pain – Accepting This

Slippery Slope?

My words must hold weight now
In place of my temporary inaction
Due to the crippling anger
That runs so deep and pulses
Like a fresh wound left unattended
I am trying to bandage myself
To layer the gauze so my
Blood doesn’t run out and I am left
Lifeless, a corpse drained of all
energy and
Goodness
I didn’t know anger could be felt like this
And now I can’t imagine how on earth I won’t feel it
Every attempted word of solace stands out like a
Cheap piece of plastic floating in a pristine chlorine pool
I know I am meant to have empathy
For all humans around me
But I am growing increasingly frustrated with those
Who have power and don’t yield it for true Good
Those who are given the option
But forgo decency and uphold lethargy

And they label lethargy as noble and righteous
They label sickening pride as wisdom and sound judgement
They label laziness with “Well, I’ve been doing this for a long time”
They label cruelty with “Well, I can’t change that”
They label excuses with “Well, I can’t help if I don’t know”
They label racism with “Well, it’s a lot better than before”
They label passivity with “Well, we must focus on unity”
They label white supremacy with “Well, there are places worse off than here”

How can we hide any longer?
How can we continue to look the other way
How can we continue to deny the responsibility,
The reality that every single decision holds weight
Why have we not stepped out of these shells of religious bigotry and hypocrisy and into the
Tender, aching, presence of those who are in need?
Why have we continued to stigmatize and disrespect the very populations that
Jesus ate with? Sat with? Walked with?

This anger runs a web through every one of my interactions
From the coworker who is solely present to collect their paycheck
To the pastor who acknowledges the past as if it were more holy than the future
To the subtle (and not so subtle) infiltration of nationalism
To the mass amount of trash I sort through on a daily basis as I search for a coat that fits a child

Human, I know it is overwhelming,
And it feels like there’s not much we can do
But it is in the smallness of our daily actions
Our purchases, our language and relationships,
It is in the subscriptions and the habits and
The addictions and avoided conversations
And the apologies
It is in the shifts of perspective
That we will begin to take part
In the flourishing of a world
Now
Now is the time,
Not yesterday or tomorrow
Not before or later
Now is the time that we pick apart our
Biases, lifestyles, and convictions and immerse ourselves in an honest search for truth
The truth of ourselves, the truth in our beliefs
The truth of what our actions (and lack of action) reveals about our own character
Now is the time for us to shed these layers of dead and disturbing traditions,
Now is the time to listen

Human

I am a collection of contradictions
in the shape of a human body
My skin is the boundary
keeping the anxiety and confusion from seeping
out of me
I am having trouble staying
comfortable in my comfort
My conviction deepens within me
every time I feel something like happiness
Contentment feels like it is stolen
from those who are with out it
I am trying to separate
myself from everything else
but were we really meant to be that way?
To live in categories and separateness
a watered down version of
us versus them
We’re all doing it on some level
casting away discomfort and pain
But today I read some words from an
unnamed author
And they wondered if
our calling to “cultivate and care for creation”
did not require us to fix things
rather to “reach far into the places unknown and trust that even the smallest brush with the cloak of Christ will make us all well”
and it made me wonder too
Because lately I’ve been caught up in the notion of
fixing things
because these broken things are overwhelming
yet I am reminded in the moments of my
limited language
trying to communicate with words that
don’t make sense
That I am awfully helpless and
I am just a collection of contradictions
in the shape of a human body that is
forbidden from embracing another
And my empathy cut deep when
I walked into her room and found her crying
and all I could say was “lo siento”
I’m sorry for the way that things are
a lot of the time I am prying apart
systems and bureaucracy
attempting to be a human
To see every human as
A human
Tearing down the walls of division that
religion, politics, and pride
have built
Stepping over the boundaries that others have
put in my way, or that I have allowed my
pain to create

To be honest
aspects of my theology are crumbling as I
consider the personhood of Christ
and begin to understand the history,
the reality
Yet I feel like I am the disciple
laying my head on his shoulder
finally listening to his heartbeat
with out fear of what anyone may think
Yes, everything is falling a part
yet coming together
My love growing
as my heart goes on aching
Settling into the discomfort as the baseline
instead of avoiding it like the plague

For the Love of God

lissy tropea jordan · For The Love Of God

For the love of God
Stop politicizing your faith
The God of the nations does not identify with your sides
The God of the galaxies is not concerned with your categories
For the love of God, stop speaking so much
sit in the discomfort of silence and examine your heart
Stop projecting, expecting more from others than you give yourself,
stop painting a picture of how you want to be seen
in a desperate attempt to rid yourself of guilt or prove your personal goodness,
stop denying, stop condemning;
You are not a righteous judge.
Human, think of the conflicts within yourself
the areas of your thinking and believing that
you cannot reconcile or redeem
Do you want reconciliation and redemption?
Surely, you will not find it within
you cannot go a few days with out
opposition and pain
You inflict problems simply by existing,
lay down your pride
And understand that you are not the answer
you are the problem.

