Maundy Thursday 2015

Like all those familiar plays, we know how this one goes. I think we each play a different part every year. This year I am that unnamed young man in Mark who ran away naked when Jesus was arrested in the Garden. No. I have no idea what this means.

We know how this story ends

Or perhaps

Begins again.

Diagnosis

She says she would not want to diagnose people.  I tell her people are not their diagnosis, anyway. She is not convinced.  

I tell her

A diagnosis

Is only the beginning of things,

A place to start,

Certainly not

The place to end.

There is so much road to travel

So much to find and appreciate.

A diagnosis

Identifies a bump in that road

So we can then

Plow through it

Leap over it

Sidle around it.

A diagnosis

Is not the place

To stop.

A diagnosis

Is the place                                            

To begin again.

Still I try

I started this with a title.  Then tried to write something to go with the title.  So often, more often, the title comes last.  So I changed it.

This is the way

I can title

This portion of my life

This portion of which

I know

No beginning

No end.

Really no label

Is enough.

No title

Captures it,

Even partially.

Sometimes

No

Often

I unearth a label,

Try to live into it

For a time,

Then find words

Are not enough,

Never enough.

I climb to the top

Of the mountain.

I sit in the blue chair.

I go to work out with my beloved

In five minutes.

There are no words

No real words

To describe it.

Still I try.

Closure

This therapy thing is interesting.  A lot of attention is paid to "ending well."  This is, ostensibly, for the client.

I found myself hoping

For a last session

Or two.

Now I wonder

Who is closure for?

Who really

Is closure for?

Who is the closer?

Who is the closee?

In paid relationships

Such as this

Where is that boundary

Crossed?

Holy Week

Every year I think Holy Week will be different.  And it is.  And it's not.

I like to think

This week will be different.

It began with a pony.

Today I sit

In a different place,

Tomorrow yet another

Different place.

And so it goes.

Holy Week is always different

Yet somehow still

The same.

Seven years out

Of running Holy Week

(as if anyone ever runs

Holy Week)

Seven years out

Again I slip into

Holy Week mode.

It began this year

With a pony.

I know the story,

How the story goes.

I know the ending.

Thank God I know

How it ends.

Prescience

It*s all tied together.  Now you see it.  Now you don*t.  Still... it will always come 'round again.

It*s all tied into

Thanksgiving

Secular

Sacred

Thanksgiving.

How did I not see

The connection of end times

And beginning again,

Always

Beginning again?

Indeed

I*m sure I must have written this

Before.

The Church
Society
Someone
in their prescience

Sandwich Thanksgiving between

Christ the King

And Advent 1.

The final Thursday

Of November,

The harvest gathered in,

The checkout guy

In the grocery store

Telling us the story

Of wild turkeys being so much

More flavorful

I saw it on PBS

He said

The combination of his Hawaiian shirt

And dreadlocks

And wild turkeys melding

With the blue sky day

After church.

It*s all tied into

Thanksgiving

Doncha know?

Thanksgiving

Beginnings

Endings

Hawaiian shirts and dreadlocks

Wild turkeys

And oh

Simply everything.

Search

This is one of those things that began in one place and ended in another.  I have changed environments a number of times today, and I cannot tell which way I am counting... up or down.  I think it has something to do with the barometric pressure.  These are interesting times, no matter if I am beginning or ending, or simply staying put.

The search continues.

Just as all of us

Count down

It seems we also

Count-up.

This ends

We-know-not-where

Except

We keep looking.

We keep waiting.

And sometimes

we do not count

At all.