News from the Great Beyond

I Had a Dream

In the early morning hours this morning, I dreamed - a dream so moving that it has stuck with me throughout the morning and inspired me to write it down, as best I can.

I was standing in the doorway of a church, looking north onto a battlefield that seemed huge, but at the same time so close I could reach out and touch each of the participants.

To the west, an army - American? I cannot say - lined up, prepared for battle.  Another group of soldiers, dressed differently, approached from the east and faced off with the first army.  Tensions mounted, the hatred and fear was almost palpable.  Then within the ranks of the soldiers on the west, there was a disturbance, and surging to the front came hundreds of individuals, also dressed in uniform, but bearing high the Christian flag.   To the east, a similar surge through their ranks, men and women carrying a standard that I did not recognize, but in my dream was under the impression was the flag of the Salvation Army.

The armies within the armies charged - I watched a man run headlong into the enemy's lines... and embrace his opponent.  Weapons were dropped.  Soldiers fell to their knees and wept.  The tension and hatred I had sensed at first melted away, and the field was enveloped in an aura of peace.

The armies that I had seen disappeared, and I sensed myself standing near the front of a small crowd within the church building.  Before the threshold of the building, another army began amassing - men and women in camouflage, carrying weapons.  Across the field to the north, I saw other soldiers assembling.  There was no shouting, no taunting... only deadly intent.

Suddenly I felt compelled to leave the safety of the sanctuary in which I stood.  I began to run out into the field of battle, vaguely aware that the others inside the church had joined me.  I pushed through the soldiers, who seemed to dissolve as I ran by.

I caught sight of a small child - a Hispanic boy, perhaps four years old, wearing nothing more than a pair of old shorts and barefoot in the grass - and rushed to him, taking him in my arms.  My one thought was that he did not belong on this battlefield, such a tender little one, so defenseless.   As I knelt before him, sheltering him with my body, he asked me in his tiny voice, in broken English if I knew the song "Jesus Loves Me."

As he and I raised our voices together in song, I awoke.

A poem-

Prodigal

I remember the sound of joyful noise
When I cried out your name,
The smell of your perfume;
The tears I shed
As I laid my head
At your feet.

I remember the smile on my face
As you spoke my name,
As if I was just hearing it
For the first time.

I remember,
Lord, do I remember,
Though your name rarely crosses
My lips anymore;
My eyes are dry,
And your fragrance,
A distant memory.

And the noise I hear now,
Are the voices,
The voices,
Coming at me from all directions,
From within
And without,
Deafening,
Deafening.

And yet,
And yet,
They do not drown out
What I remember
Of you;
That which has brought me,
Stumbling,
To your doorstep,
For another whiff of your perfume,
To hear you say my name,
To lay my head at your feet;
Because I’m afraid,
I might not remember
For long.

© 2009 Joseph Powell

An End, and a Beginning

Throughout this whole grieving process for me, in the back of my mind there has been a looming dread for one of my dearest friends.

You see, a couple of months before my life suddenly changed, I got an e-mail from my buddy Tom informing us that his seven year old son had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain stem tumor.  Hubby and I were aghast, but we followed the news on their CaringBridge site, and on Tom's personal blog, and we were so impressed with their strength, their maturity and faith. 

I never got to meet their Ian, and that I regret.  I prayed for them and waited with them as they tried an experimental treatment that bought them some time and some hope... and in recent months I've grieved for them as the news came that the tumor was growing again, aggressively, and Ian's time was growing short.

Last night I got a text from Tom that Ian has gone home to be with the Lord.

I don't know how many of my tears today are purely for them, and how many are mixed with my lingering personal grief.  I don't think it necessarily matters.   All in all, when it comes down to it, this sucks for both of us.

There's a song I don't much like, but still I've quoted here before (and I never thought I'd quote it once, ha!) - the relevant lyric today is "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

Time will tell what new beginning comes from this. 

I'll leave this post with a song (a common theme of mine lately)... This one I shamelessly yoinked from my friend Christi's blog.  She posted it in reference to a story she was preparing to tell about a devastating breakup in her past, but it spoke to me in my grief then, and it offers me hope today for all of us. 

Stuck in my head...

More from Tyrone...  I'll be picking up his new album "Remain" within the next week or two.

I'm Ready Now

Last summer, before... everything changed... Hubby and I were helping teach the middle school/junior high Sunday School class at our church.  We hadn't exactly volunteered for this duty, mind you - the children's ministry was short of volunteers already, and they were starting this new class to give those in between kids a place.  The ones who were too young for the high school youth group, the cool kids, but felt like the elementary school age curriculum was just too childish.  This group needed teachers, and the pastors decided that until more volunteers stepped forward, they would assign couples who were already in leadership or serving in other positions - worship leaders, deacons, ushers, etc. to cover the schedule.

