Truth Abides in Thin Places.

January 2012 in my neighborhood.

Uncle H.

Yes, I think now,
There is no likeness. It just is exactly what it is—

The unrecoverable downward tilt after the names
Have been called, as one of us will call to the other
While the one leaving lifts for the last time, lifts and stares,
At what at what one wants to ask, but does not dare.
– Daniel Tobin

Canned Manna?

- Reblogged post from 12.11.12

…it will be God who gives you meat for your meal in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning.
(Exodus 16:8, The Message)

“I think we might need more than just the two of us to unload everything,” the community missions pastor from a local church said with a wry grin. Minutes before, Adam (not his real name) had pulled up into our small parking lot at work and knocked on the door to announce the welcome arrival of a large food, clothing and toy donation. “Yeah,” he continued on to explain to me as I stood gaping, frosty-breathed in the January air, at the small mountain of shared generosity waiting to be placed on our shelves. “After we came to the food pantry last week and saw that ya’ll were basically limited to handing out cans of green beans, cereal and little else, I put the word out to all of our Sunday school classes — and in less than 4 days, this happened.” It’s true that our available supplies (provided solely by in-kind donations and the Houston Food Bank) have been fairly scarce in the recent past. It was with great joy, therefore, that Adam, myself and three other pairs of helping hands spent the next 45 minutes transferring bulging trash bags of clean clothing, recycled boxes overflowing with plastic toys and grocery sacks with dried, boxed and canned goods inside from the church vehicle to our building. Volunteers then spent the following two days sorting through the items and distributing them equally between Gano’s food pantry and the clothing closet at Fletcher.

Is it coincidence that the supplies were dropped off here less than three days after much of Houston was submerged in record-breaking flood waters, leaving many without power and others without any shelter at all? Personally, I don’t think so. Do we take it for granted that a small group of monthly volunteers would arrive on site, observe a felt need and — completely without external prompt — rally their own community to give a tangible outpouring of love and generosity on to the clients whose families we serve every week? Absolutely not. As the paper handles of heavy grocery bags cut grooves into my chilled hands during yesterday’s blustery unloading and sorting out experience, I found myself wondering: is this gratitude churning up within me akin to what Moses must have felt every morning when he stepped foot outside of his tent and knew, thanks to provision completely beyond his control, that his neighbors would not go hungry for another day?

This morning, I watched bilingual grandmothers, shy brothers, brave mothers with two children in tow and five more at home, and physically disabled adults wheel their way through our now plentifully stocked pantry shelves. I watched weary eyes light up, cheerful banter take place between those still waiting to walk through and young voices squeal in excitement as they reached for a brightly packaged box of Cheerios. For the first time in several months, I watched as families were able to leave our food pantry with a healthy array of meal options to provide for those at home: soup, rice, beans, canned vegetables, peanut butter, pasta, macaroni and cheese, microwave dinners, baking items, cereal, condiments, crackers and more.

Thank you, Adam and all those who gave, for being physical conduits of the fullness of God.

Since One Calendar Page Flipped to the Next, I…

Sitting in Aunt D’s living room
(Dec 2011)

Have witnessed one house fire whose billowing clouds
left the ash-gray taste of loss in the mouths of eleven family members,
three of whom are still clad in crinkly Pampers

Have been embraced,
stared down, yelled at,
invited, welcomed, shared,
sworn at, hit on, cussed out,
fed, prayed over and listened to
in my neighborhood

Have helped, rejoicing with shivers and frosty breath,
to unload a mini-uHaul load’s worth of
canned and bagged goods, clothing and toy donations
into the stark bare spaces begging to be filled at work –
this is, I say to myself as the paper handles
cut thankful grooves into my cold fingers
during transfer from wheel to shelf,
exactly how the manna spirit of gratitude
must have churned within Moses’ belly