You seek your own comfort over the well being of your neighbor
you focus on the materialistic, superficial, and transient
you make idols out of lust, money, dreams, and passions
you lie for your own gain, you love for your own satisfaction
Do you truly believe that a collection of your own thoughts and ideals would bring
hope to the most broken and desolate parts of your country, your world?
You have not defied death or disease,
You have not conquered the grave,
no, you are headed for death and on a
consuming path of destruction
Everything you can hold in your hand will soon rust,
and those intangible accomplishments that you identify with
Are of no greater value than dust
If you are remembered at all after you are gone from this earth,
you will have no knowledge of what they will say or believe
About who you were, or what you did
And if you knew, would that be enough?
You are not satisfied with the words that they tell you now,
their praise and approval does not remedy the ache and void inside of you

Human, each day your body is weighed heavy by the pressure
of aging, the elements of time and space are working together
To prove your fragility and your mortality
Do you see how great of a predicament you are in
with out Grace?

Apart from Christ, there is no good
There is simply fleeting pleasure and
hollow contentment
With out the atoning blood of Jesus
you are left to your own devices
to your own efforts,
emotions, disappointments,
successes, memories, mistakes,
futile attempts at building something that will last
that cannot last,
that will burn up and
if anything at all
simply and solely be a part of the
past
Human, sit with your soul
attempt to cradle the wounds and complexities
of this strange existence,
Slow down for a moment and face the
reality of the grandeur of the skies and
the smallness of your being

I choose the everlasting,
I choose the abundant life
the one that is not dependent upon anything that I have done or will do –
The one that is given full and complete meaning
because of the perfect life of a man,
who was and is God, who was killed
who bled vibrant, pulsing blood for the
nature of my being that
was enslaved by sin
but designed for communion

I live in wholeness now,
because of the breath that returned to his body
and the purpose that was restored to me –
completely and fully alive now,
no longer defeated by the daily
anxiety and hopelessness of the temporary
I live in truth now,
I can see the world for what is is now,
an aching collection of breathing bodies
and immortal souls that will not stop
killing, lying, stealing, fighting,
dying, mourning, crying, deceiving,
breaking, aging, enslaving, and groaning…

Until, the glory of God is revealed
And the nations are healed
and every tongue declares
Jesus; savior of the world.

How do I live now? I pursue Him now,
what does he require of me?
To do justice, to love kindness,
to walk humbly with my God

Have you grown weary yet,
of eating and never becoming full?
Of drinking, only to thirst again?
The hunger within you will
only be satisfied when you no longer
Eat of this world

For the love of God,
dismantle your pride,
turn your eyes

A Prayer for Justice

5:30am and the breeze moves through the trees
like a knife against warm butter,
a morning of your unfailing love,
but do you hear the cries of the marginalized?
I hear them but I do not know what to do,
what to say. My heart aches with them
but my voice falls thin against the vast history of hurt,
the collections of oppression
O God, my words are powerless with out your purpose
my empathy is not enough, my outrage manifests
in restless nights and constant questions
I am listening, O God
I am asking, O Lord
Guide my steps and let me not cower beneath
the weight of injustice
Reveal in me any ounce of prejudice,
any underlying judgement

You are the God of all nations,
the loving father of every skin covered soul
Teach me how to be a defender
of the dignity, safety, value, and freedom of
every man, woman, child
Rid me of complacency in the face of sin
Separate me from silence when it is time to speak,
I will embrace the discomfort that is festering
knowing that this is your way of calling me near to you,
near to your heart that breaks with each act of violence,
each moment of discrimination,
each tear that falls from the eye of
a mother losing a child,
a son losing a father,
a human losing hope

You are the Lord
who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness
for in these things you delight
Make me a vessel for your steadfast love, justice, and righteousness
for these things, I will fight.

A Clanging Cymbal

I have learned that
being where you are
is often better than longing for the past
or dreaming about the future
The habit of thinking that you are always in the wrong place
will keep you from existing in the present
you will float six inches above the ground
never feeling the grass bend beneath your feet
or the sand in between your toes
or the tide rolling around your ankles

So, taste the food in your mouth before going for the next bite
when you look at the stars, let your eyes linger even if it is cold outside
Listen to the voices of those speaking to you with out preparing what you will say next
Pick one thing, not everything
Choose knowledge over ignorance,
compassion over convenience
Drink your coffee while it is still hot
Examine your motives and practice honesty even when it is partnered with discomfort
Identify rush and hurry as the enemies of quality and patience
When you are tempted to numb, feel instead
Ignoring pain, begets pain

Forgive and forgive and forgive again

Speak kindly to yourself and you will judge others less
Assume that all humans are made up of complex histories
diverse experiences, circumstances, thoughts, sufferings
not one identical to the other

Go outside
outside of your home, outside of your perspective, outside of yourself
Retire your expectations
Dismiss your pride
And begin to balance the notion that tomorrow is a new day,
but also tomorrow may never come
A juxtaposition of hope and impermanence
contentment and yearning
order and chaos
And in all of this you will need an anchor,
and that anchor is love.

