Category: Poetry

A Tribute to My Dad (poem)

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The times we live in, and some opportunities I’ve availed myself of lately, have given me a chance to reflect on the legacy my ancestors have left me…my dad passed away at the age of 90 on April 5, 2016.

What I Learned from My Dad (one way or the other)

You taught me to solve problems and value my independence.

You taught me self-esteem is earned by living a life I can be proud of.

You took me to church where I learned God is good, some people suck, and even when they do, God is still good.

You let me make music that gave my heart wings.

You made me responsible to know my options in any situation and always have a Plan B.

You taught me to be grateful and that whining will never solve anything.

You taught me that, in the end, kindness matters (a lot!) and, by God’s grace, I get to choose what kind of person I want to be.

Thanks, Dad.

A Trip to Pandora (Poem)

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Feb 2020

Today I returned to a journey I started long ago….

Meeting with others, sharing stories, talking truth…

Some people would say this is opening “Pandora’s box” –

It will let out all manner of troubles.

I’ve peeked inside this box before then shoved the lid back down tight,

Ran as fast as I could…

Tried to “unsee” what was seen.

Always figured I’d seen enough of what was in the box…

Dealt with what I saw and moved on…

(But not so fast…)

 

Troubles still arise uninvited.

Connections made to the things that crawled out of hiding long ago.

I have not outrun them as successfully as I had hoped.

(Perhaps hope was the problem?)

No one else in my gene pool had managed to outrun these things….

Some people sing “Blessed be the tie that binds….” –

In my biological family it was more like

“The chains that bind won’t go away.

You can’t escape what people say….

You’ll never belong so don’t even try…”

(But the story is not over……)

 

There is a God who saw me in my weakness,

He saw me in my trouble and loves me-one of the “least of these”.

This changes everything…I mean everything!

Trouble is not new to Him.

The Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief…

The Shepherd who searches for one lost sheep

The Master Potter who fixes broken vessels-

Restores them and makes them usable….

Hope is the answer – His name is Jesus

And He is mending my soul.

 

Fleeing from the Shadows

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Little girl, hiding in the shadows
Listening to the terrors of the night
Pillow o’er her head–wishing she was dead
Praying that the darkness doesn’t win….

Half-grown girl, living in the shadows
Trying to be “good” (not knowing how)
Afraid of what it means–the way her life has been
Afraid that she can never be made clean…

Wife and mom, still fleeing from the shadows,
While silently inside she dies each day.
Half alive at best–feeling different from the rest
But not yet understanding what it means….

There is a Light that drives away the darkness
There is a Hope that rises like the dawn!
There is a God who loves you–even though He’s seen it all.
He’s there for you and longs to be your friend….
You can begin again…..to live.

(In honor of Aunt Eleanor, who suffered greatly and is now at peace)

People Like Me

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Little girl, needing her father’s care
Vulnerable, trusting, and not yet aware
Willing to believe what the grownups say
(But paying a price, even to this day).

Seduced by abusers with smooth, cunning lies;
Next 20 years, got no tears left to cry.
Carrying for them the guilt and the shame,
It’s cause long forgotten–
Just a wound with no name.

“Nice Christian Women” don’t have problems like this!
So you think God’s forgotten (or has no help to give).
You deny it. You numb it. (But it won’t go away).
Their choice to abuse you left a high price to pay!

Now when I remember what I’d rather forget
I feel some of the anger (but it’s not over yet!)
I still want to shake those who stopped up their ears
When I tried to get help for the heartache and fears!

I want them to listen. I want them to know!
Little girls don’t ask for this! Dear GOD let them know!
It’s when people around them are too scared to see
That little girls grow up to be people like me.

They swallow their anger, give it to their guts
Then get in their 30’s and start going NUTS!
When flashbacks take over the hours before dawn
They grab a soft pillow and try to hold on.
Inside they lie screaming with rage and with fear
(But there’s no one to show them the way out of here!)
They want to do something to destroy who they are
But there’s nowhere to run to get away from the scars.

The “powers of darkness” the “Prince of the air”
Laughs at their tormented, weak little prayers.
He says they were purchased that day long ago
And he’s come to lay claim to their charred little souls.

The lies they believed long ago call their name
As the guilt separates them from God and their friends.
Religious pride tells them they must LOOK o.k.
(But honest confession is the only real way).

