Torn Between Earth And Heaven

 

I died last night.

I was led Home by Ofhi Tobi, the white dog who is the guide of Barb's people, the Chickasaw.

Heaven is a lot like where I am now. A double wide on a desert mesa. There were dogs, and a horse named Cinnamon, and neighbours shooting off guns for the sheer joy of it. Someone brought a Carl Gustav.

There were angels. I asked one, a black man with a shaved head, "What the hell is going on?"

He replied, "That's the best question anyone's ever asked, on coming here."

I said that it all seemed so real, unlike any dream.

"That's because it is real."

My body kept trying to come back to this life, and I was torn between here and Eternity.

I don't know how many times I came back to this place, and then bounced back to Heaven.

Finally all became still, and I was breathing Earthly air. Very shaky.

Since then I can't stop crying. I don't know why. It's neither sorrow nor joy, so far as I can tell.

I can't write a sonnet right now. This had been overwhelming.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is EXPLAIN.

I can't explain the tears, and I don't want to try.

I do want to explain to you that this is, not WAS, a reality. A place beyond dreams, more real than Earthly life itself.

But how do I describe the sounds and smells and touch that are never found in dreams, and are heightened far beyond what one experiences in this world?

Words fail, here.

I just want you to know that hope is affirmed, and I don't know how.

Sylvia is glad I'm back.

How Not To Treat A Spouse (Tell His Story)

 In Vietnamese culture, one is enjoined to treat one's spouse as an honoured guest.

Well, today I didn't do that.

Precious ChiWeenie, all eight pounds of him pictured above, got off the property, and I was horrified. I can't chase a runaway dog; I can barely walk.

I called Barb at work and was really dreadfully rude. I was angry with myself for inadequately supervising the little guy, and took it out on her.

That's inexcusable.

She came home to help look, and as she pulled up to the gate, guess who was waiting for her? Yes, Precious.

The bad feelings have, for Barb, passed. She wasn't pleased with my behaviour, but understood it.

I will eventually forgive myself, but I will be watchful of my thoughts and words, more so, for now on.

And Precious will be walking on a leash for awhile.

Sylvia says, c'mon, Dad! He knows where he lives, and he proved it.

And I bit you once, when the ice cream didn't come fast enough. I got over it.

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The Subtle Danger Of Fiction

I was never that much of a fan of fiction (though I do have two novels published on Kindle, with the kind help of Carol Ashby), but recently a friend prevailed upon me to give Tom Clancy a try.

And he's good. The stories are well-thought-out, interweaving plot lines leading to a climax that is satisfying, tying up each loose end, except for some that are meant for the next book in its sequence.

But...life isn't like that, at least from the perspective of we who live ours.

Things start and stop, and leave a wake that is a question-mark on our time here.

Ordinarily, that's fine, and the purpose of reading fiction, beyond entertainment, is to try to see a kind of order, God's purpose writ small by a human author, if you will.

But sometimes we're past that, and we're dealing with the tag-ends of a life that no longer seems to be capable of following a plan, and we may therefore feel that something's gone very wrong, something that can't be fixed.

The stories become more real than our own, and better than our own.

And we feel like driftwood on the stormy wave.

And here, though it's hard, we have to fall back on God's ways not being our ways, His thoughts not being our thoughts.

Antoine de St. Exupéry said it well in Polite de Guerre (published in English as Flight to Arras):

We are individual stones in a mighty edifice, whose completed design we shall need more time and more peace to see in its proper perspective.

Our stories seem to have no arc,

no plot-line with its steady flow.

We wander sometimes the dark

through a land we do not know,

ushered onward by a fate 

sightless as Mr. Magoo,

pushing hard on every gate

which we must pull, that we go through.

But we may, in the dark of night,

when pain and fear cut to the bone,

catch the bright and fleeting sight

of Purpose beyond our own

that in time we will stand among

the heirs to Our Lord's Kingdom Come.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is THRILL.

