THOUGHTS

THOUGHTS


         Our homework assignment is to write a Lyric Essay. “Easier for poets,” she says. I am not a poet. Does that mean I’m screwed? Does that mean I’ll come out with ideas that may be good, sound wonderful, have all the glorified words, but not have it be a Lyric Essay? I need to go back to the reading…
         “The Lyric is concerned more with language imagery, sound, and rhythm.”  That sounds easy enough. Drip, drip, drip of melting snow outside my window. That is a sound in rhythm, right? Maybe I am beginning to get it.
So what should I write about in this Lyric Essay? Do I share my deep inner thoughts on:
Life
Death
Babies
Nursing Homes
Faith
God
Adoption
Associate thinking!  What I do with these words may or may not create a Lyric Essay.

Life!  Profound!  Where does it begin? The question of the ages. The question that has been debated for centuries. Does life start when the screaming, bloody baby is lifted from his warm, safe, insulated cocoon and laid on the breast, in the arms of the tired, sweaty, wide-eyed mother, with tears quietly slipping down her cheek?

Does life start with that electrical zap that causes one cell to split to two, and then four and then eight, until one of the cells decides on its own to beat, and beat again and beat again, and then another cell joins in and the two cells beat separately and then, suddenly out of know where, without anyone telling them to do so, they come together and beat as one, in unison?  Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, a heartbeat!  Is this life?  Maybe. Literally, but is this life? Or is life the events that happen between birth and death. And, is death part of life? Can it be? Should it be? Everyone dies! Everyone! Well, not exactly everyone. Enoch did not die. Elijah did not die. They went to life after life without the sleep in between. Without the rest in between. But the rest of us die. We sleep. We stop for a while, and catch our breath until the next part of life, the life that will never be marred with death again. Death is everywhere. It is all around us, lurking in every window, every door, every shadow, waiting. Just waiting. Waiting for what? For the cells of your heart to go into electrical spasms, and stop altogether?  Waiting for the first breath of God, that was breathed into you seconds before you were laid, wailing, in your mothers loving arms, to be taken away again. Just a breath, just a heartbeat, separates from life and death. We can’t dwell on it. We cannot tell our heart to beat each beat or our lungs to breathe each breath just to stay alive. We would be frantic. We would be taking our destiny out of our Makers hands, and putting it in our own, to ultimately die anyway. We must focus on life and take the risks of what life offers us. Will it be gratifying, surrounded with the atmosphere of goodness, peace, love, and security? Of close friends, family and fulfillment of our work, and play?

Will it be full of the tenderness and innocent love of the children? Or as children, will life be stripped from us early? Anger, hatred, abuse, neglect, pain, death. Oh God, help us! What are we doing to the most precious commodity in our universe? How can one strike, hurt, kill one so innocent? One that hasn’t developed a voice of its own? How can someone cause pain, looking into the wide watery sinless eyes, which should be filled with wonder, joy, and expectation when the parent walks in the room? Are we given the right, the choice, to hit, whip, slap, scream, kill, one so precious and so new? My heart heats faster and my tears spill over. Is this part of life? If so, do I want to be part of it?

Okay, that got a little heavy and little weird. Am I still writing a Lyric Essay, or am I in some kind of therapy, some kind of mind explosion, with random thoughts expressed in a way that makes a reader think, ponder, the hidden mysteries of life?  If this is truly a lyric essay, then I rather enjoy what is called free expression, thought by association.

Walking down the narrow halls of urine scented nursing homes, and looking into the blank eyes of the aged, the wrinkled  skinned, thinning gray hair of those, who too,  were babies, rocked in the loving and secure arms of motherhood, I wonder where they have gone. They are still alive. They eat. They breathe. They pee. They sleep. They spontaneously laugh, when no one is watching, or caring, but are they still alive behind their empty eyes? Where did they go? Was life so meaningless, so cold, and so hard that they just went away? I bet they know where they are. I bet they know exactly what is going on around them, but they won’t tell. Why should they? Nobody cared to listen when they did talk. They now carry on conversations with childhood playmates, with their mothers, with their spouses who died years ago. They carry on conversations with themselves, and with God. Cannot God seep through to the inner core of their being and converse with them in a language that is indistinguishable to the human ear?  These people, who have, for all intent and purposes, stopped relating on a normal level of society, have perhaps taken a step closer to their eternity, and God is teaching them how. As they sit in their chair, rocking, with blank stares and mumbling when talked to, are they still there, or are they running through green pastures on bright summer afternoons?  Are they taking long walks on miles and miles of white sandy shores, allowing the mist and roar of the sea to wash over them, so they can drink it in? The royal blue sky, the  grass, the magnificent  trees, the cracking of  lightening,  soil, gentle pure white  snow, song of bird, song of deer, song of people, and song of God. Is that where they have gone?

When groups go to nursing homes, they sing the old time favorite, Rock of Ages, Cleft For Me, Let me Hide Myself In Thee. For an instant, these aged ones come back for a visit. For an instant, they ask their mothers and friends, their spouses to wait, in the summer fields of wildflowers, while they come back to us for a brief interlude, and they sing. Their eyes turn on. They have not spoken in weeks, months, yet they sing every word of the hymn as beautifully as any angel, and you just know that they have one foot in heaven and God is with them holding their hand. They have become a child again, and God Himself has adopted them and made them His own and He is going to take them home soon. He wraps every fiber of their being in love, and they know. They comprehend.  So He asks them to rest a while, to sleep peacefully in Him, and while they sing, Jesus Loves Me This I Know, they put their tired, tear stained head back, close their eyes, and say goodbye to this earth for the last time.

These are just some of my thoughts!