Unless they feel safe to speak out with the truth,
They are bound by the lies Satan knows how to use–
Like: “God doesn’t love you! You’re dirty and bad!”
(All the things that they learned from “dear loving dad”)

But Messiah, Redeemer, by His power and might
Can deliver from bondage those that give Him the right.
He purchased them, claimed them that day long ago
And He’s waiting to free those who give Him control.

************************************************************

(Wrote this a long time ago, when memories were still a bit overwhelming….haven’t done much writing the last few years but it’s time to integrate the pieces of my life….)

THE CAPTIVE TREASURE

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Crouching in the darkness, In the nighttime of her fears
Struggling 'neath the burdens that have kept her bound for years....
Captive to the Liar -- the accusation she's received
That her life has no value -- not aware she's been deceived.

Hands that reach to hold her in her loneliness and pain
Are feared as those who've come before to hurt and crush and maim.
Her broken heart lies bleeding...the Accuser shouts with glee
For her captive heart confirms the lie she never will be free.

But the Lord of Life is calling His anguished daughter's name.
He feels each wound she's suffered and He died to bear the shame.
This precious captive treasure is a jewel in His hand
(Though her blinded eyes and shattered heart cannot yet understand...)

"You are not your own, My child, I bought you with a price.
Purchased as a special gem -- for you I gave My Life.
I've come to be your Champion -- the Accuser has no part!
If you place your life into My hands, I'll free your captive heart."

The Crystal Vase

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Like a crystal vase smashed against the cement wall
The little girl was fractured by life’s blows.
Now hidden deep inside lie the pieces she can’t find-
The broken parts no one but Jesus knows….

Like catacombs in ancient Rome there are tunnels here…
She’s been lost in them and hiding out for years.
But she’s tired of trying to run  
She knows a change has got to come.
Believing He has seen it all and loves her still
And the emptiness is one that He can fill.

She was blinded by her tears,
Held captive to her fears,
Not sure if she should let His light shine in...
But when His love breaks through 
Mended broken things become new
Reflecting once again His marvelous light….

'Cause He’s picking up the pieces of her shattered life
Cradling them gently in His nail scarred hands.
With tender love He comes to heal
Wounds she tries hard not to feel
And let her know she’s still precious in His sight –
That she will be alright.

(Written for a friend December 19, 1991. But like so many of my poems, still being worked out in my own life.  Grateful for a church community where broken people are welcome and redemption, grace, compassion, and humilty are seen as essential parts of faith…..)

A tribute to my mother (reposted poem)

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You taught me the power of words-
You made me a poet.
You taught me compassion-
To see and to love those who are in pain.
You taught me to value diversity-
Helped me understand how it felt to be different.
You taught me the value of community-
Helped me learn to notice the lonely and left out.
You taught me to love mercy-
To treat people how I wanted to be treated.
You taught me to love my children-
To value who God made them as individuals.
You taught me to listen with my heart-
To hear the wounds of others that were hard to express.
You taught me that you don’t always
Get to choose how the lessons come
But to keep my heart open to God
And try not to miss them.
You taught me to value humility-
And to seek to do justice.
You helped me learn to look for the “jewels in the ashes”
and light in the darkest of places.

 

(Today or tomorrow may be her last day….she was exhausted, sick and in pain this afternoon but knew we were there).  The call where I was asked to confirm it was OK to give her morphine, avatar and just keep her comfortable and let her failing heart fail came today……praying you find peace, Mom.

The Boogeyman’s Back….(a poem)

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The boogeyman lives under my bed –

Sometimes he tries to sneak into my head

I plug my ears and stomp and shout

Trying to tearfully block him out.

He used to be just a scary story

Until the day he arrived in his glory

The news came through the telephone line –

“You have cancer” – now you’re mine.

We drove him back under the bed

Did surgery, chemo, everything they said

Prayed and hoped he would stay hid

But that’s not what this monster did…

Today I got another call

That pushed my back against the wall-

The sucker’s rearing his ugly head

I “need to get checked out more”, they said….

It may be nothing or it may be bad –

Oh man, this news makes me scared and sad!

So here we go for another round

Trying to not flip upside down.

God only knows and He’s not saying

What around this corner is waiting

But my God is bigger than this boogeyman

And I’ve got to trust that I’m in His hands.

3/24/16  Teresa Norman

 

Tuesday was the mammogram, Thursday was the call where they said they need more imaging and a pathologist to sort out what happens next in my life.

Jesus Is A Refugee (poem) reposted

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See the  mother on the journey, tiny baby in her arms,
Running from the soldiers who’ve come to rape and kill
She’s tired from the running, desperate, hungry, full of fear—
How can she know God loves her, and that He walks beside her there?

