Sparrows

There were so many sparrows in my tree lawn maple,

that a ten year old boy who lives down the street

stopped to stare into it from my driveway,

then he moved by the trunk

to look up through the branches.

It was odd, so far out of ordinary,

that a black kid with a mohawk

had to stop, that I had to stop,

that my neighbor silenced her story to listen.

How often do three busy people

perch to attention for the same thing?

It was a royal racket, dozens of them,

maybe even a hundred, gathered before dusk.

Like Muslims for the another lean to Mecca,

they gathered to a common calling bell

and began the Maghrib, a sunset prayer.

Yesterday, the song at church that grabbed my attention

was Khudaya Rahem Kar, from Pakistan.

The chant asks for God's mercy over and over again.

The first syllable, "Khu" swells like a flock of people

gathering, then surging, to a needed God.

The R in Rahem rolls, then the M becomes a hummm.

I have been singing it all day,

not really sure what mercy is or what kind of mercy I may need.

Leniency, clemency, compassion, grace?

Charity, forgiveness, forbearance, softheartedness?

For what I have done, what I will do?

The many ways I fall short,

swooping into my selfish self?

Sympathy, indulgence, tolerance, generosity?

Maybe that is what the birds were singing in my tree.

Every word they have for day, every word they have for light,

every word they have for flying, for being free,

every sound they have for flight.

Who knows what I say everyday.

All I know is that I said so many words this afternoon

that my voice grew gravelly, dusty, then was gone.

Perhaps it is best to stick to one word, one sound,

to save up my speaking for the end of the day,

and chirp it out over and over again,

under the darkening cover of green,

as the sun accepts its release.

Perhaps mercy, God. Perhaps, goodness, God.

Perhaps, thank you, God. For all that I have,

and all that I need, and all that is held

away from me, so that I must

make a pilgrimage to mecca on my own two wings.

In case I forget

I hold the pencil,

I choose the colors,

I decide the shape upon shape,

it is I who picks how hard to press.

I wait until the pencil tip is too dull for drawing,

then my hands are the ones that sharpen it.

I determine what gets posted,

my fingers clicked on this picture to upload.

My friend writes poems about clouds

shaped like aramaic scrolls

and veins of streetlights seen from a plane.

Currents under frozen rivers.

I am not as smart as she;

I have a much more direct metaphor.

This mandala did not exist until I conceived it,

or, more realistically, until I let it come from me.

I did not think that I was going to draw

concentric lopsided quadrilaterals.

But I did have to get the sketchbook,

I had to find an open page,

I had to be willing to select the first prismacolor,

and touch it to the page.

I had to figure out what to do next,

then next, then next. I had to cock my head,

and determine the subsequent step when none was obvious.

I did not know that it would turn out

beautifully, and so would this picture:

the one that reminds me of the work.

Every day is like this:

the black page, the empty white rim,

the medium, the intention, the acts

of imagination, formation, inauguration.

It is the same, filling the circle

of a page or the curve of time.

In case I forget, life is not happening to me,

I am happening to life.

The Cathedral of Life

...would be outside in a space like this,

or inside if you need it to be.

Not in a suburb of North Canton

in Stark County. The Cathedral of Life

would be in Greene County, Ohio

in a town named Grassy Point,

or Silver Creek. You would want to go there,

walking in upon eager feet, ragtag but ready.

No pressed shirts, no button down skirts.

Not a polished shoe in sight.

Dogs and ferrets, hummingbirds.

One eyed pirates and wheelchair dancers.

Everyone welcome, wearing the last week as clothes upon their backs,

and carrying a cup full of wishes with a bendy straw.

The call to worship would be spoken

in pentecostal languages,

the right one for every set of ears, or every pair of eyes,

if that is the way you hear, by seeing.

The wind through the leaves,

the acorns plunking,

a pair of blue herons on their dinosaur flight.

We would gather together, hearing the language

that tells us God is near.