Have counted the stars between silhouetted pine branches
on a chilly north Georgia night,
sprinted between blustery crests of sea-foam
at the Oregon coast,
took cat naps amongst old crumbs,
discarded burger wrappers and suitcase heaps
in Denver, Seattle, Phoenix, Atlanta, Charlotte and
Houston’s blue-seated airport terminals

Have felt the weight of responsibility heavy
and the length of days seeming too short

Have been fed plate after plate of spicy
pollo con mole, arroz y tortillas under the watchful eye
of 6 cousins, one daughter-in-law, one mother and
one abuela before
we all broke into clumsy-footed, laughing-eyed
Cupid Shuffle on their cracked pavement outside

Have experienced an unlawful epidemic of
ants in our food cupboard,
an indefatigable lice outbreak
(until this week, the lice were winning 5-1),
a 48-hour power outage,
crazy flooding in one of Houston’s record-breaking storms,
the loss of a beloved neighbor when she was forced,
cancer-wracked,
to move from her long-time home down the street
to a senior citizen care center
somewhere else (we’ve yet to discover where exactly)
and 3 cases of upper respiratory/sinus infections in my home

Have wondered what happened to things like
long phone conversations with old friends,
staying abreast of email exchanges, mailing packages,
capturing everyday life moments in photographic form,
writing simply for the joy of it, sleeping in,
staying up late, reading fiction, reading at all –
and have found immeasurable delight in
the surprise of new love settling in,
the joy of several engagements,
the Secret Santa gift of Wendell Berry’s writings from a housemate,
the waving fronds of cattails next to graffiti and trash cans at my daily bus stop,
the glad presence of babies yet on their way,
the warmth of conversation in Spanish and English over shared meals,
the twice-a-year experienced reunion with family,
the colors of my quilt at sunrise,
the transformational reality of God incarnate made more real every waking moment

I welcome you, new year; I welcome you, season of
beholding (to hold in view, to see, to discern);
I welcome you and You alike

again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. the circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
– wendell berry

Visiting beloved neighbors
(January 2012)

Hodge Podge.

Who Says It Has to Snow to Be Spirited?

It sort of looks like some capricious tinsel elf
puked his guts out on that little tree… and I love it.
Nothing like good-old fashioned Christmas spirit,
Houston-style.
(taken 8 December 2011)

Giving Thanks, Part Two.

Always God’s people are called to remember that
we were once strangers and refugees
who were taken in by God (see Deuteronomy 10:19).
Let us claim in unison today the undiscriminating
joy of homecoming.

It’s Not Just Another Day.

I like how you never know when
you’re about to stumble across
an unexpected kindred spirit.

One found me at 8.03 this morning.
She had crinkly dreads laced with silver and
calluses the size of her family on
both palms: a lifetime of working in someone else’s house.
I, running late to from the shower to
the closet to the bus,
was predictably unprepared for the day ahead,
wet-headed and
shivering in bare-sleeved autumn light.

“Isn’t it glorious outside?”
I  fell into the seat next to her, bag flying,
goosebumps bearing witness to
the golden morning as the bus lurched away from the corner.

I swear, as soon as the words escaped out of my mouth,
the hand on her worn watch paused mid-tick and
we both turned in our seats,
staring out the scratched window panel
in perfectly unsynchronized unison.

Brown and green watched in open-eyed wonder
and the rumbling hum of the 52 bus
joined the sounds of fall bringing a gift to our street.

I swear, the leaves in the abandoned
playground — a tumbled pile of crunchy color and shape
passing by over our right shoulders
from one blink to another –
began laughing up at the sky along with us.

I swear, we both exhaled on the same breath,
paused, looked at the other,
started giggling
(hers rising up from the belly, mine spilling out of my nose),

and then the small hand started moving again
and the ordinariness of it all resumed.

