Once Hidden, Forever Remembered

she walked quietly, arms folded
soles upon her land of birth, reflective
her Mother’s adornments remain upon it
las cosas sagradas, like the altars she erected

2000 anios El Senor Sufrio Por Nosotros
it reads, the old wooden cross my Grampo built
Daddy took my picture in front of it
for the purpose of remembering

la casita, now overrun by mice,
descendants of those my Grandma chased
broomstick held high, Aunt Jemima
stood inside on a shelf like a guardian and reminder

we are not without our own
cartoonish popularized prejudices

Spanglish is spoken now, in my generation
English rules my Father’s
Spanish my Grandparent’s
Indios, Latinos, Chicanos. Familia, all.

soy Americana,
con sangre de enspanola
y sangre de la tierra

I walked beside my Grandmother that day
upon the land, the farm de Los Romeros
we walked together and remembered,

toy trees and warm tortillas,
hand rolled cigarettes and poker for pennies,
the multicolored stones in the half walled porch
seeming to hide inside them the stories of us all

in the corner of the yard a Statuado of Jesus
el Sagrado Corazon alive still, with thorns and flames
delivering forth the lifeblood of the stories de la familia

speak them, hermanos
whisper them to your children, primos
tias y tios, never let us forget
we were of this place once
this place where earth meets sky
in the stories lie our
cultura, rich and deep.
once hidden, forever remembered

we lose part of ourselves lest we remember,
speak these stories, dear ones,
stories of blood and water
they are the origin of our belonging

Linking up with http://dversepoets.com/ for Open Link Night.

Six Days, Have you Forgotten How to Fly?

My Kiddos at EPCOT 2011

There are exactly six days until the fullness of this school year marks away the days on my calendar with the inky reminders about games and practices, meetings and projects like Xs, they count them down. Six days and I will be chasing any available white space in order to pencil in quiet family moments. My children are growing up, it’s an undeniable fact.

                We returned from our Walt Disney World vacation nearly a week ago now and we’re still playing catch up. There are meals to plan, papers to sign, lunches to pack, and practices to blacken my coveted white space. I am a child at heart and I can’t help but feel the elevation of childhood memories, the hopes and dreams surfacing in my own heart as I watch my babies grow. I watched as they immersed themselves in the imaginary world create by the magic of Disney. I watched as their eyes light up during the fireworks as they burst over Cinderella’s Castle, or when Mickey Mouse defeated Maleficent in the show, Fantasmic. For those brief moments I pushed away all the details of our daily lives that are now threatening to chip away at the white space.

                For these six days I am choosing to take these moments and with them pause, allowing them to soak into my skin like a wine stain on the living room carpet, and wear them like the invisible kiss hidden in the right hand corner of Wendy’s mother’s mouth, from the Peter Pan story. This year in particular will mark me in a way that the others have not. My eldest daughter begins her senior year with much celebration, and a longing to cling to the last moments of her childhood  before leaping toward adulthood. My sweet middle child is experiencing the changes only a 12 year old girl knows. She’s becoming a woman, but her heart remains childlike, and her eyes filled with wonder. She’s navigating the world of middle school with hesitation and hope. She’s in for an awfully big adventure. My youngest entered his final year of elementary school. It’s the last year of play grounds and a single class room for math and reading, desks instead of lockers and recess every day after lunch. I have to admit, the Kindergarteners are much smaller than mine were, or so it seems.

                As a Mother I couldn’t be more proud of my children, of their successes and the attempts they have made to learn from their failures. I see their efforts to become the people they were created to be by battling who they don’t wish to become through the choices that they make. Each will craft a story I have yet imagined. Though I can’t help having concerns, I am holding tight to the knowledge that there is an author that knows the beginning from the end, whose hand is in the daily workings of their lives, and he will guide them beyond my reach, though my prayers will always go with them tucked inside their pockets like the mama kisses I used to leave on their hands when I would go out. Now they’re the ones going out.

                Six days, and for these six days I will live in the white spaces, the quiet moments before the barrage of practices and games take it from me. I have chosen to be present in these moments, to shut off the blackberry, to keep the laptop closed, the T.V. off and allow the time that I spend with my children etch memories onto my soul, and forever remember that,

“All children, except one, grow up.”

All Peter Pan References are from J.M. Barrie's book,  Peter Pan

Sea Of Forgetting-My Post from the Beach and last Social Media Contact Until We Return.

 In scripture it is written that the Father will cast sin into the depths of the ocean, into the place of forgetting. It’s like the forgiveness found in the arms of a lover that has released you from the place where you are obliged to love him and in doing so allows you to love freely. Our wounds, both inflicted and those we did inflict carry a great weight of expectation. We react or act based on what those expectations are and we live in the place of fulfilled or unfulfilled obligations. Obligation isn’t love, and dedication that brings obedience and the dedication of a lover is beyond what we could ask for in the sober realization of the damaged lives we lead.

                This week my family and I have accompanied my in-laws at a beach house that is nestled quietly on an obscure piece of beach on the Florida panhandle. As I watch the changing of the tides, the temperature of the water and how it differs from day to day I am amazed at the wondrous beauty. This ecosystem is vast and complex, delicate and severe all at once. Nature is said to reveal the glory of God. I believe that is true, but I believe that we have misunderstood some fundamental truths. God is a God of mercy, peace and grace, but he is not only those things.