The altar would be piled high with dog-earred books,

a jelly jar of zinnias, wet river rocks,

a bowl of ripe cherries, twisted sticks,

a tape of your grandmother's voice,

the drink you left on the bar in Montana,

her favorite pillow, a street truck enchilada,

a Huichol painting signed on the back,

a trinity of clay marbles, a cairn of sand,

a picture of yourself before you became you.

And when someone rose to speak,

(it could be anyone who speaks),

he would not talk of sins but stories.

Of splinters. Of something rising in his best self.

And we would listen, a cicada stillness in the air,

then laugh, then cry, letting the salt out of us.

Trading it for fresh water.

Someone would pray, or all of us would pray.

Saying -- with more words or less -- thank you and please.

Thank you for the five deer in the field. The nun on the bench.

The quick sprouting of fall peas. The phone call.

The smell of clean sheets. A room of one's own.

Please bring release. Please offer mercy.

Please show us grace. Give us greater capacity.

Let us bow down and lift it all, every bite of living.

We would pray to ourselves, our distant brothers,

our new sisters, the ones who see.

We would pray to our dead mothers,

the far away fathers. A humble Buddha,

a one-armed Jesus, Mohammad with hippie hair and flip flops.

We would pray to the eastern sun, the westward weather,

the earth that keeps spinning.

We would pray to the ones who hurt us,

left us, or recused themselves from our lives.

The ones who know, the ones who listen,

the ones who still can find the soft spot in our skulls.

We would pray in silence, or in singing.

We might shout out or at. You may even

need to lay your head on a cold marble floor

and weep. In each case, someone will place

a hand upon the small of your back

so that you will feel heat. You will feel held.

There will be music. Dylan, I suspect,

but played by a young woman on piano.

Maybe Thelonius Monk or Abby Lincoln.

Pink Floyd through expensive speakers,

Karen Carpenter and Mama Cass.

And maybe the music would not even be music.

Labs barking their "you've come home" bark,

soup simmering in the winter,

the clatter of a table being set,

the rusty hitch of a swingset moving back and forth.

I'd hear my music as a whisper, a night whisper in the dark,

the orange harvest moon rising in the window.

We would spend time in silence,

but it would be a ripe silence.

No bowed heads or nervous nail picking.

Our eyes would be open, every muscle relaxed

as we reclaimed the finite bodies that hold our wider selves.

One woman -- with dementia -- might speak

about her garden and some salty perch

throughout the silence, but her words would feel

like bubbling water, water cleaning us too.

Her reality a mystery no greater or less

than the mystery of our own.

There would be touching in the cathedral of life,

though I do not know exactly how that would work

having never seen its natural occurrence where I worship now.

But if I need to reach out, a hand would grab for mine.

If a shoulder was required, your heavy head would find one.

If anyone needed to be reminded that each is wholly holy,

we'd find a way. Kisses on breast scars,

a leg pressed against a leg, fingers walking the lines

of waiting lips. It would just happen,

the same way a sycamore bends to the breeze,

the same way water springs from source,

the same way all life leans to light.

Communion would be served on rough hewn wooden platters

and in hand-thrown clay goblets. Still bread, still wine.

But they would not be body and blood shed for our sins.

They would be sustenance for the journey.

Food to keep us going. I would serve you, and you would serve her,

and she would serve me. We might hold our hands out,

like humble cups waiting. Or we might open our mouths,

so that something pure can be placed on our tongues.

Or we might grab the loaf and tear off the hunk

we need, some weeks more than less. And we might sip,

or we might gulp -- unquenchable -- or we might pass the chalice

back and forth between us until the glass is empty.

Still bread, still wine. Maybe peach wine.

Shared in joy, not solemnity.

Then we would pass the peace. And it might take hours.

Me telling you about my seventh grade gym class,

you reading me a poem about the bruise on your left arm.

Him standing alone in the meadow, counting the second between falling stars.

Her layering spinach on ricotta for lasagna.

A group playing two hand touch on the open lawn of the church.

