artichoke

Posted on April 15, 2015 by charissagrace

gawd, that sharp glinty knife
coming at me quick (again)

that edge, sliding softly and then
slipping in past that tender push back

and then into me, and the skin splits
and the layers melt side-side

like butter giving way easy and quick
before that silver edge honed true.

and the top of me falls away
and there below gapes the rest of me

me, of the rest, prickly and pokey
and all artichokey…and another stroke

of the blade downward-sweeping
and turning, graceful curving

to scrape my sides and scour them
of all those chokes, every mis-spoke…

and then into hot water, steamy
scourging, softening, sweetening…

and edible at last…
a tender Heart-not-choked

this lil artichoke

Charissa Grace…

Posted on April 11, 2015 by charissagrace

*Not original writing…but certainly accurate of me*

…loves to go out for a ride,
climb to the top
of the mountains,
and rest there.

She likes to stop and see the landscape around her,
without being concerned about her average speed.

She loves to go fast
on the downhills,
feeling every part
of the road.

Her goal is to enjoy, and delight her senses.

Her aim is to put every ride in her memories.

Chewing On That Stone

Posted on April 10, 2015 by charissagrace

Prelude
I’m still caught on teeth, those yellow jagged teeth
surrounded by liver-lips drawn up and back
in such a snarl (or is it a sneer?),
such a scream (or is it a moan?)…those teeth broken
from chewing on that Stone.

You’ve been infected with Ginsberg disease
and you howl at Allen-moons for no reason at all
(No, I don’t say there’s no reason that you howl,
I said you howl for no reason), and that is why
you snarl and sneer, scream and moan
and gnash your teeth on Living Stone.One
And me, writhing there and twisting, twixt your chewing jaws?
How does my blood taste? Like pusillanimous payback?
Like silver times 30? Like bright copper pennies
that make no sense…or something different?
Like strawberries in summer, cranberries in winter,
grapes in autumn…flowers in Spring?

Alas, you do not see those chosen chains that hold me there,
left wrist shackled, right hand extended,
left hand open in laughter, right wrist bound in life..
for there is room—and reason—for life and laughter…
and this you have not noticed, in your imitation howl,
in your false heroic snarl, your wild and bulging eyes
fixed ever on the chains you think hold me in jail
but are those bonds against which you strain and flail!Two
Even in the air besotted by your breath,
your breath befouled by hurt and haunted by revenge,
there is Joy beneath that pain, a presence that is Present,
a winsome invitation all around us constantly that beckons
“Come participate, in spite of buried questions, be honest in conclusions
and philosophies you claim explain the past, present and future.”

You chained in pain, me in pain and chained, and rooted
by choices to remain…deep rooted, ever-grounded
in joy, in life, in laughter, wonder-imagination
as a child who can be startled by the One I’m looking for…

…and I stumble there, across it, flickering on rainbows,
on the razor’s edge and caught between the past and future…
and then it disappears as present becomes Brilliant Present
and then fades…into the next one (the next present into Present
it’s apparent as a parent and it’s hidden to a child),
this stark stripping of the clothes of coming future,
this discarding of the grave-cloth of the past.Three
There is Wonder in this world, there is Laughter hidden here
deep within the very marrow of the dry bones long laid tender
in the ground to decompose, it remains, it ever-lingers
in the beauty, in the humor, in the unexpected joy,
in the child at play enraptured and delighted in each breath!
And it has a source, origin! Just as we do, there is meaning
to these fickle days that bob and weave
from logic unto laughter and then back again to wonder!

It’s the Image…and your railings and your rantings can’t deface it!
It will ever-shine so clearly, silver-startling against sunset!
It is resident inside you and it calls out to beginnings
in a loving Present maker who gives us immortal worth
in the image…in the image…in the Word become the Image…Four
You are haunted by what’s happened, I am haunted by what’s coming!
You are chained by your distortions, I am chained by this great Hope
that if we lay our burdens by the streams of Babylon,
by waters dark with mystery, with nothing left to gain or lose
then merriment will come again, hauntingly…to waken us
and we will play again, at last, and make merry our hearts alive.