Dear Wednesday:

It isn’t your fault that I woke up to 6.32 on the alarm
with the wish to curl back up underneath my crazy quilt
before I even put sleepy toe to cold floor this morning –

but the lilting drawl of the small woman,
already clad in Kroger’s green apron,
as she pressed phone to ear at the back of the bus,

the smell of fresh, newly smooth green paint underneath
shaky towers of green beans, corn and diced tomatoes on
the dozen or so metal shelves within the food pantry,

and the shy mischievousness of Albertina’s daughter as she
flirted with me from within her shaky pink stroller while
animated Spanish and English flew over
her head like so many swooping swallows, like the chatter
lining the silhouetted telephone lines
outside my small front porch in the evening –

yes, all these things
and more
made me grateful to be awake in the day.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
– e.e. cummings

On the Way from Here to There.

Old quavery man, you with the limp in your heavy-heeled step
and the wrinkles in your brown polyester pulled over faded cargo pants,
why did you do what you did?

You with the quiet etching of nameless grace.

You shuffled on to the bus at the corner of
Crawford and Hadley where the shadows of the freeway
loom over cigarette butts, topsy-turvy Coke cans and
the evening lines of homeless waiting for hot meal on plastic.

It was after 5 and the bus was already crammed full of
going-home elbows, backpacks and sneezes.

Several stops came and went before
someone else exited and you could release your grip –
yes, sometimes the history map of age spots can tell a better story
of life lived to the full, sometimes
more complete than a picture painted through words themselves.

Letting go of the yellow railing and easing
arthritic knees into the small seat behind and
to the left, you placed your lunch cooler on the ground
next to your dusty steel toes and
a sigh rose up from the vanishing ground underneath.

Then, on the way from here to there,
the humming of the wheels slowed down once more,
the exhaust pipe coughed (one hundred times over)
and we pulled over to the curb
for the boarding of a solitary figure.

Sneakers, jeans and a work day’s worth of exhaustion
draped over the wilting collar she wore around her neck;
no seat for you, ma’am, no room here for you.
All around, safe in our own space,
we had eyes only for the nicotine stains,
the unwashed smell hanging heavy in the air and the extra
flesh around the middle.

No one else moved.
No one else smiled.
No one else saw.

Except for you, old quavery man.

You cleared your throat, chivalry trapped in asthmatic lungs.
You shifted your weight, rattle-boned, and then
you slowly stood to join her,
flat-footed,
in the swaying isolation of the aisle.

“Here, miss,” a gentle tap on slumped shoulder.
“Sit here.” Pointing behind to the fabric-covered resting place
working man had waited for and earned by means of
silent patience only the weary and the aged truly display.
“There’s a seat for you here.”

It’s Time for a New Mantra.

Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
– wendell berry

Well Run Dry.

“My first love? Well, I was in love with a man once.
He turned out to be kin to me.
When I found that out — well. I just ’bout went through the wall.
I don’t care what nobody says.
You gotta know who your kin are or your chirren will be ill-formed.
See, I was going down there, pretendin’ to go visit his sister,
but I wasn’t visitin’ no sister! No, ma’am. We was real close, him and I.
Turns out, after some time,
same day I was fixin’ to seduce him, that’s right, his mama said to me,
Donnie, chil’, who your mama? And when I tol’ her, she said,
Why, that make you and Kenny kin! Ya’ll third-cousins.
She didn’t understand none when I said, Thanks, ma’am, but I can’t stay,
when she asked me for dinner.
And, you see, I ain’t never gone down there no more after that.
That just ’bout broke my heart.
You know what they say, mhmm,
you don’t miss the water
’til the well runs dry and you don’t miss your baby
’til he says good-bye.”

- – recorded porch conversation with 73-year old neighbor
(29 october 2011)

Lord Jesus Christ, Have Mercy on Me.

