It’s The Wonder

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

“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 Lovertumblr_nph40vd8QN1t0lovho1_1280

He Said…She Said

…I have remained a poet, in the most radical sense of the word.
Friedrich Nietzsche, from a letter to Peter Gast

I am laughing as I read this quote
this poor man sounding like Bill Grogan’s Goat
who swallowed the farmer’s red long underwear
and now has indigestion everywhere!

remain…poet…radical…sense…the word
that sentence is red long underwear
giving me indigestion, and as I bleat
I cough it up down at the rail road tracks
and flag the passing train that hurtles by
rolling towards the trestle out, destroyed!

how can I remain a poetess? I am still “main”
and thus have no access to “re”…just main
and Poetry?  She scoffs at notions, high pretensions
such as “most” and “sense” when grafted
to the context of the Word.

NAY! This heart poetic, precious is defined,
is described, is found and measured
in the shadow cast and context of the Word
*in the beginning was/is/shallbe*

and in the Word “sense” is mere nonsense,
and radical is a sub-atomic particle straining free
and remain is so redundant, oh so boring
and goats munch red underwear and choke

I am a poetess, because the Word
and Poetry my mistress and my Queen
and nonsense is outside sense as dark is light
and I “main” my flow, my creative Delight

I am Charissa Grace and I am free
so sorry for Nietzsche, too fearful to be
tumblr_nqr3o1cd0w1sooy9go1_1280

Catacombs and Caverns

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,tumblr_nqq99nTys31qccgmso1_1280

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 dyingtumblr_nqg1jqI8y51tw3geao1_400

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…tumblr_n1joa8cesG1qm86t3o1_500

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.
tumblr_nq5t0x2gLp1u1sz1oo1_1280

TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps

TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps.

Fabulous aggregation of basic information!
tumblr_noxeyx9oe11qhttpto5_1280

To The Ones Twisting In Agony

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.tumblr_npmvryFJ0N1unf033o1_1280

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.528483-Depression-1364630455-842-640x480

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.large (4)

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.tumblr_ngu7ex2a631t5zt91o1_1280

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.tumblr_msjrksOnZh1rkjw3bo1_1280

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.tumblr_npxzck3PTr1rav43uo1_1280

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.11094852_690388207737694_2806437274797532527_n

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 parenttumblr_noiz30RJh51tpdjt7o1_1280

In Arpeggio Miles

Prelude:
There is an indigo bunting
outside my window singing
in the moonlight streaming by
a million miles an hour.
But it is not the window
on my mind tonight…
I keep returning to that door,
the one between you and me.

Fumes of light stream from my soul
and ribbons of sound rise from my heart.
I glow with purpose and echo with meaning
and love descends so soft upon my shoulders

and kisses my brow
with lips of apple red
that grace the inmost curve
of the coming sun arising.tumblr_npj2lfAzvL1qz62xqo1_1280One:
Some people drown in the darkness of the night,
some people drown in the waters of the lake,
some people drown in the creamy golden moonlight…

*sob*

I drown in you, your heart my anchor
pulling me down to the depths of you,
to the bottom of you but never finding it,
the bottom

in this
ecstasy of sinking
into you.

You…you…
Luminescent and Limerent and I know
in my depths the outside is temporary.

Your fatal gift, the fatal gift of beauty
was revealed when the Redwing Blackbird
stopped by our house tonite,

and perched on her throne there
in the blue spruce tree grey in the night
at the center of the grey green wood all around.

She dignified
our proceedings with her song,
and all was well.tumblr_nm25jtSBHh1szbceio1_1280Two:
Beyond, on your side of that door
the moon tickles the lake
with her golden liquid fingertips
languid in the soft night
and sounding of rivers of song
that soar between stars,
that pour between galaxies

*in arpeggio miles*

that take not light years
but move in sound centuries
that stop time and make the past
and the future stand off
and stand still in awe
of these fabled musical moments
that fold time in deep space.
tumblr_nng5ilQYoZ1r312weo1_500

The moon is loyal always,
but only to herself.
She comes and goes…
She is always there,
watching, steadfast
and knowing us in
our light and dark moments,
She wavers with us as we wax
and wane…
She knows what it means
to be on display and assaulted
by meteors in the night.

Three:
I buried her nose
(the nose of the moon)
in my hair,

(my hair, rampant and unpinned, on the loose,
set free from the usual noose of clippie or headband,
untamed and untameable but always laying back
and down for you, your palms, your fingertips
in those tresses thick and fine, golden-shine
and dusky red overlaying and singing
of my inner pulsing red wet passion)

she drinking in/thirsting for me here
and my perfumes in dim rose-tinged light,
and there we danced upon the air,
hanging in the space between there and here,
and I felt the tips of my breasts swell and tighten,
come to focus and awareness, the smoothness of my belly
and my thighs clenching on hers and meshing tight,
an intricate creation of vaporous mist and lightning
of rain and dust, of desire and aching, groaning must.

