Tag Archives: Resurrection

Depression

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Still, unseen but felt, lurking, looming
pressing against my bubble pushing hard
against my present center fading spinning wobbly.

You off balance me with your certainty, your finality
and you insinuate your monstrous purr vibrating
into my mindful choice to be…

…as you wait there, blacker on black, darker in dark,
shadow become substance as you steal essence and draw form
from eating my tentative, furtive choice to chance it

and be.

You snarl, silent, unheard except for those who cannot sleep
and you creep, forward-sideways-higher until your breath
fetid and cold punches my face with the death of stars and galaxies

and little creatures too, like me.

I turn away, and think of Her, and remind myself that
you choked one time…once…and took a beating, a hiding
as He tattooed you inside and out with His victory dance

you got greedy, thought you could swallow a god,
having dined on Their image like river runnings.
Your razor teeth ugly and crooning are close

but no cigar.

I slide my hand in Hers and pull me close
nose pressed firmly into Her garments of
sandalwood sashes and cedar cloaks jet blue and brilliant warm…

and turn away again from your awful there-ness

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Sleeping Skin to Skin

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Somewhere in the dark,
in the warmth of black-red
before we woke up swimming,
surfing sultry heartbeats and
waves of new bones growing
green and rooty-fibrous,
we navigated bold our
seas secure and buoyant,
our universe and listened…

 to…things beyond…a world…
somewhere? Out there.

Sounds moving and flowing,
deep, high, in-between
and all things came to us,
there, turning in the tides
of the primeval pools
of ancient new beginnings…

 and so we safely rested…sleeping skin to skin.

As time stood still, there always,
and we went rushing, tossing
thru cataracts and canyons
across the woolly wild-land
of years that tug us forward,
and push hard from behind,
we came thru like otters
in our wedded frolic,
our hurtling thru history,
unseen and secrets heard…
our buoyant whispers crossing

 a…vast gulf…a schism…
something? Out there.

Thru skin so thin, translucent
like milk or bridal veils,
we felt, we knew for certain,
beneath the crystal cataracts
that cloaked our singing souls,
we ate at tables there,
delighted and so dizzy
from seeing with hands only
and feeling with hearts lonely
and then, content and answered,
and with our bright eyes open…

we lay together, mingled…sleeping skin to skin.

Now, in this shining dark-red
of knowing and becoming,
tethered strong and vital
to That shore over there,
to That bright land “Before”,
our food and drink comes foreign
and yet familiar, tasting
of places ever ancient yet
forever fresh and reeking
with incense always burning
from when the Song and Singer
ignited flames of union.
Our hands reach, grope, entwine
to mirror hearts and lives
that grappled with this grief
and grasped instead the Grace of
that birth, that dissolution
of two lives into one life.

We lay each night and cast away,
in practice for that Voyage
Last and Final, beckoning,
echoing births transcended,
our hearts become a heart,

and it is well here…sleeping skin to skin

Sleeping skin to skin

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Oops…I did it again!

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Edited The Mist some more…giggles!!  It woke up colicky this morning, complaining of inconsistent rhyming patterns and cluttered meters…

So I walked the floors with it and crooned soothing ministrations…and I think it might be okay.

This time, no rash promises though…lol     The Mist

In capering silliness,

Charissa Grace

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The Mist

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Mist floats and clings in vaporous veils,
tenuous, drapes itself in sails,
cross hillsides twined thru twig and tree,
ravines and over streams…and me…
arrives in sheets to swath dim swales.

I cling to dull rocks anxiously,
hands stiff and aching longingly
and stinky ‘neath that clutching throb
my fingers seeking comfort’s swab
with baking torn nails tipped bloody,

…but finding only edges, and
comfort none, not now, not here….

Does it conceal, overtake and choke, tenebrous,
sly in brumous cloak…and conquer with its murky stroke?
Does it linger and embrace, its hovering hazy slinking shrouds
arisen from graves of earth in clouds to blur, obscure,
entwine and coil in its seductive writhing smoke?

Or does it flee instead, heart torn and rent
by trees, peaks, light from heaven sent
to pierce and tear death’s veils away
and shatter dark with argent day
that slashes, straightening all that’s bent?