“The part that stumps me, really stumps me, is that I can’t see why anybody – unless he was a child, or an angel, or a lucky simpleton like the pilgrim – would event want to say the prayer to a Jesus who was the least bit different from the way he looks and sounds in the New Testament. My God! He’s only the most intelligent man in the Bible, that’s all! Who isn’t he heads and shoulders over? Who? Both Testaments are full of pundits, prophets, disciples, favorite sons, Solomons, Isaiahs, Davids, Pauls – but, my God, who beside Jesus really knew which end was up? Nobody. Not Moses. Don’t tell me Moses. He was a nice man, and he kept in beautiful touch with his God, and all that – but that’s exactly the point. He had to keep in touch. Jesus realized there is no separation from God.” Zooey here clapped his hands together – only once, and not loud, and very probably in spite of himself. His hands were refolded across his chest almost, as it were, before the clap was out.

“Oh, my God, what a mind!” he said. “Who else, for example, would have kept his mouth shut when Pilate asked for an explanation? Not Solomon. Don’t say Solomon. Solomon would have had a few pithy words for the occasion. I’m not sure Socrates wouldn’t have, for that matter. Crito, or somebody, would have managed to pull him aside just long enough to get a couple of well-chosen words for the record. But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible beside Jesus knew – knew - that we’re carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we’re all too goddam stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look? You have to be a son of God to know that kind of stuff…

When you don’t see Jesus exactly for what he was, you miss the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. If you don’t understand his prayer – you don’t get the prayer at all, you just get some kind of organized cant… if God had wanted somebody with St. Francis’s consistently winning personality for the job in the New Testament, he’d've picked him, you can be sure. As it was, he picked the best, the smartest, the most loving, the least sentimental, the most unimitative master he could possibly have picked. And when you miss seeing that, I swear to you, you’re missing the whole point of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has one aim, and one aim only: to endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness.”
- – J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

It Was the End of the Week.

It’s good to see the balance in things.

Sometimes my eye catches on the barred windows of a giant blue and white bus with the logo “Harris County Jail” emblazoned on both sides, on the hole taking over the rear right jeans pocket of the old man crossing the street, and on the single file commute of text-ers and headphone-wearers blankly crossing the UHDH parking lot — and it’s heavy. Soul-heavy.

But then — toting one suitcase on wheels, one giant handbag, a leopard print layer skirt, a Minny Mouse hoodie, stained velour socks, not-quite-white-anymore ballet flats, a faux fur overcoat with the arms cut off, a peach headwrap and round tortoiseshell glasses — hope comes laughing off the street, overflowing with chatter about absentminded Mondays.

The one does not negate the other. The wrong does not disappear in the face of the good. The joy does not abate in the midst of grief.

Balance.

(All photos taken during the 2nd full week of November)

It’s Mostly Between the Lines.

When I first walked into the auditorium to help set up for our organization’s largest annual fundraiser this past Sunday, my only thoughts were focused on pay stations, table numbers, place settings, credit card lines run through iPads and PowerPoint presentations. I vaguely remember someone mentioning something about the silent auction that would be taking place before everyone went home at the end of the night but really thought little of it.

That is, until I saw this:

Close-up of the Quilt
(blurriness attributed to my camera phone)

As my closest friends would hopefully attest, I’m not a big spender. I would rather invest in time and relationships than in a wardrobe or a perfectly stocked kitchen — the currency I tend to spend most extravagantly is that of meaningful conversation, shared laughter and dreaming, and homemade meals. (Well, OK, it should probably be acknowledged that my thrifty ways disappear in a musty blink of the eye as soon as I step foot into the chaotic, inky, poorly lit, crazily full, paper-lined, shelving spaces of used bookstores… but that’s a thought for another day).

Every now and then again in a blue moon setting, however, I stumble across a heart-treasure and fall desperately in love in less than the time it took me to write this sentence.