And so we come to where we started,
gnashing teeth and heroes chained
and villains caught on points of light
and the central Player in the drama,
Resurrected Son of God, fully human fully God,
and the ringing Invitation sounding in our desolation!Five
We can set each other free, I set you free, you set me,
if we take the invitation of the Author of our story
and live full in our encounters, present in the desolation
drinking of the consolation that our present becomes Present
and the Gift is greater than the bitter rancid agony
of hope deferred and love-sick hearts.

And that door on which we knock? It will someday open for us,
swing wide and receive us Inside…Inside…where we will be Present…
So please come back from those fevered flights of fancy so infected
by the greatest poison ever known, the venom of a fallen Self…
seek and play, find and live, and be noble in the giving
of ourselves to one another new in every radiant dawn.

My Only Response, Ever

Posted on April 6, 2015 by charissagrace

Constance…the timing of God never ceases to amaze. Events of Holy Week this year…events of great import and significance took place.

And on In The Grave Day, I heard a missive written about me, a little to me, or maybe indirectly all to me, I don’t know.

It was the worst thing I have ever heard in my life, and as such it chokes my heart. I guess what was ultimately most sorrowful was to see how deeply broken and in pain the writer was in spite of what were my best and highest efforts and intentions…and obviously woefully short of the mark in every single facet, bar none.

It cut off response, for it declared all of who I was null and void and all of who I am pathetic and weak.

Well, I left that missive in the grave on Sunday, and simply have no choice but to go on, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to be more yielded, more surrendered, taking hold of Them Who have taken hold of me.

But I will comment in this one way:

“Always Ever Treasured“

I love you with inexpressible beyond understanding love.
I miss you terribly.
I am so sorry that so much of what I desired, intended, was received and twisted into this present snarl.

I get it now, Papa…why Your one and only answer to every question hurled in Your Face by Your creatures was to take on our form, and come to our existence, and be crucified horribly suffering all things in Yourself.

Oh Love…if I could do that, and give you back yourself I would do so and gladly.

Whatchya Looking at ME For?

Posted on April 5, 2015 by charissagrace

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.

Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.”

So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.

A House That Gleams

Posted on April 5, 2015 by charissagrace

Thru misty morning
dimly in trees
a House There is Gleaming
thawing the Freeze.

A House of Eight Gables
(the extra one Risen)
the stamp of Forever
broadcast to the lost.

The mist speaks of Avalon
Camelot too
but the House that is Gleaming
shines there more True.

It speaks of our Healing.
It speaks of our Hope.
A House that is Gleaming
shall cut every rope.

Rolled Away Stones

Posted on April 5, 2015 by charissagrace

on this morning grey
just before the dawn
wakes up shell-pink, sleepy
and pokes out her head
from heathery hillsides

i think about stones
that choke every grave’s throat
to seal in what died
and ward we the living
from death’s steely touch.

hopes, dreams, and best efforts
shipwrecked relationships
killed by the sword-thrusts
of one-eyed sword masters
who wield their tongue cruel
and sharper than death
to slaughter what’s wounded
in time and by tears
and the enemy capers
in Opposite-joy….indifferences, sicknesses
unto death both
end up in the grave
and stones are placed there
to protect us here.

but today I wander
thru fields wet and wild
I press past the burrs
and the thorns in the thunder
to find the grey gravestones
so stolid and still
just over that hill…

and rolled away stones
never cease to amaze me
because they will not budge
when I lean on them
or when I lean on Them…

the work of a Digger
the work of a Builder
the work of a Healer
the work of a Surgeon
the work of a Lover

Rolled Away Stones

Reposting My First Easter Poem: 1980

Posted on April 4, 2015 by charissagrace

Infection Crucinfection

1980

In Hell’s Hollow Halls

Posted on April 4, 2015 by charissagrace

I heard it, from the deep dark
rank with such fright
and masked in mean menace.

