All the deadfall can be burned away

From D.W.: There's been only one time since Rachel dies that unspeakable thought of "I'm glad she's gone" flashed like lightning through my brain. On the night of November 5th, 2024 I was in a hotel room in Missoula, Montana watching as the election results come in. After a few hours, it wasn't looking great for "my team," but if I had learned anything from the last couple of Presidential elections, nothing was going to be decided anytime soon. So, tired from a long day's drive and with another long day's drive ahead of me, I went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was reach for the remote and turn on the television. That's when it happened. That pernicious voice echoing inside. I squashed it immediately, but it had already happened. And I still carry that guilt with me.

I didn't want her gone, of course. I would have then, and still would now, give anything to have her back. But the reality of the moment, knowing the pain and rage it would have caused her, made me almost jealous that she was spared. We all could use her voice in this moment, and she would definitely have THINGS TO SAY, but I'm not wrong about the pain that would be behind those words.

It's been a hell of a week, y'all. All I can say it that your fear and anger are justified, but we'll persevere. Some thoughts from Rachel about times like this:

Facebook. May 6th. 2020

Sing it, babies. Sing loud.
Sing loud enough to tumble down the walls.

Facebook. January 30th 2017

Jesus and Judas sat at the same table. Jesus knew Judas' heart, and fed him anyway. Can you imagine a Jesus who would have kept anyone away from the table, if he was willing to include even Judas? To damn the criminals he died next to on the cross, or the people who had put him there? Or refused to heal a woman because she touched him without permission, and while she was bleeding? Or left children to die or stay dead because they were from the wrong family or city? Or if the story of the Good Samaritan ended with the wounded man dying in a ditch, because what else can you expect from a Samaritan? Or told those suffering with illnesses in body or mind to get on their bikes and get lost, because it was their own fault they were sick in the first place? Or told over 5,000 people hungry for a word of encouragement and a mouthful of bread that they needed to go someplace else because it was their own fault they were hungry and in despair? Or refused to take the Good News of redemption and reconciliation into scary parts of the places he visited with his friends?

Facebook. June 23rd. 2020

Streams of thought on another Tuesday:

I was born on a Tuesday and I cast my first ballot on a Tuesday and yesterday the mail carrier picked up my most recent ballot. And somehow I always end up moving into and out of offices on Tuesdays and I wish my face were fair, (nothing else seems to be) because my heart feels entirely too heavy to carry like this for another 41.5 years. But this is what this is and at least I can do this bit alone and carry the bags and boxes without having to fix my face or pretend that it’s ok. Even though I understand and get it and will do what needs to be done, never ever imagine I am ok with this. Not by a damn sight.

And just like that...we build another nest from cinnamon and frankincense and bits and bobs of the things we loved best, sing one last song, and then we burn it all down. This is how this goes. This is how I do. It’s all turtles all the way down, but there is a big brash bold beautiful fiery Phoenix on top of it all. And She calls me and calls me her own.

Caught somewhere between Kali and Boudica and the Marys, everything feels blue and if I had a handful of woad I would rip off every stitch and color myself for battle and ride in under a black flag and scare the living shit either into or out of you with my cobalt rimmed blazing eyes and hair drenched with adrenaline and anger and righteous ferocity, a full throated self-harmonic and singular roar of the Furies, the Fates, the Aunties, and the Mother.

But instead, I will sit inside the holy smoke that simmers and hovers like a Shekinah, sighs and sings like Shanti, rises and shines like the new Jerusalem bedecked and beloved and without shame.

I will sit shiva for this, waiting for Shiva to slip under MahaKali’s feet, for Jesus to call Mary’s name, for the Virgin to sing about what’s coming and how things ought to be.

And when the fire ruptures and raptures, the strange seeds inside me will crack right open and fall to the bed of the ashes of my laughter and the restless/peaceful waters of baptism that keep washing me off and out and back onto strange shores and comes down in the rain of blessings feeds those little seeds. The ashes feed them too. And somewhere, in this summer furnace, all the deadfall can be burned away, all the scars and scabbed places cleaned and soothed, and somewhere down deep in the holiness of the good brown earth, life springs green again. Everything is Easter shaped, even the things that aren’t.

But for now, for today, I’m hot and sweaty and I don’t like any of this at all.

Jesus, my brother and heart of my heart, be to me a Jesus and Jesus in me.

Amen.