We were somewhat put out that we'd been volunteered, but decided not to kick up a fuss and when we got our first lesson plan, we talked to the group's organizers to see what we were expected to do.  They told us to make it fun for the kids, toss out anything from the lesson plan that seemed too "childish", the lesson plan was to be a source of ideas if we didn't have anything else to work with.   Hubby and I put our heads together and decided that our niche, and the way we felt most comfortable teaching the kids, was acting.  So, we taught them improv comedy, and used improv games to help get the lessons across.  We loved it, and the kids loved it.

Fast forward to a month or two after... everything changed... and I was informed that the age group of the class I was still on the schedule for had been altered.  My junior high kids had been moved up to the Youth Ministry, and instead I'd be in with 4th, 5th and 6th graders. 

I should tell you that I'm not comfortable with most younger kids, especially in groups.  I don't have kids of my own, I was the youngest in our family until I was 21, and I'm not trained as a teacher.  Until my brother had kids - four of them, mind you - I wasn't ever around them - and even then, I was their aunt and occasional babysitter, I wasn't trying to teach them.  I tried to make sure they were fed, didn't kill each other, and went to bed at some point before their parents got home... and even then I was not always successful.  For me, attempting to communicate something to anyone under 12 years old, unless they're a very bright kid (like my nephew Noah), I'm pretty much at a loss.  My vocabulary isn't geared toward an under-8th-grade reading level.  I say things the way I say them, and if someone doesn't understand it the first time, 9 times out of 10 I can't think of another way to say it.  I'm just out of my element with elementary school kids.  Maintaining control and teaching a group of them is out of the question.

A couple of weeks ago our new youth directors - friends of mine from the worship team, who had just started coming to our church last summer when... everything changed... asked me if I'd be willing to help out with the youth.  My fun junior highers, the ones we bonded with, were there, and some of the older kids I'd spent some time with because either they or their parents were on the worship team.  I thought about it, and decided it would be good for me to get involved with these kids - to have someone to care about and maybe even mentor.  Hearing their heart for the youth of our church stirred up some things in me - it reminded me of what it was like to be their age, growing up in church with a handful of serious kids, but a lot of people who went only because their parents made them.  I wanted more than anything to help some of these kids get grounded enough to keep from turning away and leaving the church once they get out of their parents' house. 

Also, they'd asked me to consider heading up a drama team for them, and that sounded particularly fun, if a bit bittersweet.  Hubby would have loved to be part of this, and it breaks my heart that I'm doing it alone.

That said, last night I joined the group for the youth service and started the process of getting to know the rest of the kids.  During praise and worship, I joined in, but also kept my eyes open to see what we were dealing with.  Out of 17 kids, ranging in age from 12 to 18, I saw 5 or 6 who really worshipped, and a few more that knew the songs and sang along, but weren't really paying a lot of attention.

A Toast to the New Year

Here's to 2009.  May it be a damn sight better than last year.

Here's to friends and loved ones, and hope that things will look brighter each morning.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Or so the nursery rhyme says... It's nice to be back, sleeping in my own bed and being mauled by my affectionate cats again. 

I had a good trip, overall - definitely some emotional moments, including a few during a long night of talking with my friends Paul and Jennifer, who I hadn't gotten to catch up with in a good long time.  Life hasn't been fair to any of us this past year, but their sense of perspective is comforting and I love to be around them.  Too bad we're a thousand miles apart, eh?

In any event, I did some writing while I was gone, but was unable to post at the time - a poem and a long blog post that will be backdated to appear around the time I actually wrote them.  Look for them to be sandwiched in on December 21 and December 23, respectively.

The weather during my trip was bizarre to say the least - early in my visit, we hit 8 degrees Fahrenheit, then we had a day of freezing rain (absolute misery!), then a chilly (but above freezing) cloudy Christmas... and then the 26th and 27th a warm front hit us and it was in the 60's, nearly 70 degrees on the day I flew home, with thunderstorms and tornado watches all along the route. 

The weather at the airport was fine by the time I arrived, but our flight crew got delayed in Florida, so my flight was 1-1/2 hours behind, and as I'd chosen a later evening flight to begin with, I landed about midnight and it was nearly 2 AM by the time the shuttle van service got me home. 

That's probably part of the reason why I found this amusing enough to keep and scan - take a look at the warning note under the ingredients list on my bag of airline peanuts.

Can we say "Well DUH"?

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

I saved my favorite Christmas song for last.  This song, when properly arranged, never fails to give me chills. 

