ARCHIVE

Today, the archives
of words keep me
on the planet

words matter to me

the unspoken ones
are torturous

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 30, 2013

GRANDMA'S HANDS

*The sermon I preached for "The Seven Last Words" Service at St. Paul's Baptist Church, 1000 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, PA, where Rev. Dr. Leslie D. Callahan is pastor (and my good friend)

“In Grandma’s Hands”

(Seventh Word: Luke 23:44-46

© Valerie Bridgeman

St. Paul’s Baptist Church

March 29, 2013

Preaching the Seven Last Words

(The Message): 44-46: By now it was noon. The whole earth became dark, the darkness lasting three hours—a total blackout. The Temple curtain split right down the middle. Jesus called loudly, “Father, I place my life in your hands!” Then he breathed his last.

Luke 23:44-46 (NRSV)

44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.

Father, Abba, Parent

Holy One, Ancient of Days

Mother Eagle, Strong Deliverer:

Into your hands…

and then a gasp, a deep breath,

a sigh so strong we still hear it.

Jesus breathes his last.

We tumble these words out

and wrap them in sermonic rhetoric;

we prettify them and preachify them and sanitize them

in robes and candles and hymns and the gurgling sounds of happy babies.

We rumble them around in our minds

and mumble them in our mouths…

these seven last sayings,

not all of them recorded by any one of the gospels we have,

but we mash them together liturgically

and bring them all in the room at one time….

You’ve heard them today:

forgive them;

you’ll be with ME in paradise (wherever that is);

behold your son;

a god forsaken soul curdling, “WHY!?”;

a dry-throated whisper “I thirst”;

a declaration of completion, “It’s finished”…

and now: A RESOLUTE RESIGNATION.

What do you do when you’ve done all you can do?

What do you do when “standing” isn’t the answer to that question?

WHAT DO YOU DO, JESUS?

TEACH us in your tattered, torn, terrorized body…

 beaten and bruised, battered and beleaguered… TELL US!!!

Well, all along, seized with pain, he sings!

The Psalms raise their tune as a baseline to his suffering.

Here, the last recorded words, he says:

“INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND/ I COMMIT MY SPIRIT

THESE WORDS ARE AN ECHO OF a part of the temple song,

now numbered Psalm 31, verse 5.

I wonder what the tune to this ditty was?

(in the tune of Amazing Grace: Into Your hands I commit my spirit”)…

I wonder how it reverberated out of his belly

(SING: Into your hands I commit my spirit).

Is it Jesus’ song or the voice of the ancestors

who had known what it was to be brutalized

and humiliated before a voyeuristic crowd?

Was it the cosmic hum,

the eternal note rising in his throat

As he hangs in the Roman province

And is surrounded by people watching

As if crucifixion were a spectator sport,

As if this moment was Rome’s version

Of March Madness?

Psalm 31 and in this hour,

the final words he could muster from the weight of pain: “Into your hands….”

Tell me, spectator?

What did you expect to hear him say in the end?

Tell me, over-hearer?

What would you have imagined?

Curses?

But he’d already said, “Forgive them.”

What did you want him to say?

Did you want him to call for TEN THOUSAND ANGELS

to deliver him in the end?

Did you want a Hollywood ending

where Will Smith swoops in

takes out the aliens

untie him from that rough and rugged wood?

Did you long for him

to get revenge on those

who perpetrated this MADNESS?

Did you want Gethsemane’s blood-sweated brow

to somehow now bow in shame?

Oh, onlooker, what would you have guessed

he would do except turn

to the gnarled hands

of the Ancient of Days?

Here he is: Jesus

Calling on the songs from his youth again…

Whispering a prayer from the Psalms,

begging a relief that only singing can bring some time. 

I wonder if he pitched the song

by the memory of his mother’s melodic voice?

I wonder if the last gasp,

what the King James Verson translates as “giving up the ghost”—

I wonder if he heard the last phrases

of Psalm 31 in his ear, ringing between anguish and trust.

“In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; don’t let me be put to shame—

deliver me in YOUR righteousness.”

And verse 5 from where these words

come careening from the past:

“Into your hands I commit my spirit”—

and the second part of the stanza

that his death snatched from us:

“DELIVER ME, LORD, MY FAITHFUL GOD.”

