Prayer

We pray, Father, for those who are lost and bewildered,
For those who are angry and confused,
For those who seek You and those who are running away.
We pray, Father, for those who are displaced
and for those who fear being displaced.

We pray for those who are mistaken and for those who are sure.
We pray that your comfort and forgiveness will fill our hearts
and we will comfort and forgive others.

We pray that any Spirit other than your Holy Spirit will be dispelled
from your houses of worship, your people, and your land.

We accept You Father and reach for You
through Your Grace.
Please fill us anew.

May we come together in Your Spirit
to serve and worship and know that as You atone for me,
there is no one beyond your reach.
O Father God, Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

By Faith Chatham - September 2009

Lurking

"He's in your hands Lord.
I give him back to you.
You shared him for a while I know.
I've done my best.
I've given it all I have and can."

"Release me, Lord, to live and love, and hopefully to begin to trust again.
If he wills not be with me, then break the cord and set us free."

"Lord, you know if you will me to love him for all my life I would;
But if he's not going to be here, to live, to breathe, to share, to care,
then why should we tether in this non-existent sphere?"

"I give him back to you, Lord.
I'm honored that you entrusted him to me for a little while.
I wish I could have loved him more perfectly.
I'm amazed at how you enabled me to care and trust and revere him as I did."

"He's made a choice Lord. He's stubborn in his thoughts and will.
He sees me as a danger too frightening to embrace --
the shape and fabric of former hurts from others --
instead of seeing what you blessed he sees us as a pitfall of former failures of his past."

"Patience is a gift you give me naturally,
yet months of silence and nebulous ghostly shadows,
leads me to pray.
If you see a reason for this that is constructive in your world, Lord,
then I submit.
Yet if he won't be here, won't ever let himself trust and care, believe in you and in himself,
then please release me to find another future and a hope.

This time I followed you in loving him.
I trusted because I felt your hand and heart on ours.
I saw You smiling as we fought past tombstones from our pasts
embracing the best we knew in each other and in You.
Then abruptly he balked and fled.

Faith is easy for me Lord. You instill it new each time I stop and know your grace
Grant me poise.
If I'm deluded, then wash away the haze.
If I'm impatient, give me the proper amount of forbearance and understanding.
If I'm just too stubborn to let him loose,
then cut the cord and set us free
to wrap ourselves individually in your Spirit Lord.
I place him back within your arms
Only You know what is true and right .
I long for love that is blessed and eternal in Your Sight."

--- Faith Chatham July 16, 2009

Anaheim 2009

By Faith Chatham - July 9, 2009
Some look on from benches, googling instead of genuflecting this year
Divorce is tough
Jesus says "Don't do it."

My two oldest sisters used to vie and juggle
Playing politics and presenting cases
Why each should be the "best", "right", deserve to be "most loved"
Mother never would choose
She lived for them both
How different is the Father's love?

It's Anaheim this year.
It's been Denver and other places where blood was let
The cup was passed in Jesus Name
Yet Cain smite Able
"It's because they said this" or "They think that…"
We're at the table arguing we can serve better only "if" and "when"
Can we? Do we?

It's Anheim this year.
Familiar faces from the crowd are at home across the nation
Some are missing from other continents
Some from down the block.
Between the lines folks are reading from within the hall and from cyber portals
To see how if "just rewards" will be melted down
Or only empty spaces will walk in columns
Past the line in the sand where discernment becomes judgement.
Oh, wait!

That's what the Father said -- only the Son can judge.

It's Anaheim this year.
Those I hold dear are within the room and at home.
I agree with "this.." over here and "that.." over there.
I see imperfectly.
It isn't quite so clear
Who is "right" and who is "wrong."
The Father said: "Don't sue".
"Don't judge".
"Don't marginalize".
"Honor my Word. Don't add or take away."

We live Him imperfectly.
He loves us immeasurably.

