Roots: A Communal Journal

Before I was anything, I was yours. Fearfully, wonderfully made, or something. But I wonder sometimes if you meant me to be this a half of something, a shadow of something, a flickering image of light or wrath or... something else entirely and I wonder if I am missing that part of cruciformity that looks like the cross because I don't want to bear anything anymore I just want to be back to that something Was I radiant? Was I free? Was I loved? Was I enough? Or am I just a fool, hoping for mirrors to tell me I am more than I am, more than a severed vine, rotting, worthless more than a shameful creature, cowering in the corner of the Garden more than someone else's Something this is your body, broken for us here's my body, broken for someone but here's my body, broken for nothing sorry, I know you wanted me to be something or was it Some Thing?  Someone's Some Thing? i can't remember but this is your blood, take I have been bleeding for three weeks straight and fe...

Tonight I am imagining the wilderness as dusk in the desert, while the sun shimmies its way down to the horizon, and all the living things slink away into the shade. The heat was almost unbearable today. Miles of sand in front of me, miles behind me. The sand, infinite. The effort of every step, quickly erased and replaced by teeming grains of the next. Yet sometimes I would close my eyes and for a moment, allow the sun to embrace me. In those moments, I could hear nothing but my heart steel-drumming in my chest, taste nothing but salt and air, and feel nothing but the beads of sweat poised on my skin's surface, ready to freefall straight into the sandy nothingness. For a moment, it was peaceful. But now, as the sun sets, the wilderness feels wilder than ever. The animals have gone home, and even the sky has told me, until next time , and there's still all that sand for miles and miles. The mountains looked interesting at one point, but now they are colossal, hulking things, wh...

my brown woman skin is not enough to keep anyone warm to bring George back to life if I could I would gather all our tears in the world's largest wheelbarrow and make a water park for you, for us to find reprieve and laugh again if I could I would sweep up the shards on the street and make the world's largest mosaic spanning from here to where you are and we could all pause and stare if I could I would take the sky, the streets, the sun and make soup hot savory warm and welcoming if I could I would but I can't but if you can, let me know

I woke up this morning, made coffee — black and found myself envying the strawberries. They were all together in the bin sidled up against one another, oblivious to social distancing mandates, immune to pain, to grief, to loss. I moved on to another jealousy, this time of the clementine slices, peacefully curled into themselves, as if preparing to model for a still life painting. And don't get me started on the avocado— alone in the fruit bowl, but perfectly content browning with confidence, asking no permission of anyone but itself. None of them know what it is to feel uncertainty to risk everything for the right thing to be pummeled by doubt in the morning and haunted by regret in the evening. None of them know the wretched breath of our demons, the salty sting of shame, the helplessness, the fear, the darkness. Then I remember, what inanimate fruit cannot see— the sunlight wiggling its fingers through the window, the summer air, whooshing in f...

Don't forget that To walk the sandy shores of the Kingdom To catch the dust scattered by the sandals of Christ Is to relinquish the dreams and the ads and the liturgies that teach Death Is to embrace the wisdom and the mysteries and the other who breathe Life Is to understand that God's good gifts are always Restless in the hands of the receiver until they are given away Again and again For those hands must be kept Open to receive to repent to listen to bow to forgive to bear a Cross We will never have to carry For how can we receive the Kingdom For how can we taste the Christ without first forgetting without first denying without first receiving without first befriending without first selling All that we have in great joy for that abandoned and overgrown lot down the block And so Christ's poverty is our lavish inheritance a Kingdom passed down to its enemies We steal what was never rightfully ours and we begin to understa...

As the darkness subsides I notice small things: Dust frosting a wooden table Prayers crinkled at the corners A guitar with excellent posture My dog, asleep despite everything I notice big things: Old friends emerging from shadows with blinding brilliance The sun grinning through the scrawl of winter branches This gargantuan world, always heaving with sorrow yet enjoying margaritas on Fridays Am I a small or big thing? Am I a pile of grapes in an olive bowl? Am I a sonic boom rippling through a city? Am I the last leaf, afraid to fall? These are the things I notice as the darkness subsides.