And we two, in our separate skins
but sharing those common vital organs of us,
face to face and flying in freedom
to discover each other’s universe
and thus enter in and live this love adventure
full of risk and promise.

We lay together, in my mind, we lay together
in the full of night while others drowse unawares
in the halfway darkness of night’s deep sable, washed out
with screaming electric light.tumblr_npdx52lbec1tw8mtoo2_r3_500

Four:
The moon pries at the ripples and the lake stirs into waves
under her touch and inhales swift in desire and exhales
in winds of want, and her lakey answering song of delight
rises from those moundy wet humps of her body
against the rocks, and onto sandy beaches

It’s the song of lovers lost and longing.
It’s the song heard only by hearts that listen.
It’s the music of the stars writ in the moment
in dancing waters by calligraphic moonlight rays
extending from forever and into never ending
and never ceasing until those waters answer
with sweet frothy songs and foamy longing harmonies
sweet and sibilant whispers against the dry and thirsty sands…

and then at last, in gurgly gasps,
her answer of longing for the moon
rising and falling and caught
by the moon’s grip,
mesmerized by her gravity.
tumblr_nqbu90vAHU1qat5pio1_500

Five:
The wind’s soft palms caress my face tonight,
her tender tendrils pluck my tresses,
kiss my cheeks rosy and peachy-soft and me here,
beside the stirring lake and beneath
the ministrations of the moon
inside the heart of the naked night
and lost in starry reaches over galaxy beaches
strewn over the vast expanse of nothing.

*and yet it is
never really nothing,
is it? nothing
doesn’t really exist…
because something!

Something!
And all else
is not that
and thus is
Something else,
and nothing is
dispelled…
and this is
why this song,
why this light
and the water
and the sound…
why the you
and the me
is a something,
an us, and
not a nothing,
not loss.*tumblr_mksatpyfwr1r5fwoio1_540

Six:
I stir and shift, as the waters in the bathtub
lose heat and their ardor is dampened
in the thirsty soft night air sneaking in
thru the cracked window, brushing against
the curtains you made me in
the 7th winter of our vast contents.

I run my hands over my hills (yours)
and they dive into valleys (yours)
like fog banks rolling in for the week,
beneath the surface of my bath (this lake)
and you so far away

I am still yours and yours alone love…
well, and the moon and the lake
and the stars in the night…
I am theirs too, but as they lead to you,
what’s that really matter?

My fingers dance lightly into my lake, across my folds,
they pry like moonlight into my depths,
probe like starlight into my galaxy cores that stand,
eternity’s target for time’s arrows of light
shot from the bows of longing…3513680_orig

longing for you, always
you across the sands of time
vast like beaches,
small ‘neath reaches
of stars and space
and become as nothing
when I summon to my mind
your face…your face…
your curve and swell
and moans escape my lips,
and such tales those moans do tell
but they speak only in tongues
not of men but angels
and sound bells sweetly
between the lips of time
and there again,
I gush like rivers
I am yours,
I am thine…
OH…

thine alone
thine alone
thine alone
thine alone
thine alone…

and all the symphony
of us escapes my lips
in sighs and whispers
of your sacred name
and in the air above
my parted lips
and just outside
my lowered fluttering lids.

Our song hangs there
over my yearning face
as sung by me
in solo sotto voce
so softly in
the slick and velvet night
and tender touch
of golden glad moonlight.

It swims above
my longing heart so red
across the distance
indigo that stretches
until it finds you, there,
until it touches
you in just the same
way it just took me
and you enter into
our Holy Us,
our Glory Be…

Seven:
But now the winds subside and waters have cooled
and night recedes, sucked back into the stars
from which it oozed in hungry sweet washes

and time looks on, time resumes, time takes back
its rightful place around me, in huffy shrugs and jerky yanks
of garments back in place…and jeans just so

and nothing is what remains of moments long unceasing
except the footprints of the moon across the surface of the lake
and brushes of their dance on sands

in footprints keeping time locked firmly in its place
and held in check between the stars, behind the shining moments
of the galaxies showing off, immune

*to time’s inoculations.*

But water graces my bare shoulders,
drops of starlight linger in my hair
and our song dances in my eyes and lives

in my heart and you
always, always always
are only here

and questions are at peace now,
and answers? They are known,
like long locked rooms in an old familiar house

where each creak and groan
is recognized in darkness
as the sighs of a familiar

faithful friend and lover
in a language that the heart alone
comprehends.
Screen-Shot-2012-09-14-at-3.22.22-PM

Eight:
The mind lacks understanding and I am standing,
under, under moon and stars in something, here.
I spin on my axis and show you my other face
for we all like the moon, we have 2 faces,
and we also like the moon keep our best side facing out…

but is that side the one most real, or even best?
And so I turn and hear the creaking of the turning on my axis
to face you with my other face, the dark side of my moon me
and the light has come to set me free and time is there
and is of no meaning, not anymore, not ever.

