Thoughts on #blacklivesmatter

I have grown weary in recent weeks of folks criticizing the BLM movement, of people outright chastising their fellow Christians for supporting the movement, or even just using the slogan. I grow weary because the initial purpose of the slogan was so simple, so unarguable, so very in line with what the Church should be teaching anyway: Dignity, protection under the law, serving the oppressed, the marginalized, the underrepresented. There really is no question that systemic racism is a reality in our country. Slavery itself is not far from living memory. Lynching, Jim Crow, systemic disenfranchisement, and the color bar are all within living memory. If you are a middle aged person of color, your parents or your grandparents know or knew someone who was a slave.

Wounds of this magnitude do not heal overnight, or over decades for that matter. Their reverberations continue for generations. A Black woman my age has no personal memory of slavery, but she grew up around people who grew up around people who did, and family history passes on to the children,  grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Any argument claiming that we should be past the race issue by now ignores the realities of family and societal dynamics.

Back to BLM—the movement, not necessarily the organization. What question can there be to the statement that our society as a whole, and its constituents individually, need a reminder that the experiences of white men and women do not stand alone in a vacuum, but take place in a construct which OUR ancestors created without an eye toward true justice for all? When our country was being birthed, the Black man and woman were not considered people. They were considered property. As imperfect people with an imperfect and, at times, violent history, we have to actively strive against racism. We’ve made progress, but we obviously have not arrived at the ideal. The very existence of #blacklivesmatter should be a wake up call to any white person who thinks we have.

We’re at the point—have been at the point for decades—where we need to reconsider our institutions, our assumptions, even our country’s founding principles, from a different perspective; from the perspective that yes, all men and women are created equal, and that all men and women includes our Black, Native American, Asian, Arab, and Hispanic brothers and sisters. We don’t need to throw out our ideals. We need to expand them to the point where they encompass us all by the very nature of our political, societal, educational, religious, and business systems. We are one, you and I, regardless of the color of your skin or mine. We are Americans. It will take more generations to figure out how to live it, but it will take less time if we refuse to cease striving toward the right to liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness, for all.

Auld Lang Syne

I wish I’d had the wisdom to tell you back then none of this matters. Twenty years from now, we won’t remember these slights-- at least they won’t sting as they do. All that matters is this time we have. Not that I was in love: maybe I should have been. But you were my friend, and that was good; what we should have been back then. We were right at the time and place, at least when we were laughing or ringing in the new year. It was good to be with you—it was good to be myself. We counted days, because they were short, always. We didn’t know why—we thought because love would get away, we’d miss our chance. We didn’t know what would make us who we are. I missed it in a way. Please forgive me. I didn’t know. All things petty seemed larger than life, enduring. But now when I say your name, I think of only you, and Alice, and the Auld Lang Syne.

Thoughts on Divorce

I've been thinking on divorce and life in the Church a lot during the Advent and Christmas season. This is the time of year, more than any other, that reminds me of my past, my shortcomings, the wounds I have inflicted on my family and those around me.

When I happen to find myself in a conversation with someone about the evils of divorce (I avoid these conversations, but you'd be surprised how often they happen anyway), I leave feeling shamed, acutely aware of my failings. No one needs to tell me what divorce does to my children. No one needs to tell me that it's not the Christian Ideal. I am keenly aware of these things, and never more so than during the holidays.

That said, I had an epiphany today about the Church and specifically about how our culture allows the Church to do some things uniquely well, if we let it. I would guess that no where else is the possibility of sexual redemption quite so attainable. Divorce is readily available in this country and, probably from a faith perspective, often abused. But to allow divorce is not to say the bond was not valid or blessed. It simply acknowledges a painful reality--This bond is broken. Only in the wake of acknowledging that brokenness and shame is there an opportunity to be made whole again, either by fixing it or admitting that it is dead. And even if the hard reached decision is the latter, life can be made beautifully whole, like a stained glass window reflecting and refracting light in a completely different way than an unbroken pane of glass. It's not easy. Putting together a stained glass window is a painstaking process, but the results of careful, deliberate workmanship are breathtaking.

I'm not advocating for divorce. I have never encouraged someone toward divorce, and I doubt I ever will. My husband and I have said more than once that divorce is like jumping out of a frying pan and landing in the fire, and there's really no way to know ahead of time which is worse.

I am attempting to express that divorce does not render someone a pariah, any more than pride or arrogance or intemperance. There are consequences, but there also is repentance, light, life, and redemption, regardless of the failing.

