Sometimes I get the feeling
everything so far
has been a few of us stragglers
wandering around this old museum
just before closing,
picking up little polished stones
one-by-one
and pewter sculptures
and moon rocks
and animal claws
and ivory eye sockets
and a fake cutlass
and playing make believe
and telling each other
all sorts of cute fictions
about ghost conjuring
and sunken ships
and people who eat nails
or swallow flaming swords
while God has been outside
waiting in the car
this whole time
with the engine running,
tapping the steering wheel,
wondering,
what the hell
are those guys doing
in there!?
Come on…
Let’s go!
Did you forget that
your Brother’s coming home tonight?
Or that you’re helping me open up
a new universe in celebration?
Sometimes I put down that
glass eye and look out the window
and I wonder–
Ooohh… look!
A pile of seventeenth century
cast iron cannon balls!
Guys… check this out!
Embracing Forever 
…what the hell are those guys doing in there?!
And, Ooohh… look!
Brilliant. Poignant. And spot on.
Well done, sir.
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Thank you, Eric! Much appreciated.
Michael
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Delightfully fun, short and to the point! 🙂
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Alright, alright, easy Brad. No gloating. Please. Look– I know that ‘brevity’ is not exactly my middle name… I just felt it was incumbent upon me, having violated all bounds of reasonableness in a few recent posts, to try and reign my wordy self in… 🙂
Your presence here is much appreciated as always!
Michael
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You did good Michael, and thanks for being a good sport. 🙂 I appreciate you too!
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I really love how I can relate to God in this poem, in my many moments of waiting in the car – he and me are compadres!
What could they be doing in there? Doesn’t he ever honk the horn? Blow his stack? Come marching in with his hands on his hips? (Maybe we aren’t so alike after all:) Delightful, MIchael!
Oh, did you see this witch doctor mask? I’m gonna try it on!
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God doesn’t get mad because he has us to do it for him. But if he doesn’t have the kids home by dinner time… look out! Durga is going to put on her Kali mask and start doing what She does best. We best leave our masks back in the Gargoyle Exhibit and sneak in the back door… Maybe pick up some flowers on the ride home…
Michael
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Don’t be offended if Durga/Kali bites the head off of those flowers – she isn’t in the mood to put them in a vase. 🙂
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So good to know we can ease up on the whole God thing, ‘the power and the glory’. Thank you Michael, nice to know there’s also a sense of humour about it all…
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This note cracked me up. The way you said ‘the power and the glory’… it just sounded like the code name of a military operation for some reason. 🙂
Michael
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It probably was the code of a military operation – the salvation army, etc. Do what we say and be saved/safe!
I wish this poem had cracked me up. The truth of it makes me kinda sad – I know God’s waiting in the car, and I so much want to join him/her, but seem, over and over to be caught by the next bauble, caught in the net of being ‘someone’. I am encouraged that at least I see it, even if I apparently can’t change it yet.
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Well, here’s the thing, A. These moments like you describe happen to me frequently, and while I try to blame it on the moon, I am told I need to take some responsibility. I try and chalk them up as gifts, because there may be a dwelling place within even deeper and more beautiful than we were previously willing to settle for, and these little nudges are telling us to keep moving. I also like to think of them as reminders of the inevitability of the outcome. The state of separateness is a passing dream, and when it passes we’ll still be here. The real we. And the simple things, like God waiting for us in the car, those will still be here, too. In fact, the only thing we may lose is the feeling something isn’t right. And Maren hit the nail on the head… meanwhile, we are held by the deepest love imaginable. He’s in the car right now, eyes closed and singing away at a green light.
Michael
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Oh, the beauty of all the delicious distractions and the freedom to take as much time as we want investigating the diorama demonstrating the nuances of say, the cooking habits of the Ute Indians. It all means absolutely nothing, but points to remembering everything depending on how we see what see.
When we are dallying over it all with the filter of love, I think the big man at the wheel is happy to wait as long as it takes. “Ears that hear and eyes that see– the LORD has made them both”. Psalms 20:12
-x.M
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I think you are right, M. Thank you for the steady diet of lovely thoughts. He’s got all the time in the world… And, oh my, the entertainment… 🙂
So, uh… got any good recipe’s?
Michael
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I like seeingm’s perspective much better than mine! 🙂
Helps me remember this *is* what’s wanted, otherwise it would be different. And that I’m not in charge. And that there’s nothing to be done. And that it’s not my life. Life is living itself through/as me – that is all. It’s only the mind that ever thinks it should be different. All is well.
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Maren’s perspective is yours now, freely given, I am quite sure…
I call shotgun.
Michael
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Love this Michael; nice to see you being playful!!
And Mama Kali!! Ahhhhhhhh
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Being playful helps tremendously, Amanda, doesn’t it? Mama Kali is good for honing your reflexes. All it takes is one good smoting to teach you the wisdom in flanking maneuvers.
Michael
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and life smiles. always.
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She does. It’s true. Smiles and delivers… 🙂
Michael
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