Mother hated holidays.
Sisters sat at table with agendas and grievances
She loved us all
And wouldn't choose
Her daughters were all imperfect
She'd held us in her womb
Wiped our tears and spanked our butts
She saw promise in our eyes
And believed that hearts can mend

Mother may understand God's heart better than clerics
And Bishops, delegates in Anaheim and delegates of previous years
Creation breeds hope from the dust

The bell rings.
God is near.
The cup is passed.
He decided, He alone decides
Who knows him best.
He alone knows who calls upon His name.
He alone recognizes the hand which reaches sincere and weak
Trusting

God needs no defender.
He is God.
He seeks no one to "prove His truth."

Reach.
Know God is God.
See the chasm.
Know shortness of our mortal leap.

None of us earned our Mother's love.
None of us understand the Father.

We are imperfect in our leap.
Their love doesn't measure the shortness of our dreams
Or charge a premium for inches not fulfilled on measuring sticks.
Those at home and those in Anaheim are in His heart.
He's neither deaf nor weak
He has patience
Waiting for spiritual toddlers to run out of steam
And be still
Getting quiet enough to hear His voice
And feel His hand comfort and encompass.

We see a bit
Think we know the rest.
He sees all
And holds us to his breast.
-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

Creativity

There’s a small brown bird outside my window.
He listens to TV.
Soap operas and news casts inspire him.
He matches actors’ pitch and rhythm
creating tunes which amuse me.

Sometimes I get distracted
and listen more to him
ignoring Hollywood productions
for this simple feathered bird’s compositions
performed for all who pass,
beside my western window’s opening,
where he dances, sings and preens.

His is a marvelous production
without tickets, lights or cameras
or investors’ green back bucks.
He’s quite a peculiar bird,
doesn’t fly with flocks and fowl,
probably doesn’t fill in their formations,
preferring to discover his own special line.

Everyone on this street has a television,
but for some reason he’s discovered mine.
Maybe he suspects that I’m peculiar,
and known to speak my mind.
I don’t feed him seeds or bribe him
to linger here with me.
I’m just an audience for his daily inspirations,
and appreciate each new tune and harmony.
--By Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

Break the Cord (excerpts)

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009

...
Loving is more than merely touching
on the physical you see.
Love is both spiritual and mental,
defies the mortal touch.
It is stronger than mere phrases
uttered in haste or casual words.
Once mutually acknowledged,
recognizing what is real,
the mental and the spiritual resists attempts
to banish it or break it.
It's a unity of spirit,
the touch of God on man,
that makes it hard to crush it
and makes it hard to understand.

...
Just because it doesn’t fit
into our preconceptions,
what we previously thought
we really wanted or was best for us somehow,
doesn't stop the reverberations,
of communications through the air!

Maybe it's because love is really spiritual,
though sometimes expressed
in myriads of different ways.
Some folks use their hands, words, and actions,
physical bodies, or whisper words of praise.

Those are but ephemeral ways of expressing
what can’t be captured or held
within human hands.
Perhaps that might be why loving
sometimes seems like trying
to catch light and motion,
attempting to culp energy within our hands!
...

I hold these moments sacred,
frustrating though they are.
Not good at meshing or adjusting,
we dance in some weird precocious love.
Two spirits seeking God,
not letting go of each other,
we neither ended nor grew-to-fit
love’s transforming fire.

We ran and hid from joy and fulfillment,
making excuses,
not truly embracing
either solitude or rejection in our flight.

I love you still, my darling,
though at times I wish I could wish
that were not true.
Despite hurt stemming from perceived rejection,
I have not fully let go of you.

Until we both let go of each other,
in our thoughts and reverie,
we’ll continue dancing
in some spiritual dimension,
where love isn't ended
and hope defies mortal imagination
and overwhelming odds.

If you want to be free of me
you'll have to think it and really mean it,
be convinced through and through,
that you want to be free of me forever.

