poems | most hopeful

Jun 09 2014

grief and trauma, learning to live, poems

moving forward. always.

It’s all a mess, of course.
We run into it knowing that we have a plan
We run into it knowing that we have the knowledge
to fix it
to solve it
to make it better
We burn to fix it, to solve it, to make it better
So the fact the we have the change to
put the plan into action
and use our knowledge to make it better
must mean that all will be well
because
we are ready
to make it well.

But then,
we wake up to the news of
all gone wrong.
all unexpected.
all that is against all we’d hoped for
worked for
longed for
waited for
prayed for.

It’s in that moment
of course,
that we realize it’s all a mess
and we begin to wonder if plans and knowledge
and we begin to wonder if the burn to solve it, to fix it
are an existential mocking of sorts.

And yet
even waking up to the news of
loss
death
murder
backward
pointlessness

we can’t help but rub our eyes and
do our best to face forward
and look upward
and work to put our plans and knowledge
back to work
knowing that we may not actually ever get what we hope for
but knowing even more that
we are not willing to hope for less.
Even in the mess.
So we move
forward.

always.

and so we are bold to pray.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged death, desire, hope, impossible, kingdom come, loss, love, prayer, social work, trial, trouble, want, work

Mar 03 2014

us and them

Screen Shot 2014-03-03 at 8.37.22 PM

At the moment it becomes
“us” and “them”
we’ve lost.
we’ve thrown in the towel.
we’ve waived the white flag.
we’ve thrown the grenade.
we’ve waged the war.
we’ve fired the shot.
we’ve sold our sole.
we’ve eaten the fruit.

At the moment it becomes
“us” and “them”
we’ve allowed ourselves
the illusion that we aren’t all connected
the illusion that we aren’t all the same
the illusion that we aren’t all both Cain and Abel
the illusion that we aren’t all both perpetrator and victim
the illusion that we aren’t all,
ultimately,
the best and the worst of ourselves.

So at the moment that we choose
to buy into the lie
that it’s “us” and “them”
we buy into the lie
that we can treat others in ways
we would never allow our own to be treated.
that we can make choices for us that have consequences
we would never allow ourselves to be the recipient of.
that we can speak in ways that objectify others to an extent
we would never allow for those we love.

So at the moment that we choose
to buy into the lie
that it’s “us” and “them”
whether defined
by race
by income
by status
by guilt
by geography
by belief
by doctrine
by ideology
by education
by gender
by any of the other illusions of separateness that have
proven to be crutches since we
stabbed each other in the back when it all began
it is in that moment that
the very “us” we are hoping to protect
is lost to a state of
otherness that we thought
we were guarding against all the while.

At that moment,
we lose what we thought we were fighting for.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged crime, fighting, guilt, hope, hoping, hospitality, innocence, kingdom, offense, peace, piety, them, us, victim, waiting, wanting, ways of the kingdom, welcome

Feb 26 2014

3 Comments

learning to live, on, poems, Quotes

the beatitudes

When you are empty and wondering if it was worth it, it means you’re valuing what God values.

When you are broken-hearted and swollen with tears, it means you are craving the kingdom and recognize its absence.

When you learn to think and fight and dream in third ways, it means you are beginning to grow your kingdom legs.

When you realize how far you still have to go and it leaves you moving humbly and curiously, it means you will become who you hope to become.

When you make room and offer love to those who should be kicked out and chewed out, it means you are learning to welcome yourself the way you’ve already been welcomed.

When you see beauty and hope and artistry in everything, it means you are learning to see with the eyes of your maker.

When you stand on the line between those fighting against each other and call for a ceasefire, you resemble your father more than you ever have before.

When you live in ways that speak to something deep and true and it lands you in hot water, it means you have found the ways of living that challenge the present and speak to the future.

When you live like me, and look like me, and forgive like me, and make peace like me, and love like me and get chewed out and spoken down to and looked crossways at and released from your position for, you’ve found what you’re looking for and you’ll never be happy again unless you live into what you’ve discovered. And don’t think you’re the first; you come from a long line of rule breakers.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Add your own version of the beatitudes in the comments below.

Tagged beatitudes, beauty, bless, blessed, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, blessed are those who mourn, contemporary, forgiveness, hope, matthew 5, modern, sermon on the mount

Feb 25 2014

3 Comments

grief and trauma, learning to live, poems, the calendar

returning to the rhythm

For the first morning,
since chaos crashed into the scene
and scattered normalcy
even from places I was unaware it existed,
I woke up
and returned to the rhythm
changed, of course,
but returned.

The new normal includes
much of the old normal.
A run.
The news.
Email.
Reading words on a page.
Laundry thrown in the washer.
Dog food crackling into the ceramic bowls.
Even the alarm on the phone
suggests there’s
work and
people and
tasks and
hopes and
fears and
weather and
chores to wake up to.
A return to life.

It’s no surprise that the
life of the church
has been built around the calendar
for hundreds and hundreds of years.
It pulls us,
willing or not,
to return to the rhythm
and let it guide us back to
work and
people and
tasks and
hopes and
fears and
weather and
chores to wake up to.
We are challenged to
return back to life.

