International Conference on Inflammation of the Eye

Above the hotel gate, I saw a sign: “International Conference on Inflammation of the Eye” for those who have cried too much or not cried enough. All of them with name tags on their lapels

like temporary nameplates in a cemetery or markers

in a botanical garden.

They approach one another as if sniffing, as if checking, Who are you where are you from and when

was the last time you cried.

The subject of the morning session is “Sobbing:

The end of Crying or the Way It Begins.” Sobbing

as soul-stuttering and griefstones. Sobbing

as a valve or a loop that links cry to cry,

a loop that unravels easily, like a hair ribbon,

and the crying—hair that fans out in profusion, glorious. Or a loop that pulls into an impossible knot— sobbing like an oath, a testimony, a cure.

Back in their cubicles, the women translators are busy translating fate to fate, cry to cry. At night they come home, scrub the words from their lips, and with sobs of happiness they start loving, their eyes aflame with joy.

Yehuda Amichai (2000, p. 147)

This speaks to a dynamic in our friendship I don't know how to articulate but is there and present.

I love you brother.

Seventeen Days

It's 10:02 pm, and the tears keep coming. I haven't seen so many tears in our house since The Russell's moved to England. I actually thought we had made it to the end. We took the Haggard boys to dinner, because we wanted to have some company. Holly fell asleep after telling the kids goodnight, and I sat with them in the Colonel's room talking about our favorite times with Paul and David, and about the chances that we may see the little rascals again. The hope that we may someday connect again seemed to dull the ache enough for all of them, and they fell asleep.

So I snuck out of the room and decided to grab some cereal, as I had passed on hot dogs at Wienerschnitzel. I opened the fridge to grab some milk and saw this...

Clayton had decided, evidently, on returning from the airport, to write their names on a Sunny D (Paul's drink of choice) and on the jug of chocolate milk (David's favorite). He must have thought this would be a way of keeping them with us in their absence, at least until the drinks were finished (or the milk spoiled). Seeing the bottles was enough to make me hear their Korean accents as they each would ask for their drink... and this in turn was enough to turn on my tears again.

Two or three times today I have thought of Jon Foreman's words in Switchfoot's song, Yet, "If it doesn't break your heart it isn't love". We have five broken hearts in this house tonight. Thankfully, these little guys we quickly grew to love are just off on the next leg of their journey, and then they go home to their families. But our hearts hurt none the less. The crazy thing is a few years ago I would never have even let myself think it possible to love someone in less than three weeks. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, I would have made a logical reason in my head why we shouldn't host two South Korean boys for seventeen days.

My tears tonight, as you already know, come from many places. They come from a place of love and pride watching my boys welcome these guys in and then love (and play, and share, and fight) with them like brothers. They come from a renewed love for my wife watching her mother two more boys with her whole, beautiful heart. They come from an ache that says these days are fleeting, and that these seventeen days with these guys (that passed like a blink) are a clear metaphor for the years I get (God willing) with my own guys before my heart is broken again and again, and again. They also come from a nagging voice that tells me I wasted some time, grew grumpy and tired, got selfish and controlling, and let some magic slip away not quite realizing it until it was too late. And lastly, they come from a place that is just a mystery. They are tears that somehow, in all of this fragile, messy, beautiful thing called life... just cannot be held back.

The Hardest Part

"This is the hardest part" he said, his chest repressing a heave as he looks at me.  He is a mix of fear, courage, inevitability and reluctance, and then he turns and we began the final ritual of the morning.  He walks towards through the courtyard, I move to the farthest point so that when he turns for the last time before he disappears into a world I have little to do with, he can turn, our eyes meet.  Mine reassuring him, his holding back the tears, mustering up the courage for the next 5 steps, the next 10 minuets, maybe the next 10 years. When I finally walk through the pack of the other parents my own tears flow.  I am unable and unwilling to stop them.

I think he is right, the hardest part is always letting go of the safety of connection and stepping into a place that is contingent, volatile, evaluative. Surrender.   You don't know if what you are letting go of and turning from is actually "in you" or only resident in the relationship you turn from.   I want to shout to him "It's in you!" I think in various ways I have been saying this to him since I held him in my arms in Guatemala City.  I understand in my 40's through you, my mom,  Ted, meditation, the Holy Spirit that it is in fact 'in me'.  But it does not make the turn away and towards any easier in the actual event of turning (I remember sitting on my porch saying goodbye to you).  Today I am learning how to trust the turn.  There is a joy and pain attached to it all - and in these events I can see the beauty.

Our time together over the holiday was wonderful and I feel so lucky to be my kid's dad, to be married to Michele.  My boys are growing with a wide eyed wonder, a creativity and strength and interest that is beautiful and deep.  Their relationships are becoming friendships and they have a lifeworld that is particular to each of them but collectively in communion.  It's all so fragile, it's all so beautiful.   

