Notes From A Broken Heart

The Good News! declares good news surrounds us! When your entire face wears a question mark and you look astonished, I respond,  "Yeah, I'm just now discerning what the New Testament describes throughout its 27 New books.  Really,"  you query? "While I realize my assertion sometimes defies belief, it's still true," I insist. "Are we talking about the same Book, the Holy Bible?" "Yes! In fact, Good News wends and weaves its way through the 39 books of the Old Testament, also, creating a tapestry of what the old deacons in my childhood church would call "an uninterrupted Jubilee." "No, sir! Really?!" The only way you can deny this truth can only be because you haven't read it!" "Well..."  "Before I sound like a know-it-all blowhard, I'll admit; I haven't read them all, either." "Whew! That's a relief, so why did you claim something you haven't done yourself?" "Well,

My dear young lady, Perhaps you wonder why I write to you about him.  I write really, both about your  choices and  the object of them.  I'm just sayin'.  This particular one is not the first  one.  First what? First awful, pitiful, lacking (you fill in the blank, then) disappointing choice you've made.  Actually, now that I think it out, maybe he, in truth chose you.    Often passive in your relationships, you may just have acquiesced.  This isn't your first rodeo, either.  Did you assume you'd selected him and not the obverse? Did you really? O r had your selection criteria conjured up another "Nothing Burger" like previous ones? Hmm. Do you still wonder why I address this "Cease and Desist" missive to you?  Certainly, you're more amenable to, receptive, and disposed to hearing what I say.    Consequently, you may listen  with wide inner ears wide open and a receiving, compassionate heart. I fear, however, that each of you chose the other f

  Unbidden, it comes.  Unannounced and unexpected but with arrow-shot accuracy, unsolicited grief washes through me. Yes, through me,   just like  water sluices   through an automatic dishwasher or a high-powered washing machine.  The problem is, I never know what precipitates  the "garment of heaviness" that drapes itself around my shoulders like a well-tailored suit.  However it happens, it imprisons me once again in torpidity.  Immobility.  Impassivity.   Actually, the vestment hangs and weighs like I imagine a knight's mail would.  It probably took forever, for a combatant to look, much less get comfortable.  Trust me: this intruder  has made its entrance before; I've worn it countless times in the past.  Grief always, but always returns! Is there no balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole? Each time this abject soul-sadness returns, its facade changes.   Grief has masqueraded as lethargy, ennui, despondency, cynicism, hopelessness, and so many more depictions.

  "Those who sow in teas will weep with joy." I preface this presumptuous blog with a critical disclaimer.  You may not be ready to read what follows.  You may reject my thoughts out of hand.  Reflexively.  That often happens with trauma, grief, and its unyielding aftermath.  Make no mistake, you may be experiencing an unexpected and chilling turn of events accompanied by a complicated mourning process. Since I write as a mother whose daughter died suddenly one Sunday, I typically would not qualify as a spokesperson for victims of depraved violence.  No, I haven't walked a mile in your mocassins, not even a step.   Yet, I defy quibblers to argue about what I feel   Parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, casual acquaintances, and even third cousins once removed, of a victim who has been slaughtered, might benefit from my voice.  Truth compels me to equivocate no longer. Here goes. Quickly and like yeast added to the dough of homemade rolls, the blog expanded to include

  Writing isn't a chore for me, as in "assignment, task, drudgery, or labor."   I can thank Ms. Dampier, my high school English teacher for that.  She'd assign us to read essays by Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Mark Twain,  among others and follow them with writing assignments.  "Boring," "busy work," or even "boring busy work" may have been our initial reaction.  How that changed with the reading and explication the very first time we read one!  While the assignments might have come across as dreary, tedious, or drudgery, Ms.  Dampier made them come alive! It wasn't until I taught high school English years later that I understood my favorite teacher had loomed decades ahead of her times! Ms. Dampier taught "critical thinking skills" long before a curriculum committee had categorized them.  I posit her sophomore literature class accounts for the peculiar facility writing offers me. Further. when my incubating gift of putting th