Eclipse

This song was also written in 2005. Enjoy.

Azure Sky

I wrote this song back in 2005. I only just took the time to make a rough recording. Twelve years later. Enjoy.

She Couldn't Know

21 April 2017

She handed me an enormous bouquet,

smiling behind her supermarket badge,

and thanked me for my service.

I was befuddled by the kindness,

then realized I was wearing my father’s jacket:

The one my little sister wore before me,

with our name printed above the right breast pocket,

US ARMY over the left. The heart.

She couldn’t know, and it was too late to say.

She couldn’t know the time I’d spent in the past

just hours earlier, taken there by songs

we jammed to at the Rec Center on base—

the one that no longer exists—while we played pool

until the soldiers came in and commandeered the table.

They were serving, we were along for the ride.

It made sense, and still does,

but we served in other ways, less voluntary.

The base housed us, gave us a place

we still remember as home. The base confined us,

defined the bounds within which we were we.

I can’t step foot on base now: I didn’t serve;

the card I keep in my wallet expired decades ago.

My home is no longer my home. When I say,

“I’m from the Army,” because I can’t say

where I’m from otherwise, I know

it’s not mine anymore, I don’t belong,

and that space behind my left breast pocket aches.

I thanked her for the flowers and finished my shopping,

confining my tears behind my eyes,

thankful for the acknowledgment of who I am,

 even if she really couldn’t know.

The Waters In Winter

A Place to Stand

16 September 2016

Beneath the sky, upon the ground,

between green grass and frozen waters,

I am a bed of cold, cold sand.

You scratched the words into the surface:

You must find A Place To Stand.

Always, my feet were on the grass

around the reservoir in springtime.

I made the flowers grow, the leaves green;

I caused the sweet, warm breeze to blow.

Always this has seemed to me

a solid place to rest and weep.

The waters received my tears.

Soft wind blows, my hair a plait

behind me. The sun was warm;

kept the chill of grief at bay.

I dreamed beneath my midnight skies

of dancing stars, among the citrine fireflies.

I'd rest in dreams, not lies. Not lies.

Always, this has seemed to me

the safest place to rest and sleep.

Even here, a chill could creep into my mind,

into my sleep. Between the grass and reservoir,

I'd be a bed of warm, wet sand, the water taking

slowly any words traced there, by any hand.

The thread of cold is constant, day or night,

but springtime is rest, summer is for dancing,

fall a time for honey-sweet reprieve for tired feet.

Always a chill creeps through the grass.

Always I know it comes, and I cling

to all these vestiges of autumn, summer, spring.

Winter, I deny. Winter is a cold, hard eye

avoided. A small rebellion,

now there's nothing left to push against.

Only choice. Only me and my desire

to sleep, dance, rest in warmth of forgetting fires.

If I stand beside the Reservoir in winter,

the grass will crunch beneath my feet,

reminding me of spring and citrine fireflies.

I'll place the cold, hard stone of grief

beneath my feet where rain can't penetrate.

It is frozen.

I'll stand on grief in wintertime.

I'll stand barefoot beneath a sliver moon.

In the dead, chill air, my hair hangs loose.

I'll bow my head, hair falling like a curtain

hiding tears that slowly freeze

before they reach the reservoir—

the reservoir that never runs dry.

They freeze before they fall. I know,

I know they all will make their way

in springtime to the waters.

Beside the waters in winter,

I can still remember green and living things,

but songs as sad and sweet as empty honeycomb

sing softly through the trees.

Carp still swim the depths, but snow begins to fall,

and I don't need them to remember. I know.

Unsleeping memory opens wide

on still green grass, frosted in the evening's glow.

I'll stretch myself beside the frozen waters,

gaze upon capacious midnight skies

and unmoved stars above. The world does not tilt

in wintertime. Grief is foundation enough,

even for my heart's shifting.

Beneath the sky, upon the ground,

between green grass and frozen waters,

I am a bed of cold, cold sand

bearing your inscription.

Winter is my place to stand.

Family History

24 August 2016, 12:45 am

It happens slowly,

all at once.

Those of them who know the story

leave those of us who know less.

We who know little

begin to pass on the narrative

to those who know nothing.

We deemed it fitting,

they were so young.

What would we tell them of the hurts,

of the anger,

resentment?

I find the story necessary,

now those who were there when I wasn't

begin to fall silent. Few now can tell me

what I don't already know.

Few now can give me what I never wanted,

what now I can't live without--

the mortar to hold together

the gross, obvious bricks I couldn't bury,

the wounds that never healed.

