Pursued

I’m one. Bald

and chubby, sitting

on your shoulders,

yanking tufts of

Beatles-brown hair

as you slouch

against 70’s sunflowers

pasted on the kitchen wall.

Your pebble-grey eyes wink

at mom holding camera.

I don’t know God yet.

You are God,

To me. 

I’m four. Strapped beside

You in a cockpit,

floating below heaven,

wondering if I can see through

the cloud ceiling to God. I know

about God now. You told

me he’s up there.

Somewhere.

But I’m rolling through

lower heaven,

can’t catch your

slate-eyes to ask

if I can touch God.

I’m eight. Cuddled

with sisters in

flannel nightgowns,

calmed by the husky hum of your

voice reading Little House,

imagining Laura,

Ma and Pa,

in blinding prairie blizzard

praying

to Father-God

for life.

I curl naked toes

under fraying hem,

curious to know if God

sees Laura.

Sees me?

But your ash-eyes don’t look up.

I’m ten. You’re cracking nuts

on the parsonage hearth,

flicking shells into a bowl,

humming Silent Night.

I’m wishing I could

snatch the warm feeling of you

into

my pocket to pull

out in the night.

Your granite-eyes

look past me,

So, I don’t tell You.

I’m twelve. Slouched on the couch

in the den with sisters and brothers,

listening to you tell the story of

Dan and Ann,

and the red fern of

love growing

between two deaths.

I’m questioning:

where is Father-God

when beloved dogs die?

I know now

not to ask You.

I’m sixteen.

You’re working.

Pastoring the flock.

Stopping  

to preach how

God-girls

dress nice and

Beauty is fleeting.

Feeling ugly,

I want to know,

What do you see when you look at me, Daddy?

But I don’t trust you.

I’m eighteen,

lonely,

talking to the un-holy

redhead

sitting in the sanctuary

back row.

“I forbid you to talk to that boy!”

Ice cold.

“I’m a woman now!”

So bold.

“Submit or else!”

I’m suffocating.

But I can’t tell you.

Leaving for college,

happy

to be

leaving

the family,

leaving you.

But not.

I don’t know you.

Do you know me?

You are still God,

to me.

I’m thirty,

Married, a mother.

Four miles close to you

yet

so far.

My mother, brothers, sisters,

me, you,

splintering,

in the here-and-now.

Bleeding out

on the shrine we crafted

in your image.

Still—

You don’t see,

Can’t. Won’t.

Your empty eyes,

see only You—

You lay

unseen daughters,

invisible sons

on the altar of your Christ—

You are your own graven image.

I try to tell you this,

Help you see my sisters, brothers,

See me.

“Goodbye,”

you reply.

I’m fifty now.

I know you

are not God,

never were

God.

But you and Father-God

are one-flesh molded,

a broken idol gargoyle,

cemented above the

communion table

at church

making God

untouchable

in upper heaven.

Daily recasting

Father-God

in his own image

is my inheritance.

A lifetime of

projections to

chip away

unpeel

tear apart

until the

the shape of you detaches

and the debris of you

falls to the

Sanctuary floor.

Becca B.

Personal Reflection

Father’s Day can bring up complex emotions for sons and daughters with broken or absent relationships with their fathers. For those of you processing through your own father wounds, take the time to pause and ask yourself one or more of these questions:

1. How am I entering this day/ this Father’s Day weekend? (Where are you at emotionally? mentally? spiritually?)
2. In what way can I take a step in expressing these things on my heart? Journaling, reading/writing poetry, listening to music, a walk, reading the psalms, or ___?
3. Where (or who) is God for you as you enter this weekend? Present? Absent? Cruel or Kind? Both and all? Honesty with yourself, with Him, is the beginning of the healing path.
4. In what ways might you care for yourself as an embodied soul? That is, how can you address the ways you carry difficult emotions in your body– in tense shoulders, a disgruntled gut, racing heart, or___? Deep breathing, walking, progressive muscle relaxation, are means of grace to calm the body as you express your heart.