It woke me, from a sound sleep,
straight into stiff silent
screams bouncing off deaf night.

I listened, to the slow gait
shuffle shuffle slip late
and pondered what shade shambled there.

Then I heard, the slap of warm flesh,
bloody feet bare on stone,
cold stone worn slick and smooth

by great passing multitudes,
captives grim and without hope
bound for dungeons black and deep,

the sound of dancing holy feet
holey, bare, stepping light
stomping on a serpent’s head

as they walked down, down, down, down
over every cold hard stone
to the bottom to atone…

throwing open every door
shouting to all captive there
get you up into God’s Air!

And then the shuffle of a host
led forth from captivity
by a King in death alive

heaven inside death’s dark maw
plundering every taken treasure
sowing grace there without measure.

And I rested in this sound,
my heart echoed with each pound
on this day that He is crowned

with my past, successes, fails,
every sorrow past the pale
every shipwreck in the gale,

and I knew that at first light
I would place a tombstone bright
graven names there, writ just right

to show that I am me, not him
and that his life of sorrow grim
is laid to rest, its power dim

And in that grave I’d also place
the hateful words, a three-fold face
of judgement, lies and lack of grace…

and then tomorrow, when the stone
is rolled away with rocky moan
my forward path of grace is shown

and I will walk free without guilt
from that hovel judgment built
and live this life full, to the hilt!

I do not owe God anymore,
I do not owe you in your core,
I don’t owe 1, 2, 3, or 4

Because I am bought by that sound
of bloody feet on hell’s cold ground
So liberty in me abounds…

and thus I walk in grace
I’m free within my place
Delivered from the race.

Amen and Happy Easter tomorrow.

This Shocking Interruption

Posted on April 3, 2015 by charissagrace

on my way in, fresh from the country,
to Great Jerusalem, the Holy City
to celebrate Passover, thinking of freedom
and feasts and those deep songs,
ah those deep songs, the deep songs of Zion…
singing of our God’s core act in our history

when our sins were placed on that innocent lamb
and we huddled safe ‘neath that thick crusty blood
drying over our heads on the lintel…
and dripping down over us…
But I didn’t know what this day held for me!

A burden offensive I did not deserve,
A shame I did not seek to bear for myself!
I was suddenly thrust in the middle of angry men
and wailing women rushing to Golgotha,
the place of the Skull and such sinister lack!
I was seized from the crowd! What the fuck!

Take your hands from me!
Who are these crowds and who is this crushed Man?!?
Lynch mob? A Riot? What! A crucifixion!?
Take that crossbeam off my back and unhand me!
Why do you hurt and defile me with this offense?
Oh…cus my skin is black. That’s it…again

Black and dishonored, blatant offensive
and reeking with less than, no station in your sight
you burden me with this beam meant for that broken king
staggering there right in front of my eyes
so bloody, so beaten, such shame and affront!
I reject your hate burden and wash my hands clean!

But the soldiers and swords at my neck said otherwise,
and I walked behind the condemned shameful shamble
who clearly was cursed and would hang from this tree,
dishonored by Rome, so repugnant to me…
and then back we went, outside the city walls
climbing that desolate hillside so distant!

Wrong place, wrong time, how did I get here,
walking behind this weak beaten Jesus
and my beautiful Passover torn from my hands
in stark interruption and shadows of crosses?
There I walked, behind him and lost in my thoughts
and I ate the dirt gritty outside that great city.

Then Jesus stopped, His chest heaving in agony
and dripping blood, He turned to the women
who mourned there and wailed, and He spoke to them
something so strange and unusual, mayhap just farcical
In this absurd tableau, in this mockery here
of the beautiful Passover there!

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me;
weep for yourselves and for your children.
For the time will come when you will say,
‘Blessed are the barren women,
the wombs that never bore

and the breasts that never nursed!
They will say to the mountains,
“Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”‘
For if men do these things when the tree is green,
what will happen when it is dry?”

