Gravity...

Gravity

Water follows 

The path of least resistance

Maybe I am water

Gravity pulls me down

Sometimes over rocks

Sometimes cutting a path through canyons

But down, down, ever down 

Looking to unite 

WIth other molecules of water

Seeking to commune

At some low spot

Fluids minimize energy

My energy I expend

Elsewhere

Creating my own heat so then

Sometimes I am steam

I rise and seek the clouds

To be a cloud, to join a cloud

To float in the sky

But gravity pulls me down

Drop by drop

I freeze, I fight

Resistance makes me cold

A glacier

Ice dragging the earth with me

Slowly, heels digging

The pressure of myself

Holding back, against it all

But still, I cannot resist

Gravity

12/28/23

Chemistry...

 Chemistry (yet to be tweaked)

The things I wished I had

Paid more attention to

Like chemistry class

Never thinking it would

Affect me, I daydreamed

Doodled on the desk, thought about boys

How would I know about

Simultaneous attractions

About how the electron clouds

Might get too close together

Electrons pulling, repelling 

Two very different atoms

Organically drawn

My electron, shared in your valence?

Or is it the other way around?

Somehow this uneasy balance

Heteronuclear bonding

Created a something

Safe like water --

Or a devastating acid

My positive energy

Your negative charge

Now this -- molecular structure

Irresistibly joined

Electrostatic forces holding us

Naming us this substance we became

But I wrote REO Speedwagon 

In my notebook 

Drew a daisy in the margin

Never thinking of the heat

The light, the significance

Of energy required

To break a covalent bond

So a compound we are

Until a solvent or

An energy greater

A force more powerful..

But I wasn’t paying attention

When my teacher spoke of ions

Either

The Day You Became Strong

 The Day You Became Strong

They always say

“It didn’t happen overnight” 

And certainly, this is true

But it was one day

A day when the pieces came together

A day when you knew it

You were whole

And worthy 

And had value

All on your own

The words came 

Calm and clear

You said, “No”

You called out the voice

That silenced you

You pushed away the hand

That made demands

For too long you accepted

The backseat

You gave the benefit of doubt

When whatever benefit there was

Was certainly not yours

You were busy, trying to make pieces fit

Believing you could be gracious

And still kind

But just not knowing how 

To challenge insult

To deny admittance

To choose to believe

That your dignity

Mattered as much as theirs

And that day came

When being polite wasn’t as important

As loving  the little girl that was

And the woman she became

Telling her that she could speak up

And she did

That was the day

The day you became strong

Accessories…

This is about a problem many of us women find ourselves in. We somehow wind up in the relationships that we pour ourselves into and find we are the only ones pouring. It’s not about wanting love to drop everything, but it’s about respect and not feeling used. 

I am not a scarf

To drape around your neck 

Then the weather seems to bite

And you need to feel some warmth

I am not a hat

To tilt with a rakish nod 

When the occasion calls for  extra flare

And need to show some style 

I’m not an earring or a tie pin

A necklace or a ring

I’m not an accessory 

Meant to polish you up

Or add some interest to your life 

In the wardrobe of life

I want to be the pants 

That you won’t walk out the door without

The pajamas that snuggle you

When you are tired or feeling down

I want to be essential

So you are naked

Without me there 

Accessories are bullshit 

And I am more than bullshit 

  

Some slam poetry from 2019

 

Much better heard than read, like all spoken word verse tends to be:

Angry, tight thoughts

Tight throat

Tight lips

The silence slaps

It sneers

It taunts

And your depression

Like a cancer

Eats away at my peace

No. More.

The poverty of your

Lack of emotion

Lack of affection

Lack of sweet, tender words

Is an abyss that

Seeks to swallow me whole

Or crush me with the weight 

Of instability

It’s antimatter, babe

And it doesn’t exist in this universe

I won’t give it life in a flight of fantasy

Because happily ever after with you

Is so opposite from the reality

That darkens my door and 

Switches on a crazy mental loop

Where I ask am I of value, am I enough

What is my worth to you?