Zealously We endure  like the dining room candles burning at both ends of the day with all our hearts Sowing, reaping, working not for ourselves and yet for ourselves passionately, patiently, perseveringly, pursuing Idols we cannot believe Stories we cannot hear Dreams we cannot have Treasures we cannot hold We are left Smoldering like a weary candle Ashes to ashes, smoke rising  like that fire down the block Noteworthy, dangerous, tragic We are left Bruised like a river's reed Broken, deformed, chaff  tossed to and fro by the cold winds Desolated by desire But behold My Servant will proclaim justice in the streets will make peace where quarrels reign will not break the bruised reed will not quench the smoldering wick And in His Name We hold and have and hear and believe Zealously We participate in his death resurrecting even drinking from the servant's basin So that as he makes peace our strivings may cease

Across the street, the Bungalow with its burnt, proud brick, stubborn and red standing tough since the end of last summer has finally and inevitably begun to come Undone The shingled and slanted roof layered one too many times like grandmother's ice cream cake has, in spite of its patient protests finally relented to the hollering hinges that have born the weight of winter's snow The aluminum porch canopy Once the lookout tower  for many a snowball fort Now lies collapsed surrendered Scraping a forbidden trench into father's front lawn and abandoning its ally  the splintering bench that has refused to abandon its post  The dining room is exposed To say nothing of the family's den Each whistling their dismay past beams and joists bowed by long-winded pressure These rooms recall faint memories of dinner parties and movie nights like an old carousel projector playing itself Rain's condescension and Fire's temper have relentlessl...

We breathe in birth at death gasps which we cannot recall and never could have intended That others witness, cherish, memorialize And just like those breaths God is with us our first and our last remembered and unremembered our Ebeneezer No less his, and no less ours He is the Word Who made the word That made the World And we, who are born of breath Walk as though sustained by it Sit as if condemned by it Lay as now robbed of it Scattered as a chaff in the wind From dust of dust to flesh and bone His breath resurrects and invites welcoming life into the family rooms of our hearts of stone

There aren’t enough hours In the day For me to live my life In every way I always dreamed of living I want to write I want to paint I want to read I want to know Every word in every book I want to love I want to befriend Too many people Are we all just dying? Is that all there is to life, dying? Are our bodies already betraying us? Are we dying of cancer Or ALS Or AIDS Is an aneurysm on the horizon? How can I live Knowing that I’m dying How can I find purpose Knowing my time is ticking? How can god be good When he doesn’t give his children Enough time to choose In a world of too many choices Of too much noise I don’t want us all to be dying -birch --- Don't worry y'all, I'm going to therapy. 

Or consider that tree  In the dead of winter See how bare-bone it is? How affected and exposed it is?  How sturdy and mortified it is? Every year, you know  New life Fresh beginnings a creation, a refuge planted by streams of living water  Sparks along the limbs Every year, you know  Old death a sorrowful bow braced by wind and storm roots creaking Stripping the body clean Every year, again and again  At nature's mercy secure, yet defenseless sheltering death and life  Together  At once The tree bears it all Do you need me to tell you?  God is like this tree naked, unashamed, other, known mercifully at our mercy invaluable, yet commodified incomparable, yet ignored struck down, but not destroyed bearing fruit in and out of season   Teeming with Life everlasting God is like this tree And we cannot imagine it without him

Or consider that mason  jar Empty, unsealed, vacant Filled with nothing Now consider That space between the Cherubim That void over which the Spirit ponders The silence of Job's companions That depth into which the Angels long to look That still, small Voice whispering to the weary prophet That he (only faintly, finally) hears The rejected and forsaken Cornerstone is in our midst rebuilt as the curtainless temple Tabernacling among us Not as one in the room But the room itself Not as a wise teacher But the lesson itself Not as a life-long companion But life itself Not as the largest stone Stuffed into that mason jar Covered in sand and metaphorical misunderstanding God is among us Emptied for us Making peace with us Filling us With a fire we dare not touch A restlessness we cannot settle And a longing we feel and fear Distant, yet demanding all our attention Like the absent mother bird

I wished the words of prayer would come Full and resounding Bursting with the confetti Of a faith of celebration A triumphant declaration A reverent adoration Something Anything But tonight, Despite the stuttering syllables Tip-toeing on my tongue All that emerged Was the smallest mumble— “ Yes . Please God, Yes .”

God saves us, after all if he does anything at all By the most peculiar of means water and oil, wine and bread words in the dark, silence, a kiss a Kingdom Fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters cynics and saints murderers and dreamers God saves us, together God saves us, after all if "saves" is what we call it By no means whatsoever at the cost of everything from our delusions of heaven for the unfamiliar and unknown This stranger, this street, this corner clutching a hand-scribbled sign God saves us, unexpectedly God saves us, after all if we are saved at all By any means necessary by death, resurrection, rebirth Plenty and need, height and depth beauty and ashes, hope and doubt On servant's knee at the edge of the basin cheek turned God saves us, upside down God saves us, after all