Unencumbered this day, you are with me in paradise

There’s a lone orange glow coming from the back window.
Rays like a weakened sun, coming through the frosted panes.
Lonely, aching light straining to illuminate, fighting against the night.
My restless spirit keeps knocking books off shelves, rattles the screens,
making my heart race against itself in a search for clarity.
I am thinking of you now, more than I have in the recent months.
Wide-eyed and hoping, full of designs on what the future could be.
Yet, you always carried the past with you like Rodrigo Mendoza’s armour
and it took your breath  away over and over with each labourious step.
So often you were that orange light glowing, comforting and encouraging,
almost brilliant against the darkness around you.
When you finally stepped forward and accepted that you were forever new,
we had no idea that one day the steps you took were to Kasese and back.
Your arms were wider and more open than anyone’s ever could.
But, at times your light was so muted by the baggage that you would never leave behind
that I always wanted more for you, just so you could receive that joy.
Maybe then you would understand that you had no need for the daily reminder
of being less than white and bright, pure and needing no restitution, no penance.
Here in the wee hours where the shadows dance, I wrestle with that myself
The sun will rise tomorrow, and so did our salvation so many years ago.
But, there is a heaviness that robs me of my full-throated breath
just like your enfeebled steps serving to keep you from singing and dancing
at the thought of the rich blessings coming in Easter’s morning sun.
I so often am overcome with the understanding I have of the isolation
and such agonising vulnerability in the face of being stripped bare and left bleeding.
It reminds me that you had so much missing from your joy.
You never really could burn as brightly as your heart wanted.
You never got to throw back your head and let your soul unwind…
until you gave up the ghost, and it was given back to you freely.
I want to learn that lesson, so hard to win before I meet you there.
To not identify with the weight and suffering in Friday’s sacrifice
from the merciful and tragic tree in skull’s hill’s passion play
without accepting the grace of redemption in Sunday’s surprise
from the transformation left behind the stone rolled away.

 

2:53 am
8 April 2012

From Emergent to Emerging

In lifesaving, you’re taught that when someone is drowning, not to come at them from the front.  If you do, the person you want to help is just as likely to cause you to drown.  You’re taught to dive deep down below them, surface behind them, and grab them.  Then, when you have them completely secured, can you lean back and let them float on top of you as you guide them to the shore.

I’ve always enjoyed that image.  That concept is what I’ve always understood to be the appropriate way to go about helping someone in a desperate situation.

Let’s face it, when we’re desperate, we’ll flail and scream and claw and do anything to keep from falling apart.  We’ll even take those closest to us down with us.  If you’ve never been in a situation like that, you really have no idea the amount of panic that overwhelms you.  Your mind seems to have a loud siren blaring, your body tenses so hard that you end up having muscles bruise or tear just from the stress, and your heart races almost coming out of your chest.  (and that’s only if you’re the one trying to rescue someone else)  It’s absolutely terrifying, and if you think even for a second, oftentimes you will freeze up and not act at all.

But, if someone isn’t drowning.  If someone isn’t quite on the edge of desperation, it doesn’t mean that help is any easier to give.  Most of the time in life we have long, lingering, malignant types of suffering that leads to dire situations.  Chronic places where our inability to overcome something, get past something, no longer be bound to something eats away at the person that we are until we’re raw, aching, and suffering.  Someone once said that the human condition is defined by suffering and trying to alleviate that suffering.  In many ways, I have to agree.

Whether it’s by choice or not doesn’t seem to matter.  People all have the same difficulty processing the age-old question, “How do I get out of this?”  When we hurt very long about the same issues, we develop some of the most intricate defensive and coping mechanisms.  If we were drowning, there wouldn’t be any subterfuge.  We’d flail and flail and reach out for anything.  However, if it’s not immediate, we can silently sit and watch the waters rise around us.  For years, people can see and feel the waters of desperation over aches and pains in our lives rising at our feet. 

An image that captures this for me is seeing the eroded cliffs at the oceanside.  The waves can be as gentle as can be, but eventually they start wearing at the edge and digging underneath.  Eventually the waves’ repetition makes staying on the cliff above hazardous for fear of it collapsing.  Everyone has been there, fearing things in our lives will fall apart and crumble.

We get really good as swiping the waters away from us, or propping ourselves up on something to convince us that the swells aren’t going to get very high.  We even get used to being wet.  We compensate, and learn to live with it.  Extending this metaphor is pretty easy, but I feel there is something here to think about.  When you notice the waters around someone else rising, how do you point it out without getting caught up in either the chaos brewing or the defensive mechanisms we use to delude ourselves that things are okay?

When I care for someone else who seems to be daily flailing or despairing, it’s difficult for me not to step up and say or do something.  After having pains taken away from me over the years, I long for others’ pain to go away.  Amazingly enough, I happen to know Who does His best work in us when we have nowhere else to turn.  Yet, my response often seems to be as if someone is drowning right now.  Immediate.  Matter of fact, and blunt.  Wham.

That doesn’t work nearly as well as one would think.  Trust me. 

But I’m learning to use the second part of the lifesaving lessons, that one needs to dive deep.  Emotions, histories, perspective, fears, tragedies, hopes, dreams… all need to be plumbed as they intertwine with the ways we’ve learned to cope and defend ourselves.  It takes a lot of stamina, a large ability to hold one’s breath, and wait for the opportunity to surface in a safe way to help keep those who are emotionally struggling afloat. 

Whether it’s sin, recovery, disappointment, abuse… brokenness still needs pairs of footsteps leading out of the water.  A bruised soul needs so much more than just truth.  A suffering spirit needs to be comforted and protected.  I’m learning.  It’s difficult to unlearn habits.  Really difficult.

Genuine can be gentle.  Present can be patient.  Companions can be compassionate.  Rescuing can be renewing.  Loving can be lingering.  Coming alongside is sharing the journey, not necessarily having to change the road.

What a transition from being temporary to being more permanent.  The understanding changing from where emergencies are easier to deal with to a life where one needs to learn to survive the long haul.  It is worth it… to help someone emerge out of rising waters around them, to help take away someone’s burdens and lay them down. 

Selah