Ah, there it is!

The verse behind the verse

The promise behind the pain

The hope behind the holla

YOU ARE FAITHFUL

A Rock, A Fortress

You saw my affliction and my anguish,

I will rejoice in your love

“INTO YOUR HANDS….”

There it is: hiding in the

puzzling struggle on Golgotha’s Hill

You guide me; be merciful

Into YOUR hands do I commit my spirit

There it is: crawling in the dust of Calvary

In a loud, piercing song

There it is

Psalm 31: 9:

Be merciful; I’m in distress; my soul and body with grief/consumed

I am like broken pottery (v. 12)

But I trust in you; (v 15): “My times are in your hands…”

What would you have expected from a rabbi,

a son of the ancient wisdom

except this wisdom to come rumbling up out of him?

My mama used to say,

“Sometimes the first thing you put in

a barrel is the last thing to come out of it.

But it can’t come out if you didn’t put it in.”

I can hear Mary, Jesus’ mama, singing Psalm 31:

“Into your hands I commit my spirit, My God, My Rock, my Fortress, my Savior…”

His mama singing Psalm 31: “My times are in your hands”

I wonder whether the women gathered

at his feet that day started humming it with him;

you know the way we pick up the melody

and find the counter-melody

and sound out the tenor line

and put the base underneath a song

when we first hear it faintly winding its way

through another person’s soul?

You know that way we catch on

The way we say to ourselves, “OH, I KNOW THAT SONG.”

Oh, this crucifixion is bad: make no mistake.

This is horrific: do not be deceived.

And there is no song that can fix it in this moment.

But there is a melody that can carry you to the end.

These hymns are for the faint of heart

and the weary of body

and hanging there, humiliated and hurt,

Jesus’ last sayings reflect the first things in his soul,

the first thing in the barrel, if you will.

He learned to trust in God

and heard the songs of pilgrimage,

the prayers sung for healing and for deliverance

David’s battle songs and worship words

(I know. I know.

You will tell me “but he IS God,”

and I will tell you that we ought not avert our eyes

from the anguish by rushing past this very human horror.

I will tell you to behold the man, Jesus.

I will tell you to smell the stench,

to hear the flies buzzing,

to see the buzzards circling overhead

at the sight of flesh torn open by whips,

of wounds dripping with blood-caked flesh

crusting in the heat of noonday)

I tell you: LISTEN! Do you hear what I hear?

Do you hear the song rising from Calvary’s cross?

And a song, a cry: Into your hands…

Allstate wasn’t the first to say “you’re in Good hands…”

In 1971, Bill Withers debuted a song on his album, “Just As I Am”

titled “Grandma’s Hands.”

In one performance,

he told his audience that of all the songs he’d ever written,

this song was his favorite.

He said, in introducing the song,

“Most of us at some point in our lives have someone

that means more to us than anyone else ever has or ever will again….

Grandma’s hands

Play tambourines

Warn with a firm hand on shoulder

Soothes a local unwed mother

Used to ache sometimes

Used to lift her face and say, “Baby Grandma understands”

Used to hand me candy

Grandma's hands

In some Native American spiritual traditions

and in some African traditional religious systems,

God, the Great Creator,

is envisioned as the Great Grandmother…

the Great Grandmother Spirit.

This idea makes sense to me,

I’m a Grandmother who didn’t think you

could love someone as much as you love your grandchildren.

It makes sense when I watch grandmothers or grandfathers

scoop their grandchildren up into their arms

and swing them around;

it makes sense to me, that God is Grandmother Spirit,

when I see grandmothers use their hands 

to discern whether a child has a fever,

or to calm the energy of that same child.

Grandma’s hands…

Here Jesus is, in the very end of his life

Singing the songs of ancient Israel

Leaning into 4-part harmony into the good hands

Of the Ancient of Days

Singing the songs of pilgrimage

Leaning into the bosom of a Great Grandmother

THE GNARLED HANDS OF THE ANCIENT OF DAYS

THE HANDS THAT SMOOTHES

BLOOD-SOAKED BROWS

AND WEARY SOULS

THE GNARLED HANDS OF THE ANCIENT OF DAYS

GRANDMA’S HANDS

GOOD HANDS

GOD’S HANDS

INTO YOUR HANDS

GRANDMA GOD

INTO YOUR HANDS

INTO YOUR HANDS

I COMMIT MY SPIRIT

And with the reality of God’s good hands

Grandma God’s Good, Good hands

Jesus breathed his last breath

And let go

Sighed into eternity’s hope

And heaven’s help

Rested in The Gnarled Grandma Hands

What, onlooker, did you expect?

