Adoption (November 9, 2019)

Adoption

All of it is by the grace of God.

The loss
The brokenness
The aloneness

The longing
The seeking
The finding

The waiting

The joy
The joining
The learning

The building
The loving
The living

The growing pains
The push and pull
The remembering

The holding it together
The holding your breath

The thing we call family
The place we call home

All of it is by the grace of God.

erinrms 11/9/2019
November is National Adoption Month

Fruit 2

Fruit 2

How much fruit have I born, Lord?

            How many seeds have you sown?

            Your fruit is hidden with Christ in God,

            And your glory is not in this world.

How many souls have I saved, Lord?

            How many friends have you loved?

            You must put yourself last so that others might live,

            For your glory is not in this world.

           

How many ears have heard me, Lord?

            How much truth have you spoken?

            My word is living and active, my child,

            And your glory is not in this world.

How many eyes can see me, Lord?

            How many do your eyes see?

            Reach out your hand to the one who is lost,

            For your glory is not in this world.

How much light did I shine, Lord?

            How much dark did you enter?

            Take up your cross and step into the night,

            For your glory is not in this world.

How many crowns have I earned for you, Lord?

            How many crowns do I need?

            A kingdom built here will just crumble with time,

            And your glory is not in this world.

How great among men will I be, Lord?

            How much can you pay for your soul?

            Do not measure your worth by the praises of men,

            For your glory is not in this world.

–erinrms 4-24-2020

           

           

Fruit

Fruit

The tree gloried under the sun,

And the lust of her eyes surveyed all that she had

And all that she'd done.

Her eyes roved over and rolled over once more

The full to bursting rosy gold fruit

That hung on her branches, pleasantly plump.

Admired by all, desired by all,

She preened there under the sun,

Boasting of all she had,

Boasting of all she had done.

The tree noticed under the sun

Another tree steadily luring a crowd,

Luring them one by one.

And wave after unwelcome wave of desire

For the glossier juicier clusters of fruit

That hung on those branches more lovely and plump–

Admired by all, desired by all–

Made her burn there under the sun,

Weeping for all she lacked,

Weeping for all she'd never done.

The tree cursed herself and the other

Who'd stolen the crowd one by one

And hardened her heart

To the bearing of fruit–Such a burden was fruit!

And wished herself something entirely else

She'd seen once through a window some distance away,

Admired by all, desired by all.

And she yearned there under the sun,

Twisting herself in her mind

Into something she'd never become.

The object she fixed as her goal

Was a memory as fresh and as distant as snow,

As last winter's snow,

When she'd spied it from her barren post in the cold night.

Ringed with sparkles, tossed tinsel, and great glossy globes,

It was crowned at the top with a star!

Admired by all, desired by all,

How it bristled with joy at gifts laid at its feet

While denying the terrible truth:

It had sacrificed all of its roots.

When the tree recalled that naked stump,

She withered and shuddered and sobbed.

She'd forsaken her fruit for a fake

And could bear nothing more now than hard, stunted buds,

Malformed, malicious, malignant, and mean,

That dotted her bare limbs all along.

Unseen by all, unneeded by all,

She froze grounded in her own spindly shade,

Bleeding, self-severed, and lone,

And bragging of bleeding alone.

Then the tree heard a whisper, the wind,

And she tingled all over and listened again

To that voice she'd forgotten

Since so long ago it had landed and planted her there where she stood.

Water, it said. Water was all.

She felt down to the roots she'd forgotten she had.

Yes, water was all, water was all,

And she nursed on it there in the wind,

Feeding on all that she lacked,

Filling in all that was gone.

The tree dug down deeper to drink,

And the water took shape into words that took shape,

And the words were What is it to you

If this tree draws a crowd or that tree is cut down

Or one shimmers or bears sweeter fruit?

When water is all that that your fibers desire,

I will hang my Most Beautiful Fruit on your frame.

So she drank her fill under the sun,

Baring fresh leaves to its warmth,

Bearing pure fruit with no boast on her tongue.

–erinrms 4-18-2020

Faith

Faith

What is this thing called faith?

Is it precise or undefinable?

