07.06.13

My little dog is on my lap
quaking like a silly leaf
over some imaginary front that's coming in
(there's a happy sun shining,
but he won't go outside,
and he's kind of psychic about these things...)
And I can't do what I want to do because of his strange needs
but his comfort seems to weigh the most in this moment
and I stop and think about what a tiny, tiny picture of love this is
(patting a strange quaking dog on the head,
speaking words of soft comfort)
And I've been thinking about Love a lot lately
and how if I (selfish little human that I am)
can give moments of tenderness to one silly dog
what that means about our good Father
whose Love for you and for me has words like;
Extravagant
Everlasting
Eternal
attached to it.
So you can take the tiniest picture of tenderness that you've seen in yourself
and stretch it to the highest North
and the deepest South
to the furthest East
and the widest West
then,
if your mind will let you,
wrap it up in Forever
and in the most patient and sweetest loving kindness that you've ever tasted.

It makes everything okay all of a sudden.
He knows what we need.
Makes me want to say thank you thank you thank you
forever and ever and ever.

And Jesus didn't come and say, "I love you, so you must love me."
But actually he said, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
I want you all to know love so much.
He loves us, He loves us, He loves us.

And maybe he asks us to pray for one another
not for the sake of changing the course of anyone's future
but for the beautiful act of Connection
Of that act of finding a moment to still our hearts,
to focus in on another human being,
of touching skin to skin,
and to wish beautiful, wonderful things for them.
And this does mystical things to our own hearts as well,
finding moments to consider the other's sacred journey,
seeing that they are not separate from us after all,
and to gift them beauty and goodness from our depths.
To care.

And I can practice this on my Self as well.
To touch those parts of me where Hate sits
and to practice perfect Acceptance,
whole Love,
To welcome that piece back into me
and to comfort it,
knowing that it has remained a solitary, separate piece for too long.
To become whole.

To know love.
It makes everything okay.
Love makes all things whole. 
(Father, let this be my mantra)

I read last night that I am just a wisp of fog,
catching light for but a moment,
soon to waft away.

One wisp of fog, writing to another wisp of fog,
thousands of years down the road.

My lips smell like cloves
and I'm a happy moonbeam tonight
with lavendar burning on the shelf
and breezes catching in the curtains.

And I want to always be like light
that beams and twinkles so light and free
And sometimes I feel like I am!
But I'm actually really a human that
sometimes carries clouds
around my head, sholders, wrists
And I forget what real is and what's just
feelings, hormones, crazytalk.
But at least I usually remember
to remember that I'm crazy sometimes.........

And My Friend says
"Everything is going to be okay!"
Like a happy Norwhal or something
And I don't know why it brings me peace but it does.
Maybe it's that scared-baby-mother-touch thing.
And I think it's stupid
until I say it out loud and
until I feel that release in my chest
like my heart had been clutching itself to death
until that moment.

And it is so true too....
EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY!
Like......

E
V
ERY
T
H
I
N
G

This day

Larry Heidebrecht (Aug 16, 1949-Feb 4, 2010)

Why I love and miss my dad...

He loved to dance, because he was fun and because it made others smile.  He would dance anytime, anywhere.  Most memorably, on a family movie outing, he danced very slowly, while sick, down the aisle of the movie theater, across the front of the theater and out into the lobby with a finger in the air and without missing a beat.

My dad worked hard.  He loved to explore every creative option and test the boundaries.  He was not always liked for this progressive style, which makes me admire his work ethic all the more.  I wish I had that inner fortitude, to bravely ignore the norm and not cave under criticism.  While in between jobs, he never got down.  Instead he took what he could get, which was a job at a calling center with mostly college-age workers.  His trademark was always meeting or exceeding his quota of phone calls and passing out candy to the other workers. He was criticized for behaviors that seemed strange to others, but every day he continued to show up to work with a smile and with a pocketful of candy.  He was strong.

He cared deeply for others.  While my aunt was sick and needed surgery he desperately wanted to travel to Indiana and relay God’s love for her.  However, he was too sick to travel as this was in December of 2010, and he passed that following February.  Instead, he sent me, with a mission to care for her and to tell her about God’s love.  No pressure!  When I agreed to fly out there the glimmer in his eye communicated his deep excitement for how my aunt would be touched and for what God had in store.  While I was out there he left me a garbled voicemail about how much he knew that this was God’s will.  He trusted.

He welcomed the stranger.  In the last year of my dad’s life he went on a “project” kick.  In true dad form he was determined to make our house the best it could be.  He could not do the work on his own so he hired many workers who we came to know well because they were around a lot.  He could not always communicate what he wanted to them with words but every morning he would wake up, prepare coffee and lay out snacks for them so that they would all feel welcome and at home.  They became our family’s friends because they could feel this love and joy emanating from my dad, even though he could not always speak with them.

He loved me deeply.  His hugs were the best and became a very safe place for me.  A place that I still miss.  He wrote me poems, he painted me pictures, he told me I was beautiful, he danced with me, he took me out to breakfast, he met me at bookstores because he knew I liked to go there, he didn’t always understand me but he always offered me his arms, he played catch with me, when I was little he would buy me a pack up gum and a pink water gun every time he went to the hardware store, he was proud of me.  He was happy if I was happy.  That’s how I know he loved me.  He loved very, very well.