Grandpa (2)… or (1), I guess
He would sit in his chair,
a battered old recliner,
and prop his feet up
not one over the other, but
side by side
(they were wingtips,
nicely polished).
I’d sit in the corner
as the grownups talked
politics and gossip,
religion.
And me in the corner
reading comix.
I didn’t ask my mother
why his anger sat so deep.
She told me willingly,
half-embarassed.
She told me
his childhood:
-how as a little boy
my great(?)grandmother told him
she’d have preferred
miscarriage.
Or, perhaps,
abortion.
-how as a teen, even,
he’d made a rough time of it.
No ego, no esteem;
warring with others,
quitting jobs.
-how the USMC
had saved him,
but only for the Vietnam
atrocities, and (later)
alcohol.
-how he’d lost his family
to the bottle
and ¾ of his heart
to the cigs.
It was years later when
she told me (through cupped hands, whispering)
he thought salvation
a work.
A work for which
he was not cut out.
He thought God a closed-hand man,
fists full of gifts you have to earn.
He thought “God damn”
could ruin the grace.
I understand you better
now you’re gone.
I bit your nose
when I was teething, remember?
at the elephant-circus
where trapeze artists
flew through the air.
I realize now you felt
you had no net.
The smell of your
kitchen still
lingers in my
soul.
I eat the fruit
of your table.
Existentialism as Evidence of Mercy
What wonderful fractionalities
pepper our moments!
How strange that such small
insignificances
should butterfly up along
the gradient of time.
Picture this:
My chiropractor aunt,
collecting some coconuts from under the auspices
of palm trees (this is in Puerto Rico),
cracking them open
THWACK
with a machete (their juicysweet guts flowing outward)
under the shelter of some plantain trees
in my grandmother’s garden,
and me
standing there wide-eyed
on the pavement lining the grass,
watching.
I wonder what I would be like
had I not seen that,
had I not been there
for that small moment of familial bonding –
and this when I was still quite young.
Or this fond memory:
me, sitting on an old ripped-out
armchair from ATW’s van,
listening to the creaking of the drumracks
(almost splintered by now)
and wondering which trees were cut
(and from where, exactly?)
in order to make those racks…
trying to listen to the history
of all the things in the room.
The relief comes in seeing
that we have such a
Merciful Mover,
else wouldn’t we have
tornadoed everything by now?
On Gnosticism and Mysticism
There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the Gnostic Gospels, the life of Jesus in his early years, the authority and accuracy of the traditional Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and other related issues. A lot of people have flocked to the likes of Deepak Chopra and others who claim to know the “real” story of Jesus. This got me thinking. I mean, it’s not as if these things are exactly new ideas. People have been undermining the truth of Biblical accounts for centuries and disagreeing with the stories presented in the traditional Gospels. But why, I asked myself, are these ideas given so much credence in today’s time? Why are so many people flocking to the likes of Chopra and New Age gnostics? And I think, at the heart of it, it’s the spirit of our age – Postmodernism/ Deconstructionism – that has given rise to such widespread acceptance of these “secret” Gospels. (more…)
Corrie ten Boom
It was cramped
where she kept the Jews:
the space about 30 inches deep,
but well-hidden.
When the men burst
through the front door,
uniforms night-black
and punctuated with lightning,
I wonder if she knew
she was destined for the camp:
destined for so many months of
watching dogs eat Jews in Ravensbruck.
Finally the Nazis, never having found
the hiding place, released her.
And the week after, when
she learned the horrid truth
that all the remaining prisoners
her age had been killed,
it was more than faith
that made her say:
“God does not have problems. Only plans.”