I won’t be an indirect object

Affected by your transitive verbiage
Until my joy gets eaten up by your abnormal cell division

And I get sucked into the black hole of being

An accessory

Not subject verb predicate

Damn that silence

I’m breaking it with the sound

Rhythmic freedom

Of my feet, my heart, my soul

Moving on

GEP 1/18/2019

In the poverty 

Of your attentions 

I discovered my wealth In the austerity 

 Of your affirmations 

I discovered those deepest riches 

All the things you would not give me 

That I can so freely share 

Your lack of verbal generosity 

Unwillingness to light a dim day 

Brighten a smile 

Or caress a bruised esteem 

I can see the gift now 

In my ability to see the need 

To pour out warmth 

To slather devotion 

And effuse an unmitigated joy 

In the beauties of another 

I am indeed rich 

And you, my dear, are so very very poor

Evolving

 

Haven't made a  good ol' Venn diagram in a while to see how much I have changed. What a difference nearly 7 years makes.  Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. So very much has changed internally - I've taught in juvenile detention, an inner city school, and in an alternative high school. These jobs made indelible marks on who I am. I truly learned about the privilege I was too privileged to even recognize.   

Jesus Revolution Review & Musings

Yesterday I had the joy of going to see “Jesus Revolution” with a friend. It was as wonderful as I had hoped it would be. Jonathan Roumie, Kelsey Grammer & Joel Courtney played their respective roles with depth and honesty backed by an excellent supporting cast.

A great deal of this movie resonated with me, I was all in but when they quoted Ginsberg, I felt connection. This film spurred a walk down Memory Lane as well as excitement for the current movement I see building within the church today. Just as the Lonnie told  Chuck Smith that his rigid congregation was a shut door, the hyper-Calvinist churches of today have attempted to lock and bar the way. They want to continue the lie of an exclusivist, angry god and a fear-mongerer’s gospel.  The Jesus Revolution flipped those tables; I think today’s deconstruction movement will do the same. 

The one error I would correct is that at the end of the movie it erroneously states that the movement ended in 1972; it did not. It ended in the late 1980s and this is why I anticipated this movie so greatly. It was in the tail end of the Jesus Movement that Pat and I committed our lives to Christ. 

I saw us in the lost teens in smoke-filled rooms talking philosophy and looking for truth. I remember being a teen, hanging with group of long-haired party/ers talking about Prisig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and Casteneda’s “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of  Knowledge.” Bonfires and music. Starry skies and deep talks about the meaning of life, of who was God and did we matter. I remember debates with a friend’s older brother who was a bonafide Jesus freak. He and his best friend, Artie, would talk about handing out tracts at the Catholic Church parking lot on a Saturday night; then talk with us about Jesus if we would listen. Ronnie opened my eyes to 1 Timothy 2:5; it stayed with me.  He was planting seeds and God meant for them to grow. 

Pat and I would get together in the fall of  1982, get married in 1983,  finding in each other a fellow seeker. The alcohol, marijuana, sex, and rock n’ roll that our generation used to numb the pain didn’t work and we spent many a late night pondering and soul-searching. Then in early 1984 we gave it all to God. In February of 1985 we were baptized. Found our way to little hippie Christian music festivals, discovered JPUSA and Cornerstone, were led to a church with open doors that didn’t judge us, just loved us.  We grew in the word. Pat read to me his Tolstoy, I read to him my Bonhoeffer, singing along with Michael Card and later Rich Mullins. Along the way, we made friends with others who shared a similar story- Rick & Kathy, Diane & Paul, Jessica & JB, and others. We entered the 90s with true family fellowship in the Lord. 

Pat is gone, Paul is gone and so are Jessica and Rick. Seems that those who aren’t gone, have either become what they were part of changing so long ago or like me, realized the fundamentalist swamp that had sucked us in and let the Spirit pull us out. I’ve been watching a movement growing since 2020 when the self-centeredness and political idolatry of much of the WEC was exposed. In the film, the Pharisees of that day are griping about the hippies and their talking of a loving God. The Pharisees of today are complaining about the deconstructionists, CRT, the LGBQT+ community, and anyone who doesn’t share their doctrinal statement, and yep, wanting to make sure the love is limited. They see themselves as gatekeepers and want to keep the gates closed. I hope to see their walls tumble because their gates of hell won’t prevail against His church. (Doubtful that they even understand the geographical/historical context of that passage).