He is there beside her in the dark and in the cold.
He knows what she is feeling, in the Bible it is told
That He was once a refugee. His parents ran to save His life
From the soldiers sent to kill him in Herod’s infanticide.

The way that God has chosen to loose the bands of wickedness
To give bread to the hungry and to help free the oppressed
Calls us to walk beside her in our prayers and in our hearts:
As the body of Christ, the servant king, it makes her burden ours.

But words and prayers are not enough, no matter how well spoken
God’s love requires our presence so He can walk beside His children.
Even though we’re broken, we are His feet and hands.
We stand in need of grace to obey His commands.

Though she sits in darkness, He came to be the light.
Though she now is hungry, He is the bread of life.
Though we turn aside sometimes or don’t know what to do,
We are all called in some way to help her make it through.

He chose to entrust us with His reputation
And to make us His body throughout every nation
As a king become baby, He risked everything
Calling us to embody the love that He brings….

“I was hungry and you gave me bread
Thirsty and you gave me drink
A stranger and you took me in
In prison and you came to me….”
Lord, when did this happen?
His answer is quite clear
“When you did it for the least of these
It was for me, for I am there….”

Teresa Norman March 2001

 

The Jack in the Box

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On February 27, 2015, I got a phone call I had managed to avoid for years!  There had been lots of other scares  with lumps, bumps, biopsies, but all of them turned out to be benign.  This time the doctor’s seemed a bit more excited and some of their wording was more cautious, and I was scared.  Trying to find a way to describe the waiting, the poem below came to mind…..

Jack in the box sitting on the table

Looking harmless but it’s not stable

Never know when it will pop out

And scare you back to dealing with doubt….

The latch is tricky – won’t always stay closed.

How to fix it – God only knows!

So on my knees I ask for grace

To keep my focus from the fearful place.

Unsolved problems – got to let it rest

And trust and hope I will be blessed

With strength to walk where I need to go

Led by the one who loves me so!

Stage IIIB inflammatory breast cancer…. I had been ambushed by this new and unwelcome intruder.  Many thanks to Naomi, Gail, Lisa, Kathy and Barbara – some of the awesome people whose names and beautiful faces I could immediately pictures as friends who have walked on this journey and years later are still here!  Also remembering Penny and Kathryn, who walked this road and are no longer here.  Grateful for Gail’s nagging to always get the mammogram, which I had been doing ever since I met her.

 

 

Not for sale (poem)

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Money doesn’t make you a better person-it just gives you better choices.  In some cultures, having no money and no rights makes you a target for traffickers. I first heard of the organization “Not For Sale” shortly after I had met some of my young refugee friends. It made their presentation pretty non-theoretical. I could picture some of the young people I care about and the choices they may have faced if their parents had not chosen to become refugees and take the risk of resettlement to America.

Not for sale…..
Humans as commodities, stocks to exchange,
inconveniences, expendables to be thrown away.
Their lives for sale…choices determined by $.
No! Their lives are a gift. Their lives have value!
Children of God, created with purpose-
whether they know it or not!

They have captured us, adopted us, let us love them.
Priceless treasures beyond measure…
These sharers of laughter, of humbling moments…
Yahtzee played, meals shared, loving acceptance offered and received.
We talk of woman things and what it means
Of relationships and guys who are good
And those who are not.

Transitions negotiated like minefields….
New experiences played out each day….
We talk of Christmas trees and manger scenes–
Of Jesus, a refugee whose parents fled to safety to keep him safe.

They watched our daughter with her baby
And reflected on a mother who loves instead of leaves…
They have little “stuff”- but their father loves them.
With courage he brought them here in spite of the challenges.
They live in a “big” house (smaller than most living rooms),
grateful their father cooks for them….
Grateful for food. For friends…. for choices.
If different choices had been made,
They could be some of those who are for sale in another land…..

How do you determine the value of a human?
Of their love?
It is priceless.
It should not be for sale.

Baby dedications

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A couple of weeks ago, there were two baby dedications/baptisms at church, and I was surprised how spun out I got watching this.  I always love those moments, watching people make public the commitment that they will seek to raise this precious child to know God.  SO important!  But watching this from the perspective of  being brand new grandma, it impacted me at a whole new level.