Everyone doing whatever it takes to regain a stronghold on self,

on the beauty of other, and the goodness of God.

Feeling the solid certainty known from love and -- not forgiveness --

but the softness born in moving from strength into strength,

giving grace upon grace, moving from one amen to the next so be it,

until we are to meet again.

Tim O'Brien

...wrote an amazing chapter in an amazing book called "The Things They Carried." It's about the objects the men took into the fields of Vietnam with them. The things that kept home close. Things that brought solace.

I have a fine affinity for the objects around me. I am not sure if they bring me comfort. Or security. I am not certain if they are talisman. Icons. Touchstones. All I know is that I feel safe in the company of my beautiful things.

Today I took a tour through the museum of my house. Moved a small jar of marbles. Placed a lime green bowl next to a sea green bowl. I held a white beach stone, one that has a miracle dot in the middle. I hung up new art. I rethought the hallway to the bathroom. I found a spot for new balloon seed pods. Then placed a piece of glass in the western window so that I could watch the sunset through it. I made sure that every room had a ceramic ball in some corner. I put a shine on all the flat surfaces.

Everywhere I look there is something that can lift me. Put me back in my best self. Make my eyes happy.

Then I headed upstairs into the dry attic and started to haul bags and bags of junk out of there. I am sure, at some time, each object meant something to me or my mom or my grandmother. No doubt, there was a summer that I needed an oscillating tower fan. And I am sure that the van Gogh print I bought in DC hung in an important spot of another house, when I was a different person. For some reason, I have 8 sets of queen sheets. Some with flowers on them. And, perhaps, I wanted a red elephant, and 600 colored Christmas lights. I even found a map of Tennessee from 1983. Old standing lamps, a mixed-taped recorder, a thirteen inch TV, a brand new bird cage, a brass curtain rod seven feet long.

They all hit the tree lawn with a happy plunk.

Then I went one step further. Threw away things that used to mean a lot to me. A pillow Carrie made me on our sixth anniversary. A magnetic board where we used to post poems to each other. A bag of clear quartz.

I did not even hesitate. I did not stop to think, nor revisit a time or place that is not now. I do not need Carrie anymore. I do not need to carry the things Carrie gave me. The war is over. I am coming home from the paddy field. I am finally coming all the way home.

A poem for Nikki

I want to say to you

that I do not know the difference

between repentance and redemption.

You said one and I thought the other.

Maybe that is because, for me,

I will be delivered from my guilt

and atoned for my sins by repentance,

by taking another path.

I have thrown thousands of rocks into rivers

as we did today. And I wonder

if they have slid down the Black,

tumbled through the Chagrin,

and ended up all in one place.

I wonder if they have piled up,

every regret on top of every sin,

onto some silty floor.

And every day, they are baptized,

made smoother and smoother

by the gentle friction of time.

And I wonder, if, every summer,

some young girl wanders out into

that stream, some solemn brown eyed saint,

to stand upon the dam of my contrition,

so that she can be on something sturdy,

but not quite in the water, running.

Her bare tan feet on my life,

her small but able toes

curled over stone, as she faces where

the water is going,

not where the water has been.

eat, pray, love

Even though I said I would not see this movie, of course I saw it on its first day of release. And, knowing it would pale in comparison to the book, I was surprised by how much it paled. I am glad that they did not even try to recapture Liz Gilbert's moment of pure enlightenment. In fact, I am glad that they ignored much of the pray section. How do we, after all, visualize something so ineffable?

Richard from Texas, while admirable, lacked his punch. There was no blue light. There was no climbing out of the ashram window to get to the Gita. There was not the wisdom of Ketut. He was just a toothless, kind man.

I was glad, however, that the two most repeatedly spoken phrases about praying were "God is within" and "Offer love and light and let it go." Those two, which stayed with me after the book, will stay with others who only see the movie. Those ideas, I think, are worth the price of the ticket.