This 100+ year old quilt, revitalized puff squares displayed above, is one such case of sheer infatuation. Passed down through three generations of family members, the donated auction item was a beacon of creativity, color and legacy in a spread of newer and glitzier possibilities — ornaments, gift certificates, DVDs, stuffed animals, golf clubs and the like. I held my breath and tiptoed over to peer down at the paper next to the quilt, pencil poised at the top of the sheet waiting for bid names and numbers to fill the blank expanse. Exhaling when I realized the starting bid was the total sum of my monthly spending budget (granted, $100 is ridiculously low sum, especially for such an heirloom, but the decision to plunk down the entirety of your wallet’s content for the month is not a light endeavor), I snuck another look at the colorful patches, reached out a finger to glance over their textured fabrics, and then turned back and wrote the three numbers down in a confident hand.

For the following 2 and a half hours — seriously, this was the longest and most drawn-out silent auction I’ve ever attended — pins and needles and sweaty palms reigned. Every time a curious and undoubtedly more affluent bidder wandered over near the general proximity of what I had already deemed to be my quilt, I crossed my fingers and willed them to keep walking with all the hope and limited pennies I carried with me. O, I was a ridiculous sight to behold, I’m sure.

Well, one auction, one money transfer and one dumbfounded bid winner later, the quilt went home with me. I’m still not sure how or why no one outbid me but… the love is deep.

(Umm. Yes. I emailed the lady who donated the quilt to the auction
in the hopes of learning more of the story behind it,
and below is her response. How fabulously whimsical is this?)

I am 53 and my grandfather, if he were alive, would have been around 105.  His uncle Fred was married to my Aunt Agnes.    I remember going to Aunt Agnes’ funeral when I was about 5.  My first funeral.  Uncle Fred lived until the 1970s, I believe. Anyway, that was their quilt. 
Stories I have heard is they were very, very good people, super duper in love and very well off.  They had a beautiful home over near Rice University  and I remember going there and seeing the stairs with one of those little chairs that went up and down for you to ride on!!!!    They never had any children so my grandpa, who was their nephew, was like their child.
There was another niece also. My grandfather actually died before Uncle Fred and he (Uncle Fred) was so kind  that he gave my grandmother my grandfather’s part of the estate and tons of furniture and jewerly, etc, which I thought was nice.   Anyways, I always think of the love stories that went with these two people. My Uncle Fred never remarried after his beloved wife died.

Now for the quilt. 

That was in the things that my grandmother got and of course then I got. When we got it, the back parts were rotton and a lot of the “puffs” were either gone or torn. We had a special lady, Connie, that lived with us to take care of my grandmother and one day she said, “what is this old thing?”  I told her and the next thing I knew, Connie was putting a brand new green back on the quilt and repaired all of it.   We even washed it and air dryed it.

Well, this past year, my husband and I just sold our big house and moved into a townhome in houston for a second home  (we actually live in the hill country most of the year) and I thought to myself,
you know, someone needs this quilt that will love it
and appreciate it instead of it being stuck in my closet.
I’m so glad it is you.
Enjoy and God Bless.

Repletos de Gracias.

Chalk art at downtown Houston’s annual street art festival, Via Colori
20 November 2011

How Jesus, at the Last Supper,
showed us how to transfigure all things –
taking the pain that is given,
giving thanks for it,
and transforming it into a joy
that fulfills all emptiness.
Grace, gratitude, joy:
eucharisteo.
– Ann Voskamp

Take it to the Streets.

Sometimes I get the chance to experience a new side of this city
and I fall a little more in love.
I mean, an entire series of downtown blocks barricaded off
so that kids, grown-ups and octogenarians alike
can revel in the sheer messy beauty of vibrant chalk art
on an unusually mild and windy Houston afternoon?
What’s there not to love?
I ask you.

Take One: Thanksgiving.

All it takes is
an empty lot across from a neighbor’s porch,
a borrowed steak knife
and a spool of twine
to transform a waving sea of
wild grass — purple, green and hazy all at once –
into an upside down handful of
welcoming
next to the lintel of the door.
Enter here.

Hope to Come.

*All names herein changed to protect the privacy of others

I was reflecting over the weekend about Advent and the interruption of a world’s day to day turnings. About Emmanuel, God not just for us but with us, and about this idea of expectancy — hope on the cusp of realization.

