When I Look Back

Sometimes I'm in Springfield watching my father's gentle hands gather vegetables from the garden, the breeze on my face from the Lake and the smell of rotting fish a reminder that I am home.

And sometimes I'm at Sawyerwood church singing "God Bless America" on Memorial Day, crock pots and Hallmark cards and protective, secure hugs--Grandma's laughter and the birthday bag and Father Abraham had many sons.
 
And sometimes I'm deep in the cornfields of Bowling Green, the horizon as flat and open as all of the possibilities ahead of me, a questioning and searching and seeking my spiritual truth. 

And sometimes I'm in Philadelphia where my Black church family taught me of justice and freedom and liberation and healing, where radical embrace sunk deep into my bones a healing I didn't know I needed and a healing I could never forget.

And sometimes I'm in Kapolei near the shores where the sun-soaked sand called my spirit to repentance, where the kalo was pounded on the papa ku‘i ‘ai into communion alongside coconut milk and we all partook of the feast as one Church. 

And sometimes I'm in the sun-scorched dirt of LA where shoots of resilient green in the midst of drought remind me that I am resilient green, too.

And sometimes I'm in Summit Lake, where the beggars and broken take communion alongside the rich and humbled and we call one another family.   

And sometimes I'm in the psychiatric hospital, and sometimes I'm the counselor. And sometimes I'm the Good Samaritan, and sometimes I'm begging for help and

Everywhere I go  
My heart keeps expanding and widening and falling deeper in love
Mystery and ocean depths and a never-ending contemplative horizon that leads me to marvel at--
How wide, 
how long, 
how deep, 
how magnificent 
is the love of Christ our Lord.