But today I find myself thinking of my eating. My praying. My loving. It's day three of a 90 day commitment I made to a new eating plan. And, although yesterday was shadowed by a massive headache and today by the same weight of lethargy, I feel good about this plan. I am not eating alone anymore either, though I ate my meals by myself. Every day I report in to Google docs, where a friend will read whether or not I have been successful. And even this entry is some kind of coming out. A promise I have to honor now that it is in print.

Eating is not a panacea to sadness. Eating is not a tool for celebration. Eating is not a way to quell waves of self --doubt and fear. Eating is for fueling the body. I am too old to be learning this now.

Praying. Interestingly, after seeing the movie this afternoon, I went to Gypsy Bean coffee shop and read some of Deepok Chopra's book, The Third Jesus. I was struck by his proposal that the first Jesus was a man who walked the earth, doing and saying things important enough to have had those actions and thoughts recorded for all time. The second Jesus is the theologically bastardized Jesus, layered with each sect's interpretation. And the third Jesus is a way to enlightenment. A path.

I found myself so relieved to read this. Because, really, I do not want a savior, I want a way. No, not singular, let me correct that. I want another way -- as many ways as possible to a higher state.

I also was struck by Chopra's subtle distinction between light and darkness and, the far more resonating, light and shadows. It all bears light. Even around the obstacles and over the ruddy lanes of living, there is light creating the shadow.

Chopra also, while quoting the Bible, refers to the Gnostics Gospels. The Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Truth. These texts, as much as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John amplify Jesus' mysticism.

I left the Gypsy Bean once more assured that I am not a Christian, but a reader of Jesus.

As I left Gordon Square and drove down Detroit to the Shoreway, I saw one of Carrie's old friend's Tim. And I had to laugh. Here I was given an immediate chance to be enlightened and follow the gospel of Liz Gilbert. I said to myself, "Love and Light, Carrie, and I let you go." Then, just five minutes later, I tuned my Sirius radio to the CoffeeHouse channel (a channel I have not listened to in a week -- I have been fixated on talk radio). The first song that came on was Maroon Five singing "Lovely Day" -- a song sung by Bill Withers that Carrie named as our song early on in our relationship. I have only heard the song three times since she left, and I thought it was funny (in that "I can't believe this is happening" way) on the day I was thinking about how to release love. So, as I started to cry for the mystery of it all, I said again, "Love and Light, Carrie, and I let you go."

There was -- there is -- a certain peace in that. A certain peace in this day. I have eaten fuel for my body. I have prayed to a God who watches over me. I have loved in my life, and I am getting more and more able, to let love go so that a greater love can find me.

Paths and destinations

It's the specifics that throw me for a loop.

All of the details, unanswered,

remnants from the 5 Q reading and writing technique

we strangle the kids with in school.

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

I do not have inkling responses to any of those questions,

but I hope they will be:

her, love, soon, here, because.

Maybe that should be my daily prayer.

Give me this day my

her, love, soon, here, because.

I could work at it. Or I could wait for it, have it come to me.

I do not know which god to pray to, the one of action, or the one of destiny.

Maybe both have ears for the mantra,

maybe both can hear my night time pleading.

Her, love, soon, here, because.

Her, love, soon, here, because.

I remember a recent afternoon, when I stood on the high edge

of the Rocky River and I screamed out to the dry creek bed,

the walls of the gorge. I screamed out over the heights to the distant trees.

I screamed out of my fingertips, and down through my toes,

all of me open akimbo to the world.

I screamed out, "Come. Come."

But maybe I was not specific enough.

Meals have come, friendships strengthened, commitments locked down.

Days have spun past, skunks have been fed, the dry grass is browning.

Time has come, goodness has come.

But not her, love, soon, here, because.

So tonight, perhaps, I will take to the highest place on my side of town,

and I will ask my gods for the thing I want.

No, the thing I need. And perhaps then

she will come, love will come, soon will come here,

and come will come because it has been called.