I recognized these lines as the words of a prophet
and spoken of old by our God Who would show heart
with love that would not quit or come to an end…
and then Jesus walked on, up that hill on that path
to the place of the skull where they stripped Him stark naked
and took His piece and mine, and nailed them together
and propped that cross in the sky and nailed Him there to die…

and me, stood there, dumbly
looking on stupidly
not understanding
this rank act so coarse
and bloody and final

Then I was shoved to the ground and they kicked at me,
told me my work here was done and it wasn’t
my problem or burden to bear, it was all on His shoulders
so get out of here! But I stayed, and I saw how His red Blood ran ragged
and dripped from those beams, His and mine there united
I heard Him cry out to His Father in Heaven,
I wondered if that was Our God of Passover???

I saw Him speak to a criminal there right beside Him
He told this man Paradise waited! He spoke to His mother,
He suffered in agony, said He was THIRSTY, so thirsty for comfort!
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”
and then they mocked and called Him King of the Jews!
Then He gave up the ghost to the Hands of His Father
And that lamb then, this Lamb now, merged one with the Other!

Now, these years later and older (and younger)
I think of the words of a poet disturbing
the beginning is often the end, and I think of that Cross
such a stumbling block to every toe of the living and dead,
and the Man who had hung there, and died,
and the earthquake that followed and the curtain of Presence
was torn from the Top to the bottom (just like my heart).

Twisting inside me, entwined there in red and white
lamb and Lamb, Passover and that odd “Pass-Under”
knitted together and stuck in my craw
in the echoes and memories of that long walk
that I took, there behind Him, and His piece and mine
and the stories of death conquered, stones rolled away
and a risen sun dawning on Risen Lord Laughing!!

I was on my way somewhere else…
the cross, this shocking interruption
on that day, on that red death day…
and so it remains now
and forever more.

“The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.” T. S. Eliot

Escultura hiperrealista de Christopher David White. (Ceramic.)

Keys to “Scars”

Posted on April 2, 2015 by charissagrace

Keys to “Scars”

Constance…pay attention to layout.

Number of stanzas, number of lines

then the offset section, number of stanzas, number of lines.

back to the margin, same thing

and then last offset, same thing.

HINT: In Charissa’s inner world of meaning the following numbers mean these things:

3= Their Number, the Number of God
4= The number of the earth (cardinal points of a compass, seasons, etc)
5= The number of grace (God’s work added to the earth)
6= the number of humans. one added to grace, or self-righteousness, one less than perfection
7= The number of Perfection, the summation of God’s perfect work and world that is Good.

Section one is comprised of 3 stanzas of 6 lines each
Section two is comprised of 4 stanzas of 5 lines each
Section three is comprised of 3 stanzas of 7 lines each
Section four is comprised of 4 stanzas of 5 lines each

The entire poem is in 4 sections comprising one poem, which adds to 5.

PS: This is only to those (fools) who are true fans of my poetry…all my poems are written with hidden gematria such as this laced thru them. Some of my poems have hidden vertical poems in them (!! No one has found these yet!).

As you can see, dysphoria does odd things to one’s mind, and yet, submitted to grace perhaps becomes an odd tool to address the oddness that is resident in us all.

Much, much love…and early Resurrection Day good wishes to you all, for I have never been able to get all sad and shit on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday! Even as a child I was chided for piping up in the midst of a dramatic Good Friday Service…that was all somber and the preacher was trying to work a real sorrow into the congregants so we would identify and grieve and mourn…and I was so agitated by the things he said that simply ignored the rest of the story that I had heard and just learned to read for myself…of that wonder of that morning when Mary went to the tomb, heartbroken and bereft, but went anyway, simply to cry and cry forever, and there He was, and she so blinded in grief and bound by the realities of “forever death” that she didn’t recognize Him…and then she does…

…well I piped up “Hey! Why ya acting all sad!!?? He rises from the DEAD you silly goose!!!”

