Enfleshed

Enfleshed

(“For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him.” Colossians 2:9-10a)

I once thought you were so elusive that
I needed to deprive my body to find you.
I wished for hours filled with supernatural encounters
and only found silent noise. I heard so many stories
of weeks spent fasting to find epiphanic endings.
I only found
my hunger increasing opposite to my bold resolutions.

I collected invisible souvenirs; I deposited hours of
agony and fears. Why did I ever think you demanded
so much of me for so little return?
I ached for visions and enlightened dreaming, only to
wake from stops and starts that halted my sleeping.

Now I think I see you in every grain of sand;
I taste you in every sip of water. I remember you wore
skin just like I wear skin; your feet ached like mine do
at the end of a day.

I was afraid to be alone; the emptiness frightened me.
I bargained with begging chips and cried in ways so
hard to explain. I expected to hear voices in the dark,
and see angels singing with words I could understand.

I still hate loneliness, I still sting from too much solitary time.
But I am finding you wrapped around the scars that, if I
may say,
were entirely self-inflicted.

Embodied, you are. Human and fully. A habitation
wholly enfleshed. Sacred flesh and blood.

You were never obscure, were you? Though I thought you
demanded I catch up with you, you singled me out
and found me in the middle of my unanswered questions.
Filling me before I asked, embracing me though I thought
I was a myriad of miles away.

Full of Silence/and then some

Full of Silence/and then some

(“He is the Rock. His works are perfect. All his ways are right. He is faithful. He doesn’t do anything wrong. He is honest and fair.” Deuteronomy 32:4)

The moment was too full of silence,
abuzz with the smashing of atoms invisibly
making space for every thought unspoken. There was

No more to say.

The tears began with each telling,
the story repeated with different words and nuance,
inflection and outline, but the tears and the

Moment full of silence

Were always the same.

Our feet dragged going home. We have learned our
question well they days, “Are you ok?” I do not always
answer honestly, for it is her pain we mourn now

And not my own.

The world stands still with unexpected prognoses,
and the words blur after reading the emailed diagnosis
for the twelfth (feels like never). Don’t tell us

You’ll be strong,

We have not faced this before. And when it felt we could
breathe once more
the next blow came with threats and wind upon the sweetest
friend, the loveliest form and the most blameless frame ever
said yes to a man so far below her purity. She is light and
glows apropos. She is laughter itself, the out-loud giggle of
joy. Unmistakebly funny, she never defends her childlike
comedy.

So, I have to ask, O Rock upon which we’ve been shaken,
what heavenly economy has driven this silent storm her way?
She is more than mercy; she is grace itself; every sin, every act
of selfish compulsion, she erases with ease. I cannot dismiss the
harm I must have brought to her innocence; but she will not
remember what I am unable to forget.

Transfer her pain to me. Put it on my tab, let me repay
the streams of grace I have never deserved; the companion,
my dream-mate who only grows freer and freer over time.

Remember her graces, and from Your unfenced pastures of joy
bring her the nosegay of the wildest colors only Perfection
can supply.