The bulletins are complete

There is always more.

The bulletins

Are complete,

Appropriate pictures

On their covers.

The actual experience

Will not line up

With those bulletins.

It never does.

Even though we think

Every jot and tittle

Is important.

Look at us

God

Laying out Jesus’ life

And death

And life again.

Look at us                 

God

As You fill the spaces

Between our jots and tittles,

As you color

Outside the lines

Of our perfect illustrations.

Look at us

As we look at You.

Grok

For my dear friend, Laurie Michaels, she who groks. My beloved says this is one of the only good things about Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land... the term "grok." Thank you, Laurie.

At every point in life

It is vital

To find those

Who have experienced

Something similar.

At every point

In life

We must sit

With a warm cup of something,

Share the similar thing

And say

That thing is not the sum total

Of our being.

There is always more

To be claimed.

Connections

I am sitting here under the soft blue blanket.  I consider what connections I may make today, knowing full well there will be many unplanned encounters.  Today has already brought delightful conversations with the phlebotomist, the pharmacist, a barista, and even the cat.  I consider what connections I may plan today, never knowing exactly what the outcome will be.  It remains to be experienced... all of it.

It’s all about connections:

The ones we choose to make;

The ones that catch us unawares;

The ones that trip us up

In front of Starbucks;

The ones that wait

For the dead of night

Only to come to light

In the soft silver gray

Of dawn.

Connections that grow

With sunlight,

Grow when watered;

Connections

With no known meaning

In this time and place,

Only to offer their possibility

So much later.

And sometimes

Never at all.

Juxtaposition

I continue to wonder at the way God works to place the exact right people in my path.  I would never have been able to plan it this way.  In fact, I had no idea these were the people I needed to see.

Another day

Experience aligns

To place the exact right people

In my path

Oh good

Says one

I wondered where you were

Says another

Oh there you are

Says yet one more.

A new client appears

At the wrong door,

Is retrieved by the person

Running an errand

Downstairs.

I often wonder

How these things work.

This is yet another day

Experience aligns,

Places the exact right people

In my path.

Oh there you are

I say

There you are.

Dreams melt

This weekend my dreams combined people from past parishes with my current parish, even as we were in Denver exploring possibilities for next year, and I celebrated year 59.  We are home now. The cat seems grateful.  I am grateful for another year of living, and looking forward to the coming year, even as I dream of  people and time and experiences melted together.  Maybe spring is finally here.  

Dreams melt

Pieces of history together

Like so many

Wax color crayons

Left in the sun.

People who have never met

Have rich engaging conversations

At night.

At night they even appear

Fast friends.

Dreams melt

Places and times together

Childhood trips to the beach

Take a single minute

End in mountain snow.

At night.

At night vacations

Meld the train trip to California

At age seven

With the time we rented a car

In our fifties.

Drove the hill country around L.A.

Me in the back seat

The GPS steering us in the wrong direction

For ice cream.

Dreams melt

Potentially disparate events

Together.

This weekend

We added Denver to the mix.

I wonder what night conversations

Will be included

By this crayon discovered

In the light of day.

Simplification

Two more weeks at the Clinic.  It is time to leave.  It is really time ... to leave.  Not the Clinic, exactly, but the mental health system there.  Not the people, exactly, but rather, the system.   This morning brought one more complication.  Heal yourself! I say to the system in place:  Heal yourself!  

Now is the time

To simplify.

My life experiences

Simply

Do not fit

On any one piece of paper

Or even

In a book.

Now is the time

To simplify,

To drop experiences

Like bread crumbs

Through the forest

So they may feed the birds

A whole grain diet.

Now is the time

To simplify,

To do what needs to be done

Now,

Not bother

With the catalog.

Now is the time

To feed the birds,

To simplify,

Simply

To simplify.