O Come O Come

It aint all there yet and it's a rough draft but it's what I have at 7:01 on Saturday night.  I love you and miss you and thank you for singing your song next to me, helping me listen to the song of God.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Third Week in Advent 2012

St. Edwards King and Martyr  

In more ways than one we are waiting in darkness.  Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ birth by saying, “the people in darkness have seen a great light”.  Darkness is a reality and the biblical witness seems to be clear that it is a reality that we live within, it won’t disappear.  It never is fully uprooted or routed this side of eternity.  But the gospel speaks of another reality and offers us something which is more subtle and helpful:  “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it, master it, put it out (Jn 1).   This is the circumstance of our existence, this tension of light and darkness is the paradox of our life, the mystery of faith that we all live into.   (RR 12/12/12)

There is an aching and a longing that is expressed today in these Antiphon’s that echo in us a longing that is ancient and aged.   An expression that uncovers our hidden longings - longings that we learn to mute, suppress and manage as children early on,  longings that get socially formed to become more acceptable and less ‘needy‘.   But in these songs that we sing this morning, in the Antiphons and particularly in Malcolm’s poems (as I have lived with them this season) - the human stuff of desire, frustration, resolve, longing, fear, desperation and prayer are held together, within a harmony of our humanity.  I sat in this very sanctuary alone this week and maybe it was my imagination that I let roam, but I swear to you I could hear 800 years of people gathered in this site under this roof - protestant and catholic,  monks and tanners, intellectuals and alcoholics (some of them occupying the same category no doubt), workers and homeless, emigrants and royalty whispering, chantings, singing this central refrain, not only of this season, but of all humanity that comes out of the darkness:  O Come, O Come Emmanuel.  Come. 

This is a song for a people with their backs against the wall, who have run out of options who are powerless and position-less.  Who have used up their resources, who have had resources taken.  O come o come emmanuel.  It is the cry of the victim who longs for a restored innocence and a different future, it is the cry of the perpetrator who cannot unweave the heartache and misery of the past.   It is a cry that emerges from the streets of Syria, in front of the wailing wall and behind the wall in Gaza.  It can be heard in alleys and corners where addicts buy their vials before slipping into oblivion and in the boardrooms of multinationals strategizing how to balance their future - all of our futures- on the head of an ethical mirage called the ‘letter of the law’.  It is the cry of the spouse who cannot turn back time, the prisoner serving a sentence where all he has is time.  It is the cry of the  destitute, anxious and afraid who feel the powers of the State pressed against the soft neck of the oppressed. It is seen within faces of children on every continent who need food, who are conscripted for war, whose groans are “too deep for words”.  It is the unspeakable mourning that that comes from NewTown Connecticut.  It is a for a people with their backs against the wall.  O come o come Emmanuel.

And the cry to this one called “emmanuel” is a breath prayer to the one who “makes a womb of all this wounded world” who creates a “tiny hope within our hopelessness”( and sometimes that is all you need is a tiny bit of hope to tie a knot around your rope).  It is the cry of the withered and rootless who long for life to be rooted within.   And Emmanuel is the name we give the movement of God, when God is present where we least expect him but most need him most.  This cosmic movement that includes into the life of God every dark alley, every tenebrous night, every god-forsaken experience.  This light that the darkness cannot master.  This God who is love all the way down, down into the depth of humanities darkness, down into our frailty, our broken systems and institutions.  When we are reduced to a pool of tears and our fears like black birds circle overhead.  It is this God, who put on flesh and moved into the darkness. Emmanuel, God with us, God for us, God not abandoning us.  

And in this movement, it is the very voice of God who takes up this song and begins to sing it back to his creation, like the call and response in an african-american church.  We sing O come, O come Emmanuel and the life of God answers back to us,   O come o come. The life of God answers back:   Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, all you who are vulnerable, who mourn the loss of all that the earth has snatched away, all you who are broken down, disheartened, humiliated and overwhelmed Come unto me and I will give you rest.   

Come, if there is anyone here this morning who cannot see the "Wisdom" of it all, someone who is unable to make sense of his situation, some Willy Loman who cries, "The trouble with Willy is that he does not know who he is," someone who understands many things a little but nothing enough to live on, someone for whom "the most High" is so high as to be out of reach.  Come.

Come you who feel trapped, captive to some slavish Egypt who is afraid  of the desolation that is ahead, the sea of obligation that threatens to overwhelm, who sees no one to lead you through the barren debacle of your circumstances. Desert everywhere.  Someone who wonders if they are delusional or stupid to keep facing the way of faith.  Come. 

Come, the Spirit of God might say, to the one  for whom this hectic life is a killing pace, someone who is left sighing, “I am just dead”, or “I feel like the devil, or I feel like hell”-- and for whom these are not mere figures of speech, but the very symptoms of Satan's tyranny, the depths of hell and the grave.  One for whom anxiety, desperation and compulsion feels like a dark and constant companion.  Come.

