May 23, 2008
And Here
Mushkpuri Top
Originally uploaded by Aawara.
Even in the sunshine, though, the mountains are achingly beautiful. The wide open spaces (on less hazy days one can see snow capped peaks in the background here) create a different kind of longing, a lonely, yet joyful one. Can't really explain. In April or May of my junior year, we camped on this mountain, very near where this picture was taken. There was snow on the far peak and it was freezing. We did go sledding on our plastic ground sheets, though. This mountan is Mushkpuri.
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January 5, 2008
:( one week ):
In the photo below, taken shortly after midnight on New Year's morning, my hand is covering the flash, creating a sort of faded out effect, which is an apt enough symbol, I suppose, for how I am beginning to feel that my relationship with the man at the center of the picture will soon become, not because any failing in friendship, but because he will be on the other side of the world in Nepal, and not a firm and solid friend just down the street, perhaps available for a cup of tea and a chat. Watching your friends dreams come true can be hard to stomach sometimes, when it means that distance, situational, spacial, interposes itself and changes your relationship. That is the way of the world, though, and I continually need to be reminded that that can be a very good thing. I don't like change much, I'm afraid. On the flip side there is something in the sorrow of parting that, oddly, is a helpful reminder of eternity, when goodbyes, I imagine, are not a necessity. There was an old CCM song that went "Heaven is a long hello." I like that. And because Jesse is going to Nepal to minister to street kids and show them God's love that is cause not for the sad faces of the title but:
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
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November 28, 2007
Three Rosebushes, One Rose
I was talking to my friend Tanya the other day and told her that I could not remember whether my mother was a sensitive person when it came to figuring out how people might be feeling and ministering to their emotional needs or not. I do know that she certainly quickly came to know what sort of physical needs that people had, and if it was within her power to meet them in a way that would be beneficial to the person, she would readily do it, often sacrifically.
That does not have much to do with the picture below, but it was interesting to me, nonetheless, to think about. This picture was taken I think at Christmas in 1983 when my brother Virgil was visiting from America. We each gave my mother a rosebush for Christmas, which is what she really wanted. OK, and my mother did have her unconventional theories. She brought some placentas home from the hospital and, American Indian fashion (only they used dead fish with corn), had our gardener place them next to the roots of bushes as he planted them. She must have either read that it was a tradition in some place or just thought scientifically that it would work as fertilizer. It is a bit weird to write that out, but it was not nearly as weird as it seems, if you knew my mother.
Incidently, after she died she received an award from the Pakistani government for her service to the country in delivering over a thousand babies, or something like that. At any rate, she delivered a lot of babies and stepped out when she was assisting in the OR to give her own blood when a patients relatives weren't being cooperative and would often pay patients bills on her own and tried to hook up couples who wanted babies with babies who needed parents and a dozen other things.
I was talking to my Aunt Carolyn, my mom's sister-in-law, the other day at Thanksgiving, that is hard to talk to people about a relative who was rather extraordinary, because they will be, yeah, right, she was your mother. I am not even sure why I am doing this blog post at this time, other than Thanksgiving is the time when I miss my mother the most, with Christmas being a close second. Well, perhaps it is to let you vicariously know, even if only a very little, a rather extraordinary person who just happened to be my mother.
Oh, and a little note on our attire. I don't think that stain on Adrian's oh-so-sexily-opened shirt is a curry stain from the meatball or chicken curry we inavariably would have eaten that day, but rather a flaw in the photograph. Yeah, I'd like to show this picture to his congregation. Stud pastor. Oh, and my shirt, with the poofy sleeves and long collar? I loved that shirt. I bet I could get some money for that shirt at Rag-o-Rama.
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December 22, 2006
Perhaps a Bit of a Momma's Boy...
...but in the best possible sense. I am on vacation at my brother and sister-in-law's house in San Antonio and found these today. I especially like the one below, because my brother Adrian (the one with the vinyl SAS bag which would be so hip today) has such a big smile on his face. See they got us into cameras at an early age as is evidenced by my eldest brother Virgil wearing one.
My mother was a saint in the protestant sense, perhaps a saint in the Catholic sense (she was incredibly charitable, though I don't think she performed any real miracles), but definitely a saint in the proverbial sense, not the least reason being because she travelled numerous times from Pakistan to America and back with three little boys (my father needed to stay in Pakistan for his work).