There are a ton of YouTube videos out there with just the album cover showing while the audio from a CD plays, and I think they're boring and have avoided them completely, but today I'm breaking that rule I set for myself because this version of the song has always fascinated me more than more traditional arrangements.

I have the cassette this came from, and it's a good one.  Gene Eugene was an extremely talented guy, taken too soon (like another very talented and much loved guy I'm remembering today)...  Close your eyes and enjoy his interpretation of O Come O Come Emmanuel.

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

OK, so no matter how joyous the season, it still hurts missing my darling hubby-head.  This song is a classic, and fitting for the day.

Musings... on the Unfound Door

Some of you, especially those who are not writers or poets, may be surprised when I say that at times, I don't fully see the meaning in the poems I write. 

At times I barely feel like I've written them - the words seem to spring from a deep, subconscious well, with very little conscious shaping.  The process of writing, for me at least, is somehow almost mystical.

I took a poetry writing class in college, which later I regretted.  The teacher wrote poetry, but at least from what I could tell of the way he taught, he did not have the soul of a poet.  He approached poetry from a very methodical perspective, teaching rules of construction (for if you do not know the rules, it's less meaningful when you break them) and the process of editing and re-editing to perfect the finished product.

For me, editing is internal as the poem is written.  My goal in writing is not so much for others to enjoy, but for myself, to take an image, an idea, an abstraction that is pressing me from deep within, and as perfectly as possible translate it to the written word.  As I write, phrases spring to mind, and I weigh them each as I go - does it feel "right"?  Does it belong here, or elsewhere within the poem?  Sometimes I don't know until I reach the right phrase how it will end, or what it will be called. 

Sometimes a word or phrase will come to me, and I hold it in my mind until the poem is finished, and read back through it to see where I might have missed its proper place.  When I am satisfied that the fullness of the poem has been put into words, I will look over it again to see if there is anything that does not ring true.  At times a specific word stands out as overused, or understated... I'll see a line break that is more of an interruption than an emphasis, or a thought that is not as clear as I had intended and could use another word or two for clarification.

But often, even when I am sure that all is exactly as I would have it, I do not fully understand the meaning of what I have written.  I do not sit and plan out my imagery and symbolism, but they find their way into my words nonetheless.  In my poetry class, I submitted several samples of my writing and was amused and amazed at the meanings others divined from own words.

The poem I wrote this week is no exception.  The phrase "the unfound door" sprang to mind about halfway through the writing, and I knew it belonged in the title, and when it worked its way into the body of the poem I knew it had found its ending point as well.  I didn't think deeply about the meaning, but this morning it revealed itself to me.

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

Fun to listen to and sing along with...

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

I'm making another exception for the non-professionally produced video thing, because the other version I wanted to use has disabled embedding, and this one, despite the shaky camera work, shows off the awesome light show that goes along with a live Trans-Siberian Orchestra performance.

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

I haven't been including videos that aren't professionally produced because most of them have such horrible quality it's hard to see and hear what's going on, and there have been a lot of really good options for most other songs.  This one, however, I wanted to use because this is hands down the best version of the song I could find on YouTube.

This song is scheduled for today in honor of Pastors Phil and John Nordstrom at Christ Community Church in Murphysboro, IL, who love the song and both do a pretty kickin' version themselves - I heard Pastor Phil's first, but Pastor John does it nearly every year as I understand it (including today).

Alone at the Unfound Door

It's so dark in here sometimes
Lonely and more than a little cold
I shiver with anticipation
of nothing
Either now or again

What hope is there for one
who has known this kind of love
and had it taken from her
to find anything further but a poor, pale substitute

And even then, it would be unfair
to hold another up to your memory
To the sweet, tender truth of you
Without time to tarnish your brightness
how could another hope to be anything to me
but the shadow of a love that yet may never die

Our flame burned bright and true
The warmth real and enduring
I never felt anything but cherished,
cared for and utterly accepted
I never felt that I needed to be anything
or anyone other that what I was

You were the one constant reminder in my life
that God was good to me
and all would be well as long as you were beside me
And now the hours stretch into endless dark nights
and unrelenting days and weeks
as time passes without you
and yet I remain, bewildered and bruised

While I cannot be so reckless as to be angry
with the God who gives and who takes away
Surely I am crushed beneath His hand
What was taken cannot be restored
And if this is mercy
I cannot hope to survive the judgment

Tried and found wanting
Wanting and found alone
Searching in vain for that unfound door

den 21 dec 08
for my one true love
who lingers in the shadows of the past

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

Short, but very sweet... I love the harmonies in this version of Silent Night - and there's something about Irish accents that I love (probably since I discovered U2 back in the 80s, heh).