Is it laser focused or diffuse?

Is it supposed to balance tense on the head of a pin or bob relaxed in a vast ocean?

Does it struggle to lock in on a target or aim in the general direction of the broad side of a barn?

Is it 20/20 or completely blind?

Should it visualize the goal already in hand or practice living without it?

Is it mustered up from within or accepted as a gift?

Does it play right into the hand or hard to get?

Should it feel available or elusive?

Is it a song or a shout or a whisper?

Does it beam steadily or swell over and over in waves?

Does it require a single grain or the whole massive mountain?

Does it name and claim or release?

Is it bold and brassy or timid on tiptoes?

Does it blast a trumpet or whistle in the dark?

Is it the reward itself or the means to the end?

Is it one in a million or the whole million?

Is it personal or common?

Does it feed five thousand and collect the leftovers or offer up five loaves and two fish?

Does it move mightily or hold very still?

Is it more like wishing or hoping or believing or knowing?

Is it the bringer of joy or joy itself?

Is it the answer to the question or the question that is the answer?

What is this thing called faith?

erinrms 4-16-2020

Pearl

Pearl

When you were asleep

I tapped you on your side—

Just a light rapid tapping, three times,

So faint you could have missed it.

Ridiculous?

Perhaps.

But why did this flutter of a rhythm in the tenderest place between the upturned curve of two ribs wake you from dead sleep

And make you think

Maybe I wanted to speak to you?

No less real than the presence of a toddler tentative by the side of the bed,

Frozen in silence louder than a wail,

Holding his breath while watching you breathe and willing you to wake until finally whispering your name,

I hovered next to you waiting for the quietest moment so my whisper would resound

So you would listen,

Because isn’t that the way of my still small voice?

When you were pinned down and quaking

Under the raging demon screams of the firestorm—

Remember this later—

I was not in the fire.

I was not in the storm.

I was not in the quaking.

Who was it then?

Be careful.

It was not I.

I do not materialize on demand,

But the enemy is more than happy to do so.

And later,

After the herd of legion-jolted pigs’ feet thunders over you in impossible lumbering lightning speed,

Their horrifying awkward rocking rolls of squealing squalling hammy cloven hooves striking sharp ringing blows on the back of your head

That seem to echo deeper than the eternal depths of your soul,

Know this:

I’ve already bought the whole muddy field left in their wake—

Every square inch—

To redeem the tiniest pearl of a seed ground down so far you think no one could ever find it.

So lift your head and see the land I bought for you.

Oh, sweet girl,

You are the pearl under the pigs’ feet,

And yes those pigs’ feet are relentless.

The howling chaos when it seizes you is relentless.

But I am not.

I am a featherweight tap in the night.

Remember this:

If your spirit quickens,

It’s deep calling deep.

Hold still and listen.

Little lost sheep,

I always know exactly where to find you.

I know that the source of your terror scream seems deeper than I will ever be able to dig.

Its sulfurous supply seems infinite, beyond exhausting.

But why are you looking for the living among the dead?

I am not there.

Lift your head.

I’ve already been to the deep beyond that depth, and you know that nothing out-depths me.

So do not forget:

I am risen!

I am on the outside with you,

Where the air is.

Here.

Rest a moment while I wash your matted wool whiter than snow.

And then don’t call dirty what I have made clean.

And remember what you learned:

Blasphemy called the Son of God blasphemous.

It called evil what was good.

It demanded that the kingdom of God produce a king instead of the nerve of that man who slipped under their skin with a whisper.

It was I who confined that full to bursting mighty heart of God to a fist-sized mass of
thumping flesh—

And it was I who restrained it there,

Breaking

Every time I stopped long enough to dwell on their deafness.

They wouldn’t have heard me anyway if I’d screamed.

And neither would you.

I won’t compete to be heard.

Don’t forget this.

Don’t give dogs even a crumb of what is holy,

Because even you

Have a crumb of holy in you.

I should know.

I dropped it there one day when you weren’t looking.

I am the one

Who bought the whole field,

That pig-trampled field of treasures of great worth,

Each no bigger than a seed.

And you,

You were never the enemy’s weed.

