Difficult People

We are the difficult people.
We do not fit in.
We stand out, awkwardly.
And we annoy you, perplex you, vex you.
We try your patience.
We loathe being this way,
but we cannot help it.

We raise the bar of love.
We call forth new patience,
new kindness.

"Love never fails,"
but many fail us.
We are too damned hard to deal with
We stand out by falling down.

We raise the bar of love.
Our hurt hurts you.

Let that hurt help
Let that aching pain raise the bar of love
So high
So high
That only grace can raise it.

The shape of our Cross is sharp;
it cuts away life.

What is the shape of your Cross
before our Cross?

The Long Wrong

So much
So wrong
For so long.

Too much
Too wrong
For so long.

There must be more
To right the wrong
To heed the lament
To strain the world dry of woe.

In this broken world, there in no final escape from the torments of love.

Groaning

My sister-in-law, Sandy, who along with her husband, take care of my wife's aged father, has suffered a massive heart attack last night. It is very serious. Please pray for her and all those involved. Pray that I would have strength to do what needs to be done to help my distraught wife and the rest of the family.

Trouble

Cracked, wracked;
marred, charred;
battered, shattered,

but not abandoned.

From Moby Dick, "The Try Works"

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true - not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity". ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave- yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly; - not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.

A Small Piece of Advice

To those of you who know the spouses of the chronically ill, I have a piece of advice. While we are grateful that you are concerned about our spouses, it is often painful to have to tell people over and over that our spouses are no better or even worse. We are happy to just avoid the issue sometimes. So, please do not always bring it up. Ask us about other things.

Friendships Lost

Betrayal,
bellowed, whispered, or silent.

Refusal
to acknowledge, to respond.

Silence,
where words should be.

Nothing,
where something should be.



Part of me
with part of you--forgotten or spurned.