When grace comes...

I wish I could explain the feeling.  There really is nothing like it.  I remember first hearing about it years ago from a girl who was battling cancer.  As the beams of light streamed through the window behind her, she seemed to glisten, and she said ever so tenderly, "Sometimes all you can do is wait, and then there are times when you must pray for grace to wait." 
I had never thought of praying for grace.  I didn't even know what that meant. Now I understand.  It is when you are past all your capacity to live in love and at rest.  Or to do what you need to in a given situation.  You have reached the end of yourself and really don't have any strength left in you to give or maybe even to move.  You pray and ask for help.  Then you wait.  Sometimes a minute, sometimes days.   Then, out of nowhere, it might seem, grace comes.  You know it is not coming from you--you have no power to contrive such a thing.  It is a power unlike any earthly thing, and you can feel it.  Soon it washes through you and you have what it is that you need in that moment--compassion, patience, strength, mercy, insight...God gifts are always fitting. 
It is always enough for what is at hand.

What is real...

"He never loved me.  I've known that."
She spoke quietly with a gentleness that seemed like it should be out of place and yet somehow, it wasn't. 
"He loved my love for him."
Slowly her head moved from left to right and back again and her eyes closed against the words,
"It is not the same."
"Love, real love, withstands the demands of sacrifice.  We don't all forge that kind of love, we're not all tested the same.  But real love, when given the choice, always determines to bleed. 
Real love embraces the darkness in another.  It does not excuse or explain away or keep it's eyes half-closed against corruption.  It opens it's eyes wide and takes the whole landscape into view, then leans the force of it's wholeness into brokenness, chasing away the darkness with the light of it's goodness.  It doesn't expect that which it is unwilling to give."
"Who wouldn't want to be loved like that?" My voice cracked as the beauty of her explanation caught in my throat.
She looked at me then, and saw my sorry eyes.
She smiled an old smile.
"Don't be sad for me my dear," she spoke intensely, "Don't you dare think I've lost."
"What is better?  To be the object of whimsy and poetry and vapor?
Or to know you carry in your being the capacity to love beyond yourself, beyond your own blood and your very own breath?"
She quieted then and I saw her chin rise just an inch in defiance.
"I will choose to love every time.  It is how I become like the one who loves me most," she whispered carefully and clearly, though it didn't seem like she was speaking to me.
I pulled the blanket up over her frail shoulders, tucking them under her chin.  I leaned my forehead lightly onto the side of her head and spoke quietly into her ear, "I love you Grandma Grace."  I hesitated, "At least, I hope I would, if I had the chance to." 
Her chest rose and fell and her breathing deepened.  I would have liked to hear more, but she was already resting...deeply resting.

Chess

He sat there then, in the way that he does, with his eyes half closed, shaking or nodding his head now and then so you know he's listening.  We sat far enough away from the fireplace that I warmed my hands on a half-full mug of coffee.  I spoke quietly and confidently, not so full of trepidation when sharing my journey as I used to be. 
"I don't know when it happened.  I can't put my finger on a particular incident or time.  One day I just realized that I believed.  Didn't really have anymore understanding or clarity.  Just faith. In that place that courses through the very depths of you, that holds more weight than your mind or your feelings about everything that surrounds you, I had been persuaded. I didn't know why or how, and it didn't matter.  My soul rested in the belief of God.  I stopped wondering, vacillating, needing evidence, needing to prove myself.  I gave up needing to be believed.  I even gave up needing the promises to come true.  They were God's.  He could do with them as He saw fit.  I trusted Him."
"And you don't understand how huge that was for me," I continued, "For so long I felt like I was a pawn in some divine chess game."
He looked at me then, in the way that he does, his eyes piercing out over his glasses and beneath his graying brows. 
"I don't think you were a pawn," he said definitively.  "You were a bishop."
I looked at him fondly, like I sometimes do, and quietly and gratefully took in the honor of what he had said.
Somehow then, I didn't mind the game so much.

This House

There's a lot of things I like about this house.  Window lights in the high and lofty ceilings.  Massive marble encased fireplace.  Long patio off the back that looks out onto a quiet reserve.  White everywhere.  Hard floors and soft rugs.  Piano and paintings and warm maple shelves. But all that is just the stage.
The great big buck lowering the weight of his rack to the ground and pushing it up to the sky as he scattered when Ted shooed him out of the yard waving and yelling in a most undignified manner. Chester pouncing and sprawling and batting at imaginary enemies and curling up with me in the deep leather chair.  Nancy giggling at Matt's dry humor while cooking up meals that rival Ina's entertaining.  Ted's deep voice thundering out a great laugh at some assertion I've made just to press his buttons.
Those are the sights and sounds of life here; the things about this house I'm gonna miss.   

Sleepless

"Remind me again, why didn't we move here?"
My deep, slow sigh echoed his question.

Here, where the trees wear sequins and
all the stairs lead down to the sea.
The market bursts with the fragrance of flowers, pepper bouquets, and
the shine of coffee bean constellations.
Art bleeds out of every ware and shouts from high risen edifices
Defying the grey, graceful clouds.
People know who they are, or at least who they're pretending to be.
When light pushes through and the skies break into clear blue,
You see the swarms of hopeful souls
Under all their costumes.
Creation hovers and swims;
Seeps out her pores
Creeps in through her doors.
God watches--waiting, whispering.
Seattle, I love you.

G.N.O.

They carry their stress in their shoulders, I carry mine in my face, but there was no sign of it tonight.  What elusive formula is gathered up in our dispositions, intellects, characters, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, difficulties and dreams that makes for such a camaraderie?  Such trust and acceptance exists there is nothing we couldn't share, and yet no pressure to tell anything at all.  No landmines to tread lightly around or closet doors that can't be opened.  Every time we come together, we anticipate the strength of our bond and enjoyment of each other and the comfort and sympathy of close community with a good dose of humor.    To know and be known and to love and be loved.  We're fascinated by each other's little cares and widely contemplate the greater ones.  Does anyone laugh more in deeper waters?  We could have talked all night but for the responsibilities that awaited us elsewhere.
There will be more nights full of niceties and naughties, secrets and shoes, loyalty and love.
Annapolis here we come...

Work

Maybe it's like the artist who hasn't picked up a brush for too long,
Who is surprised his first mix of paint matches the color in his mind's eye.
Or like picking cherries for the first time since last summer,
Popping one in your mouth and being surprised again at how the juice hits you sweet and tart in the same burst.
Somehow it's like the ocean in June, wonderfully uncomfortable, uncontrollable, and irresistable.
You tingle all over stepping back onto shore.
"This is who I am and what I was made for and how I'm supposed to live," I think.
But it's not really true.
It's a work, a taste, a dip of the toe into the ocean of what is to come.
I really, really like it.