In mist I wait…in mist, I wait to see…
and coming or going, I am becoming me

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Wrinkles In Time

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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

tumblr_n7toayaEkz1sifsb9o1_1280“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.

Haunted by a Lovely God

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(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.

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Give Ear to My Words…

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…oh Lord, consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry,
My King and my God.

For unto Thee do I talk each day,
it is my voice You hear in the mornings…

Oh Lady Grace, in the mornings will I direct my prayers
and heartsongs and meditations sweet, unto You, and
I will look up.

For Your lovingkindness is better than life
My heart sings, sweet and silent and ever grateful
so thus I will Bless Thee, and lift up my hands unto Your Goodness.

For it is Your grace that sustains me and Your mercy that
endures forever…

But Your steadfast Love…it never ceases…it never comes to an end.
It is new every morning!!  Literally, new every morning!
Oh Mama!  Great is the Wonder of it!

THE FREEDOM OF IT!

Great is Your faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.

And so accept me this day, my Lovely King and Lord
your daughter true, born of blood, and blooming with love
and receive my life for Your purpose in today.

Those I meet, those I pass by, and those whose hearts are breaking.

In the precious and wonderful Name of Immanuel, God with Us…

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My Butterflies, Myself

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…and free they fly, finally…

while with shining earthbound

feet we dance watching

hearts aflame, yearning…

fates alive, turning…

death, forever spurning.

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CGW
7/9/2014

 

Born On The Edge

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These days are tricky,
staying in that sweet spot
between futures and pasts.
They want to align
in tricky mutant ways
like my DNA did, matching up
that past with this future,
and presents…well God only knows
how that is determined!

I used to be, in that past,
not present and thus not known or seen.
Love was something
I gave to others, but never was
my picnic basket of many-splendored wonders
and that past shoots me,
injects me into a future that
threatens, withholds and starves
my soul with “tolerance”.

I also was, in this other past,
staunchly, substantially present
and accounted for…doing,
saying this thing and that,
and knighted with unconscious
privilege and place.
That history?  Well it veers off
to insistence, self-serving demands
for attention and affirmation.

No…as a “there but not there” prisoner,
I have to struggle to keep
the strands straight, to not cross the streams,
and let my me
cry for love
and for acceptance,
and companionship
and intimacy
and affirmation

and for that label:   Beautiful…
while my myself
walks firmly in
lands beyond sight,
unseen but lonely
and finding solace
in Her touch
and Her words
and Her cloak.

It is a knife edge,
and my options are few,
and costly:
selfishness, or abnegation,
and the fruits of those indulgent follies
or standing firm,
with sliced up soles
and a branded soul…

From the beginning, I have been born on the edge.

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If I Could Explain The Love Of God

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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

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High Spring Pastiche

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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.

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The Crucible of Disappointment

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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

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Perspectives on Procrastination

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Doggerel has a certain junk-food appeal to me at times…and other times it just crowds into my head, like the Kool-Aid “Man” in the commercials, busting thru the walls of meaningful metaphors and symphonic similes and aristocratic assertive absurdly abundant alliterations!

“BOOM!!  DOGGEREL GIRL ON THE SCENE!”  giggles

Here is a poem that was inspired by comments about procrastination…I feel that procrastination is an indulgence of the lazy moment…so here is some doggerel style poetry:  Doggerel poetry is the indulgence of the lazy poetic moment!

And yet on that Day when you’ve run
the race, and when your life is done
you’ll think of lazy days and sun
and of last night and that song’s fun.

Essays live but briefly here
and haunt us pre-birth with a fear,
and dread of birthing them is near
when all they are?  Pain in our rear!

So lift up laughter as you write
and scribble smart things, neat and tight
and while you create, let your sight
fix on that Day of vast Delight!

(oooohhhh…doggerel is such sweet sorrow!!! LOLOLOL)
🙂

Love, Charissa

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F.I.G. L.E.A.F.

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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

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He Cares (Song from Isaiah 43, 1988)

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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)…tumblr_n64n4yXMxA1qbc8lko1_1280

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.