Then I sat in the middle of my 93-year old neighbor’s poorly lit kitchen floor, watching Mother Henry’s arthritic hands shake and smooth, over and over in restless patterns, the crumpled and unwashed fabric of her midnight-blue housedress. A giant knob shone purple and black on her forehead in stark contrast to the wispy spirals of her cotton-white hair, the twists and braids springing every which way. Sounds of rain on the street outside mixed with the fuzzy sounds of a radio upstairs and yet, while some small part of my mind noted these details, every nerve in my body was completely attuned to the story being recounted.

The night before, Mother Henry shared with a heightened edge of emotion behind her typical age-induced rasp, several men forced their crack-dazed and violent way into the apartment.  It is no secret to anyone that the longtime figure of nurturing motherhood and charismatic faith  in our community always leaves her door open without a key or a bolt to secure it shut. In a matter of moments, the men — acquaintances of her dope-dealing grandson — had torn out every single door knob in the small place, thrown furniture across rooms and turned personal belongings upside down in their desperate ransacking. “They forced me down on the kitchen floor,” my elderly neighbor recalled in all too vivid terms, “pinning my arms behind me like this (related with accompanying motion) and repeating over and over, Where’s the money? Where’s the money?” She paused and then, for the first time in the past 20 minutes of relaying the evening’s horror, tears began gathering in the corners of her eyes. I barely noticed as my own cheeks became wet in tandem with her wrinkled ones.

“I wasn’t afraid for me, no, I knew if the Lord said my time was up, the only harm they could do was to my body. I knew that those evil men could nothing to my soul — but my babies, oh, my babies!” Mother Henry gestured to her two great-granddaughters, both under the age of 4, who were nestled against me and my housemate. From their wide eyes, silent mouths and restless fingers, it was clear they were reliving the fear and drama along with their inimitable caretaker. “Stefani woke up in the middle of them dragging me by my hair across the kitchen floor,” Mother Henry continued, “and, oh, she started to screaming. Maw-maw? Maw-maw! What’s goin’ on? What’s wrong? Don’t hurt my maw-maw! Those men, they let me go long enough to pick her up and throw her little body into the room next over. You don’t make one more sound, they threatened her, or else we gonna kill you maw-maw ‘fore we kill you. Quiet that hollering, now, you hear? And she did just that. She didn’t say another word until help arrived. And me, I said, I just said, You can do what you want to me but don’t do nothing to my babies.”

I cradled Stefani on my shoulder, pressing her against my own erratic heartbeat as if I could transfer this immeasurable love and sorrow welling up inside as a tangible offering of assurance to the tiny, wide-eyed toddler. “I bet you were real scared, huh, sweetie?” Stefani nodded in silent agreement and then began whispering her account of the night into my ear while Mother Henry went on to talk about the missing grandson who finally showed up and fought the intruders off before taking the neighborhood’s matriarch to Ben Taub. The sense of unreality I was feeling was only heightened by the 3-year old’s complex vocabulary and easy communication skills. Still in hushed tones, she told me about the height of the men, the whimpering sounds their pet chihuahua made, the sound of the door as it was being broken in and even about the “a’bulance” that came to pick her Maw-Maw up and take her to the “hos’tal.”

What do you say in the face of such unexpected courage in both the very young and the very old? Where do you look for that sense of hope and redemption in the midst of such tangible wrongdoing? I tell you the truth when I say I did not know how to respond. I was struck dumb with emotion: outrage, shock, grief, relief, thanksgiving… all of these and more.

“Stefani,” I finally whispered back once the stream of her words flying into my ear started to slow down before stopping altogether, “Those men were evil and what they did to you and Maw-Maw was wrong — but you were so brave and I’m so proud of you. You know that, right?” She nodded. I swallowed. She swallowed. And then we sat in hand-fast silence on the kitchen floor.

Forgive us, Father, for we know (not) what we do.