(It’s become
nothing which exists
not, never, no more.)tumblr_np6lnxVe2O1sg9acoo1_1280

Finale:
Wallace Stevens said
“sometimes the truth depends upon a walk around the lake.”
but I know different, I know the sojourn that I take
to walk on waters is to know the place
where truth is held, in love’s own heart of grace.

So let’s not hurry home tonight, let’s linger, here,
in hammocks under diamond slick black sky.
The stars they are on fire tonight so high
above us, I think someone could go check,
see how they shine, how they shine, OH.

And the miles are present too, they are
like an overly unctuous waiter eager for a tip,
hovering between us, connecting your there with my here
and taking the lone from the a,
we are connected in what is called

the distance, but there is a shortcut, dear
it’s my heart, feel right there
see it shine (like stars) for all it’s worth
and more, so close, so near
and travelling forever in arpeggio miles.tumblr_njqb6a8kks1r3fkjno1_1280

 

Mama With Me, Near Today

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.

Does It Matter?


So I used to wonder about this…will I be missed.  Does what I do make a difference in the world.  Do I matter.

But Purposive Grace…remember that?

Now, when I read things like this graphic above, I know that it really doesn’t matter if I am missed or not, if what I do makes a difference in the world.

I am living with my purpose for being…and that makes every difference in the world!

This world doesn’t happen to me.  No…I happen to it!

If you are reading this, struggling with depression and despair, consider the things I write of in Purposive Grace…

…and join the ‘Rissa Roo Party!  Woo HOO!!tumblr_npe04ityyl1qat5pio1_500

What Prints Does YOUR Heart Leave?

This asks us to do this…but it is a bit incomplete!  It should read this way:

“Everywhere you go, you leave your heart print.  Be sure the marks are kind.”

Above The Carnival Below

Under this full moon I am crashing
thru clouds of popcorn kernels
shedding their hard shells
and giving up their ghosts in gasps
of heated pleasure and anguish.

I am splashing into pools of people
faces upturned, hands upraised
giving up the ghosts of burdens
long ago swallowed and peaking now
in the heat and the oil of these times

and the cotton candy I ate tastes pink
and blue and orange and tells me
it is really Skittles in my heart

(I know the truth as I fall
down in a rush amidst the screamers
and the ecstasy of a ride certain and sure
in their hearts and minds but oh so
frightening and uncertain to me).

But this moon is full, and true
and makes room for me to rise
up up up faster than gravity
and flush with glory into the night
that hugs the earth like a fierce maiden aunt.

And I am learning to let go and enjoy
the ride under this full moon and high
above the carnival below.

Eternal Continuum (Part Two)

a central point
lurking somewhere
between nothing
and all—
and infinitely far
from understanding
either…tumblr_nlxdr5BkKB1s2z59jo1_1280blind 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 inconsistencytumblr_np01taszo51s5neh1o2_1280

(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)___6021929_orig

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.tumblr_njx55hxpLn1sypuuko1_400

We have born
the image of
the man of dust.

We also will
bear the Image
of the One
in Heaven

overflowing
with
thankfulness.tumblr_noy7d6hyuJ1s5neh1o1_1280

Eternal Continuum (Part One)

“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 heretumblr_norohiwnQL1sppftyo1_1280in 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.380712_400888633273055_1393352173_n-620x

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?tumblr_np0l2kYa261qkb10mo1_1280

The Pools of Illusion

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 twistedclockwise

(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_1280But I swim rivers
pure and vital,
waters crashed on
clean stone, shattered
into liquid smithereens,
a million broken rainbow prismstumblr_nb949v0kp41s1vn29o5_1280clinging to the air together
to speak of wholeness
in the broken
gath’ring of them
all together tumblr_nmzdul5Y8W1qbe766o3_1280and 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!

tumblr_nnvtyxBU6W1qat5pio1_500This.  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

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Octavio Pas Breaks It DOWN!