Ummm…yeah, can you say spanking???

Well, it was worth it.

HEY!! Why Ya Acting All SAD?? He Rises From The Dead You Silly Goose!!!

love, charissa

Scars

Posted on April 2, 2015 by charissagrace

Here on this side? See our scars.
Our wounds (both bloody and bloodless),
slashes (from sword-edge and word),
stand here stark, and they testify
in agonized aching hushed voices
of terrified troubling stories…

we hear them tell extreme tales
of widespread violence, of rape
of torture, and we the lost subjects
imprisoned in darkness and sadness
bear these wounds in our bodies, how long?
Permanent markings of violence?

These black tattoos left by oppression,
calligrified by sorrow’s stylus
that’s gripped in grief’s bony cold hand
to engrave deep its ravenous history
on our lonely hearts, carved here for…how long?
we’re identified by these curt scars.

Standing so quiet and still,
solitary smack dab
in the middle
of all that was, is,
and will be

the broken body of Jesus
the gushing stink of His spilled blood
but present with us now (like scars)
in the bread and the wine understood
to be broken and shed for our Good.

Jesus bore wounds of violent oppression
in His very own body forever!
Even after that morning so wrenching
that tilted this world on its axis
Heaven’s ringing eternal endorsement!

In that glorious bright resurrection
He stood there…just bearing those scars
in His hands, in His feet, in His side
and He showed them to all who would look…
He identified with us…in Scars.

There, on that side? New Creation
began with Resurrected Jesus
and included those scars that He suffered
by nail and by spear and by word
and the wounds of the Glad Risen Lord,
the reminders of the crucifixion
take on new light and meaning and joy.

They shout of the Power and Glory
Of God dirty with History’s story
and triumphing now and forever
over evil and death, over sorrow
and a work of redemption that’s reigning
now begun in us, marked by our scars
here with us now in our wounded world.

So the present time is streaked with mercy
acts of justice, creation of beauty,
celebration of truth kissing grace on the lips
deeds of love and forgiveness and kindness
and such generous Grace over all!
Resurrection gives us such relevance
and a future where meaning is possible!

meaning made possible in resurrection
of a torn body still marked by the scars
like diadems, medals
adorning the Sacred Heart
Faithful forever and ever…

That’s the reality of resurrection
as displayed by the scars that He bears
as our Hope, as our Joy and our Glory
that shines in our darkest lost places
giving us reason to live.

We work and we toil, perhaps
even pour out our blood, sweat, and tears
to tend to the woundings of others,
and our labor is far from in vain
for Christ has gone on ahead

and He beckons with smile that is glinting
with towering majesty cloaked
in such Kindness, such glad jubilation
He scarce can contain His good will
He is on His Throne, Alive and Well.

Recognition: A Palm Sunday Psalm

Posted on March 29, 2015 by charissagrace

I heard about that bitter little pill
tattooed on our musical skin.
That one pill, recognition.

Recognition of…what? Of one’s humanity?
Of one’s fragility? Of one’s impermanence…yeah?
It’s a pill laced with dread and despair.What does a person swallow that with?
A shot of full consciousness?
A cocktail of imperfection shaken

(not stirred)
with disappointment
and homemade bitters?

I giggle in glee when those comics
called philosophers stand up
and passionately extol absurdity.How could they even stand,
what would they stand on
if absurdity was really a thing?

Tragedy is more like it, and even that
only has meaning as a cloud outlined against
the suns of Triumph!

The songs, the drinks and the stings of each,
fears of failure, sieges of shame and selfishness
alternating with doubt and emptiness,

well please explain to me
what’s so absurd about that?
What does that word even mean?

Absurdity?No, give me a good solid word like Recognition.
Because that word contains confession and hope,
errors committed and errors atoned for.

And it makes a safe place for dread,
so it will curl up comfortable by your fire
and snooze in the glow of Recognition.

By the light of Recognition we just make out
that sacred paradox, that deep numinosity
glowing at the crux of our being.

