12-12-12
I used to believe that if you looked hard enough you would find something wonderful lying in the grass or the gutter...a treasure to sustain you and make true words tumble from your lips. I would spend hours in downtown Cincinnati after a night of hard living, scanning the curb for something usable.
I was young then and the very wind could stir up my heart with fire and ice to make the true words slip past my tongue and out into the world where I had been dropped - abandoned. I could smell the fresh baked smell of morning in the dewy air that gowned me. And it was so easy to be led by a growling stomach while weary step after weary step would lead me back to the pool hall where I had last seen my car - to find out if this morning I was still engaged to the boy I had met the night before. He was desperate for a ride.
One handed I would play the game on the green felt and try to rescue the poor guy, God knew his brothers were no help - I had told my dad that capiltalism did not answer all questions, and this was my attempt to prove it.
That it would cost my life was not the problem as I saw it...I had so much Time. It was a magazine with great illustrations and ideas on how to profit with your investments. Sounds slick even now, does it not? It wouls cost me my life but my daughters would eventually wind up paying the bill. Because that poor guy was their wiley rabbit of a daddy and they were committed to loving him, too. Or at least trying to communicate with him. As I said, God knew no one else would help.
The wind blew lovely words from our lips, words interesting enough to keep him coming home for dinner. And we all rode to church on the back of a rider mower that long, hot summer. My youngest daughter put it all music - and o how she sang. Castle on a Cloud with her roller blades strapped to her busy feet...she was trying to find a way out of the basement where she practised and out onto the stage of life.
What dreamers we all were back then. We all believed the treasure was right under our very noses if only we could see more clearly.
I brushed the honey- colored hair from her questioning violet eyes and spoke reassuringly to her. For I would not abandon my daughter - my Shining Truth who could detect my weaknesses and hide out in the trunk of my car to show me how to be honest. She tried so hard. I will not leave you or forsake you I whispered - and the true words tumbled from the page and were drunk in by her hungry thirsty ears.
She kissed me good-bye all to often...and struggled to make her daddy believe in her the way he believed in the hidden treasures.
I have learned some things down here under the stars. I have learned you cannot walk back home. You have to wait for your ride. And He is weaving his way here - through all that heavenly traffic and my atrocious typing. He is spinning a carpet of care to whisk us safely home.
Even so - come Lord, Jesus.
Hope this finds you waiting for your ride too - we could share the fare perhaps...find a treasure or two falling from our truthful lips.
That is my poetic goal what I heard today as I drove yet another car down the road to home.
Listen with your heart for the beat, beat, beat of this song.