COME MY SOUL AND SING

In Commemoration of GOOD FRIDAY

These last sayings

these strong, bold and whimpering words

the stumbling around the mind for some song of youth to sing

in the face of sorrow, some mumbling of words to comfort

to encourage, to right a wrong

we mash these words into one moment

but in real time they were excruciating

slow labored heavy breath spoken

forgive them

you'll be with me

wherever paradise is

behold your son, your mother

take care of each other

a god-forsaken soul curdling sound: why?

where are you?

a dry-throated whisper

I thirst

a declaration

it's finished

a resignation resolute

I give up, I put my life

in your hands

tattered torn terrorized

body blood splattered

bruised beleaguered

we tell your story
the whole one
the anguished one
we tell your story
of love of betrayal
of want of need
of hope of following through
of keep the promise
to be you even in the 
face of death
especially
in the face
of death

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 29, 2013
(posted on March 30)

GRIEVING/CARLA STYLE

Grieving

What Carla said (click on "Grieving"):

"There are good moments,
and then there are these."

THE SHAPING

I am going on the shape of which I have no idea... A quote from Audre Lorde

P was the kind of friend everyone wanted--popular, beautiful, smart and tough. She could protect you, if she had a mind to. And thankfully, she had a mind to be my friend and so she was my protector who gave me a way to live among the giants--the athletes, the cheerleaders, the student government leaders, even the yearbook staff. I got to be a part of all of those communities---athlete, cheerleader, student representative, yearbook staff, even the band playing the clarinet, first chair. And I was one of the smart ones. Somehow I got to be smart and popular, too. That didn't happen all the time. You could be Geek smart. Or you could be one of the Beautiful People who everyone knew. But you rarely got to be both. P helped initiate me into both. At first glance, one might think I was following in the footsteps of my sisters who went before me. But I wasn't. I wanted to be cooler than that. And so P became my role model. She was worldly, knowing, in ways I wasn't as a country girl from the farm. But my relationship with her was at the center of my shaping. I had no idea who I would become but between P and the two Ds, I morphed into a saucy sassy smart young woman. I've continued to try to remember what all that meant and to shape into it as this grown woman that I am. My story, my life is "the shape of which I have no idea."

©  Valerie Bridgeman
Wednesday
March 27, 2013

CONVERSATION

Sometimes, words are the only things that matter
as we listen intent to each syllable, the rounding
of phrases that catch the meaning of days gone
we pay close attention to what is not said
and make some sense of the pauses in between

We both want to understand
We both want to comprehend
We both want to perceive

Words, sometimes, are the only things that matter

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 26, 2013

TALISMAN

I wear it daily
like a talisman this token
small sign big story
of memories carved in
the shape of your voice
soft ...full ....strong

I turn it in hand
palm to brown through
ten fingers savor
stare at it
the pull of its power
remind me of your
touch your embrace

I wear it like magic
like conjure call your name
without speaking it
heart-shaped consecration
of who you are
to me

I don it like amulet
ward off regret
betrayal doubt
wait for the laughter
surge of singing
that wells with
my tears

It was made just for me 
for you to give 
to put it around my neck
collar me in grace
embue it 
with your soul
breathe your
love on it 
into me

fashioned in the shape 
of your strong arms 
two hearts
maybe more
come round again
entwined encrusted
with gems and
desire

a pledge a token
a talisman a conjure
a simple intricate
nod of recognition
that love never
ends

©  Valerie Bridgeman
March 25, 2013

An attempt to rewrite the TOKEN poem posted on March 14, 2013

TOKEN

I pick it up, lay it across
my open palm, stare at it
resting there, on my hand
feel the power of its intent
your promise seem so
long ago today but
small sign big story