We see that all that’s wrong descends from all that’s right
and the broken bread and the poured red wine
and remembrance and

Recognition.

Going Nova On Palm Sunday

Posted on March 29, 2015 by charissagrace

In light of this nova-burst
I want to thank you for silver
I want to thank you for gold
I want to thank you for stardust
I am truly grateful that you would
check on me, earthbound here
and shackled by this self-gravity.I really feel so awkward all the time
Cus I look for freedom as a voracious reader
of pages, of faces, of hearts
and suns gone nova.

Going Nova…

that explains perfectly how disconnected I feel
in my heart from all that while grasping
in my mind exactly what they are saying
and why they are saying it!

And feeling so goddamned guilty for even being…
always, feeling so goddamned guilty for even being.
Never ever had a choice in that, and untold time and tears
toiling in trying to be other…
Going Nova…

I guess that’s a choice I make inside my heart
as I float between me and those shimmery stars
that woo me so…

anyway I am trying to say sorry to you for something
but I don’t even know what it is or how to say it…
sorry…nova…for what I am, who I am?
Charissa, trying to survive this human experience
in a body and brain at constant odds…is that me and what I am?I am a girl and have always been and have no need to prove that I am
(and couldn’t anyway, even if I did) God knows
patriarchal fists slam into me trying to beat the woman outta me,
feminist talons slash my skin trying to tear the woman offa me…
while my own nails I keep razor sharp and always ready to rip that male biology
right outta such dumb DNA that’s so much less than me. tumblr_nlj2o1V0qC1qllucco1_1280 Anything I say can be construed as lack of humility because
I never had a chance at solidarity in biological sisterhood with you
and remaining silent can be the height of arrogance because
it reeks of presumption and I am neither or both or all
(silent, arrogant, presumptuous)

I am Going Nova.

I try my best to be a tender soul, to be a gentle soul and do good
and bring honor to woman and women by how I live, how I draw close
to my God Who has been, is and always will be Mama…
the Wise, the Comforter, My Helper in this time of death
hiding behind Hosannas and Hail Caesars.

Please hear my heart, but if you don’t the fault is mine
in all my dark and clumsy lack, so let your eyes
do all the happy work of ears and see me in these words…

Going Nova on Palm Sunday

This Peculiar Gleaming Beauty

Posted on March 28, 2015 by charissagrace

Events leading up to the cross,
they seem like something of a game
of push and shove or pull and push
in this cult of honor/shame
and I wonder and I ask

Does anything really stand a chance
here in this fatal tug of war?

And what about Him? Jesus?
Clearly shamed and shamed profoundly,
publicly rejected and abandoned,
clothed in stark humiliation,
torn by jaws of victimization…

and willingly choosing
this broken ground

(this broken me).

What kinship does He speak of,
what kingship does He claim when
He dons my crown of thorns
and He takes my purple robe
and He lets Himself be branded
with my fetid Scarlet A?

What shame and ridicule
does He siphon
from our darkling hearts?

We are such a clouded vision
jockeying and jostling
for power and position,
trembling in our lust
for quick liberated feet.

We have occluded vision
caught between the blind that see
and priests and prefects that do not.

And then there is that copper matter
of His blood spilled shamefully and
His death sprawling shamelessly
across the breadth of history,
a kingly shepherd dying here
His life laid down so lovingly,
a risen savior reigning there…

At the intersection
of honor and of shame
can you see?
That Shining Ever Moment?
That Peculiar Gleaming Beauty?

It towers there, quiet, unobtrusive
and starkly interrupting
That Abandoned Empty Cross…

The sight that says it all.

On Being Friends With Jesus

Posted on March 23, 2015 by charissagrace

As I sat in the hard wooden pew, enjoying its solid familiarity and reassuring simplicity, I listened to the preacher talk about the swirl of events that ran unchecked during the last several days before Jesus met death face to face on the backside of the Cross.