This is perhaps
the most noble aim of poetry,
to attach ourselves to the world around us,
to turn desire into love,
to embrace,
finally what always evades us,
what is beyond,
but what is always there

– the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.”

Octavio Paz

The Other Voice:
Essays on Modern Poetry

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Dear Reader, I Just Heard You Wondering

How did I get where I got?  How you got left behind?

You could have come along, if you would have.  You could have called.  You know where I live, you could have come over.

You still can…if you have the courage to.

Or the desire to leave behind useless old ways.

Either way, there is dead weight that must be let go of to come where I am.

I can’t really say it feels like a loss…it more astonishes me than anything else, that relationships I thought were fairly deep and strong had the roots of dandelion fuzz but lacked the ability to travel on the wind.tumblr_noth7qlFGk1r2zs3eo1_400

For Elli

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 Peacetumblr_nnlb3pIwX51qaazd8o1_1280

The First “Contemporary Christian Music” I Ever Heard

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…

 

Twilight In Lavender

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_1280And 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 lavenderImage 006

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”

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The Truest Transition

From the book of Job:

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

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Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician

Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician.

Dear Constance…I am blessed with such a plethora of amazing, wonderful followers.

That would be you…Constant Reader…Constance.

One of them is at the link I just posted, and he is a truth teller, more rare than gold dust as an amazing person commented over there.

“But why, Charissa?  Why would you share such a topic as the one you chose?”

Because it is eerily reminiscent of the treatment of transgender people at the hands of…well…virtually everyone in our society.  The double binds that are illuminated, the abuse, the policing and othering, the way the system protects itself and eliminates any possible threats to itself…

Yeah…this is the life of a transgender human being every single livelong day.

The system is a giant virus, and it has gathered to itself other virulent viruses and they all are completely sold out and committed to the mandate of one thing and one thing alone:  survival and self-replication. And we, all of us, are in the belly of this beast.

Some of us are the pilot fish of privilege…circling the jaws, living off the shreds of flesh that trail off those teeth sharp and cruel.  Some of us are between those jaws, ever consumed for the survival of the virus, and some live in the bowels, in the rot and excrement of everything that must take place in order for the thing to keep alive.

How are we to live?

The monolithic nature of this thing prohibits mass action, but what about individual action?  Will you consider changing the way you interact with every single person you meet?  Just think…if we all did that, loved our neighbor as ourselves, loved God (or if you believe you do not believe then loved being kind, being forgiving, being truthful and merciful), and refused to participate in injustice…

…there might be cracks, and then rents, and then in a rush a breaking down of the walls and the death of the virus.

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

 

Across the Rolling Plains of Time

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?)Image 002They 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…i
t almost breaks my heart
in its sad naivety, foolishly blind and blinking hope in nothing.
Almost.tumblr_nig7g4fiat1r44q44o1_1280They 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!
tumblr_n67g0sLvug1ruhuppo1_500It 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_1280Well, 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.tumblr_mveo5s3wRw1qft4nwo4_1280

burning the insides (For Jane)

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 facetumblr_mmr616a1eU1s77uipo1_500you 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
always
tumblr_nn950h0iqk1s5neh1o1_1280you 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 metumblr_nlzw1krAlh1trxee1o1_500like 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.tumblr_lrqx0fAn8a1qmr3yeo1_500the 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)tumblr_mfsuzqZBU01rtcvydo1_500

Sleeping Easier

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.tumblr_my5zjoFFgW1rkpi10o1_1280The 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.tumblr_nn8kf3TxQa1qat5pio1_400I 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)Image 009

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…tumblr_nn6aqcc62Y1tpu005o1_500

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”tumblr_nnal5jUbT91qat5pio1_500

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.tumblr_nn0gcll5rB1rk1cbbo1_540

Outgrowths of Purposive Grace

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

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The Power of Grieving, The Power of Time

I’m pretty sure that all of us have experienced sadness, but I really don’t know if all of us have experienced grief.

I’m talking about that helpless rage that is so great it is calm, so empty that you have never felt so full, and so sticky it seems you can never be expiated.

It comes from the loss of something or someone you were not designed to lose.

You do realise that, don’t you?  Human beings were not designed to experience this sort of relational loss.

Loss is the result of something else that happened to creation due to the way free will was/is decided to be used.

But as with all forms of fracture, God is faithful to bring forth creative answers and counter-creations, in all Their faithful infiniteness…They always have a beauty that will come to you and weld with you and in you, and though the fracture is never “not have happened”, it is somehow made beautiful.

This.

This is the hope, and the glory of God.  They are faithful, each and every time, if you will be patient, hold on, and keep your heart open.