Arise Our God (song from Psalm 44: 23-26, 1992)

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Around the same time as “This Desperate Prisoner” was written, this song came to me.  I think it precedes Desperate Prisoner, and carries the same desperate cry.

 

Why do You hide Your face, and forget our affliction, our oppression?
Our soul is bowed down to the dust, and so we cling to the ground, arise for our help,
And redeem us for Your mercy’s sake, for Your mercies sake!

Chorus:  Arise our God, hear Your people cry! (2x)

As the purifying fire consumes all the stubble and ambition,
Our heart will not turn back, for we have chosen the flame, the Cross and Your Name,
so redeem us for your mercies’ sake, for Your mercies sake!

Chorus:  Arise our God, hear Your people cry! (2x)

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This Desperate Prisoner Song from Psalm 69 July 1992

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I remember the season that I wrote this…one of the worst of my life.  A parent of 4 marvelous children, married to an amazing and wonderful woman, successful, respected…and absolutely terrified constantly inside, haunted by feelings of suicide and alienation, and carrying the deep shame that I was not really a man at all.  And what I was I had not been allowed to think of since I was 6 years old.

The pressure would build, to almost intolerable levels, and then somehow They would give me grace, carry me, and another period would pass where I could tolerate the pain and sorrow.

I didn’t think I was gonna make it thru this one.  I thought for sure that I was gonna lose heart and kill myself, and there was no one to talk to about it, for I was ashamed that I was not “strong enough!”  And then I ran into Psalm 69, and this song was born.

Looking at it now, I can hear that I, Charissa, was beginning to shout…I was the desperate prisoner.  In many ways, we are all that desperate prisoner…and He is always the Liberator…for I was set free, and never have I known such peace and contentment.

Thank You Father…thank You Jesus…thank You my Mama Lady Grace.

I love You all!

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Save me oh God, the flood o’er whelms my broken heart, my throat is parched!
I’m weary, Lord, from crying, my burning eyes fail while I wait for Thee!

Oh God You see my every folly, and all my wrongs are know to Thee.
May they who seek Thee be not dishonoured, because of me, because of me!

Reproach has broken me, and I am sick and shame covers my face.
I look for sympathy, but there’s no comfort there, no life for me.

Answer me Lord, and have compassion, and do not hide Your face from me!
Deliver me from the deep waters, draw near to me, please draw near to me!

O ransom me, my God, set me on high and I will sing Your song.
Zeal for Thy House consumes my soul and I will ever seek Your face.

The humble see, and they are filled with gladness, and those who seek Him, He will  revive.
For Jesus sees our every trouble, and sets the desperate prisoner free…
Oh Set This Desperate Prisoner Free!

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Open My Heart (October 1997, a song of desperation)

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(Often I mistook the existential agony I was in due to feeling null, as a sinful and hard heart.  I have always wanted God from my earliest memories…and have always felt so puny and wanting in His sight.  Now, I have learned that what I was feeling mostly was the horror of dysphoria, and “not belonging” in either gender.  But those feelings drove me to Them…I mean, when it gets down to it, where else was there for me to go??

Anyway, I am thankful for Their love, Their unending compassion and tender mercies…and above all for Their unending grace.  They brought me thru the fires and floods)

 

Open my heart dear Lord,
Open my heart dear Lord.
For I am hungry Lord
for Your living Word.

But my heart is hard, oh Lord!
Tattered and Scarred, oh Lord!
Spirit please soften me,
let Your Love set me free, to love You in purity.

Capture my heart, dear Lord!
Capture my heart, dear Lord!
So when my race is run,
my heart would be found in Your Son!

Just one thing I desire,
the baptism of Your Fire!
Come set my heart aflame!
With passion for Jesus’ Name, forever Amen.

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Declaration

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In the midst of pain, lonely ache and terror,
in the midst of the grasping clingy gloom and
thistley despair raining in cold fire around me,

I choose to lift my eyes up, lift up my heart,
lift my lips up and again resolve to sing and give my
pearls of praise in offerings of trust…and faith…and standing.

