The Difficult things

The difficult thing about loving people is losing them. 

I have grieved the deaths of people who are still living.  I wonder how I will manage to walk across rooms and drive. To stir the soup and not set the house on fire, and to find any reason for the smallest pinch of joy when my life is no longer connected to theirs.

The difficult thing about living in general, is its loss.

To get up every day and know that it will end.  Maybe today. Maybe not.
And will the ones you love struggle to stir the soup, too?
Will they have to try to not set the house on fire while they miss you in their bones
and ache with your absence in ways they don’t even know how to tell? 

Inheritance

On Sundays, I am the sponge. 

From the moment I pull up and she is not upstairs waiting to be ushered, but seated in the car, unveiled by the garage door in perfect posture. Red lipstick in place, ready.  Her eyes sparkle like Mrs. Claus, but I am learning better. 

While others mentally sift through the belongings of those they are waiting to die, I am driving her to Sunday School...making a list of other things I want to inherit.  

Not the green couch or the bourbon tumblers. 

The jazz paintings on the wall, or her collection of bibles (well...maybe those I would keep).  

But rather, I wonder how to take pieces of her...of who she is, and wear them like a dress we share. 

Different fit. Different bodies.  

Beauty, autonomy, defiance expressed my way.  Borrowed from her closet. 

2nd Commandment

I bow to too many idols.  

I let them tug at me before light and waking crack open my eyes. 

If I were to measure the amount of time I spend connecting with God and the themes of life that are most meaningful, the tape would run shamefully short alongside the measure of time spent worshipping the woes of my day.  

My scripture comes to me in a live feed connecting me to the smooth surface of an Iphone.  There are people at my fingertips.  Instead of praying, I can reach out like a satellite to receive the messages of others.

 “I need you.  I like you.” 

I swallow it like communion.  

The bad news can be filtered away if it doesn’t suit me, and the holy spirit of social media can sweep in at anytime to bring me offerings of kittens, or stories of others who make me believe I am superior.  I am addicted to my grip on the rocks of judgment.  The power of my thumb and heart is mighty.

God misses me?
Then God should get a facebook profile.  And a blog. Competition is much too steep these days to sit idly by and expect my vote of faith.