Tom Clancy's books can be a thrill

(they're techno-thrillers, after all!),

a ride down a Death Mountain hill

into what seems a solid wall

of danger and of dreadful fate,

with pain and loss along the way,

and just before it seems too late

the hero comes to save the day,

which, when it is given thought,

is like our Christianity.

Our putrid sins, they really ought

to damn us for eternity,

but in our place the Saviour stands,

His death to place us in God's hands.

Sylvia sometimes thinks she is fortunate that she can't read.

Mr. Toad Tells His Story

 We had a terrific thunderstorm over Saturday night, and then, before dawn, a visitor.

Can you tell me, Mr. Toad,

just where do your kind reside

when the waters have not flowed;

just where do you hide?

To the river it's a mile,

up the mesa it's four hundred feet,

so tell me, and we'll share a smile...

just how do we meet?

The Toad, he seems to meet my eyes,

but Ribbit's all he says.

Something 'bout him does look wise,

and as I hold his gaze

I find that there is wonder here

as clouds pass and the stars appear.

Sylvia tried to eat a toad. The toad was offended, and hopped away hissing, and Sylvia figured she'd stick to ice cream.

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Peace Train

 With the world seeming to go nuts, it feels kinda funny to write about my dealing with cancer. A bit like navel-gazing.

There's nothing constructive I can really do, save trying to write something positive, and hope that these word-ripples survive their trip across the water, and wash some distant shore.

'Agree to disagree' was fine,

at least that's how it seemed to me,

but now it's like we crossed a line,

and you're evil if you don't agree 

with the right or with the left

to love or madly loathe this nation,

but can't we see we're warp and weft,

the tapestry of God's Creation?

I think if we would just step back

and look at our foes with new eyes

we might regain something we lack,

and find out, that, to our surprise,

those we'd throw beneath the bus

are an awful lot like us.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is SPARK.

Lord, please let me be a spark

to light a golden flame

to banish demons of the dark,

to light Your Holy Name.

Lord, let me be a man of peace

'till my life's at an end.

Let the pride in my heart cease,

to see a potential friend

in all those whose paths might cross

mine as I walk my days,

for missing this would be a loss,

and so please make my ways

straight unto the barren hill

where sacrifice is measured still.

Maybe this is appropriate music to add, Cat Stevens' Peace Train.

Sylvia refuses to hate, though she still chases lizards.

Kintsugi (Tell His Story)

 Have you heard of kintsugi?

It's the art of repairing cracked pottery and ceramics with powdered gold or silver, mixed with lacquer.

Each repair is unique. The damage becomes part of the beauty.

It does take time and care.

Sylvia understands. We found her dying in a summer field. It took awhile for her to thrive.

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Sitting

Barb took this picture on leaving for work the other day.

I'm writing this at the end of a very long night of severely worse metastatic pain in my right femur. Sleep wasn't possible, and I was too tired to read or scroll Facebook (which I don't do), or even think.

But I had to be present for the pain, and let it go on as it would (I don't have painkillers).

I wish there were some epiphany connected with this, some great knowing suddenly revealed...but it was just pain, and I had to be here.

But maybe that IS the epiphany, that it's ok to just sit with a hard experience, not trying to distract, or make it go away.

Reminds me of a song I love, Cat Stevens' Sitting.

The night crawls by on turtle feet,

and there's nothing in my brain

except to know that I must meet

and sit here with the pain

that burns within my thinning leg

like a freshly broken bone,

but I know better than to beg

for relief; I'm not alone.

The Lord is with me, and His face 

is turned to me in full.

The stars above reflect His grace,

and I can feel the pull,

upward, through the darkling sky,

and I am not afraid to die.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is AFFECTION.

I have affection for my life,

dogs and uke and aeroplanes, too,

and Jesus Christ and my dear wife,

so I guess I will stay true 

to the principle of living

every day as best I can,

taking less than I am giving;

that's what it means to be a man

in these days of grinding pain,

my own and that of this great nation,

and so for now I will refrain

from worry 'bout either situation 

letting peace and love take wing 

in every single song I sing.

Sylvia's not afraid either, 'cause she knows there's ice cream in Heaven.