I wish

...somedays, that I were a member of an ancient tribe.

Ones who worshipped the solstice sun on a serpent mound,

with a chip of pipestone rock in my pocket.

That I sang a dipping song to the dipping moon,

shaking my rattle drum with the night cicadas.

(Though I doubt women wore things with pockets).

(And, perhaps, actually the women were not part of the worshipping).

(And, even then in my imagination, I would be a reluctant rattle shaker).

Okay, let me start over. Somedays, I wish I were

a member of a tribe. Any tribe of gathered souls.

Ones that recognizes the lacy overlay of tree shadow on green.

Ones who are willing to rise to high heights to see beautiful things.

Ones who might stand on the tip of the serpent mound

and pray to the four directions, beckoning in

the dormant strength of the cold North,

the glinting hope in the spring East,

the lazy assurance of long-sunned summer South,

the ripening and release of the ending West.

Okay, now I am just sounding pretty.

(Or at least trying to). I wish, I really wish,

that someone else had been with me

on the day this picture was taken.

And that, instead of a shadow upon the path,

there had been a wide toothed goofball girlfriend

waving up at me. And that she and stood

on the tip of the tail and prayed together,

giving thanks for the four directions

that surrounded and bound the love between us.

And that, after the walk around this historic place,

we got into the car, and she put her hand

on the back of my head,

placing the memory within me:

that sacred sliver between two people

who have shared a sacred place.

because

...the drive was long, the road was paved,

and the sun was unrelenting.

Because the kids made water cake with mud,

because mud seems like a sister to me now,

gooey mud, tar black and sticky.

Because bark is hard,

and the marrow is so deep to touch,

and someone someday

tied a knot around the trunk of me.

Because I lied when I did not need to,

because there will always be moral relapse.

Because the days are shorter,

the cricket hopped away,

and the cicadas cannot not stop their screaming.

Because I do not know why,

and I surely do not know when or even if.

Because in dreams, I still run,

and the water turns into soap,

and the doors do not have hinges.

Because in dreams, my knees are not made of bone,

but of wet leaves and bread.

Because every time I had a chance for yes, I chose no.

And there were no echoes,

even across the worn mountains.

Because the moon just came, early and dull,

retreating to the far corner,

barely willing to be part of the sky.

I say good-night.

Who says there are not guides around every corner?

My teacher sent me out to "get a message from a being" and I am pretty sure she meant something like a message from a deer, or a twisted tree trunk, or the one-armed Jesus, but I was tired, so I marched right upstairs to a person -- someone who could tell me the truth with words not metaphor -- I found the nun in charge of art therapy and asked her of she would help me heal a chronic blister I have on my heart. She said, yes. It was just that easy.

I thought, ah, the message must be that line from church bible school we all learn when we are eight: Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened.

I was done. Fifteen minutes into my assignment, I had had success.

So, I walked outside and sat down next to another nun, Sister Evelyn, warming herself in the sun. She had on a pressed gray dress that smelled a bit like a closet, red knee socks and very white white sneakers. Her purse was a "Hello Kitty" bag. I adored her instantly. We talked about writing and reading, what each of us meant by the word "Lord," and we sat, at times, in a simple trusting silence. When we rose, she said, "Now that we know each other, we should pray for each other every day." I thought -- ah ha! -- another message for free. This: we need to carry the people we meet with a lovingkindness. This assignment was a piece of cake.

I took a walk through the high grass trail I had ventured on the day before, and then I wandered down to a lower path -- an old decayed path -- to the grotto that had been vandalized in the late 60's. I crawled over felled trees and hunks of broken brick walls. I thought I might end up at the Rocky River, but I found myself at the bottom of a steep dirt and shale hill. Shit.

I could walk back on the buggy swampy path I had just traveled, or maybe wind back and forth on the hill, easing the incline. Or, well, I could go straight up, take the shortest distance between where I was and where I needed to go. I climbed the hill.

