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Can't fake the blues

My friend Karen wrote this poem a few years back. I saved it because it made me think about the things that still drape around my neck like a 10 ton necklace.

Tabula Rasa

Come to me without your life
hanging around you
I don't want you draped with
barbed wire and bunting
the ribbons of past love
streaming from your hair
a child on each ankle and
one in your arms, the reflections
of other men in the invisible tears
they left on your cheeks.
Let me disentangle you.
Duck your head, dear,
I'll unclasp this from around
your neck, lift your white arms
while I unhook and slip it off,
I'll peel away this part
so gently, see there?
You are denuded. Lift up,
I'll wash you inside and
out, and fill you so full
there is no more room
for anyone or anywhere else.
KGB 2002

Tabula rasa: A need or an opportunity to start from the beginning. There is something so enticing about starting again--from the beginning. Starting fresh.

But, it is the past life hanging around the neck of another that draws me most. The best stuff lives in experience. If you want to play the blues, it is called mileage. You may be technically correct, but you have to have the goods to back it up. You can't pull those soulful notes until you have the mileage to make the tones rich and genuine. You can't fake life and you can't fake the blues.

Tabula rasa. A chance to do it again. Insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting different results. Freedom. Choosing a different street.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~Mary Oliver

Grace in the Wilderness

Every few years I enter a cycle that seems to require that I go back and touch pieces of my past. The places. The people. It is an internal alarm that wakens a part of me that I would like to leave sleeping forever.

It calls me to climb the turret at Shiloh and sit with the dead flies on the floor. It takes me to the mulberry tree at Goshen. It lands me on the front porch at Fairwood. It guides me to the doorsteps of old friends.

The past few months have pulled me in those directions again. Usually, I find a sense of grounding in the ritual of return. This time though it was disjointed like blowing the shofar only to have the sound reach your ears an hour later. Everything was familiar but I couldn't connect.

I visited Fairwood last month during the family feast; and, there was a banner hanging against the sanctuary that read:

Grace in the Wilderness.

I wondered what kind of grace was being taught. Divine grace? Actual grace? Irresistable grace? Prevenient grace? I didn't stay long enough to find out, but I have pondered it in my heart.

One Hebrew word for grace is "raham." It is a word that conveys compassion and offers a merciful restoration of a broken relationship. And, I realized that seeking restoration of the broken relationship between trust and faith drives me to find grace in the wilderness of my past--even when it isn't there.

"Gobbledygook"

Dear Word Detective:

In a recent column you used the word "gobbledygook." Where do we get that odd sounding word? -- Harry, via the Internet.

It all started with a 19th century Texas cattleman named Samuel Maverick who became famous for not branding his cattle. His cattle, left unidentified and free to roam, were often "adopted" by other ranchers who termed them "mavericks," and by the end of the century "maverick" had come to mean any sort of rootless wanderer or rebel.

About 100 years later, Sam Maverick's grandson, Maury Maverick, was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives during World War II. Charged with overseeing factory production for the war effort, Rep. Maverick coined the term "gobbledygook" to describe the impenetrable bureaucratic jargon and doubletalk he encountered. He later explained that he based the word on the behavior of turkeys back in Texas, who were "... always gobbledygobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of this gobble there was a sort of gook."

Rep.Maverick went on to issue a memorable edict stating that "Anyone using the words 'activation' or 'implementation' will be shot." Sadly, no bureaucrat was ever actually shot, and unfortunately "governmentese" is still going strong, but it certainly seems fitting that Sam Maverick's grandson would be the "maverick" who fired the first shot against "gobbledygook."

Isaiah 58

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward.

Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:

And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

Can one sue the Almighty?

There is a point to be had in here somewhere.

State Senator Chambers Sues God