Tram Ride

This thin thin wire

Sways in generous bulging arcs

From breeze to breeze

Like a child's jumprope

Or the rippling undulations

Of a lustrous serpent

Moving through thick waters.

We are suspended under

This snakerope

And we are pulled along

By it. There is no escape:

The mountain floor beneath us

Is frighteningly distant.

The trees are miniature layered fans

And its boulders a pebbled mosaic.

A ridge rises before us.

Our eyes tells us there is no

Way over it, and yet

The cable passes through a crevice.

This, then, is faith:

We know we must follow where the cable has

Gone, and let our hearts

Finish the ride,

Finish the ride.

copyrighted poem

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Dear God ...

How do you help someone in her situation? Lord, if you're listening, that's what I need to know. I pray, yes, non-stop, but I wish I had the perfect words to say to her, to eradicate this pain she can't navigate. But what do you say to an 18-year-old who's just lost a close friend ... a one-time boyfriend ... to suicide? So I pray. And I weep for this girl I love so deeply, for this boy I never knew, and for his family and the grief that will never leave them. Death like this creates a massive Before and After. It's a chasm you can't go back across.

God, I know you're good, and kind, and merciful. There's no end to the adjectives that describe you. Your compassion is fathomless; but, God, I have to admit you aren't always what I want you to be, you seldom do what I want you to do. I wish, God, I could be your advisor for a while.

I'd tell you what it feels like to be let down, to deal with disappointment so big it can swallow you whole. I'd say, Lord ... a lot like the sister of Lazarus said to you ... if you'd only been looking, this awful thing wouldn't have happened. I'd tell you that maybe you should use some of your omnipotence to prevent things like 18-year-old boys from hanging themselves. Or from feeling the need in the first place. There's a lot I could argue against free will. But the thing is, I want it when I want it. Okay, I know, I'm definitely too fickle to be the advisor to God.

But I have to say, believing in you -- and I do with all my heart -- but believing in you creates more questions as I pass through this dark night of the soul than if I didn't believe; didn't believe a benevolent God truly cares about and enters into the affairs of humanity. Because things often make so little sense with you in the equation. If I didn't believe in you, I could say when awful things happen, "Well, that's just the way it is. It's fate, or whatever." But because I do believe and I know you could have made a difference in so many situations ... and yet didn't, that creates a huge disconnect between what I see and what I believe. Yes, I know, that brings up the whole faith vs sight debate. But I'm hurting too much right now to debate.

So the biggest question of all, God, related to so many issues, is ...

why ...?

why do You

Unsung Heroes

I have two photos of women of faith in silver frames. One is my husband's grandmother and the other is mine. Both are standing in their tomato gardens.  Both are elderly. My husband’s grandmother is smiling in a sea of tomato plants, her hair tied in a scarf, the hem of her dress brushing her knees and her belt cinched high beneath an ample bosom. My grandmother stands in her jaunty hat, patterned shirtwaist dress and cradling heirloom tomatoes in the crook of her arm. I like to think of her family, present and future, cradled close to her heart. Her faith - their faith - in a loving God whom they served their entire lives was the soil for the seeds that produced vibrant spiritual fruit in the future. Our faith ripened on the sunny window sills of their love.

Neither of these women had easy lives, but they did not become outwardly bitter or jaded by what may have seemed to others as a God who tarried in his promises. I don't think it ever occurred to them to step away from their faith. Perhaps they were more concerned with doing their part than in whether or not God was doing His.

Both were more ‘Marthas’ than ‘Marys.’  Neither were writers, but their lives told stories in doing for others, bestowing kindness and grace and being steadfast.  If they were characters in a book, there would be no need to use the right words or actions to show their love for God.  But it would feel completely natural if they did.

They weren’t perfect – family will admit candidly – but we forgave them anyway.   Making their ways sure-footedly along shifting paths down generations of change, we admired them all the more.  They said, ‘See, it can be done.’ While life isn’t safe, it can be safely navigated.

They held us close to their hearts and sunned us in the Father’s love and were the unsung heroes who beg to be written down.  We all know people who make the difference but will never be the central focus.  Nor would they want to be.  It’s enough that the main character stands on their shoulders.

Do you know an unsung hero who deserves to be written? Who has made such an impact in your life that they could only enrich a story?  We’d love to hear.