Come to those who feel outcast and for whom all the doors to home have seemed to close, someone who has lost the key to life, who feels on the outside looking in. Come. 

O Come those whose shadows compel them to practice their pleasure only under the cover of darkness - who themselves feel dark and desolate  through and through.  Those whose foundations have been shaken, or cannot find a firm footing because of a broken home or a failed opportunity or frail mental health, if there is someone who longs for something more solid than her own feet of clay, Come the spirit of God would say.  

This God who is love all the way down, has come near and in this place we can bring our inconsolable longings, these memories we cannot make sense of, redeem or use to push ourselves into a preferred future.  To this one born of blood, this fellow-sufferer who has descended to our depths.  Come.

Advent holds a deep paradox for us.  It holds the paradox of the One coming - not yet fully here - and yet with us from the beginning of time. And this call and response into the life of God and the life of God back to us is to produce something other than a depressed or ‘weak-kneed’ Christianity.  We are to take Luke seriously when he says “lift up your heads” “raise your heads” because Advent creates new men and women.  We who are exposed and defenseless, we who grieve into the fathomless depths are to look up, positions ourselves and our songs of lament towards the one who sings over, in through and with humanity. Could this be how reconciliation begins?   Does it begin in fathomless grief and longing, with our backs against the wall ? Do our actions to bring justice to the nations, to not shout or break a bruised reed, to not snuff out a smoldering wick, to not grow discouraged until we establish justice, to hold Gods hand and be God’s promise, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness (Is. 42), do these actions constitute the raising of our heads, do they embody the very song we sing today.  

O Come O Come Emmanuel

This is the paradox of advent - this call and response, this tension that is held within our humanity made possible by His.  And the reality that we are Christ’s coming now, this advent and again and again and again and again beyond time’s end.  Amen.

Create a Clearing

Clearing
by Martha Postlewaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worth of rescue.

I know that this poem is a bit romantic when it comes to the way life unfolds, the decisions we make, the ones we are afraid to make, the ones made for us.  But I also realize that the meditation that I have been doing these past few years has been a part of creating this clearing.  I awoke today at about 4:30am with all the usual tapes playing in my head:  "you let people down, you are like Jacob - a birthright stealing s.o.b who runs from consequences, you can't stay sober" (four-freaking-thrity - who needs a rooster outside when there is this?!).  So I got up, came down stairs, made coffee and sat amid these voices.  In the not so distant past it was the presence of these voices that formed the center and circumference of my life.  I understood that regardless of the direction that I took that these voices would exist.  They free-float looking for and creating opportunity to add comment to my life.  In the silence it was Rowan Williams song I heard:  "what would it be like to know you are held in an unconditional regard, to allow the reality of God's gratuitous and relentless love be the reality of your life?" and "what would it be like today to hold others in that same gaze?" (Rowan hasn't used these words to my knowledge but this is the gist of what I think he might say).  I found myself led to this clearing today - it's not perfect, the voices are a part of the treelike, but so is peace, so is acceptance, so is beauty and for today that is enough.

I love you brother.

Nothing...

Hey Buddy,
I don't think I ever told you about my Dwight Yoakam spell a few years back. Shortly after Holly and I met, he had a couple albums that were great, part country and part rock and roll. She and I listened to them a lot. It was also an interesting time with my brothers, as all three of us older Reeves boys were listening to the same music at the same time, Dwight Yoakam CD's. Mike has always had a bit more "country" affinity than Scott or I, though we have all had short spells of identifying with it.

Anyway, I have fond memories of listening to Dwight as we (Mike and Amy, Holly and I) travelled down to North Carolina to visit Scott and Debbie. Holly and I were just navigating that part of the relationship when we became bold enough to use the "L" word. I remember the day on the trip when it first showed up in conversation with reference to our feelings for each other. That is code for "I remember the day I first told her I loved her."

So now, a bunch of years later, and Ol' Dwight decides to put out a new album. My feelings for Holly are certainly still there and even stronger. But somehow when Dwight sings about the "L" word now, I
see it as the same thing, but also part of something so much bigger. Nevertheless, I thought I would share it with you as a little reminder... just in case you need one today.






And in a slightly more "country" format, it is still... Nothing but Love



PS I miss you.

What you thought you came for....

I read this Elliot poem (actually I am working my way through it) and thought of you, our friendship and the enduring and deep connection that I feel to you amid the silence and miles. The line: and what you thought you came for/Is only a shell, a husk of meaning - seems to sing with depth.  I hope you are well this morning, that you awaken into a presence that sustains, disorients and keeps you open.  I love you brother,

 If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.
              If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment

Is England and nowhere. Never and always.