If you say it to yourself and really mean it,
will to let those thoughts
travel through the golden cord,
to singe the imprint of our being
from each other's psyche and each other's hearts,
then our minds will get the message.
It will close it off finally.
We'll stop searching for each other's souls,
listening for each other's footsteps,
and the cord will break which connects us.

If you want it, you have to really mean it,
to anchor it through and through.
or we'll continue to dance united
in spirit.
To break the cord between us,
we must unite in indifference,
not hearing the other's cry.
We must not care about joy or passion,
or comfort knowing the other is nearby.

If you truly want to break the cord between us,
you must not even slightly care!
Hurt, anger, love or longing
keeps the cord intact and strong.
Only the finality of indifference
can severe it in-two.

-- By Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

Tissue Paper

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009

I tell God: ‘I don’t understand?
Don’t know
what I should feel,
or do?’
Wonder if I could do
what “I should”
if I only knew!

I’ve asked you
to help me
put it into context,
to help me
understand.
Yet, for some reason
you can’t
or won’t,
and I’m left wondering
why I still seek your soul
when you flee
from mine!

I railed at God,
and asked Him
to “take this love away.”

He told me “No!”
He reminded me
that I’d told Him
if He ‘honored me
with some
of His love for you,
I’d honor it,
and you,
as long as He chose
to trust me with it!’

Now you’re gone.
You seem to have moved far beyond
loving me,
yet my hurt and anger
gets replaced regularly
with a glimmer
of God’s incredible
love for you!

I talked to God about “pride” one day.
He told me that “this time, your pride
is not the most important thing!”

When the words I had for you
weren’t very kind,
He filled me with His words
and called you “his innocent!”

O Magnificent Betrayer of my heart,
O Sweet Obsession of my soul,
I wonder how long God will fill me
fresh every morning
with prayers for you?

Will my soul ever stop
searching
for yours?

Will I be able to take some of the trust
and hope
and joy
I knew in you
and wrap it gently
in tissue paper
and lay it in the “keep chest”
until we reach that other world
where love knows no boundaries
and does not
grow cold?

Why,
when your love for me
has gone dormant
does mine
still tremble?

For now, I have to trust
that in God’s time
I’ll cease to weep
when I think
of what we shared
and what we miss
in the silence
of these hours.
-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

Hijacked

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009

The Bishop
and most of the convention delegates
voted
to leave the church;

In leaving,
they decided to take the diocese
with them.

My parish left
with the Bishop,
though it still stands down the block
near home,
it’s became part
of the Southern Cone.

Most of us
were Christened as babies,
then decided to be Confirmed
when we grew older.
We decided
to become Episcopalian.

When the Bishop
and the parish left
taking us with them,
we didn’t have a say.

To remain Episcopalian
we had “to transfer back-in”
or we couldn’t stay!

I’ve never been south of Honduras,
yet they took “my spiritual allegiance”,
legally shifting it
far beyond
where I’d explored
and chose
for it to be!

I’m more comfortable
with the Theology
of the Bishop and most of those
who left than with some “who stayed.”

Most of those I hold most dear
have gone south.

Joining a church,
uniting with a denomination,
changing your “letter”
is very personal.

No one,
not an elected delegate
or my beloved Bishop
should be allowed
to make
that personal
of a decision
for me.

It’s between me and God.
Not even
the broken Theology
or politics of the church
justifies
such intrusion.

I transferred back
“into”
the Episcopal Church.
I may not stay,
but if I do,
or if I leave,
it won’t be by “majority vote”
or decree
of a church convention.

It will be about
how I’m fed,
what I feel,
how I serve,
Who I hear,
what I see,
Whose I am.
It will be a decision between God and me.
-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

This Time

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009

I didn’t get what I wanted.
I’d fallen in love before
and it had been disastrous.

This time I wanted to walk into love
carefully, prayerfully,
with both of us having time
to explore our own hopes and wishes,
and to consult with God’s heart,
to be sure and steady.