  1. unconditionedconsciousness:

    I’m going to take this from you
    but give this to you instead:
    more space, cleansing tears,
    better questions, compassion,
    pathways to the center,
    maps to deeper wells,
    less distractions,
    blankets of darkness,
    little pools of light under your skin
    where he touched you
    but will never touch you again,
    and holes in your heart
    that nothing but pure love can fill.

    ~ McCall Erickson

Give me Ayin Tovah!

Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”

to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!tumblr_n2iappSj2j1r0f8s4o1_1280I choose that which is most dear,
that which is higher than the rest,
that which is pregnant with the best of best,
OH!  Give me river sight like waters
that rive 
out canyons deep and great
and beautiful 
in what has quick
been seen and then removed!tumblr_nk3x02fyaf1txde3xo1_1280yeah, I admit it’s true, that siege

of heart and soul by warring sides
with all opinion to the south
and every thought discordant lurking
dead north in sly quick ambush!

But it’s okay, I’ll use this pain
to myself remind to keep my eyes
wide open, kind and wider still
than the mouth of Jonah’s whale
and my heart here open wider in this gale.tumblr_nn0hrrh4u11r2zs3eo1_400This is the key to our city on the dungheap
our city of ruins and all about is strewn
our cut off-ness from rich gold transcendence!
Because there is always persistence
of good, of beauty, and truth shines bright
and its pure light is all around us!

All I have to do is rest my naked eyes
on the most mundane things and not
blindly ignore that jarring exhibition
of our propensity for estrangement!tumblr_n58agq7P2R1qg4kx9o1_1280If I can manage to keep my eyes stripped
of fear and fig leaves, then I can manage
the gentle gifts and unveiled grace implied
in every true glimpse of beauty and wisdom!

“All human nature vigorously resists
grace because grace changes us
and the change is painful,”
wrote Flannery O’Connor, 
lost
in one of those times when God woos

slowly with beauty, grace, and grandeur, woes
like seeing evulsive rivers woe and woo
the earth, moving in a manner
that is missed so easily by busy lives
or critical lives so readily distracted
in a focused pointing elsewhere
(or any other where, for that matter).tumblr_n58alvXEN21qg4kx9o1_1280In those mad times we are the mere
commuters between here and there
in Metro stations oblivious
to the works of Art before us, and
our estranged stony faces
miss the manifold displays
of a many-splendored God’s great graces
in such singular eternal entirety!

But other times, alas
it is we who find ourselves
moved nearly to blindness,
as we labor to take in
the glory of this God
in every startling moment,
like Moses or Isaiah lost
in deserts or in visions…

…Give me Ayin Tovah!
Please oh LORD!
I need that “good eye bright”

to see clearly in that glad light
the world and all that lives therein
more clearly than my dull blind sin!tumblr_m5z0ntTwTe1qa6xujo1_1280

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

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 Gracetumblr_nn05mm9MLU1slipiho1_500

Disconnected Fists

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
Image 003

If You Are A New Reader…

…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 Blessingtumblr_nlflo6rI7y1rrvadyo1_1280

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

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 artichoke1399362_10151775891144786_2057318616_o

Chewing On That Stone

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.tumblr_nl27dcz2QY1s2clnyo1_1280One
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!tumblr_mw23k85lli1sdmbk5o1_1280Two
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.tumblr_n9qr7dB8d31rtp2uuo1_1280Three
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…tumblr_n0hj58ZFAz1rrcicko1_1280Four
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!tumblr_nm3svlx2JH1qat5pio1_500Five
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.tumblr_nm9m0lxplx1sko9cso1_500

A House That Gleams

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.

tumblr_mnbqf9NPtQ1qlq9poo4_1280

Rolled Away Stones

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

Scars

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.tumblr_n9ivwxEsoW1rvi7nzo1_400

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.crown_of_love_by_phatpuppyart_studios-d8mgo73

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!tumblr_nahvy3d0Lf1t091kco1_1280

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.tumblr_nlqo0aoI0k1thfeewo1_1280

Going Nova On Palm Sunday

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.tumblr_nkrjw15GwY1s4uwt4o1_500I 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…
tumblr_ndrjw4lnQd1s4e9y0o1_500Going 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?tumblr_nlaqwvGLkO1qllucco1_1280I 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_1280Anything 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 Sundaytumblr_nkhwgweeQs1qesboko1_1280

 

This Peculiar Gleaming Beauty

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.tumblr_nlczuq7G441tx7szbo1_1280

Quest or Invitation

A difficult quest.
Or is it invitation?
I guess it depends
on the mood
or the moment.

Deliberate.  Wearisome.tumblr_lynlllXXX21qb38x9o1_500The journey
of a christ with a cross,
and such a crushing burden we bear
when we try to decide if we will wear
it or witness it.

