dance, praise and poetry

-Seeing some good friends enact scripture through dance in chapel. It was really moving.

-Getting a haircut I'm not too sure of, and having friends persistently compliment me on it.

-Having to write a lament poem in my pastoral care class. This was a trying exercise for all of us, but produced powerful results. Here's mine:

Grief as an Ocean

I’ve heard it said that grief is like an ocean.
It’s watery enough.
But what of this onerous ocean?
This sea that seems so placid at times
and roars with squalls at others
Do we all contain, deep within and below,
such an ocean?
Could it be that this ocean
this grief
is a gift?

We swim in this gift of grief
Succumbing to its waves and ebbs and flows
Yearning for moonlight to reflect on its waters
And the tranquility of a new day.
In the waiting for healing we travel these waters,
sometimes with a sturdy vessel to carry us
and sometimes barely keeping our head afloat.
We have days where the sudden violence of a storm
transforms our ocean of grief,
making it dark, unpredictable and overwhelming.
We barely breathe,
struggling to break the surface of waters

salty with tears.

And then we too have days spent
floating upon the surface of its deep waters,
letting the sun warm our faces,
purposely or absently oblivious
to the cold depths beneath us.

This ocean of grief cannot be predicted,
or mapped
or charted.
Only lived.
Only survived.
And the living
and the surviving
is in this gift of grief
that, like mighty waters,
carries us; tossed, sopping and shivering
to the shore.