Twelve Years

For twelve years the sun has risen
and the sun has set
there have been twelve hot green summers
turned into crisp and colorful autumns,
For twelve years we have gone forward
wanting to be where you have been

My fear, if left unattended
turns into a frigid tightness in my chest
I lay in bed pushing away thoughts of loss,
I can’t bring myself to believe in the false security
of his breath rising and falling next to me
I shut my eyes tight
but I can’t shake the feeling
that all good things are ending
that someday I might wake up
and later that day, have to fall asleep
with out him beside me

My dread, if not bolted down by hope
will come in the form of irritability
will settle in like a blanket of sorrow
an unwelcome uneasiness, lining the thought of tomorrow

My anxiety, turns from a raging ocean
into a steady bay
Sometimes the wind picks up,
but it won’t be long until I’m calm again

I have not been left in the casket of my fear, dread, or anxiety
Just like you have been given more life than I have ever known
the same God that has made you immortal,
removes the sting of death from me

I move through life with the thought of heaven
anchoring my heart and breathing peace into every part of me
If one believes that we don’t go on living,
then what would the purpose of these years, like mist, be?

My fear is not stamped out by worldly remedies,
it is healed by the design of a God who sent a savior to die for me
My dread and dissatisfaction only exist when I lose focus of His
grace and prominence
How humbled I become,
when I acknowledge my quickness to forget
that this world is only a shadow
and He has called me out of denial

I do not want to lose any more of the people that I love,
but how wonderful to rest in the assurance that those who have gone
are not actually lost
The world might label this faith as the loss of freedom
but I would argue to say that this is freedom at the core
to no longer be controlled by my fear of death,
to no longer rot in the depth of my selfishness,
to no longer allow sadness to consume my joy
to live in the liberty of a redeemed existence
followed by life eternal,
where there is no more death
or mourning, crying, or pain

There is no time to be wasted,
no time to hold onto bitterness or self-righteousness,
no time to ignore the way that rust eats and bodies age
There is beauty in everything if we submit,
but there is only pain if we reject
This life is just the in between
the race preparing us for the next

Twelve years are like a fleeting memory in comparison to eternity
twelve years, half of my lifetime at this moment
and I am not guaranteed one more day
Let the fragility of this life lead us to cling to the author of salvation,
let it guide us to love like there is no act of greater importance

The loss of you, revealed the greatest truth:
What is seen is temporary
What is unseen is eternal

Wading

Listen to this while reading

My words are like honey,
they stick to my teeth, to my fingertips
They sink to the bottom of a glass,
get gulped up in the quickness of drinking
the speed of everything

I don’t want to wait to do something better,
don’t want to hang in time and comfort like
I am unaware of reality

I’m getting to know winter in a new kind of way,
not so sorrowful anymore, not so heavy
My depression has become nostalgic in a way,
hints of it rise up when something reminds me of it
I told him the other day that I feel guilty for being content,
and then I remember when contentment was my most frequent emotion to envy

Constantly peeling off my human tendencies, my tendency to feel unworthy
to feel anxious, to feel unwanted, to be self-destructive, to be abrasive
My tendency to slink into fear, to become irritable, to distrust and to complain

I’ve made a sincere attempt to maintain happiness, but I can promise you any bit of joy I know is divine intervention

I’m developing a theory surrounding hardship,
one that is often spoken of but hardly acknowledged
Something like each moment of pain makes you more relatable, if you let it
each broken up circumstance makes you more glad in the whole parts
but only if you hand them all over, the pains and the breaks, and the inexplicable times

I wish that we would speak of our imperfections more often,
but not in the effort to receive pity
not in that self-deprecating kind of way,
no… maybe we could just speak of the ways we are lacking
to realize that we truly are
and to be open to the possibility that we will never be perfected
despite our trials and triumphs
And in this imperfection I rest,
because there You are in my weakness

I want to no longer want
I want my desires to vanish and reappear as selflessness
For my longings to dissolve and to be aware of
real, true needs
To be aware of each person as a soul, a body and a mind
to allow my convictions to settle like dust on my organs
brushing against me so I do not forget

Do not forget that these days are fading
that these times are fleeting
that these thoughts are washing and wading back
into an ocean of your being