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September 4, 2006
Sadness
I was rather surprised how sad this news story made me feel. I was not even a huge fan of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, and my strong response may be more a function of having been down for the last few weeks or so, but I think it also has to do with hearing about someone with such vitality and eagerness who has a wife and two small children being cut down in the prime of his life. I don't know if Steve was doing something ill-advised or not, but that is immatererial for the sadness that this causes.
I am doing a Bible study for house church this week on the topic of "sadness." I have not really looked at yet, so I don't have much to say about it particularly. In some preliminary thinking though I have been thinking about some questions about sadness. Can presistent sadness be sinful (like mourning as those who have no hope)? If so, when does that crossover occur? Does this differ between sadness over the loss of a loved one and sadness over disappointment about how life has gone for you? If sadness can be a sinful choice, what are the contours of healthy Biblical sadness and recovery from it?
Big questions. Please comment if you like. I may do a post with some of my thoughts post Bible study preparation and discussion. Oh, and if you do, do pray for Steve's family, and, more personally and presistently, pray for someone you know who is sad.
Finally, a verse that stuck out to me from the hymn "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" at church this morning that seems pertinent here, which illustrates the awe and comfort of God ordering all things (even tempests) and being everpresent as we experience life.
There’s not a plant or flower below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God art present there.
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April 13, 2006
For Good Friday and Easter
Here is an old-school poem of mine and a reflection. I think I might have had Sandi Patty's "Was it a Morning Like This" in my mind when I wrote this or Calvin Miller's The Singer. Old school, indeed. The language (including the sexist "men") and meter are archaic. The sentiment still rings true.
He Is
The one who hangs in dark and rain
With wounds cut deep from scorn and hate
Looks up in love through tears of pain
To softly plead "Forgive.."
The grave mocks bold, "His life was vain!"
The Anointed One in death lies still
Cold walls chant deep the dirge refrain
That echoes back "Despair
The Sabbath sun on sorrow sets
And hearts of love bleed still in pain
His promise drowned by Death's damned voice,
"The temple razed, will rise again.."
The garden bathes in dew for dawn
But what of dawn when hope is dead
The author of the morning song
Lies silent, cold in walls of stone.
But be still,
There is a noise,
A crisp clear note that rings in song
The melody now peals out loud
Crescendo of the voice of God
To resurrect and shake the ground.
Who once sang out in timeless void
To fashion naught and bring forth being
Sings strong again creation's song
Restoring Love to human form
The promise made was not vain
The temple razed, is built again.
Rejoice O men the and join the song.
Joy has risen to embrace the morn.
The Holy One who formed the earth
Died for man and rose again
Yesterday, today, forever,
HE IS
_____________________________________
Tis mystery all! The immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more
So penned Charles Wesley about the mystery of the atonement. "Tis mystery all! The immortal dies." The immortal dies! Once again we are met with one of the paradoxes at the heart of Christianity. And at the heart of the atonement another paradox lies closely related, the working of the Trinity. We see God working throughout history from the creation of the universe through the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus to the end of time in terms of Trinity. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews described the mystery in as clear terms as possible writing, "How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!" The book of Revelation speaks of the throne of God and of the Lamb as being one throne. Paradoxes do not prove that Christianity is false, but only show that there is truth beyond the comprehension of our temporal minds.
Getting back to the atonement, our language must be careful in describing what the mind cannot comprehend, but quite simply what occurs at the cross is God taking on Himself the punishment we deserve. It is the eternal God, stooping low so that we could be lifted to life with him. Really, then, what our focus should be on is the second exclamation in the Wesley stanza above, "Tis mercy all!," for we may never understand all the mysteries but we can surely understand the grace and mercy offered to us in that wondrous, loving act of God.
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January 27, 2006
From the Vault II
Alumnus Yearning
O for a cup of chai
O for the mountain pines
O for the fellowship swee
A moment in space and time is gone
But love of friends
And love of Christ
Live on.
_____________________________________
Commentary from Ache for Eternity is in the comments.
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January 26, 2006
Two From the Vault
7/23, a fractional accounting of sorrow*
(reflection and epitaph)
a sabbath cycle sets this year, mom
and me 23
that means that come this time in a year
a third of my life will have gone by
without you
and slowly it goes on
the gradual slide to accept as commonplace
the thought that chilled with horror
my cozy childhood heart; me alive
without you
and so it will go on
until God moves His hand
in countless moments of joy and pain
the sun and rain will weather me
without you
------------------------------------------
God, please let the mantle fall
of one who loved you well
and let me live like her
as she sought to live like you
and pierce and punctuate
the busy fabric of my life
with memory
infinity lite
i like the stars at dusk
one or two
that nestle in the blue
of a slowly darkening sky
as if they too
were only mirrors
like the moon
and hung within the tether range of earth
__________________________________________________
*The current fraction? 19/36, over half a life. Commentary from Ache for Eternity on both poems is in the comments.