I sought a love that was sound and solid,
suited for earth
with the bliss of heaven.

Instead we found the bliss
and soon we were far
beyond the careful or the steady.

Soon after I trusted and believed,
you came and told me
you were “in over your head”.

I thought I could back-up,
give the love I’d found for you
back to God, and “move on.”

Instead, I found that I didn’t get what I wanted.
Finding myself far from shore
in loving you.

Though God is here,
He doesn’t seem to want
to help me get back.

You’re gone
and I wonder how long
my soul will keep searching for you
in the dark and in the day?

This time, I began in prayer loving you.
I’m still in prayer, seeking a way beyond the dream
which froze in my hand.

I wanted to walk
into love with you.
But love can’t be contained, or timed
or melded out by the tablespoonful.
It flows like water through life’s conduit.

I’m left wondering “what’s happened?”,
listening to see
if “over the head”
is like bobbin’ in the water,
a transitory interruption,
or a permanent outage.

I didn’t get what I wanted.
This time I wanted to walk carefully
into love.

-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

Pots ‘n Pans

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009
You told me
when your Mom used to bang those pots and pans,
you used to cringe
and wish
she’d just come out and say
what was bothering her.

You left and won’t talk to me.
I wish you’d tell me
what you think,
what you want,
what’s bothering you so much
that despite your loving me
you fled.

The silence is as loud
as those pots ‘n pans
reviberating though our minds.

-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009

I Used to Listen Better in the Church

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from SACRED SPACES - copyright 2009

God, I’m not comfortable with your church.
I feel closer to you when I’m here at home,
or in the yard with the air caressing my cheek,
or watching the bird perched on the patio fence.

Though I love the liturgy
and am fed by your word,
in congregations of people
I feel the distortion;
Distracted by others’ imperfections
I fail to recognize my own.

I used to hear you better when in church,
though I always seemed to hear you best
in church alone!

There is no sweeter chorus
than those I hear
when “no one’s there”.

When kneeling at the chancel rail,
when no mortal footsteps are near,
I feel the breath of Saints and Mary’s presence
and hear you speaking, Jesus.

I’m never closer to you Lord,
than at the communion rail.
Then I close out the world
and taste your Grace.

Though Church is social
and partly intellectual,
I find mortal chatter distracts me
from your face.
Frequently, it’s an arrow
directing me to prayer.

Sometimes,
someone says a phrase
which draws me closer to you.
Yet, usually,
I get distracted
or distract others.

Frequently,
I find it sweeter to sit
and listen
for you Lord, when alone.

In solitude
I hear
the heavenly host,
let you
test the spirits,
and fill me
with your peace.

I don’t fit in
with any of them,
yet they are my brothers and sisters.

Of all times
to be a “high church
Episcopalian!”
I have no peace
about either staying
or going.
I certainly have no allegiance
to the diocese of the Southern Cone,
yet recognize the violence
which propelled
those I love from the fold.

Instead of “evangelism” or “spiritual formation”,
energy and resources are enmeshed
in litigation.

Some mutter
about “them
hijacking a diocese.”

I mutter
about “them
hijacking Advent and Christmas!”

Instead of penance
and Holy Expectation,
communicants
of “both camps”
were thrust into incessant meetings
of reorganization!

I shook my head in dismay,
bewildered,
thinking what a sad way
to welcome the Messiah!

I see the flaws
in all of us;
am repelled
by “self-righteousness”
as each attempts
to “reflect God
as we understand Him”.

Some stand on canon and scripture,
caught in the web
of judging.

Others interpret it
as they see it,
feeling righteous
in “being broadminded”
and “more generous”.

It seems we’re all caught
in the web
of our own thoughts.

Come, Lord Jesus.
Deliver us from ourselves.

May we be protected
from the state
of “us and them.”

There is nothing righteous
in either camp,
yet in You,
everything is Sacred
in both.

-- by Faith Chatham
copyright 2009