And my knees did not ache, my heart did not explode. My lungs kept working. I did not topple when I thought I might. I found foot and hand holds along the way.

It was amazing. And my third message of the afternoon.

When I emerged from the top of the hill and wandered through the high grass, I walked a cindered path by the nun's garden. There, on a bench, was a woman reading a book. As in custom at River's Edge, I greeted her. This is our conversation, word for word:

Me: Hi. How are you?

Her: Good, I'm JoAnne. You?

Me: Jean. Guess what? I just climbed the hill (I was pointing back to the north)

JoAnne: (With a the slurred voice of a woman who had had a stroke) You did! I only climbed that hill once. The kids used to do it all of the time! But I waited until I was in my late 3o's to try.

Me: I just went up, but I have not climbed a hill like that in years.

JoAnne: Well, what is the message in that then?

I gulped, not believing that this woman asked me to discern a message, just what my teacher had wanted me to receive. Then I said: My heart can take more than I thought it could. What do you think the message might be?

JoAnne: What you said must be true if you said it.

I felt like I was talking to a prophet. A saint. A one armed Jesus, again. Another one-armed Jesus.

Me: You look like my mom did.

JoAnne: I am not old enough to be your mother.

Me: No, you look like my mother looked at a younger age -- in her 50's. How old are you?

JoAnne: Next month, I will turn 61. How old are you?

Me: 48

Her bright blue eyes widened and she sat up to get closer to me. And said: I must tell you something. In Judaic lore, every 7th year is a sabbatical year. And the 7th seven is very important. You must relax, rest, gather strength. Clear up your debts, and, you must set your slaves free.

I instantly welled up. I must set my slaves free.

My ties to a love now gone. My ties to love failed. To love taken for granted. The life spent trying to fit in. The life spent trying to get more love from people not able to do so. I must release my mother. My father. My brother. I must release my fear of not-knowing. My need to always know. I must unchain self incrimination and self doubt. I must set free the people I refuse to release. All of them. Every single one. Including the me that is no longer serving my highest good.

She continued: Then when you are 50 you get to celebrate all year long. Every day of the year.

We both laughed and clapped about that. A whole year of happiness.

I reached down to hug her. I told her that my teacher had sent me out to get a message from a being, and she was the person who delivered the truth I needed most to me. I thought it was Carrie Vall, the art therapist. Then I thought it was sweet tiny Sister Evelyn, who is, I am sure, praying for me this very day. I thought it might be the hill. But what it was -- the message for me -- was JoAnne. JoAnne telling me to set my slaves free.

This one conversation, with a woman I met once for a very short time on a very hot day, on a path I just happened to wander when she just happened to be there -- all of that a perfect coincidence -- is one that will stick to me and change me, forever. And it made me realize how the mystery is so willing, every day through every kind of saint, to reveal itself. It's just so very willing to make its grace known.

Because of the air conditioning

Because of the air conditioning,

when I get out of my bath,

my nipples are full and erect

and all around the cinnamon tip,

small bumps rise in their circling awake dance.

My breasts have been slack-jawed lately,

victims of this summer's heat and humidity.

So to see them this way caught my attention.

Kept my attention. And for a flash,

I did not see the droop, the moles,

the spider vein bursts.

They were not fleshy stalactites,

melting from my shoulders.

Not embarrassingly large reminders

of all of the other too big parts of me.

They were extraordinary, sweet pea perfection.

And in seeing them this way,

all of me can be seen in this way too.

In the last few days, I have fallen in love

with my toes, and the hopeful white of their nails,

the wrinkles around the knuckles of each finger,

the creases in my elbows, the strong mound of my ankle bone.

This is the body that carries me, these are the parts

that touch what is not of me. And these,

these, are the nipples that someone will stiffen,

on breasts that are readying to be seen.

A letter from West

Dear J,

You feel the sway of me -- the ease with which I could knock you on your ass. With one small poke from my smallest finger, you'd be down, splayed on the ground without a hand to pull you up. I am the west -- the fall, the harvest, the ripening, the decay, the letting go, the giving in, the acceptance.