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October 26, 2004
Two On Lust
A Stand Alone Piece and one from AFE.
__________________________
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October 20, 2004
7/23
It is perhaps odd to name a poem with a fraction. At the time of its writing, though, this fraction struck me with great force. It had been 7 years since my mother had died, and I was 23. And, in one of those thousands of moments in which a sense of loss pierces the present, I realized, in some weird mathematics of grief and healing, that each year an ever greater fraction of my life would have been lived without my mother. The fraction now stands at 18/34. The following is from AFE.
7/23
a sabbath cycle sets this year, Mom
and me 23
that means that come this time in a year
a third of my life will have gone by without you
and slowly it goes on,
the gradual slide to accept as commonplace
the thought that chilled with horror my cozy childhood heart;
me alive without you
and till God moves His hand it will go on
in countless moments of joy and pain
the sun and rain will weather me without you
o God, please let the mantle fall
of one who loved you well
and let me live like her
as she sought to live like you
and pierce and punctuate
the busy fabric of my life
with memory
One of the earliest discipleship choices that sunk into my youthful mind was the call to love God above all else. How could I possibly love God more than Mommy and Daddy I wondered, feeling a little guilty about it all. In the mind of a child there is no more real love than the love of parents. It was their loving arms that were there to enfold us in warmth, to shut out night-time fears. It was them we clung to, burying our hot, tear-stained faces in their necks, when the world had hurt us. It is not surprising then that loving an invisible God more than tangible, warm-lapped parents can be difficult for a child.
God, I think, is not concerned. It is He after all who created both parents and children and crafted into their love the metaphor of His love toward all people. His love is the source and pattern for all parental love and of which any earthly love is but a reflection. As we grow we come to see this in its fullness and come to know and love our Heavenly Parent above all else.
The death of parent in late youth, though, still brings on those old suffocating fears. How will life ever be the same without Mom? How could it be the same? The answer is that it will never be the same. But, surprisingly, as time passes, grief and memories quietly eddy into the still backwaters of the soul and life settles again to placid existence, rippled only by the common worries of living. Until one day we think, "How? How, could I forget so easily? How can I be living with such a big piece of me missing?" And then comes the fervent cry for God to the move the waters of the soul, and swirl into life those beautiful divine metaphors of love and service embodied in Mom, and fill my heart with memories.
Posted by jackdas at 9:03 AM
October 15, 2004
Grandma's Hands
The following is from a little manuscript I put together about 10 years ago called Ache for Eternity: A Journey in Verse, a collection of my poems up until that time. Here on out it will simply be referred to as AFE.
Grandma's Hands
Grandma's hands were smooth and white
When I was a child.
And labored long at tasks untold
From dawn till well past setting sun,
And sometimes cuffed me into line
Along with words though stern, still kind
To make a young boy wise.
And when I'd grown
They'd labor still
Well into the night
With untold thimbled needle thrusts
Punctuating time.
But then they were but skin on bones
That wrinkled up in mine
As hand in hand we'd talk and sit;
I'd listen with delight,
To tales of life and love and woe
And watch those transparent hands in mine
And see the blood go coursing by.
Grandma's hands were smooth and white
When I was a child.
Grandma's are typically known for hugs and kisses and showers of love and favors. I imagine any Grandma worth her salt, though, should also be good at that tough love that won't over look correction when it is needed as well. My Mom's Mom was not typical in that first sense of being a fountain of smother love, but love ran deep instead, rarely expressed in a streaming out of affection, but always coursing in an unexpressed desire that my brothers and I grow up properly. She taught through example and by correction working hard and doing your duty was important in life.
You may have gathered that we spent quite bit of time with our Grandma. Coming home to America for furloughs with Daddy still working in Pakistan meant that Grandma did have some role in our formation. Her kind of loving then was more akin to the loving of a parent, which of necessity required that hard hand at times.
To be sure it wasn't by any means a hard hand all the time. Birthdays and Christmas always meant a gift of ten dollars for each of us in an expression of that practical, but yet so real love. And time worked in our love a sweet mellowing that flowed out in gentle affection when we were grown, for better or worse, and her work in us was done. And like her aging hands that showed every vein and tiny capillary through transparent skin, the deep love showed.
Posted by jackdas at 10:23 AM