I heard him tell of Jesus warning everyone around Him that He was going to the place of the skull, to get a death-grip on suffering and never let go, and then to eat it…all. I heard him tell of how Jesus warned that anyone who wanted to be His friend had to come with Him, had to see, had to get a belly-ache too…

…and I was off in my thoughts, back, back back to those days and I heard the sounds of cattle and crowds, tasted heat and dust and slid sideways through the slant orange light from a beating throbbing insistent sun.

I was in the house of Martha, her sister Mary, and Lazarus their sickly brother, and Mama was telling me that these were the very best friends of Jesus.

They had chosen Him…they liked Him…as a person. His humor and tenderness, His wrestle with being called a bastard His entire life when He was more True-Son than any of us, back then anyway. Now? Well the Adoption Agency is open for business…but that story is presaged by this one…this story of what it was like being friends with Jesus.

Jesus always was about another story, in everything He did. Each encounter, each miracle, each glance was full of metaphor and creative import, was a beam or a brick in this House that He began then and is still working on even now.

So He is befriended by these…perhaps parents long lost to death and tragedy…and He has decided that it will be His closest friends that He will entrust His priceless gift to: the understanding of Resurrection.

You realize, don’t you, that understanding a thing means knowing its front and its back, and it by definition means knowing what that thing is not. So let’s recall what happened to these, the best friends of the Shepherd.

One of them becomes very sick…Lazarus…who was never that strong anyway. He had to live with his sisters, one of whom was of a strength so as to make Patton seem like Gomer Pyle, and one of whom was gifted with such sight as to make Joan of Arc seem like Helen Keller.

Formidable…and in that patriarchy, a sick and weak man who had to be cared for by his sisters was held in contempt and thought to be of no consequence…except to Jesus. To Him, this family was the one that would together take that voyage across the river Styx…and back again.

The sisters immediately send word. Martha marshals forces and gets the message to Jesus faster than the telegraph that would come along centuries later…and Mary sends word thru the heart currents which brought the knowing immediately to Jesus and added such sorrow to His already increasingly agonizing heart.

And Jesus, knowing the Father was doing a work of instruction, answered to everyone in earshot that they would tarry where they were. Which shocked everyone, for it was well known that Jesus had a deep affection for the weak and unadmirable Lazarus (which of course made them all even more leery of this odd carpenter!), and everyone figured He would fold space and high tail it up to Bethany to heal His friend.

But He waited.

And everyone wondered if there had been a falling out…in fact Martha was certain that Jesus was angry with her…and Mary was certain that Jesus was disappointed in her…and Lazarus, well, he felt like Jesus’ companionship was good while it lasted but was too good to be true.

But inside Himself, Jesus ached for His Beloved True Friends. Because He was going to use them to make a bigger point…and it was going to break their Hearts…so they could be healed even stronger.

One day passed by, and He waited (foreshadowing another dark day coming).
The next day came and went (and the second day was prophesied of then).
And on the third day, the sun rose and dawn fell flat on her face in the silent still absurdity of an absent best friend (just to be sure that the coming 3rd day would stand in stark contrast).

Oh there was still hubbub and the frothy surface dwellers all held out hope like icing called dinner…but Jesus was not having any of that either!

“Lazarus is dead.” He said this…flatly, tonelessly. Expressionless…like the voice of the grave itself.

And then He started His journey to their house…to face them. To face their agony, their confusion. To face their betrayal and let down. To face the accusations hidden in their bewilderment about His absence.

Constance…I refer you to John 11 when you are done reading this post, for there are a few things He said that are vertical things that stretch from the bottom of beneath eternity to the top of the beyond eternity. They are worth contemplating for a year or two…but stay with me here…

…because to everyone else around Him it just sounded like Wwah Wwah Wwah and Yadda Yadda Yadda…even to Himself, His human ears, it sounded thus.

He spoke in faith.

And then He had to face Martha Patton…and then Mary Arc…and Mary said to Him, with my voice, your voice, the voice of Rachael in Rama… “Lord, where were You?”.