There are pains which cannot be relieved
by therapy, by understanding,

by the act of naming.

They must be lanced and drained,

but the tools for such grow few

as time dances away from us,

as do the Ones Who Know,

the Ones Who Might Bring Understanding,

the Ones Who Are No Longer.

Moving On II

The quality of the doors has changed;
of the walls, the floors, the light.
This room was a different place before
we packed up her precious things.
She had possessed it, made it move,
and now it lies still, not dead, but waiting.
No longer hers, it longs, as does she,
for what comes next.

Mom

This Christmas, I spent a solid week (ask my husband) making dolls for my godchildren. It was a grueling task, but having completed it, I have such an immense sense of having accomplished something worthwhile. I look at the Raggedy Ann doll that sits beside my bed, well loved, repaired multiple times over the years, and I know that those dolls can last a lifetime. Perhaps 30 years from now one of my godchildren will look at my work from the last week and understand for the first time how much I love him, or what I was trying to communicate when I spent this week benignly cursing as I assembled her doll’s feet.

It has occurred to me many times over the years that, while I never really sat down and learned sewing, quilting, doll making, dollhouse building, painting, woodworking, radio fixing, violet growing, or gardening at my mother’s feet, I watched her doing all those things at some point during my childhood. I suppose I learned by osmosis. My mother is a multi-talented, many faceted artist, and she passed her gifts on to me. My house is overflowing with her creativity, when I take the time to look and remember. Raggedy Ann, quilts that I watched her create, crocheted shawls that drape my doors and peer out from 40-year-old pictures, memories of the broken cassette player I watched her disassemble and put back together, now working. There was and is nothing my mom can’t do when she decides she’s going to do it.

She was, in so many ways, an amazing mother. She excelled at creating wonder when we were young, as well as when we were grown. She made my wedding dress when I first married. The marriage didn’t last, but the dress is still in her closet. More than 5000 seed beads adorn the train and the bodice. It was a crowning achievement, or so I thought at the time.

But since then, my mother has painted a gallery full of intricate water color and acrylic paintings. It seems pain begets beauty. I’m sad for the heartache, but the beauty is sometimes more than I can stand. How well does a woman ever really know her mother? Perusing her work, I wonder at the thought rooms I never knew existed in the woman I so resemble in more ways than one.

Christmas 2015

Always, Christmas has been about surprises for me. The kids usually make us a list so we know what they need/want, and they often get something from that list. But I always try to have something they didn’t expect, and that will make them smile when they see it.

My husband and I don’t officially exchange gifts on Christmas or birthdays, and my kids have no money or foresight enough to think ahead and plan. But there has always been a half-hidden hope of some surprise on Christmas morning for me. I don’t think it’s out of line with the spirit of the season. We look forward with anticipation to the birth of the Christ Child, and part of the fostering of that is the anticipation of something unexpected. There’s no disappointment if no surprise is forthcoming, and a plush purple pony placed secretly in my stocking by my little one is just as precious as any other surprise that might have presented itself.

I’ve noticed, though, that since the passing of my uncle last year, my anticipation has shifted. I had no though of surprises this year, at least for myself. There was a rather bewildering surprise on this day a year ago, and it culminated in an extraordinary loss on Christmas Day. Suddenly, Christmas is all about Sam. I think it will be for years to come. And because it’s all about Sam, it is also all about creating magic for my children--all of my children--my son, my daughters, my own Special Grils and Skipping Partners who all have their very own Sam now, in me. They also have another Sam in my husband, who embodies all the qualities I miss so much in Sam.

Christmas has, for a long time now, been a dull ache for me, sending children away or receiving them back on Christmas Eve. The ache is compounded by a new sense of anticipation, a new 3 day fasting period preceding what is now a day of bright sorrow alongside joy and giving: Remembering the news of the heart attack; the helplessness; the scramble to find photos, and the remembering; awaiting the decision, which fell on Christmas Eve/Day (I suddenly realize I’m not sure which day it was), to let Sam go.

I didn’t see Sam much in the last 15 years, but he was present. He called, he wrote letters. When he saw me, at least once, he would take my face in his hands and say my name--no one says my given name anymore--Carie Christine. When he laughed, he looked so like his mother.

He is something of a patron saint of Christmas for me now. Maybe for all his Grils and Skipping Partners. I miss him. I have thought often during the last few weeks that if I have to grieve someone during Christmas, who better than someone who brought me nothing but love and joy?