I run my finger along
the edges of gems
that rim the design
look through empty
spaces, the inside gutted
to make the shape

a parting gift

it's two hearts

three, maybe four
depends on
how you look at it

infinite, small and mighty

unending circle

comes around again

to love in sterling silver

and gold, beautiful

in intricate simplicity

a token, a pledge

that love

never ends

thank you

© Valerie Bridgeman

March 14, 2013

DRIVE

In the car thinking
driving
going
arriving
daydreaming
planning
hoping
wanting
driving further
going somewhere
arriving there
daydreaming about another life
planning to leave the old one
hoping for grace and forgiveness
wanting to get through rough patches
guessing it will take longer than I expected
in the car 
guessing
wanting
hoping
planning
daydreaming
arriving 
going
driving
thinking

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 24, 2013

MINE TO GIVE

The words were my heart's cry:
"May there be peace on earth"

in eight languages I chose
not all languages I knew, just the ones
I wanted to hear it in: May there be peace

on earth

Swahili
English
Spanish
Navajo
French
Wolof
Portuguese
Russian

I gave the pole to a new friend
someone I wanted to remember me
for longing for peace
she understood 

So I dug up the peace pole 
from my yard and gave it to her
because it was mine to give


© Valerie Bridgeman
March 23, 2013

TO BECOME ADULT

Discovered this observation I wrote in my journal after several conversations with my sons:

"To become an adult is to survive your parents' best attempts and worst failures to get to the place where your disappointment that these god-like figures are only human dissolves into respect that mere humans tried to raise you--when somewhere in you the innate divinity keeps pushing through normal angst and a world that seeks to destroy you--while oftentimes trying to have a conversation and life with another human trying also to be your parent. Life can sometimes be the best example of hell."

©  Valerie Bridgeman
June 18, 2012
Posted March 22, 2013

BODY WASHERS

In honor of the people who wash for burial the bodies of the dead (in Iraq and elsewhere). *based on a story I heard on NPR, "Face to Face with Death in Iraq."

She washes the bodies
of dead women and girls
some decapitated by 
the pursuit of war
and the ruin of human hope 

she washes them careful
with respect for the living
to protect what could not
be protected in life

she knows the dead and
the world to which they go
she knows the body
that comes to her from
roadsides limbless
do not enter
the afterlife with no feet

she wears the clothes of death
from women who no longer need them
disrobe mend wash them 
makes a living for decades
using her hands wrinkled by
water and soap 
 wipe cloth soft against 
cadaver legs

body washer in dusty field
nose and ears clogged 
with the dirt of ages
and terror of war
cleans the knees
once pressed against
the floor bent toward
the east

she knows death like sisters
talk to herself while
communing with the
bony fingered visitor
that gripped the body
now clean with her
tears and work

Um Abbas eyes smile no grief
because "everything comes in its time"
even death, especially death
that does not wait for convenient
she lives neighbor to us
face-to-face and round corner
halls up alley ways
she waits

"Why do human beings complicate things when we know how it ends?"

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 21, 2013

POETRY RESISTANCE

Some days the poetry resists my calling it
what muses there be are silent and have nothing to say
on these days, like this one, I just sit or pack
or sort through clothes or play on Facebook 
or think of lovers who held me tightly and delighted in it
or watch Law & Order: Criminal Intent

I listen and the wind doesn't even whistle
I traipse up and down the basement stairs as I bring
the remains of my home into this space to properly
put it away or to decide whether this, too, needs to be given away
there is no poetry in this moment, only the stump tap tamping
of feet on stairs on floor to the next floor and back down again
with memories and conversations swirling in my head and I resist
the urge to read old words or to recount scenes so full of energy
I feel them if I let myself linger there long enough

but I resist as much as the poetry resists my fingers on keys
the tap tap of words without looking/trying to remember
when and how I learned this skill--typing without looking
looking without typing without thinking because thinking
sometimes lead to tears and tears lead to wailing and I don't
have time for wailing because the boxes need filling and the clothes
sorting and given away or packed away or put in a suitcase
that will live in my car since I have no idea 
where I will be besides the airplane
the train or the car or the park 
where I'll walk when I'm not writing poetry 
that resists coming to me 
or writing sermons that speak of god and god's world
and ways and my hope that I tell some truth 
when I preach but in this moment before the day ends 
I just sit and tap my fingers on keys and without thinking
let whatever come up come out 

and I know that's always a dangerous
thing because wise people know 
to censor themselves when the poetry
is in resistance mode--
there's no kind way to say 
the nasty things that live
on the edge of insanity 
as a student said today--"the edge of insanity"
though seems to be the place where poetry dwells 
and maybe that's the reason
it's silent today--today I don't want to be crazy 
as I am.

