Dusk in New Jersey

It's past seven o'clock but the sky is still bright. An airplane, surprisingly close, slides across blue-grey clouds whose bellies glow warmly, the color of summer apricots. Behind them, the sky is cornflower blue, shading imperceptibly into pale yellow as the eye travels down. The yellow ends abruptly in an unfamiliar horizon--a bank of clouds disguised as a mountain range. It reminds me of the mountains at home, of wooded foothills with mist rising off them as the sun slides into the Pacific.

But this isn't California, this is New Jersey. The trees silhouetted against the sunset are still starkly leafless. I am home alone (except for the rabbit, who is adorable but silent), and home is such a different place than it was a year ago. Has it really been eight whole months since I moved to this state? since I became half of a new household, a new family (a word I feel more justified in applying since we adopted a baby bunny)? since I married O. and changed my name?

Emotions change as swiftly and smoothly as the clouds shifting color as the sun sets. The apricot is gone out of the clouds now, they have all cooled to a smoky blue. The pale yellow has deepened subtly, producing a peach-like effect. Ah, summer and your fruits, how I miss you. Spring offers warmth, brilliant sunlight, soft blossoms, but moments later the wind whips itself up, and the sun flees. Clouds come and go. Today I have cried and then laughed as many times as the clouds have covered the sun and then parted. The night is young--darkness has not yet fallen, it lingers in the east and creeps nearer: how many more tears will fall from my eyes, before I fall into bed? and how many times will my lips curve in a smile, or a kiss, before sleep wraps me up?

Another airplane passes, and another, shadows now against a white sheet. The wind roars through the city. In the distance a contrail glows like a sideways candle. The peachy glow above the cloud-range dims, but magenta stripes--like lacerations--break through the blue of the false mountains. Behind them, the sun must be burning still, white hot, as it always is.

Hiding

I've been talking with a friend lately about his habit of hiding. Not answering the uncomfortable questions, avoiding work by reading things online, using chocolate as a quick-fix: hiding, hiding from the truth.

I confronted this friend about his hiding. I berated and exhorted him, I explained why it's harmful, what kind of priorities it reveals (self-worship, at the bottom: refusal to face the truth about one's self). It was a long conversation, and my friend went away chastised. I took for granted that I had the higher moral ground. Then the next day, I noticed myself hiding, exactly the way my friend does. There was an uncomfortable truth or several lurking under the surface of my consciousness, and I knew I ought to dig it up and give it up to the Lord of my soul, "who forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases" (Ps. 103:2). But I didn't want to.

I've been confronting this friend about a number of his bad psychospiritual habits, and I keep noticing the same tendencies in myself shortly after those conversations.

Honestly, it is so stinking hard not to hide. There are a million ways to do it. I hide my fear by being angry, or I hide my anger by being afraid. I hide my disagreement by asking questions instead of speaking out, or by not speaking at all. I hide from despair by doing "fun" things--watching T.V., reading books. I hide from all my feelings by doing "productive" things--assembling furniture, working on my resume, researching nutrition. I hide from O. by not answering his emails and text messages. I hide from feelings of disconnection by hugging him and ignoring my anger or sadness. I hide from the demands of my body (food! water! exercise!) by engaging my mind or my emotions; I hide from the demands of my emotions by feeding and indulging my body.

The trouble is, hiding from truth is hiding from God. This is folly. In the Garden, Adam and Eve, ashamed, refused to come when God called them. They deluded themselves into thinking He couldn't see them. I tell myself this is totally different from what I'm doing, but that too is a delusion. I keep avoiding truths, and the Truth. But what I really need, underneath it all and above it all and beyond it all, is the Truth: Jesus, the Way, the Truth, the Life.

"Surely You desire truth in the innermost parts." O my Lord, cleanse me. I pray in faith with the Psalmist: "Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:6, 7) O God, help.

Waters

[something I wrote a week or so ago and forgot to post]

Having breathed water into my lungs in the deeps, have I retreated, choking, to the shallows? So much writing, reflecting, weeping, last week. And this week? watching "Castle" and researching monarch butterflies, making multiple trips to the grocery store each day. But no, this week has been phone calls and emails, Skype and Facebook, dinner with the pastor, discussions of Nahum and Ruth, meeting new people. The water temperature has changed, but I am still treading water. My feet never touch the floor. But even if I tire, I will not drown. There are hands to hold me up, there is a voice to call my name and bring me back to life.

Now that the black sky is blowing even colder air at me, now that sleep is addling my brain, I am folded up under the bed again, wondering how you are again. My life has its frustrations (the demons of over-extension and the imps of unruly software), but you--

You live in the storm, amid the gathering ions. Static electricity shimmers in the air around you. Your shorn hair stands on end, and your fingertips flash and crackle. Soon the lightning will strike again, I fear. Yes, I fear for you, for the thunder that will shake your skeleton, the vibrations reverberating between your very vertebrae. I cannot protect you. You are soaring through the stratosphere; I am planted in the earth. I babble poetry while drama pours down on you. You are drenched. The water scintillates in the flashes of light, and I am dazzled. I cannot watch.

But I trust every storm subsides, someday. The clouds will cry themselves out, and the thunderheads will run out of words, and the wind will sigh instead of shrieking. As the air settles, you'll drift down to land. And I will still be waiting, and the earth will still be solid, and you will stand still again.

Star-Gazing [Rough poem]

[There is supposed to be some indentation in this poem, but I am not in the mood to struggle with html and blogger over it. Whatever.]

I need to go out and meet
the placid stares of the frozen stars.
But each time I step into the night,
the streetlamps glare at me.

I cast my eyes earthward, seek safety in shadows,
but there the flickers of fireflies
and the flashes of photographs
and the travelers' swinging lanterns
and the swooping headlights of cars
that zoom across the world (like ungraspable ghosts,
like angels on unknowable missions)

distract me

from those distant, distinct pinpricks,
from those burning worlds whose flames rage
unseen for millions of years before
I begin to distinguish their millenarian gaze.

You, Stars, not the streetlamps, hold
my destiny, my soul's seeds.
Yet the earthly lights shout in my ears
while the heavenly lights only whisper--Why
do the constellations of my own experience
glow so gently, when every other person's lights
dazzle my eyes, blinding me
to the Stars I seek?

Open my eyes, Starlight!

Sing to me, shine on me. Turn me inside-
out, and let your brilliance drown every false flicker.
Then I'll breathe

in

the truth of my existence: Let there be

Light.