Distracted

I hear
So much
More clearly
When I don't speak
When I just listen
When I am not
Distracted
By the sound
Of my own
Voice

 

Fully Know

I know
God loves
Me

I know

The things
That have happened to me
Make God
Weep

I know

God works
Through people

I know

God speaks
Through nature

I know

That church
Isn’t necessary
To experience God

I know

God shines
Through
Neighbors
And strangers
And friends

I know

That pain
Makes you
Look deep inside
For answers

I know

That God
Can be silent
For months

I know
That sometimes
God just
Does not
Answer
 
I know
That sometimes
Comfort
Does not come
From God
From anywhere
 
I know
These things
And nothing more

I have my theories

About God
God’s presence
And God’s absence

But they are just
Best guesses
In a mysterious world
 
I will never
Fully know
How God works

But that is ok

Because I am loved

By this God
I can’t fully know
Loved by this God
Who fully knows me

Trouble

Troubles
Are a blessing
In disguise
Is the heartfelt belief
Of many
Based on
Their own
Experience

But that

Is not
My experience

That theology

Does not apply
To my reality

Not all trouble

Is a blessing
In disguise

Most trouble

I would say
Is no blessing
At all

Something Precious

Something precious
Was lost

And all these months later

I don’t need it back
As if that
Was possible

Just every once in a while

I need someone
To acknowledge with me
That something precious
Was lost 

To grace me

With the honesty
That it might not be Ok

To stand there

Beside me
In the shadow
Of pain
And recognize
All
I have
Lost

Show Up

When all
That happened
Happened

Some

Showed up
And showed
Unconditional
Love

Some

Showed up
And stayed
Only as long
As I kept
My grief
Pretty

Some

Showed up
Took one look
At my shattered present
And hopeless future
And left

Some

Just didn't
Show up

It is hard

To show up
Sometimes

And when you do

Show up
And see pain
It’s hard to stay

It’s hard

To show up
And let
Things be
What they are

Hard

To show up
And show love
In the presence of pain
That you can’t explain
Or alleviate
Or fix

Hard to show up

At all

But especially hard

To show up well
And offer comfort
In ways that matter

Steps

So many steps
To some kind of
Healing
To some measure of
Wholeness

Step 1

See how long
You can keep
Your thoughts clear

Step 2

As thoughts clear
Find the balance
Between normal sadness and
Suicidal sadness

Step 3

With thoughts clear
And sadness managed
Grieve the loss
Of vision
Of the old life
Of how easy things were
 
Step 4
With thoughts clear
And sadness managed
And loss grieved
Find your way back
To yourself

Four steps

But the step
Between three
And four
Must be
Made up
Of a million
Tiny steps
I can’t see

Four steps

Taking forever

Four steps

And stuck

Four steps
But that last one
Is a doozey

Every Time

Every time
I hear
On the news
Or in life
Of another
Devastating loss

I feel

Such pain
For the actual loss
And for those impacted

But mostly
I feel
A deep
Sense of dread
For the journey
That just
Opened up
Before them

The grief journey

 
A journey
Not for the weak
Yet required
To be taken
By those
At their weakest

A forced journey

That can wear down
Even the strongest
Battle scarred
Souls

A map-less journey

That makes me only
Wish peace
To all
Who find themselves
Standing at its start
Defeated
With no idea
What to do
Next

Good Hearted

I never cared
About money
Career path
Success in typical ways

The only thing
I cared about
When it came to
Picking a spouse

Is he good

Is he kind
Does he have a
Generous heart

Because none

Of that other stuff
Mattered
If I couldn’t have
Good hearted

And I found

What I wanted

And that was always

More than enough
And we were rich
In the oddest of ways

Until he left himself

Leaving me
With a shell
Of a spouse

Leaving me

Missing that kindness
Wondering where
That generous soul
Was hiding

Silly me

Had no idea
That the core of someone
Could be lost

Never money

Or career
Or success
 
But now
To have nothing
Not even
The only thing
The most important thing
The good heart
Is a loss

A loss

That makes
Those things
That didn’t
Matter before
Matter now

If only because

If I had those things too
There might have been
Something left
For me
When the best part of him
Went away

Old Life

At first
It hurts
So bad
Because all
You can think of
Is your
Old life

How you’d give anything

To go back
To even
The worst
Of those days

Stuck

In the middle
Of hell
With your old life
In view
But cruelly
Out of reach

It’s torture

Later on

It hurts
So bad
But not as much
Because though
You miss
Your old life
You can’t really
Remember it

You’ve moved

Just a little
Past hell
Further away
From the old life

Which though

You know existed
Is no longer
In view
At all

Torture still

But a little less so

Moving away

From what
You can’t remember
Towards somewhere
You’ve never been

Severing cords
With the familiar
Building ties
With the unknown