Notes From A Broken Heart

What happens to a dream deferred---over and over, again and again? Until it frays, uravels, and wears out.  Surely, that's what must have propelled a mother to say to her son, "Life's for me ain't been no crystal stair!"  (From Langston Hughes' Mother to Son)  You think? Have you ever heard the bromide, "If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all?"  When did I stop expecting, hoping, and dreaming?  How long ago did I reject the falsetto notes of "Happily-Ever-Afters?" Was that after my  first dream deferred?  Has my torch song become "I've got a right to sing the Blues?" Do I pretend to embrace the genre as if it mirrors my Southern roots and culture?  Do the Blues become me ,  fit me like a snuggly sweater on a cool, autumn day?  Who am I, I wonder.   Why would I be expected to know the answer?  Have I ever questioned how or why I'm in the predicament in which I may be ensconced? Did I con

"I want Jesus to walk with me,  I want Jesus to walk with me;  All along my pilgrim journey,  I  want Jesus to walk with me." The lyrics, humming in my head as I awakened early one morning, surprised me. I've always found it difficult, sometimes impossible, to ask for help.  Probably the only person I ever could ask for anything was Daddy.  Because he was Daddy and I was the "Baby of the family." Or so I thought for years.    Isn't it ironic that I could go to Daddy for new shoes, new dresses, new anything but it took me an amazingly long time to learn to ask  Father God, the Maker and Creator of all things, for the desires of my heart.  It's when I graduated to high school and was on my own---out of the safe cocoon of elementary and middle school--- that asking  gained traction.  Cause I had to.  I needed to know how to get from English class to algebra in a huge, three level, block long building.  I used to think it was beca

Utter helplessness.  Utter hopelessness. D oes the former more accurately reflect the state of my mind than the latter? Are both accurate? Neither? No question about the "utter" part, unless "Utterly" fits more aptly.  No, I'm not playing word games, nor am I minimizing my quest.  The angst from which this word-chase  derives may be traced to my wrestling with something so senseless.   It's not aimless rambling. either. Its genesis began with the death of Courtney, the younger of my two daughters.  How I responded to it, or didn't. The quagmire of emotions that either hunted or haunts   me.   Yes, I felt helpless, without hope, bereft.  Death devours sensibility, sensitivity,  and stability, among a trillion other losses. In fact, I had learned life, or learned to emulate a pretty average life.  Which was alright with me.   Let me live out my threescore-and-ten years, I resolved, "or even by reason of strength eighty." By the time Cou

Unforgiveness doesn't become you!   Words spoken sotto voce.  I look around, see no one; realize I had heard the words in my spirit.  Neither surprising nor expected; yet, I know Spirit's gentle nuance.  I hesitated  a half step before continuing to greet a cherished friend with "Good Sunday morning, my Dear."   I shared what I had heard, and how He had spoken without condemnation or condescension.   If anything, sadness tinged His assessment.  I confessed to her what He had whispered,  then offered a blow-by-blow account of what I knew essentially had always been a weak and irresponsible reason for feeling offense.  When she concurred, peace enveloped us for the scant few minutes we sat together before Worship service began. How often had I failed to hear His still, small voice in the midst of the soap opera my life easily could devolve into? How often had I felt it more important to be right than to respond from a place of love?  It's amazing how the

"Mem'ries Light the corners of my mind Misty water-colored memories Of the way we were" I've noticed how perceptions subtly shift over time, or  even drift.  When I contrast my daughter, Tracey's recollections with mine, she remembers summer evenings in Denver as warm, even balmy, while I remember July as the thunderstorm-laden month.  I recall temperatures beginning their slow descent from summer-highs as early as Labor Day. Too, I remember wearing light sweaters at dusk in the summer while she remembers sleeveless evening chasing friends in neighborhood competitions. The world seems bent on going to hell in a handbasket, as one of my past Pastors predicted.  How else to explain round-the-clock national and global conflicts and undeclared wars; mercurial weather patterns that show no signs of stabilizing; wildfires, now occurring in the East, West, Midwest, and South---all over a worn nation? Look at tornadoes erupting out of the blue, floods