Resolved: to stand, weeping though I may be, but not to turn back,
not to be silent, stand and wait.  Wait.  wait.
For the Goodness of the Lord to rise again, and again.

I recall the old song:

“We’ve come this far by faith!  Leaning on the Lord, trusting in His Holy Word,
He hasn’t failed us yet!  Oh, we won’t turn back, we’ve come this far by faith!”

This is my boast…that They are faithful, and will work and will and do
in me to Their Good Pleasure, and I shall not be left bereft
come what may.

Amen.

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Can’t Cry Hard Enough

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The shell is brittle…
like dry bones fallen like leaves
from the table of bone.

It clasps,
grasps, and
feeds on my
gristly gasps
with my every breath,
every sob…

…and I can’t cry hard enough.

They must be pierced,
these bone-shield
prison walls that comfort
and secure me safe.
She is knocking…
knocking over my defenses
and my usual.
But it hurts so…

…and I can’t cry hard enough.

Discovery’s pain is surpassed
only by the pain of hiding,
and what terror there is
as She sees,
and knows.
She reaches,
and grows,
and tears me
out of myself
into Life…

…and I can’t cry hard enough.

“Today’s tears are tomorrow’s treasured triumphs, ‘Rissa!”
shouts my Mama,
Lady Grace,
Queen of Grace,
Heart of God
to God & man.
She promises victory,
and being,
and glad Joy…

…and I can’t cry hard enough.

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Hear, Oh Lord (Song from 1990)

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Another devotional chorus from years ago…as I read them now I understand so much better that dark desperate despair that I had to battle constantly…and I am also more impressed than ever by the mercies and faithfulness of our God!  Thank You, again and again and again!!!  🙂

Hear, Oh Lord and answer me!  For I am poor and needy.
Guard my life oh so close to Thee, for I am devoted to You.

Chorus:

You are my God (3x)

Save Your servant who trusts in You!  Let me drink deep of Your Mercy.
I cry out to You all night long!  Oh Father I must have You!

Chorus

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Charissa is a sloppy happy teary mess o’ praise after watching Hezekiah Walker New Video “Every Praise” – YouTube

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Constance…when I hear my blessed Mama living in the music of Her children as they sing, I burst into tears…literally every time.  When Precious Jesus is inhabiting the praise of His peoples, I cannot help the tears of joy that simply jump out of my heart and stream tangible baptisms of gratitude, and flowing fountains of inexpressible and unutterable thankfulness that The Lord has had mercy on me, this broken and alienated stranger in a strange land.

Even as a small child, this happened to me…and then I was ashamed, because boys don’t cry.  I always cried!!

Oh, it just feels sooo good to let my heart overflow and offer Him my own soul’s inner waters out from my eyes.

It doesn’t happen to me everytime I hear a worship song, or every time I hear a hymn, or sing even…but there are those times…if you were lucky enough to be in a church that wasn’t so freaking oppressive that Mama simply looked on from a distance, silently, Her incredible generous and compassionate essence quenched by the soul-stealing stench of pride and haughtiness…then you know that moment I am talking about.  Something just…changes!  The ceilings are gone…the floors are gone…horizons expand, and suddenly you know…you. know. That God is alive, and love.  That you are alive and loved.

As a small child, as a teen, and as a young adult, these times would happen, and I would hide myself away in Them, snuggled down my tearful face buried deep in Their side, and I would breathe my thankful utterances that in this awful and desolate land that I was sentenced to dwell in until I died, through no request or doing of my own was I born and then born a prisoner…I would tell them…Oh Lovely Lovely Shepherd (for that is who I talked to then, to Jesus the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and came to get me…Jesus the compassionate who had mercy on the prostitute caught in the act of adultery…Jesus the Healer who felt the touch of faith’s heart at the hem of His garment in the throng of thousands of grabby greedy desperate hands)…Oh Wondrous Shepherd of my soul…if I can have my sentence of life in prison punctuated and pierced by these moments of furlough and reprieve, however brief…then I will follow You always.  I promise and do so choose forever, come what may.