The first thing I noticed this morning, was that the mom and dad and cute little bundle didn’t have any family present for this event.  There could be many reasons for that (work schedules, living in a different city or continent, family issues, not Christian….and many others), but my mind and heart contrasted that to some of the other times where we have seen the podium filling up with grandmas and grandmas who have come long distances to witness this moment.  It made me sad for the parents (whether appropriately or not), and made me take it very seriously as a member of the church who would be saying, “Yes, we stand beside you and pray for you and are so glad you are choosing to walk the path of faith as a family.”

It also took me back to when we dedicated our children, and I never realized til then, our families were not with us.  Mine wouldn’t have come (our church at the time was too “expressive” for them), and my husband’s family was not familiar with why we would be doing this in the first place.  It was our church we were counting on at that point to help us learn to do this amazing privilege of raising our kids, surviving new parenthood, and teaching them to know God.  There were some amazing “adopted” grandparents in our church who were there for me in ways I want to be there for our grandson.

This service made me rejoice, but also made me incredibly sad for those who do not choose to be part of a faith community,  and therefore, do not have this incredible resource of potentially mentoring, praying, supportive people to draw from. (Ya, I know sometimes a church is a little like granola-you get fruit in with it, but also some nuts).  If they are not in a church, it made me very conscious of how much young parents need their family to walk in faith around them, to spend time loving, giving, listening and praying….

As a grateful new mom, a long time ago, I wrote this poem for our first daughter…

“Like Hannah in the Bible promised long ago
If she could only have a child, she’d given him to the Lord.
I prayed that God would give to us a baby girl to love
And I promised we would care for her and teach her that He is good.

Lord, I give to you this child that you have given me.
Please help me mold and shape her into what she’s supposed to be.
Keep her safe throughout each day-keep her in your tender care.
No matter what may happen, let her know You’re always there.

So God, in love looked down on us and brought you to our lives.
I’ve thanked Him everyday since then.  I’ll thank Him all my life.
I pray that you will know Him too as your shepherd and your friend,
Because, little one, Jesus loves you, with a love that will not end.”

*******************************************************************

PS  It also made me very grateful that even though the church I grew up in had some very toxic people running rampant over the lives of children, God’s Word can still take root in a young life willing to trust Him.  A child hearing that God loves them, has a plan for their life, and has a purpose bigger than the valley full of shadows they may live in, can still believe and find hope even when life is hard.  (Yes, circumstances for that child need to change, but God is unchanging).

On using words (ramblings)

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My mother made me a poet.  Not necessarily by inspiring me to read fine literature, but by her unique ability to string words together in ways you never forget.  I learned from her the power of words at an early age.  She had a well developed sense of meter and timing.  She taught me never to take words for granted and to carefully measure the effect of the ones I used.  I learned to be careful and sparing-that words could build up or tear down, and that even after attempting to take them back,  their impact can remain, their sound resonating in your memory like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Writing has always been my passion, at least since I was a third grader in Mrs. Bosshard’s class.  Every day that year, I’d present her a new story first thing in the morning.  Although considered quiet and much too shy at that stage, I had discovered words could express things just fine if they were put on paper.

In high school, the creative writing class was taught by an “old hippie” with a gift for bringing out the creativity in people.    At one point, after reading my rather dark poetry, she called me in for a conference; she was the only person who noticed the depression in process.  She paid attention.  Years later, two of my children were also blessed  to have also had her for a teacher.

When it comes to using words, (both in conversation and in writing), I prefer the short version.  Having to add enough detail, and box car enough thoughts to make something longer than a paragraph seems a bit of a challenge, but once the train gets rolling it’s kind of fun.

Writing things out on paper instead of letting them chase each other around in my head makes them easier to edit.  I like the “delete” button, the drag and drop technique, and the bold print of emphasis much better than arguing or screaming.  Emphasis by italics feels more civilized than clarity by decibel level and can express strong feelings just as well.  There’s nowhere left for words to hide when they are displayed in black and white on the screen, hidden in plain sight.  I can move sentences and ideas around, try new things, and reformat my opinions (both internally and externally).  Making the ideas stand still long enough to be looked at objectively and cut down to size is exhilarating.

Poems and songs are to writing what photographs are to full-length films.  They give a glimpse of a moment but they do not articulate the depth, the character development, background conflicts or the interconnectedness of events the way longer narratives do.  The fight to add detail continues.  I am drawn toward the guerilla tactics of poetry—select the target, plant the explosives, then run for cover before it detonates.  I need to learn more patience for the process of development, strategy and written dialogue.  Perhaps if I continue to work on written communication and doing the “long version,” verbal communications will become less draining and intimidating?  One can dream that being comfortable with words in one setting will make them more comfortable with words in other settings….