You were never the pig.

You were the pearl.

--erinrms 4-15-2020

Saturday

Saturday

He was here and then he wasn't,

And we, suspended in a choking fog

Of grief and disbelief, suffered no suspense

Because we didn't know we were waiting.

All we knew was the silence of loss

After yesterday's utter violence.

It hung in the air of our hiding place

Like the last word spoken in a fight

Hangs in an empty room.

The palpable presence of the shape of pain

Was fast and final, irreversible and irreconcilable.

It is finished meant it was over.

We sat there mute in our disbelief,

Engulfed as our unbelief hardened.

He was here and then he wasn't.

The fullness of everything became inexplicably

The emptiness of nothing but our fear

And the back side of our faith.

All night and all day and all night again,

We sat in the shadow of death,

Numb on the knife edge of hysteria,

Gutted yet stuffed with the fist of the punch in the gut.

We sat in our appalling unfaithfulness, our embarrassing faithlessness,

Feeling justified in forgetting everything he'd ever told us–

Because, in fact, he had told us,

But somehow we of little faith didn't know

We were supposed to wait with him one hour.

We were supposed to wait for him three days.

He was here and then he wasn't,

So we slept in that tomb of a room

In an endless wide-eyed waking sleep with no suspense

Because we didn't know we were waiting.

But then, in the morning, just as he'd said,

He tore back through the veil into time.

The shroud of our misunderstanding

Dissolved like mist with the dawning.

Into our deaf and sightless stupor

Came thunder and lightning and crystal clarity.

Our faithlessness, that stubborn bulwark,

Splintered in the storm surge of his faithfulness.

It is finished meant I have done it!

We were stunned at the shape of him,

So recently with us and then so absolutely gone.

For he was gone and then he wasn't.

And that time we sat suspended

Was instantly redefined

As only that one day of hushed suspense

When we waited for the dawn of forever.

erinrms 4/11/2020

Touch the I Am

Touch the I Am

I sit and scrape sores

                with broken pieces

                of the mile-high granite mountain,

                that massive idol I want moved.

I have no idea

                that the object of my faith will not move

                if it is the object of my faith.

The chipping at it keeps me bound to my mat.

I have no idea that I am only plucking

                at a thread on the hem

                of the cloak of eternity.

I am an orphan baby crying

                for a belly full of milk from a propped up bottle.

The taste of it is heightened on my tongue

                even before I am fed without being nourished.

I do not even know to miss

                the heartbeat thrumming

                through the circle of a mother's arms.

The bleeding woman knew

                if she only touched his cloak, she would be healed.

                                Your faith has made you well.

The centurion knew

                if this man of authority spoke words from a distance,

                he would return home to find his servant well.

                                Such great faith. . .

Jairus knew

                if he threw his dignified self

                at the feet of this man

                who was so criticized

                by his dignified peers,

                he would have his little daughter back

                from the edge of death.

                                Do not fear. Only believe.

The friends knew

                if they tore through that roof

                and fumbled that pallet

                right down on top of the healer,

                they would leave there with a peer

                able to carry his own now-light weight.

                                Your sins are forgiven.

He put on flesh and dwelt here

                to make me crave

                the skin to skin.

He pulls the aim

                of the arrow of my longing

                toward the very heart of God.

He pulls me, too,

                to launch myself after it,

                to elbow through crowds,

                to claw through roofs,

                to clamber over mountains of the stuff of earth.

                                Your great faith has made you well.

He draws me like the path of lightning

                from the ground to the clouds,

                from my earth-bound toe tips through my electrified fingertips.

                                Do not fear. Only believe.

He cuts through space and air and stone

                until I strain only to touch the skin that God put on

                so he could put his hand on me that I might live.

                                Your sins are forgiven.

God, move me when I see only the mountain.

God, hold me when I want only the milk.

God, trail the hem of your cloak close enough for me to brush

                when my arm isn’t quite long enough for me to grasp a fistful

                and when my faith isn’t quite great enough for me to see beyond the bleeding.

God, draw me so that I may know and believe

                and understand that you are He.

God, let me touch the I am.

erinrms 3/31/2020