Ah, finally, there is time to write…
There are many things happening behind the scenes, but it is not time to talk about those things. This is a time to wait. But I do not mean it is a time to wait in the sense implied by the common parlance which typically conjures images of agonizing moments wasted on line at the post office. Instead, I mean to suggest that this is a time to wait on God. One of my favorite scriptures declares, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31. The Hebrew word for wait is “qavah”. Qavah has a literal and a figurative meaning as used in this scripture. Figuratively, it implies faith and expectancy, while, in literal terms, it means to bind together. When taken together, these two meanings suggest that to wait is to bind oneself to God with expectancy. But beyond that, the Hebrew word qavah alludes to literal oneness with God. It anticipates a kind of twisting together in the way one might twist or braid the strands of a rope. When viewed in the light of this metaphor, Isaiah 40:31 takes on a much deeper meaning (i.e., by intertwining myself with God, my faith is enhanced such that I am filled with anticipation and moved to flight). In short, this scripture implies an attitude of certainty. The imagery of the passage is filled with motion and energy, such that this waiting I speak of is infused with joy, and dare I say, celebration.
How appropriate! In my waiting, I am to celebrate, to embrace God, to soar. I say this is appropriate because, much to my shock, this latest round of tragedy has softened my heart and made me available for life at a much deeper level. I have always said that I had a choice to make the day my mother died. I could either have chosen to shut down my heart or I could have chosen to let her death open me. For all these years, I thought I had done the latter. But lately, I have come to realize that I buried myself with her. The awful truth is that in the years since she died, I have seldom let my guard down. I have even held my own daughter at arms length because the thought of really loving her and then losing her too was more than I could stand. This is the real legacy of the horrifying acts perpetrated that August day - the tiny, almost imperceptible ways in which I also died and the very tangible ways in which my inability to really be present have robbed my mother's precious granddaughter of the mother she deserved. The day I found out about the murder, I spent the afternoon (before the call) half asleep on the couch with my then fiance. From the moment the first horrified screams escaped my lungs I have never allowed myself to rest quite like that or to love like I did then for that matter. In fact, I let my life turn into the hiding inherent in perpetual motion. I turned my heart to ice. I let my passion for myself, my life, my gifts and my husband literally burn out like the flames of a fire left untended, abandoned. I wrote a poem about this turning away years ago:
There are many things happening behind the scenes, but it is not time to talk about those things. This is a time to wait. But I do not mean it is a time to wait in the sense implied by the common parlance which typically conjures images of agonizing moments wasted on line at the post office. Instead, I mean to suggest that this is a time to wait on God. One of my favorite scriptures declares, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31. The Hebrew word for wait is “qavah”. Qavah has a literal and a figurative meaning as used in this scripture. Figuratively, it implies faith and expectancy, while, in literal terms, it means to bind together. When taken together, these two meanings suggest that to wait is to bind oneself to God with expectancy. But beyond that, the Hebrew word qavah alludes to literal oneness with God. It anticipates a kind of twisting together in the way one might twist or braid the strands of a rope. When viewed in the light of this metaphor, Isaiah 40:31 takes on a much deeper meaning (i.e., by intertwining myself with God, my faith is enhanced such that I am filled with anticipation and moved to flight). In short, this scripture implies an attitude of certainty. The imagery of the passage is filled with motion and energy, such that this waiting I speak of is infused with joy, and dare I say, celebration.
How appropriate! In my waiting, I am to celebrate, to embrace God, to soar. I say this is appropriate because, much to my shock, this latest round of tragedy has softened my heart and made me available for life at a much deeper level. I have always said that I had a choice to make the day my mother died. I could either have chosen to shut down my heart or I could have chosen to let her death open me. For all these years, I thought I had done the latter. But lately, I have come to realize that I buried myself with her. The awful truth is that in the years since she died, I have seldom let my guard down. I have even held my own daughter at arms length because the thought of really loving her and then losing her too was more than I could stand. This is the real legacy of the horrifying acts perpetrated that August day - the tiny, almost imperceptible ways in which I also died and the very tangible ways in which my inability to really be present have robbed my mother's precious granddaughter of the mother she deserved. The day I found out about the murder, I spent the afternoon (before the call) half asleep on the couch with my then fiance. From the moment the first horrified screams escaped my lungs I have never allowed myself to rest quite like that or to love like I did then for that matter. In fact, I let my life turn into the hiding inherent in perpetual motion. I turned my heart to ice. I let my passion for myself, my life, my gifts and my husband literally burn out like the flames of a fire left untended, abandoned. I wrote a poem about this turning away years ago:
I was at rest,
Deep in quiet respite,
When a nightmare came to call on me,
To end my quiet slumber.
It stripped away the color,
Tore at the fiber of my dreams.
Like a wave it came to claim me,
To quiet the last whispers of my youth.
I struggled to contain it,
Threw myself against the wind.
But the tide of broken memories proved more than I could hold,
And in silence and defeat,
I finally turned away.
And so, now, in the revisiting of my loss, I am challenged to walk this path in reverse, to move from the turning away back to the place that is filled with rest, youthful dreams and the quiet respite of lazy Sunday afternoons spent lazing about in the arms of a man that I love. I am called back to the place that is splashed with the color of the bright blue sky and the scent of fresh air on my face. I am to soar like the eagle. I am to lean into life, let it wash over me, claim me again. I even hear the voice of trust beckoning me.
As I am writing this, I am struck by the fact that my mother died in the domain of the eagle. She died embracing life, trusting God, loving lavishly, soaring. She died leaning into the wind, searching out her dreams, and I missed it. For 12 years, I missed it because I could not appreciate the authenticity of her choices. I was filled with judgment. I stubbornly refused to see her, refused to hear her. But today, in honor of her, I cry out to God for the kind of courage my mother held within her on the day I lost her, and I note that flight takes faith for only God can be my wings.
Therefore, in faith, on this day, I choose the magnificence of a life fully lived, and I claim the rich bounty that awaits me just beyond the precipice. I refuse to settle, to make friends with the ordinary. So many times in the long years of mourning, I have surrendered the sky in the name of safety and the illusion of control. But tonight I have seen the path to heaven. It is littered with the dry bones of those who refused to fly.
Pour out the water of heaven sweet Spirit. Soak my bones in ecstasy. I choose to leap!
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