                I remember speaking with a Pastor friend of mine one morning at Starbucks, he made a simple, but powerful statement, “You cannot have mercy without justice, the minute we forget that truth and begin to apply mercy without first examining the offense and the just punishment it requires we nullify the power mercy has to transform a life.” Wise words from a very wise man and I’m thankful to have heard them. Mercy and justice met on the cross, where Jesus took the full weight of sin on his own shoulders and with the crucifixion took the just punishment, and in doing so released mercy from the Father.

                An ecosystem can seem harsh, the death of a creature, the devouring one of another and then another. The severe weather conditions, the magnitude and the vastness of such things is beyond a lifetime of understanding. I am unable to examine or appreciate them all but this I do know, that a profound truth exists in understanding that God works in rhythm, seasons if you will. Though things change, a sin is devoured and taken to the depths of the ocean of forgetting another is allowed to roam freely. We exist in an ecosystem that is imperfect in it’s severity and it’s beauty and only through God's perfect sacrifice can we truly see them all as they are. 

                Today as I write this I have the ocean before me with little sign of land except for the small mass that curls around to the left of the horizon. Today, as I walk down upon the white sand beaches I will release to my Father some of the things he has been urging me to, but until now I had not possessed the strength. Obligations I feel are more a weight than a willful obedience that exists in the form of loving God back, and in doing so release this great need for acceptance from mankind. I have no illusions about walking away and not being challenged in this choice, but I do believe in the moments of choosing when we erect alters in our hearts, remembered times with the Father where we have a shift of thought or choice.  I will receive the mercy he offers, and I will release to him my sins, and with those quiet understandings tucked neatly in my heart I will be thankful.

 I have a few quiet days left here, and I hope to immerse myself in them all. I will not be participating in any social media forms from this time on so that I may be in a place of meditation, contemplation and appreciation for this gift. I do pray that as you read these words you are well and blessed. Much love, Apryl.

On this Journey there will always be change. How will you respond?

Slipping through my fingers all the time, the days my children are growing. They sing with chubby cheeks and have infectious giggles that make my sides ache.

The seriousness of adulthood is crouching at my eldest child’s door, she’s been talking about colleges and scholarships. I can close my eyes and still feel the softness of her baby skin beneath my nose. Sometimes I can still feel her long red hair as I would braid it and watch it as it would bounce as she ran toward waves on the beaches of southern California. She worships now, with nonverbal notes, not the songs of childhood but the ones of eternity, and no, words aren’t necessary. I hear them moving through her like water and I’m in awe.

            Hallie began middle school this year, the fragile infant that I almost lost once. The way I clung to her day and night hoping for health to find her, and now that it has, she’s growing faster and stronger every day, eleven years old and strong. The changes every girl goes through beginning in her body and emotions. It’s a confusing time for us all as we help her navigate this transition. Those big brown eyes staring up at me the way they used to as I would hold her through uncertain nights so long ago. She takes her Jesus breaths now at bed time and we pray together, and I stroke those auburn locks and kiss her forehead and wish her sweet dreams.

            Scott, the rough and tumble boy that laughs so hard he can hardly breathe now a stronger young boy. Knowing when to stand up for something when he knows something’s not right. He tries every day to be strong for us all when he knows that any of us feel sick or weak. I know he’ll be a strong man of faith one day, and lead his family well. His smile is strong and sweet and I can’t help watching him walk into the school each morning and long to be with him still.

            Things are in a constant state of flux, especially when we have children. Balance is the buzzword we throw around in our culture. When I made my trek into the world of Buddhism balance was the way to enlightenment, the place where we find nirvana, the place we see all things pass and accept them fully, a state of mental clarity where we reach oneness with the universe and see the life and death of all living things and see them in their moments.  This takes much effort and the ability to suppress the innate human experience.

            When I see the life of Jesus he doesn’t run from the changes, from the dark or sad things. He is brave and vulnerable, powerful and meek. The full scope of human experience as well as divine existed in him at once, not in segregated calculated responses. I remember the email of a pastor on the subject of Coram Deo, a Latin phrase that means “before the face of God”.

The implication is that a face to face exchange necessitates relationship. A personal exchange that is both intimate and vulnerable.  Jesus came to show us the way. His lived his life before the face of the Father. He interacted with people and circumstances and responded out of a pure human experience. He desires to restore us to our intended state, through Him, to separate us from the darkness of sin and death, of disease and addiction, and show us the face of God so that we can learn to see the truth beyond our circumstances.

He speaks to us about the beginning, about the fall and the history of how things have become the way that they are, how we have become the way that we are. He speaks to us about our personal history, how He has always been with us. How the things we do can’t heal or restore us, only He can. We can’t work our way into his good graces. He tells us how the cross made a way for us to come to Him. He sings over us with promises of our eventual home beyond those things that threaten our lives and legacies. He sends the Holy Spirit to help us navigate our circumstances, and reminds us that we’re never alone.

It’s here, before the face of God, that I can curl up in my vulnerable humanity and find rest and peace. He’s there stroking my hair, singing over me, listening for my laugh and wanting to hear the fears and worries of my day so he can cleanse them from my conscience and give me the strength to begin again tomorrow with mercies made new.

Balance is an inadequate substitute.