And He wept. Bitterly. Deeply.

Why? Because His lesson was manifest now…on the fourth day since Lazarus had died…one more day than The Third Day…and the very first day beyond that Third Day which was the first day of a forever separation from their beloved brother for His surviving besties Martha and Mary.

And then He called Lazarus forward from death, back across the river, back to the land of the living and the loving arms of his sisters…and his True Friend as well.

All around Him, people marvelled, rejoiced, and then wept in relief and reunion and resurrection.

But Jesus? He still wept in sorrow, for He knew the full weight of the pain He had knowingly inflicted on His best friends…He knew the looming agony that was fast falling towards Him, and He knew that He had no shield against it, no weapon to fight it with, only faith in His Father for Whom He had embraced this Mission Impossible, and that promise that Father would bring everything out of death with this Obedient Son.

Jesus wept because He knows that He does His friends dirty because He can trust them to see it thru to the end, past Friday and into Sunday. It hurts Him that it hurts them…it hurts Him that He does it anyway because it is the Ultimate Good and overarching Impartation of Eternity…thru broken hearts and broken spirits.

I came back to myself, and the sermon was drawing to a close. I had a fresh perspective on my life, my agonies, and the lessons that have been shown forth.

I think I am going to continue, seeking to be a friend of God. Because everyone has sorrow and trial, everyone goes thru meaningless suffering and horror…but it seems the friends of God get to have the Presence of God with them midst the fires of pain’s crucible, and the Kingdom is birthed.

Much Love,
Charissa…an aspiring Bestie of God

Suicide Bonfire: A Deconstruction

Posted on March 23, 2015 by charissagrace

Constance, the reaction to my latest poem has been such that I want to provide a few bits of the peek under the blanket for you. It seems that there is this very conflicted feeling as readers take it in, and it adds confusion and a sense of settled peace all at once.

Ordinarily, I would be overjoyed with this, as it is from this maelstrom that the reader’s own inner conflicts begin to be confronted, engaged, and eventually dealt with.

But this one used a word that is highly charged emotionally and fraught with fear.

I know I fear(ed) the word: suicide.

So let me lay out a few things.

1. Consider the presence throughout the entire poem of words, phrases and turns of phrase onto their ear that are stripped straight from our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Ask yourself why would the poetess lace those phrases into a poem such as this? What is it she would mean by applying them in this context.

2. There is a contrast of paths and trails, their source of origin, foot traffic. All of these things are highly metaphorical and stacked vertically with fatness.

3. The poem speaks of departures, and arrivals too. It speaks of things repudiated and things embraced. It contrasts death and beauty. Consider this juxtapositioning of things, and go ahead and assume that the poetess is intentional in this placement. This will enable you, should you wish, to delve into the deeper layers of the poem, the more vital layers of meaning that all the rest is mise en place for.

4. Lastly (though by no means exhaustively), regard the title: is there more than one way to read that title, especially in light of the last stanza, imagery of a mythological creature that is not named (intentionally), double entendres and double backs, side by side realities and states (wait: a transgender person would write of 2 existential realities simultaneously experienced and the death of one of them? wooaaaa…).

5. Reassurance: those of you who jumped to the conclusion that this poem was an alarm that Charissa is going to kill herself are so appreciated by me, and also so dancing on the surface of the poem in alarm. Read thru the last couple months of posts, including “The 5 Nevers” and other similar things…and then read the poem again. This time chew it and consider it.

I think you might find it reassuring and empowering, evidence that the door has and is closing entirely on a long and arduous chapter in the tale of my life, and the beginning of a new one…say, the ending of “Charissa Crosses the Desert” and the beginning of “Charissa Sets Sail At Last”.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your concern. I won’t lie: the flame is hot, and persistent, and those haunts are frightening and sinsiter/seductive…but I see their teeth and empty eyes, and I send them away with my incantations…such as Suicide Bonfire.

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He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.

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