Either way (mood or moment)
we have to decide what we will do
in light of such a spectacle.

And some choose fasting,
and some kiss the dirt
and some just run the other way.

Hell, even that cross-carrier had to choose
which journey and whether
it was mood or moment.

It matters because one
leads to the human heart and one
leads to the heart of God
and each path must be travelled
but in its own good time.

Each day we must decide this,
we choose this, or if not
then we are chosen casually
by mood or moment,
by quest or invitation

and it all comes out
in the wash, if we have
gained our life
or lost it.tumblr_nldhi5rJoU1r7l28fo3_1280

 

On Being Friends With Jesus

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 Godtumblr_nk38t5CTqL1smw1wso1_r1_500

Suicide Bonfire: A Deconstruction

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.tumblr_mvyigc57Cf1qhsps6o1_1280

Addressed To Everyone Who Knew Me Then:

Dear Constance, Dear Reader:

I make a distinction between you Constance, who found your way here, drawn by my writings…poems, posts, pics…perhaps bloviating, who knows…but you found your way here to me, Charissa.  And you have known my heart, known me for who I am, what I am…

…and then there is you, Reader.  You are from my past.  You knew me “then”.  You knew the role I was in, the part I played, and played even to myself in the midst of the horror and sorrow dysphoria is.  You watched me from afar.  You assessed always, judged by what you saw on the outside.

More often than not you threw me into your scale of judgment with me on one side and yourself on the other and I was found wanting in the balance.

And then there is “Brother of Reader, Sister of Reader”…and you also are from my past.  You come around like people from a small midwestern town go to the travelling freak show:  you slink in under cover of darkness and read.  You gossip to one another in hushed tones, and wag your head in wonder over this person you knew “who finally lost it”.

Well Reader, I did indeed finally lose it, and found me.

But here is the deal:  you broke trust with me…the person.  You broke faith.

I extended kindness over and over again.  I extended love and sacrifice.  I placed your needs above my own, and sought to serve you, give to you freely and without expectation and in hope that you would learn and be transformed by the renewing of your minds and hearts in the washings of the eternal word I sought to live.

I cannot allow you to be around.  Broken trust is too deep a gulf, too broad a breach.  And there are also factors that literally prohibit me from taking any chances with anyone from my past…from that specific past that involved your access to my life, and even deeper, to my heart.

So now I am gone…and the reality of my absence is sinking in…and you miss that steady striving earnest heart.  You miss that gentle person you could yell at or off load on who kept cool under fire and didn’t repay evil with evil, but evil with good.  You think to yourself that maybe there was a different narrative than the one you conspired with in the moment because if felt good and was safer to you than the risk of allying with someone who was going down, and going down for good…

…so you come here, reading, finding the same heart and soul, and more…realizing there were depths and chambers hidden from which treasure came, from which pearls came.  You hope to find expiation.  You imagine that perhaps the traces can be picked up once again and we can pick up where we left off…except that “we” didn’t leave off…

You did.  Leave.  Off.

Let the word be spread:  I cannot risk you in my life.  I will block you as I find out your presence in the various social media I utilize.  Oh don’t get me wrong…I forgive you, and have forgiven from the beginning…I just cannot control what happened to the land when that nuclear bomb went off and radiation blighted that territory.  Half-lives simply must pass and in the meantime nothing will grow.

So spread the word.  I am not responding.  I am not waving.  I am not answering.  I am not hating.  I am not loving.  I am not acknowledging. I have shaken the dust off my feet and moved on, and will never utter another word in your direction…because I am required to, I have to, I must.

I am dead to you…and alive to me, and to Constance.  I am legally transitioned to me, and fully so…the me I always was and almost lost.

I am Charissa Grace…I am beloved of God, by Their Word and Their Blood…I am not yours.tumblr_nc63kfwTM21qdo44uo1_1280

Why “What Would Jesus Do?” Isn’t Exactly the Right Question

To put it another way, I don’t think we’re called to imitate Jesus, but I do think we’re called to follow Jesus. There’s a subtle difference. Following Jesus implies an ongoing relationship, not merely imitating a really good guy who lived and died 2,000 years ago. Following Jesus implies that we might end up somewhere new doing things that are new—things that aren’t reflected in scripture because we inhabit a very different world than Jesus did. Even if we believe that Jesus was fully God, that doesn’t mean that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection tell us all there is to know about God. God is still working, God exists beyond the limits of history (even Jesus’s history as a man), and God promises to do a new thing within us.