Today, for the first morning,
returning to the rhythm,
felt like the first act of worship
I’ve done outside
worship through grieving
in nearly two weeks.

djordan
Pine Tree

Feb 16 2014

be the God you promised

Tagged brueggeman, falling apart, grieving, held together, help, holding on, hope, listening, praying, waiting, walter brueggeman, wanting

Feb 15 2014

1 Comment

art and photography, grief and trauma, poems, Prayers Image

help

Tagged asking, confusion, friendship, God, help, hope, justice, need, needing, pray, prayer, silence, waiting, want, wanting

Jan 01 2014

1 Comment

learning to live, on, poems, what they are teaching me

bored with the story

bored-with-the-story

When we end up bored with the story,
we find ourselves in a defensive stance.
Bored with the narrative we had hoped to live by
attention is shifted to defending our positions
by attacking their questions
and by questioning the legitimacy of their faith
and we become our ugliest
and we become our most small-minded
and our boredom with the story is made clear to everyone around us
often before it becomes clear to us

And yet when we end up captivated by the story,
we find ourselves in a curious stance.
Intrigued by the narrative we are attempting to live by
attention is shifted to all the ways we have to break open
and spill out and stand down and listen hard
to take on the role of offense seems understated.

Without the need to fight anymore,
we find rouselves mesmerized by the implications of the questions
about what it means to live as people who break open
and spill out justice and dignity and beauty and community and holiness
and so we become our most humble
and so we become our most available
and so we become our most curious and generous and attentive
because we know that this holy story is chasing us,
and if we ask and think and pray and hope and listen well
we will continue to be found.

And in realizing this, we find that
sweating constantly in a position of defense and
fighting for our own rights and our own entitlements
is a fight in the old story
that pales in comparison to the story of kingdom come
on earth as in heaven.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Tagged Break-action, expectations, fight, honor, integrity, narrative, new, standards, time

Nov 21 2013

2 Comments

learning to live, poems, what they are teaching me

the it of it all

I’ve had the conversation with others before
proud of myself, of course,
that I might have arrived at such brilliance
and yet I don’t seem to take it in actually
which suggests I’ve actually arrived at nothing.

It’s only in evening in the cold in the rain
finally driving home
that the reality actually strikes me
leaving a kind of embarrassing ignorance
looking back at me in the rear-view mirror
having been my guide far too long.

The “it” of it all,
I’ve said proudly to others before
isn’t only in the everything-working-out-ness
isn’t only in the everything-happening-right-ness
isn’t only in the everyone-getting-along-ness

The “it” of it all
is actually in the middle of
the things-struggling-to-work-out-ness
the things-not-really-happening-right-ness
the people-not-completely-getting-along-ness

and in that push and pull
and in those ups and downs
we see our true selves
and we see their true selves
and we find deep effort
and we discover true longing
and we stare our own confusion and frustration and struggle in the face
while staring our own humanity and the humanity of others in the face

and we decide
against all odds
to seek first his kingdom anyway
in the things-struggling-to-work-out-ness
in the things-not-really-happening-right-ness
in the people-not-completely-getting-along-ness

because so much more than the places
where all works out and
where all happens right and
where everyone gets along

we are likely to find the truth of the kingdom
and the “it” of it all
in the mess and the muck
in the paperwork and the policy
in the everything but the “it”
of the day to day
the fuss
the finance
the meetings
the schedules
the people
the stuff
that we’ve been thinking all this time
only gets us to the “it”
when in fact,
it is the “it” of it all.

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.

Photo “People in Motion” by Dennis Chunga

Tagged busy, distracted, hope, hoping, kingdom, learning, listening, pity, pushing, wanting, work

Nov 02 2013

4 Comments

learning to live, poems, Prayers

just right, right now

Screen Shot 2013-11-02 at 12.35.41 AM
I have this great desire
to look you square in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes

to those places where you are
asking questions
raising doubts
blaming yourself
doubting your capacity
questioning your integrity
and holding your own peace hostage

to the ideas that you,
and others for you,
have created about

what you are supposed to be by now
what your past really means about you
how you really should feel about this
what you really should do about that

I want to look you in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes

to those places that hold the truth

and when you think all’s lost
because the truth is finally known
because you have to admit
that you aren’t who you want to be
that you aren’t who you hope to be
that you aren’t what you think you can be

it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and shake you like your life depends on it
and shake you like my life depends on it

it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and look you in the eyes
and beyond your eyes
so you know the truth about who we are is known
and it’s mutual.

And then,
I want to take a deep breath
and pause
and let you know

how incredibly proud God is of you
how incredibly pleased God is with you
how incredibly jealous God is for you, and
how incredibly restless God is because

you are still too afraid to say
the refrain he’s been waiting to hear you say
for quite some time now:
“I am just right. Right now.”

I have this great desire
that you can look yourself in the eyes
and say, “I am just right. Right now.”

djordan
Pine Tree Dr.