Blood stained skies

The sunset cut through my chest like a knife. A surgeon wielding a scalpel couldn’t have made a more precise cut to my heart. Blood stained the skies. I was speeding due west, but was unable to catch the sun. My truck crested a hill and a deeply cut canyon opened up beneath me, as the wide road suddenly narrowed to a treacherous, hill-hugging wedge of asphalt. My eyes darted around to take in the throbbing beauty, narrowly missing other cars and quickly adjusting to sharp turns. There were hidden emerald meadows, grazing horses, ruby and silver clouds above, and no place to pause to quench my thirst. The canyon slipped away and flat plains of agriculture stepped in, with the ocean in the distance and jutting mountains at my shoulders. The wide expanses overwhelmed me. I thought I would allow myself some tears, but remembered that it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I should keep my wits about me whilst operating my beastly machine, allowing the possibility that others may have been celebrating early.
(I, too, was on my way to a party… a party for two. Her name is Summer, and we shared some milk and cookies before she went to bed at eight. Sweet cherub. As she slept in my arms, her rosy lips came to a perfect pucker. Angels must be near, I concluded, as her lips formed the shape to receive their kisses.)

I have been feeling a lot this week. That’s the answer I’ve been giving when a friend asks me how I am. “I’m feeling a lot,â€? I’ll respond, with a little smile. Often a second question will follow, something to the effect of, “Like what?,â€? or “What do you mean?â€? I almost don’t know how to explain it. I sense more deeply the changing of moods in my friends and family… sometimes I can do something to participate in the joy, alleviate the sorrow, or lift the bad mood, but other times the burden of emotion is too heavy and I can only retreat, or watch from a distance… nursing my own inadequacies, and/or asking God what I can, or should, do. Other things have been stabbing at me too, like the drive to Port Hueneme last night, the homeless man holding his sign, a hand on my face and a kiss on the head, the green and budding trees of spring, a glance of love given and received, ripe strawberries piled high on shortcake (and boy, was it short! it failed to rise at all!), reading “Memoirs of a Geisha,â€? the sweet lips of my little Summer. Beauty has stopped me in my tracks more than once this past week, in all it’s various forms. Or should I say, all of His various forms…?

But as I continue walking this path toward Beauty, I leave a trail of blood in my wake or splashed across the skies. At times it is mere drops or smudges in the dust, and other times, an unchecked flow. Allowing emotions to affect seems to come at a price… each time I reach for beauty, I am seared. Eventually my skin will be unable to hold me together, and I will become transparent. Naked for all to see. Unencumbered by it’s constricting wrap. But His touch both draws the blood and staunches the flow. How is it that my heart gushes with the life-force inside threatening to spill every drop, and yet when the rush of emotional experience is over I am more alive than before? My scarlet fluid may be escaping from this weakening body at an alarming rate, but the faster it flows, the more alive I become. Well, I think I’d like Him to have it. I’m not sure I’m always willing to freely give it (fear is still a bitter taste in my mouth). But I want to learn to say, “Take it. Take it all.â€?