Following Jesus implies forward movement, striving for a destination, which we might call “the kingdom,” as Jesus did. And as you know if you’ve ever taken a leisurely Sunday road trip or cross-country adventure or European rail journey, there is far more than one way to travel to get to the same destination.

via Why “What Would Jesus Do?” Isn’t Exactly the Right Question.

My 5 Nevers

I will never stop pursuing Them
for only They have the Words of Life.

I will never stop seeking Grace
for only in it is there power and mercy.

I will never give death the satisfaction
of my total surrender.

I will never stop seeking yieldedness
as my steady state of being.

I will never stop giving.
It’s what I do.  It’s who I am.

Sworn this 14th day of March 2015
“pi day”.
vow expires when this day next happens

tumblr_njaf3whFym1u5o49oo1_1280

12 Empowering Children’s Books To Add To Little Girls’ Bookshelves

12 Empowering Children’s Books To Add To Little Girls’ Bookshelves.

It’s remarkable how many of these I had already read…and loved. 

Ask for Password…It’s Not All Glitter and Rainbows: 6 Harmful Myths About Coming Out — Everyday Feminism

 

But we shouldn’t be pressuring people to come out. Instead, we should be challenging the expectation that others are entitled to our identities.

No one should be demanding that people take on the risks of coming out. No one except you can make that decision. Your identity is yours, and no one else owns it.

You don’t owe anyone anything – especially not people who are ignoring your personal autonomy and safety by demanding that you come out.

via It’s Not All Glitter and Rainbows: 6 Harmful Myths About Coming Out — Everyday Feminism.

Constance…I face a lot of challenges in life that are in addition to the ones faced by all people simply as a condition of being in this world.  If you have read here for awhile, you are acquainted with the gamut of these, and if you are new, well have a gander at the other posts ;-)…giggle.

My point is that it is the additional ones that kill.  They are like the difference between running a marathon, and running one chased by dogs, and running one when you aren’t fast enough to keep from getting nipped numerous times on the run.  And it is the nips that bleed, get infected, and drain…of vitality, of energy, and eventually of hope.tumblr_mwey0r4LUa1rze6z5o1_500

Right now the hardest of these challenges for me is that of making myself known to other people that are of utmost importance to me.  They are mourning what they perceive as the loss of the person they knew, rather than perceiving it as the loss of the explanatory narrative that stitched together our common history.

For a whole host of reasons, some of them spiritual, some of them developmental, and most of them cultural/paradigm related, the onus and burden falls squarely on me in this process…to be the bigger person…to walk the second mile, or the third or the fourth, or however many miles must be walked…to turn the other cheek again and again and again…

My own identity is in need of justification, of proving, of validating, and the ways I respond either contribute to or detract from my right to be.

Judgement is passed on the narrative that I have, as it compares to the narrative that was.tumblr_mh7kswp48l1qg39ewo1_500

Again…I get it.  Fairness is not the operative determinant.  But I want it to be understood:  this is a costly gift, and gift I do think it is.  It is not something that I owe…to anyone except myself whom I owe the debt of authenticity inner and outward.  I think that my perspective on things is equally valid, is equally valuable and to be treasured.  The “things I have lost” or the sense that “what I thought I had never existed” is just as real, as vibrant and legitimate for me as it is for anyone else who feels like they are being robbed.

Let me state it baldly:  anything they are “robbed of” wasn’t real in the first place.

How about this:  instead of the point of view that “a father I thought I had is now dead and replaced by you”, how about this: “I have a father who just happens to be a woman, and the idea I held that my father was also a male was an incorrect one.  I am fortunate to be able to have this inaccurate understanding corrected while there is still time and life remaining to know this person that I valued and treasured as a father!”

Because this is my story…my history.  I fathered four people…as a woman who inhabits a body that is biologically male.  And as far as I am aware, my children always felt that I was a good dad to them, valuable in the love, acceptance and counsel that I offered them.  And I am still here!  The same person with the same ideas and same truths (and some newly understood ones too).

Perhaps instead of me saying over and over again I am sorry I am sorry…I am sorry for being…I am sorry for wanting to be, needing to be…maybe it could be thought about that a different sorry could be said…I am sorry that I held onto my own belief and insistence that a father has to be spiritually and biologically male and only that…I am sorry that I invalidated the lives and efforts of the millions of women who “fathered” young boys into men because there was no one else there.

