Going deep with Court

She stares at me, fiercely, every day at work.  She ran the War Office of Tennessee.  Truth be told, she was a ‘Rosie the Riveter’ but. She stayed. Her best friend and her decided now that They had made it into the workforce, they weren’t going home. I stare at that tiny woman with a BOSS face, And I am steeled for my next meeting. She was my grandmother. She was a professor at UT and now retired. No. Scratch that. She just died. And I’m still painfully reminded Because I honestly, weirdly, thought she would live forever. Her scientist background convinced me that she would tick Right past the nineties and live well into the hundreds.  So many ‘remedies’ for this and that, God love her, it mostly worked. I want to live to 90-something. She was my friend, and I miss her already. She was mother, she is sister, she is daughter, she is friend. She flies. She fights. She is fierce. And because she flew the heights  And fought the fights And fiercely did what used to only ...

Years ago my older brother texted me some random texts and the last one referenced some drama. At the time I didn’t want to deal with it so I deleted it. A few months later I got the call he was sick and in the hospital, and when I got there I realized he was dying. I said my goodbyes. I frantically checked my phone, hoping the text message was still in the trash can, but no. It was not.  I have pictures of him still and while I am pretty much forgetting his voice by now over these last five years I have often thought about that text message and kicking myself for not saving it before deleting it.  Then. I was going through my email looking for an old piece of writing and I see the email header “Text from Jared.” Y’all. My heart was in my ears as I opened this thing. I would post it but the ‘drama’ is not all my business so you’ll just have to trust me that I found it, it was so meaningful, and I weeped as I read it again and again. Especially the beginning: “I love you, and m...

I can’t explain it. Why I obsess over certain things at certain times. Sometimes it’s a whole movie. Often it’s a song. Right now it’s Tusk by Fleetwood Mac. I think I’ve managed to watch every version from the original video to the 1997 concert with UMC marching band, to the UMC marching band’s version - ok the first version was focused on cheerleaders who looked like my daughter’s age dancing in ways that made me cringe so I just listened- anyway I love the whole blasted and wild thing. The drum beats at the beginning to the wild trumpets and entire freaking marching band. And all that raucous yelling. Depends on if my family is home if I join in. With the raucous yelling. Ok sometimes I make sounds with my mouth like I am a trumpet. Don’t judge. Don’t you just wanna live your best life and be a little trumpet sometimes? Mostly though, it is all the rhythmic pounding of the drums.  I have a friend who plays drums. Actually she plays everything, like she could probably record h...

Breathes are holy things. The ins and outs are deeper, you know. It’s a settling forward and deeper even A tunneling down into the   Marrow of things. Or the quieting of the soul Can accomplish the same thing. Settling into something greater Truer. More. You.   To where you will get your answers  My friend. 

My church has an in-house theologian. He says these things that make me go: huh. So you really ‘earn’ that theology bit don’t ya? (And part of me wonders if he feels it is a tad exhausting to have us lay-people attribute such deep meaning to everything he says, if some days he is all: I just want to eat a chocolate donut and not have it ‘mean’ anything.) We are doing a series on prayer and he was talking about different traditions and postures he had taken towards prayer when he said: “It’s the fingers and the toes and all of it..” and I think what he was saying was that not only is it important to express yourself physically- however you think best- i.e. if you feel it necessary to actually kneel then go ahead and do so, but that it was also a lining up of your very holy soul with what it is your mind and body are doing. And there’s the rub. The ‘how do you do that,’ or the sausage-making bit of praying.  The discussion went on to what are people’s expectations of prayer and thi...

soft and slow, steady and here this time, this joy, this gift of life my child you came crashing into a world that i scarcely believed by and by, all things become new beats of another world spun to your little face, steady gazing up how did you get stuck being mine I will be brave for you my children