"Surprise! Surprise!"That's what Gomer Pyle would say as an Army recruit when something unexpected seemed suddenly to appear. Usually, his surprises were happy ones.  If Gomer Pyle reruns play in your time zone or cable channel, watch them as.they represent a time of innocence long since missing from today's t.v. shows, movies,  or sitcoms. So why am I truly surprised when God answers prayer? It's not as if He never answers them.  In fact, He responds affirmatively more often than He says "No" or "Not now." He always knows what's best for His children. However, if a supplication seems to be taking too long, I start speculating as if I've prayed the prayer to me , not God.  In fact, how often have I prayed to myself (or some other idol) but not to God? I can remember years of making fervent yet self-serving, prayers only to catch myself two minutes later trying to figure out solutions. Had I even waited 120 seconds for His answer?

Learning. To. Trust. God. Has. Not. Been. Easy. For. Me.  No "Jack and the Beanstalk" magic foreshadowed it.  A peddler didn't meet me on the way to the Corner Store, open his pack of goodies, and trade the money Mother had entrusted me with for a few measly beans. No. Learning to trust  God, the Almighty, with my life has been arduous, a seeming landmine pockmarked by explosions (boom!) if I were fortunate, or unexpected detours if I just didn't know any better.  I am a "living witness," as the old Deacons professed,  that spending a lifetime in churches, does not guarantee a deep-in-the-belly knowledge and understanding of an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient God and of Who He is: Attending Sunday School as a child; serving on the Junior Usher Board; segueing into adult memberships; and serving time on the Mourners Bench, I presumed, would suffice.  I truly believed (hoped?) that attending Sunday worship services, Summer Revivals, and "

September 6th marks what would have been the 25th birthday of Philip Anthony, my first-born grandson.    Bitter.  Sweet. Goodness! Time plays mind games---sometimes moving slower-than-sorghum-molasses, yet in an instant, speeding with lightning flashes.  The days after his Sudden Infant Deat, time stood still or blitzed seamlessly and so quickly that I'd look around and wonder where the months had gone, and how time had hopscotched from July to Halloween.  I remember walking into stores festooned in orange and black crepe paper, carved plastic jack o' lanterns, candy aisles replete with orange and yellow candy corn.  White, attentuated cardboard skeletons held together with thumbtacks, seemed to be swaying every place I turned.  Suddenly, the thought of celebrating Halloween made my stomach roil.  I pictured  Philip dead, skeletonized: a grotesquerie.  That first Halloween, I turned off all the lights in my home, unscrewed the light bulb outside the front door, and crie

A treasure hunt conjures up childhood scenes of a swashbuckling pirate on the high seas, one eye black patch-covered, head wrapped in a large bandana, lunging at a stronger-than-Popeye, daring opponent.  The victor emerges, laden with gold doubloons and hauls of hard-fought-for spoils. At least that how my memory serves it up. At what age do we relinquish the fantasies of childhood? Or do we ever? Many of us recited, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord, my soul, to keep..." long after we learned the Lord's Prayer. We even accepted the fact that Santa Claus wasn't really real. (Well, most of us did, I think, even though we continued   to make   Christmas wish-lists around September, if not sooner).  It's not as if our dreams required no commitment or vows. He (Santa) knows if you've been good or bad, so be good for goodness sake!  However, we remembered the moral of King Midas and the Midas Touch and learned early there's no such thing as

A treasure hunt conjures up childhood scenes of a swashbuckling pirate on the high seas, one eye black patch-covered, head wrapped in a large bandana, lunging at a stronger-than-Popeye, daring opponent.  The victor emerges, laden with gold doubloons and haul of hard-fought-for spoils. At least that how my memory serves it up. At what age do we relinquish the fantasies of childhood? Or do we ever? Many of us recited, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord, my soul, to keep..." long after we learned the Lord's Prayer. W even accepted the fact that Santa Claus wasn't really real. (Well, most of us did, I think, even though we continued  to make  Christmas wish-lists around September, if not sooner).  It's not as if our dreams require no commitment or vows. He (Santa) knows if you've been good or bad, so be good for goodness sake!  However, we remember the moral of King Midas and the Midas Touch and learn early that there's no such thing as a fr