Stuck In E

Cramped between faux leather cowboy, shiny boots;

Fragile teen, legs all jitters, has the window.

Stuck in E,

You’re nowhere near me,

As the plane heads to the land of my roots.

Mt. Sinai, the place that they’ll bury dad’s wife,

Fountains gleam, grass so green; where the dead go.

Stuck in E,

You’re nowhere near me,

In that place I spent a third of my life.

Spanish tile, Shadow Ranch, Sycamore calling,

Red brick stair, hot summers there, schoolboy carom.

Stuck in E,

You’re nowhere near me,

As the car radio blares Free-Falling.

Love Field, Myrtle, Pecan tree and lake abound,

Goodbye Mustard grown, foothill and Sierra.

Stuck in E,

You’re not far from me,

The road takes me to where my heart is found.

Adrenalized Days Need More Than Z’s.

Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes fixed on things beyond me, in the quiet, I have stilled my soul, like a child at rest on its mother’s knee, I have stilled my soul within me. - Come to the Quiet, John Michael Talbot

My wife awoke in a panic. Trembling. She had this question on her mind, “What’s the name of the guy who starred in Spenser for Hire?” Our nights currently are fraught with these terrors. Our sleep a strange dance; part jitterbug, part swim. Throw in the snoring, his/her alarms plus the occasional amber alert and it’s a wonder we don’t always face our days tired. Daily life pours into our pursuit of sleep. Adrenalized days need more than z’s. There’s a desperate need to find rest.

Like a seal basking in break of day sun, a friend rises early to greet God. Rest of soul and receptivity to God seem to come easier to them (I’m certain that’s not true). A cruciform life posture marks friend Kelly who finds easy repose on the breast of the savior.

Possibly posture. Maybe ebb and flow. Can’t get there most times. That child sitting on his mother’s knee squirms away. My coffee table chair, my Papua New Guinea arabica, blue enamel mug, Michael W. Smith melody, a glimpse, an open window to a place I’ve not arrived.

It’s as hard for me to know rest as it is for me to describe rest. A warm San Fernando summer night Mike and I pulled beach chairs onto his lawn after midnight. We sat feet from the sidewalk and dreamed dreams. Laughing, laughing; so loud the neighbors came outside to tell us to be quiet. As much a picture of rest to me as another summer day in the dry heat of Zion. Fremont cottonwood pollen blowing down atop cold canyon river, orange Navajo sandstone cliffs forcing me ever forward. Into the quiet.

That night with Mike, that day in the Narrows echo that famous line, “God made me fast and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”  Getting caught up and letting go; being safe and carried away. Rest is Kellys’ cruciform posture, the sea lion on a stone, a quiet canyon, a child on her mother’s knee.

Photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash

Lessons I Learned From The Immigrants

And if I sing let me sing for the joy 

That has born in me these songs

And if I weep let it be as a man

Who is longing for his home.

I spent my childhood in the company of immigrants and refugees. Dichondra and Bermuda, chlorine in pools; the neighborhood. Settled in. Life in the San Fernando valley. Yet our parents still smelled the salt water. Our parents; family names like Mitrevics, Oeffinger, Cardella and Fusillo. Fleering other lives to live this one; leaving pogroms, property and riches for the new world.

We observed like kids do. I told my close friend I could barely understand his mom because her accent was so thick. “What about your mom’s accent,” he asked with emphasis. I assured him that my mother had no accent. He swore his didn’t either. 

The accents are an echo of a land no longer lived in. A home that day to day life keeps at bay. Comfortable at get-togethers. Almost home again. Laughing in native tongue, breaking traditional breads; pirogi and Rupjmaize (dark rye). At times; quiet, lonely times, the pain is palpable. James A. Smith gives this example of what it feels like to be an immigrant, “You lose something of your upright bearing if you no longer have the soil of your own land beneath your feet; you feel less confident, more distrustful of yourself.” What’s my takeaway as the child of an immigrant?

Freedom is a painful process. Hardship is part of the process. Moving forward (a myriad of meanings) entails going from the comfortable known to the questionable unknown. Always trading something; cigarettes and soap buy the next border crossing. The journey isn’t about escaping pain. It’s about grasping freedom—inching forward in small increments toward greater fullness. 

There will always be a transient tension; the homeland behind you, hunger for all that ‘home’ implies ahead of you. Home is comfort not permanence. Being home is having a sense of ‘place.’ In a broader sense just as Jesus had no place to lay his head, he was able to find sleep wherever he laid his head.

Be hospitable to strangers. As God reminds us in the first testament, “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” By culture, compassion or both the mothers in the neighborhood were mom to their own children and their friends. They, my own mom included, often took in the outcast as well. As the sojourner is blessed he blesses others.

By faith Abraham lived as an alien in the land of promise, a seed of blessing to many. Freedom, tension, movement and pain are part and parcel of the process. This is the transient tension, setting out then settling down. Losing self, finding self, giving. Such are the lessons learned from the immigrants.

Photo by Alexandra Kikot on Unsplash