You know the northern night, You welcome the cozy warmth you can create out of winter's cold. You know sister south, , the ease and luxury of summer. There is no way to not know down -- the earth -- 48 years of hundreds of months, the strength and scenery of every step. You know up -- the spirit -- and are a friendly kin to it. Spirit does not scare you. But me? I scare you and so does my twin east.

You teeter totter between the realm of letting go and beginning anew. You hold on too long, you start too late and without self -assurance. We jib jab you at every juncture; you wobble like the weakest weeble. So you lean into north and south, you spread your wide stance firm in only two possibilities -- light and darkness, heat or cold. The more I ask of you, the more you root yourself to that simple polarity. I see your wide shoulders, your solid hips -- even your body is most comfortable in that side-to-side plane.

And I see your big belly and your big ass. You know where those come from? What they were born out of? They are evening the weight pulling at your fulcrum, keeping you equally unmoved by the things that would release and the things that would restore.

I want you to know this. I am not trying to knock you over. I do not want to see you fall. Mine is a loving poke, so that your will lean back and have newness catch you. I want you to see that if you trust me, she will be there ready for you. With the soft burning light of dawn, with her rising waves, with seeds born of seeds. We are a team, east and west. We are born of the same mother and you are the one we refuse to relinquish. I will poke, she will catch. I will push, she will comfort.

You know my voice, you know who I am made of. You can talk to your mother through me. You can say your final words to Carrie through me. I hold the fruit and fracture of all things within me and I know -- I am the one who knows -- how hard it is to release your love and loss to seek more love and life. The way to the east is through the west. The way to rising light is by setting down the day. The only way to reseeding is by eating the harvest of the fall.

Trust me. I am not your enemy. I will save you.

With love and more love, and an abiding trust in you,

The west

At River's Edge

What if Jesus had lost his left arm? Maybe in a war. Maybe blown off by an assassination gone wrong. What if it had been an accident? Yes, let’s make it that. As a young child, what if his arm were crushed in a masonry project he was doing with Joseph? A large boulder falling from great heights? His father shocked and running, trying to save his son?

How might that have affected the way we see and revere him? Would he have been seen as a healer, if he chose not to heal himself?

For sure, it might have shifted the way teenage catholic girls spend years trying find a young man with Jesus’ gentleness, his tan, young skin. His lithe body, his sinewy muscles. Maybe even Mary would not have anointed him with her perfumed oils.

What if our Jesus, the incarnate God, had not been perfect? Would it have opened up the way we see and live into our lives? Maybe we would have seen our bodies with greater kindness and forgiveness. Maybe tv would look different, maybe models would look different. Maybe payscales would not lean in the direction of handsome young, tall blond men.

What if Jesus lost his arm and chose not to fix it? What if God came down to us and lived with a flaw? Would we then be able to live with our flaws? Accept our imperfections? Maybe even not label them as such.

I am thinking today about the damage we do to ourselves. How we live under the false strain of trying to be more than we need to be.

A week ago, I held a curled and drying maple leaf – as did all of my classmates – and our teacher asked if each of our leaves was beautiful. I immediately decided yes, of course my leaf is beautiful.

My teacher’s premise was that we would develop a sense of appreciation about all of our “disformed” leaves when we looked at them closely, but I had leapt past that. I think that when a person decides something is joyous, helpful, silly, redundant, beautiful, ________________ (you can fill in the blank), that object, person, or experience becomes that intention. It’s a simple as that.

When I wake up feeling fat and ugly, I feel fat and ugly all day long. But when I awaken with an insistence to be a beautiful agent in a beautiful world, I am exactly that.

Or if I decide, as each of us can do, that we are one armed Jesuses wandering for a short time on the earth carrying flawed and ever healing spirits within flawed and ever healing bodies…well, the whole thing opens up, doesn’t it? The world cracks wide, in a sea of others who are so much the same.