I read yesterday that grief is the price of love. I think that is accurate in this life. I have lost loved ones before, but Sam's passing has taught me this like no other loss. I suddenly feel very much older, very much responsible and privileged for my relationships with my young ones. I suddenly feel as if the weight of who Sam was is squarely on my shoulders.

My Turn

Uncle Sam

You’re missing this year.

No call at Thanksgiving,

no card with your distinctive signature.

No one to take my face in his hands,

say my name.

We’ve lost something invaluable.

I curse benignly as I cut

yet another doll arm. How many doll arms

will l cut in my lifetime for these little grils

and yobs whose wants

I find difficult to pace?

You’re smiling from across the room,

an icon on my altar. I see you

everyday as I eat breakfast,

dinner with my children

all with differing expectations

of my time and talents.

It’s your fault, you know,

this drive to love them with my time.

This endless cutting, pounding, painting--

it will never be done. I’m trying so hard

to keep pace with the gifts you gave:

your mindfulness;

your remembering of us, always.

Your holding us fiercely and forever,

even when we were far away.

It’s my turn now.

Terrorist

17 November 2015

Look into a child's eyes

tell her she cannot have shelter

food, home, the head on her shoulders

because her father might kill us;

tell a boy he isn't welcome

to a childhood he'll never have

because his parents might

detonate a bomb.

Create a terrorist.

Like Father

All I can do is sit on the couch and cry,
knowing others carry the stronger claim.
Your grief pulls mine into the open, and I’m grateful.
Grateful for generosity enough to share pain
with us all, however derivative our connection.
I need permission to feel. Wittingly or unwittingly,
you give it when you give yourself.
You’re so like your father.

Thoughts on Father's Day

Love them well, those little ones.
Love the mother they’ve known, the wife
they’ve grown accustomed to seeing you embrace.
You can’t shift gears when they leave
and expect they won’t pay a price.
Even forty-year-old children need to know
you are who you’ve always been.
If you are not, then who are they?

Such demons sleep under my pillow,
in sealed boxes, between the pages of books
I haven’t opened in decades.
I can’t escape the fangs and talons
Christmas cards and photo albums conceal;
the wounds that never heal,
yet take me by surprise.

6 Months On, More Or Less

12 June 2015

SB

The tips of my shaggy hair are faded purple.

Brown creeps back in, my normal;

the me that exists with and without you.

I long for normal, but grief doesn't work that way.

You’ll never laugh at my crazy hair,

never take my face in your hands again,

say my full name. No one else uses my full name.

How will I remember it?

First Hand

27 December 2014

SB

We go suddenly from is to was.

Time is frozen in a picture that holds

a smile we know, have always known,

have always remembered in motion,

but it’s done now. The smile is now

a thing to be painted or written about,

described for those who never knew it

first hand.

Our Dear Sam

Samuel de Lyra Butler
b. 8 January 1947
d. 25 December 2014

Uncle Sam had a name for his many nieces. We were always his Special Grils. I'd say it was an exclusive club, but I realized this week that it wasn't. It didn't have to be. Sam had love to go around, and he smothered us in it, to the exclusion of no one. He brought together people who wouldn't much care for each other, otherwise. And I'm certain he had just as many ways of making his few nephews, of which my brother was one, feel loved and a part of something rare and wonderful and absolute, from which they could not be ejected. Once you're Uncle Sam's Skipping Partner (a recent nickname my brother told me he was baptized into), you've got something special, and it can't be taken away. The memories of his devotion and sincerity (and goofiness) are very nearly as compelling as the man himself.

That is one of the realizations to come from his passing. Once you've known him, his story, and that vibrant, silly, funny, teddy bear love he gave, you’re changed. Despite all he'd seen and been through--and there was grief and tragedy and trauma to go around- he was a light and a refuge, always. When you reflect on his life, you might be just a little challenged to love better, and to cast the net of your love wider.

Goodbye, dear, sweet Sam. We are blessed to have had you all this time. So very blessed. May your memory be eternal.

With love, one of your Special Grils,
Carie Christine

Christmas Day

25 December 2014

SB

He was already gone.

The thing breathing for him didn’t keep him

closer while we tried to say goodbye,

more for us than for him.

I’m so far away, it’s hard not to

wish he’d stayed a little longer

so I could tell him

how I wish I’d made the time

after his first near-death experience.

I never considered there’d be another,

so much closer he couldn’t make it back

to all of us here, wondering what we’ll do

without him.

Christmas Eve

24 December 2014

SB

Lights and carols

softly blow like flakes of snow,

lovely but cold.

We are waiting for more

than Christmas morning.