A poem

I am a ship that sails on waters

As smooth as broken glass.

Scattered chaos fills the maritime skies and seas,

Patternless, messy colors melt into one another.

Stay. Go.

Push. Pull.

Drop anchor. Hold on tight.

Weather the storm.

WAIT.

NO!

no.

Be. free.

Be loosed from oppression’s heavy anchor chains.

Sail.

Beautifully complex.

Reluctantly hopeful.

Tentatively yearning.

Grasp toward the harbor of hope.

Sail directly into the promising fog.

Here Comes the Sun

Today, I attended a workshop entitled: Awakening the Soul of the Writer. Tomorrow, I'll hear Kathleen Norris speak. Then I'll stop at the outlet mall on the way home! It doesn't get much better than this...

When the brochure for this workshop crossed my desk, the title instantly hooked me. After Dad died, the words seemed to stop flowing. It was as if the writing balloon deflated in a heartbeat - or in the radical ceasing of his heartbeat. Writing became a chore, and I no longer had even an ounce of energy for it. In fits and starts, I jotted a phrase here and a thought there. Fleeting sentences were typed on the computer or written in what could only loosely be described as a journal. I wanted to write, but simply getting out of bed and facing the world became my central task for many months. Managing a chaotic estate, pastoring an anxious congregation, mothering and wife-ing, simply breathing...the foci changed. Survival mode.

In the past few weeks, the sun has begun to rise. I've experienced a new energy, a renewed sense of verve. The world and I have begun to re-engage, and it has felt great. I'm no longer simply going through the motions. Hope. Promise. These words have re-entered my clouded vocabulary.

Strangely enough, more transitions await me. Some of them will be heart wrenching, but nothing like the past 18 months. Some of them will be freeing, bringing new life and resurrected joy along for the ride. Some of them will represent a return to the land of the living, while others bring a renewed consciousness and engagement.

On the day Dad died, Chad commented on the irony of my shirt's proclamation: Life is Good. Today, with an awakened writer's soul, I can once again embrace that, yes, life is good.