Consequences (for the 1st of 7 Words on Good Friday)

Consequences
By Valerie Bridgeman
© April 2017
3rd draft

Women lined the road
They cry for a dead man walking, he carries the load
Condemned for crimes against the state
While protesting for humanity’s sake

But he said,
I CAME to set it on fire
And NOW, the burden of a conviction he did not deserve
the CONSEQUENCES of a decision to serve his people

His back caked with blood
His face bruised
from the brutal force that Empire soldiers used to subdue him;
stop resisting, they said.
Stop resisting!
Stop resisting!

He bore the cross
Simon shared the WEIGHT
Of the splinters of time and eternity

The Consequences of a life lived in defiance to a regime
Bent on destroying the people’s Spirit
Then and now

He told the truth
He lived the truth
He IS the truth
Then and now

But even truth has its consequences

Women lined the road
As he climbed Golgotha
He said
Don’t weep for me
Cry for yourselves
They questioned me at length
And treated me with contempt
I’ve been mocked and accused
But you’ve been used to provide the chorus of lies
And cries in the key of Consequences
Today it’s me but tomorrow, it will be you

Don’t weep for me
Cry for yourselves
And for the fruit of your womb
For your sons and daughters
Led to the slaughter by a government so cruel--
They rule by crucifixion
And modern day lynchings

… A government that does not BOTHER to clean up its mess or dress it up—

Golgotha’s hill
Littered with skulls and bones
Bodies left in the streets to die
While people shake their heads, and cry at the sight of it
What?—4 ½ hours—3 ½ hours…
Then and now

Golgotha—the consequences of power gone MAD
Power that grinds up the vulnerable…
There is no honorable way to imagine this horror

Forgive. Forgive? Forgive them?
Forgive them their madness?
Forgive them their ignorance?
Their evil?
Their Shamelessness?

I came to set it on Fire
But they burn the green trees
And leave a hull of a man
A shell of a woman
People bruised and battered
Forgive, but let them know
We will resist
There is BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS
These are the consequences

The Silence of Grief

For some reason, I came to my site today. I haven't written (non-academically) since May 6, 2015. That day, like January 6, October 6, and September 25, means something to me. And maybe it means something only to me as I have navigated so many losses in the last two years. I lost my best friends to death and to betrayal and to time. And I have been silent in my grief. Maybe, this writing, is an opening to the voice for it. 

(c) Valerie Bridgeman

A MESS OF LIFE

Sometimes you just make a mess of life
There's no getting around it.
Sometimes, your best efforts at easy
or letting go or believing the words
flowing no matter what the eyes see
just leave you breathless,
unable to make sense of it, so you make...
a mess.

I'm not sure how you clean up
some messes... I mean yesterday, it was as easy
as remove the sheets and throw them in the washer
and when they weren't clean through the first cycle,
rinse and repeat.

I've been on repeat wash of my heart for
some years now... messes made and made
again; and always, there's someone bearing witness
to it and claiming they never would have
made that particular mess.

Does it matter to you what "mess" it is...
whether of the heart or the soul;
the clothes or the house, or a relationship
that can't seem to find the same page
even when there's only one in the book?
Does it matter to you that even
with the residue on my hands and my
knowing how dirty it all looks, it feels...
I am committed to cleaning it up... again?

I keep making a mess of life
And when I think I've learned the lesson,
a test comes to show me again...
"clean" depends on a chance to
keep trying, to a washing machine,
to a heart open to "one more time."

May 6, 2015
©  Valerie Bridgeman

I WILL LOVE YOU

I will love you steady
hold you when you think
your heart is on the equator
and your body spins
at the south pole
and you cannot
get it together

I will love you still
even when you leave
afraid of what it means
to be vulnerable and
need what you 
cannot find within

I will love you here
and wait through the struggle
breathe when you are on quest
for the parts of you that seem
all over the place

I will love you
regardless

© Valerie Bridgeman
June 10, 2014

ANSWERING LILLIE/Edited

EDITED VERSION OF POEM POSTED JANUARY 16, 2013

Answering Lillie

We are built for destiny's questions

While you were looking away
we saw you coming....

Others see our callings before we do

Walking our passion out as we do, 
we do not reflect on what this step 
or that one means

Shaped by life, by God's hand, 
by toes dug in sand, by providence

by wishes, by Divine laughter--cosmic jokes 
and expectations we didn't know we had,
We live the questions 
rather than ask them.

We do what we are assigned

not knowing there is a mandate

it morphs our bones into shape

and people notice like women

know when another woman is

pregnant before she misses

a menstrual cycle or bends

in nauseous consent. 

Women know these things. 

Women note Moving Mystery and Clouds

that overtake us before we

know we are consumed. Others

see us like this.

We never fully see ourselves

It's wise to listen to counsel, to judge it

against what we know about God's

works in our particular histories

why we ought pay attention to sacred texts

and wrangle the questions clear

I ended up many of the places I have

and doing much of what I do because of

the 2 or 3 or several witnesses who confirmed

the where and the it of my life 

long before I could commit my heart

to it or even say it was a Divine commission

And oftentimes, God is on a timeline 

that does not give us the luxury of hesitation

we need the mothers to tell us 

to get up and get moving

in the direction of that last

Whisper, even if we have no

idea where it's taking us.

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 12, 2014

(Words from March 2008/reworked--in answer to the question, "Why do others see your call before you do?")

Lillie,

We are built for these kinds of questions

Often others see our callings before we do

because we often just are walking them out

and not reflecting on them at all

just doing it or being shaped by life

by the hand of God

by providence

by Divine humor

We do what we are assigned

even when we don't know it's an assignment

And people begin to see

the new shape

but like wise old women who can tell another woman

is pregnant before that woman knows,

or before she even misses a menstrual cycle

people take note of Moving Mystery

and the Cloud that overtakes us even before

we know we're consumed in it

We never fully see ourselves

That is why it's wise to listen 

to the voice of counsel and judge it 

against what we know about the way God

works in our particular histories

paying attention to the sacred texts

and how fruitful are the lives

of the people who claim to "see" us

I ended up many of the places I have

and doing much of what I do because of

the 2 or 3 or several witnesses who confirmed

the where and the it of my life 

long before I could commit my heart

to it or even say it was a Divine commission

And oftentimes, God is on a timeline 

that does not give us the luxury of hesitation

we need the mothers to let us 

to get up and get moving

in the direction of that last

Whisper, even if we have no

idea where it's taking us.

© Valerie Bridgeman

January 16, 2013, with words from March 2008

EMOTIONAL

How do I make this go away--the up and down

of the tears and smiles, the way I remember

what seems like joy that cuts you to the quick?

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 12, 2014

Let Us Dance

I found a poem I wrote July 3, 2012 on the way back from Brazil:


Let us offer one another the fresh bread of forgiveness
Let us be transformed in our eating
Let our garments be sewn with threads of grace,
a covering of praise to shield us in this world
of trouble and woe

Let us sing with gladness, shout with joy
Let us dance

Let freedom be our shoes
Let us do it together
Let us run toward a world not yet born
but birthing

Let us be midwives
Let us groan and sweat and push
in the appropriate moment

Let us remember
Let us drink wine with glad hearts
Let us laugh in unison,
hold our sides in pain and joy

Let us dance

© Valerie Bridgeman