I am posting this link, because it gets to a lot of the reasons why there is so much gravity behind the other narrative, the one that requires me to justify my right to exist, my right to pursue congruency, my right to be free from suicidal ideation, my right to feel okay about the truth that I did the best I could and while not a perfect parent did a pretty adequate job even compared to a cis-male…and as a transgender woman serving in the role of father and not knowing, well maybe I did an admirable job.

and maybe I suck.  but I suck based on what I did and didn’t do, not based on whether I identfy as male or female…others who are insisting with actions that the actual measure of my being is in that identification are the ones who must grapple with the suckitude they frolic in!tumblr_nhg9ugnlFx1sp3hhvo1_1280

Read the article…acquaint yourself with the myths…and then divest yourself of them for some clearer, more objective standards that we will all, together, be held accountable to…how we love one another, how we forgive one another, whether we divorce and separate ourselves or remain connected…those are things that will endure long after gender identification falls away as not needed.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.tumblr_nkizy29dm51sooy9go1_1280

 

How Misogyny Shows Up in the Queer Community — Everyday Feminism

How Misogyny Shows Up in the Queer Community — Everday Feminism.

Good fodder for thought…and applies to the cis-norm community in spades.  I think we all have something to learn from this one.

 

 

In Hope of Dust and Ashes

We start this life with such bright expectation,
each sunrise morn of discovery and
each eventide of hope, our lifetime passes
and time flows like tides constantly in waves

that wash in over us, the same and ceaseless
yet we, in ever-new anticipation
that this new day is diff’rent, something yet
to be discovered in the shell-pink dawn,
we lift our hearts up cheery with bright song.tumblr_nkijfepxvE1s6fchho1_1280But there are ashes from the desperate fires
that we assemble in the long sloe nights
so cold upon those yawning yearning shores,
when stars hide behind black clouds of unknowing
and oceans hide in mists of dank despair,

and we are forced to burn all our Hosannas,
those palms fronds of our hopes so optimistic
waved innocent and arrogant and prideful
because we hadn’t seen the moon’s dark side.tumblr_njh7l88RC31tsumipo1_500We built frail fires from those brittle branches
and clutched at weak warmth, bathed in dim wan light
and marked ourselves with those imposéd ashes
and mourned those days we sang triumphantly
unknowing of the coming loss of all
our innocence in suffering…

and sorrowing…

and death and…

Ashes…ashes…
we all fall down…

and we are mindful of our common crown,
our destiny of dust wreathed round our foreheads,
that destiny of dust around our hearts,
that destiny of dust from which we came

and thus departed

that destiny of dust and our return…

to dust returned,
from dust departed, dust returned,
from dust departed, dust returned,
from dust departed, dust returned,
from dust departed, dust returned,
dust returned…tumblr_mvt5wq6eGf1suq7neo1_500And it is only at this place, in ashes
after our hopes and dreams have burned to ash
and we have lost our hope and optimism
that we can finally see that stony path

and squinting, see the bloody foot-print outlines
left by the One who goes before our hearts,
the One who walks the Via Dolorosa
the One who, living, there lays down His Life,

the One who shows the way of self-denial
the way of sacrifice, relinquishment
entirely unnatural, the opposite
of every longing of our liquid hearts
that wants to feast upon self-preservation
and turn from bitter cups of self-denial…tumblr_ne0li72EJb1qgk7mfo1_1280And we must choose the place that we will walk:
the ceaseless shores of our naked ambition
and never finding ending place, or home?
Or…walk the path of ashes with this Shepherd
and lose our lives completely to His care
and thus spring from the ashes like a phoenix
leaps from the golden flames to live anew!

See, ashes are the opposite of owning
the mirror image of self-preservation,
the sign-post of the way of life He offers,
the insignia of the lifestyle that He models,
the mark He makes forever on His own
writ large in His own blood mixed with the ashes
of hopes consumed and dreams become dry dust!

This is the downward journey to the highest place victorious,
the deeps of Sabbath Rest and Victory Won.tumblr_njn61sFcPS1tsumipo1_500Regardless of the gods you say you follow,
we all share in a common destiny:
“From dust you’ve come, to dust you shall return”.
Like Him, we too shall die, Life’s pressing question
becomes…how shall we live?  How shall our lives
this day respond to death’s reality,
and answer to Life’s strident invitation
to leave all of our privilege and status,
and turn from lives marked for success and promise,
and turn from some potential undefined,
and turn from false things that we think are true,
and let go of wealth, power and consumption,
and deny that false god:  accomplishment
and dare to love our enemies with candor
and dare embrace the heady risk of peace
without one stray thought of self-preservation,
take courage to live for the sake of others
and for the sake of Him who shows this way,
the way thru death, the way of blood and ashes,
will we walk in valiant hope in dust and ashes?

We can sing our songs
of life in dust and ashes
and thus return to God
our dust redeemed.tumblr_mujjr2KMSj1sohz2fo1_500