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And then I would often weep all night long…literally…draining out the sorrow, the self-loathing and the shame and despite for my awful awful self…I would pour out my thankfulness that even to a wretch like me They would draw nigh and commune with me…even humble Themselves to TOUCH me!

And They were faithful to be there…

And They were faithful to continually work over me, labor over me, in the womb of my imprisonment and dysphoria to ready me for birth…and when labor began They went silent, for the pangs and contractions had to be strong, had to be ultimate, had to take me past my limits.  Well, they did that, and I came home finally, came out finally to live and be born…

and the moments resumed, commenced once again.

Now?  Oh. My. God.  Mama took me under Her wing, and has been teaching me, Her tongue a good Theme.

So I would ask you to give the vid a shot, for at minimum you can hear the soundtrack that played while I bawled in utter thankfulness and total gratitude for life, for Life.

And at the maximum?  Have some tissues on the by!

Love and Grace be unto you in the richest most lavish extreme…

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Hezekiah Walker New Video “Every Praise” – YouTube.

Gifts you give yourself

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Forgiveness, towery and meritorius
when viewed from the lowly valleys and dales
of hard hurt and wounded ways
stands, stentorian and stark and stately.
To approach such lofty heights from there
seems tough, seems stubbornly sacrificial,
and requires a great provisioning
of the heart’s overflow into Mercy’s Rivers.

Acceptance twins from the next ridge over,
and it seems to wounded eyes
that these noble and lofty houses
aspire to heaven,
aspire to grandiose airy grounds
to weed out the weak-willed and shuffling supplicants,
the plodding and pitiful pilgrims
who failed to fully count the cost.

And yet if one but persists and never lets go
their grip on the Garment’s Hem
they will themselves be drawn up and sunder,
like doves mounting up in the velvet dawn
And discover comely cottage, cozy cabin,
home at last and free,
And finally receiving
the gifts you give yourself.

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A choice, not a curse

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In the moonlight,
gloaming up from earth
with great soft wings,
Insight, understanding,
flashed cross her face
and found their nest
In her azure and sapphire soul.
They blessed her heart, and the fire
snap-crackle and rice krispie
popped in merry affirmation.

Dirty Deeds done with malice,
weaponized words hurled with spite,
and the bloody results are never
never to be ceded to
or granted might.
The towering taunts and punches
of the privileged must fall!
But in this night
and under this tawny moon
acceptance shimmers in
fresh and renewed glow.

Find your peace with what transpires,
as the wind finds the leaf’s soft
secret underbelly,
as the water finds the stones to smooth
and curl around,
as the flower finds the sun with eager questing
glad-hands,
as the soul finds its Homely Rest in
Grace’s Guiding Heart.

Transcendent, trans-formative and tender
mercies gush and geyser up and
artesian always out to water and
resurrect and restore
the juicy apples from
the Orchard Acceptance.

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Through the Broken Window

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And yet,
through that shattered pane
there whispered a Presence…
an echo of days long dead
and left behind.
A time when the sun glowed gold,
the moon kissed all benighted
with her mellow silver lips,
and the wind sang instead of snored.

In the crucible of destruction,
Joy flits at the edges
like a quick-silver bird
and takes
residence in the ruins.
In her nesting
I find peace and
come to terms
with promise.

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Numinous Vineyard

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Numinous Vineyard!
You place unnamed and unashamed,
flourishing in the swirling and tenacious
embrace of splendor and beauty…

STOP!!

Turn around!!
The True Wine is behind you…

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Moments of Metamorphosis and Eternity

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Light, fragile, buoyantly beautiful
and strange they emerge from
woolly woven tombs and skins
of hairy fur and no wings.

Just legs, too many and multipede
in creepy ambulation from plant to twig
avoiding the crushing boot and pecking beak.

Do they know, what they are and will be?
Do they crawl in faith, miracle filled
and waiting?

Or do they toil, in their
earthbound blind and brown dimension
to fall into chrysalis, not knowing that
Emergence waits?

Oh Mama,
may my cocoon be wrought
by Your Faithful and Loving Hands,
May my tomb be rent
by His Faithful and Fierce Sword of Light,
and may my cage be carried
and left behind in moments
of metamorphosis
and eternity.

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