Today I just want to pack and sort and pray and think of you

© Valerie Bridgeman
March 20, 2013

THIS IS HOW

This is how I will die. I know. I know. They say watch your words. You create your own reality except I didn't create this moment where I have picked myself up from the floor after lying for moments (I don't know how many) in a pool of my own vomit a flood of my own feces after slipping in my own upchucked dinner bumping my head and laying there for I don't know how long and knowing it would be days before anyone would miss me or call and that there is no one I could call who loves me enough to worry about it today. This is my last will and testament now. Not to be found naked after typing this note naked alone vomiting up my life with stomach cramps and heart aches. If you read my diaries you will learn I am more neurotic than most but this is the way of poets and people who play the clarinet who paint who love deep who pack their lives in boxes only to move to god knows where. my diaries will tell you that my life is filled with regrets I embraced because I was afraid and lost the experience the person the joy I could have had if I could have held on to belief long enough to quit spewing out the terror through my nose my lungs my belly my heart. But my diaries also will say I love/d hard that I bumped my heart up against a lot of lives and lay in a pool of hand holding kisses and embraced it like I could not get up like just now when I lay for I don't know how long in this vomit this shit. If you read it you will know I leave you love and adventure even when you're afraid and you'll be glad I was able to get up this time to get up after bumping my head on the way down from sliding in my own vomit. You should know I enjoyed this meal and the solitary time I spent having it that I complimented Candace my server in front of her manager because I know people often bitch but rarely bless and she worked hard to please me while she waited on my table made sure my water was room temperature by putting a little warm water on top of the tap water. It was a considerate thing she did and I blessed her with my words and my monetary tip since just saying she's great won't put gas in her car. That the unfinished packing is a sign of an unfinished life with much more in front of me but if this is the end in this rendition while I wonder if I should risk sleeping with this headache and heartache or whether I should try now to clean up the mess I've made by trying to nourish myself. These are real questions as my leg my arm my head my heart aches from this floor fall that I'm pretty sure will leave bruises I will cover up with clothes if no one finds me naked in a pool of my own vomit laying there for I don't know how long. I will to my niece (she knows who she is) all my journals to my lover (ex- and always) my dreams to my children all the material goods but more than that I want you to take what I tried to teach you tried to learn if even imperfectly take my lessons about pursuing life which is the same thing as pursuing god and if one day you land in a pool of your own bodily fluids try not to be ashamed of the person you turned out to be naked and all.

© Valerie Bridgeman

March 19, 2013

PS If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take

WALKING ON ICE

It takes small steps 

a kind of penguin like waddle

arms in airplane mode

to keep from falling on ice

to walk on water

trod through snow

feet move forward

eyes down, watch

every inch-ward

see breath freeze

in front of mouth

kiss the winter

goodbye with each

inhale exhale

flakes big as pennies

blanket the ground

better than quilts

swift like milk

spill from broken glass

spread just as quick

coats gathered tight

hat over ears

gloves hug hands

boots to boot

walking on ice

on snow

on water

© Valerie Bridgeman

March 18, 2013

LOVE REMAINS

I Love you

Somewhere in the Cosmos I always have
Somewhere in Eternity I always will

time and space collapse in the face of love
seconds minutes hours days weeks
months quarters years decades
centuries go by and love does not move
except to grow expand thicken if allowed

love claims its space and its admirers
its devotees and its worshipers 
makes an altar fit for hearts and lungs
limbs and backs to lean in to

love fills vacuums nature leaves
occupies matters places and
cannot be removed or replaced
by anything; doesn't move over
to make room for apathy or
enmity or fear or any other thing
that leaves its calling card

love is not interested in debate
argument dismissive statements
doubt but will start over as often
as necessary for the one who
loves to get it right

love remains and remains
and no matter how many times
rejected ignored refused
it stays

© Valerie Bridgeman

March 17, 2013

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