misunderstood his inner life

     When I was in my thirties I was in Des Moines, Iowa; working thinking breathing. Making a name for myself. An artist through and through, not able to support my family from the portraits I painted. Instead, spending my nights vacuuming, emptying trash, stripping floors, waxing, and doing janitorial work. Church wise, I was outside the denomination of my birth, hearing other lingo, other ways of praising God, other ways to pray, other ways to be. And drawing my new conclusions.
     One of which was toward my dad. I could not perceive his inner life.
     For his part, there seemed to be a lot of doing, making, and drawing attention to what Dad did.
     I misunderstood his relationship.
     What was inside.
     I wrote long letters to Nebraska to dad, arguing. My passion was seen as anger. I didn't see his connection to God. It wasn't all the new ways I was experiencing God in Des Moines. It wasn't the songs we were singing. It wasn't the rhythm we were swaying to. What had been familiar to me growing up in my parent's church, looked more and more foreign. Distant. Out of touch.

     Now I am the age my dad had been, looking back at photos so young and lively, so engaged. The way Dad operated back then was really hidden from my young eyes. Dad's thinking came out of listening to the One who makes. Dad drank in the sacred scriptures, musing, listening, wondering. His inner being shaped by the One who names and treasures the seeking soul.

     I see it now. Deep praises pressed into treated wood, burned by a red-hot welded letter, something Dad himself created
for branding.

    Always near,
        hovering, close,
            pulling Dad into the next
   set of problem solving,
        which later manifested itself
            as a mosaic panel
               or a candle holder
      or resembled a cross shape.

Lemteyoso
This same Lord, this same baptism, this same Word
        hovering, close,
        drawing my moments into His gaze, His study and
         feeling His emotion for me
being known, His heart stirred stirs me

Lemteyoso
    in the act of making
        the LORD draws close
        to uncover His feelings for me
     "you are not forsaken,
                   not alone,
                   not abandoned"
the way His Wind BREAKS into moments of NOW
  to catch me once again
     for me He is active - alive - intent -
        - generating emotions of gratitude for His Son

    this pulse of Another
      initiating in me - hope - joy - longing 

    makes a way   to belong to Him
    makes it possible   to know His thoughts
    balances the weight of these photos I am sifting

about the photos i am sifting throo

This One

holds me

looks at all His pieces

placing        

next to

     inside

within me 

humming over me

His desire

 

shaping me

JESUS YOU ARE

you are

YOU ARE THIS MOMENT

you are

 

touched

As a child I remember seeing my dad's eyes brimming with tears on numerous occasions in church, sitting in our pew, listening to the music, and god-breathed readings from the Bible. As a person and as a father of children he was touched in this manner. His eyes filled with tears. Me too, dad, me too.

The night my father was on the David Letterman show with his sound sculptures, his grownup son was lying on Betty's living room carpet in Gardena, California. The Friday night fellowship had met to sing and pray, folks were out in her kitchen, and a cycle of release was at work on me. The knot I felt in my gut earlier that day during chapel, was moving up into my chest. What followed was deep cries and sobbing. Eyes shut, open and willing, not knowing where it would go, just being, and letting him work. And then...taken down into a slumber, a deep peace, unbroken, a stillness, while laying on that living room floor. And then...a trembling began again in my stomach. I could feel it moving up into my chest, and then wailing burst out of my mouth, tears streaming. The slumber returned, taking me down into His coma, His embrace. (On The Floor by Karl Marxhausen, painting, below)

 

The pattern of tremors in my stomach, the wrenching sobs, and the descent into peace repeated and repeated and went on for three hours. When it was all over I was tired. One of the company told me my father had been on TV. It was 11 o'clock Pacific Standard Time. This had come by one moving within, unlocking, releasing tears, His kindness in my physical being. 

You could say that "logic sat at the door waiting for it to end." And that's the point here. I do not figure it out. I go through it. I am open. Tears are the reaction in us when He does it. Sitting in the pew, seeing God doing it in my father's eyes, it is private, it is intimate, our bodies unravel, our minds allow his touch to infiltrate and tear down barriers from within.(Lost In Wonder by Karl Marxhausen, painting, above)

During this funeral there was chamber music, the words of Jesus remembered, litanies recited, declarations of faith, an open upright pine casket, stories of my father, and an attitude of celebration. More than words can say, it is about our history with Jesus. It is His action that pulls me into his reality, his pardon for my offense, his breath - a living direction, His voice within, His choice-enacting, intimacy, engulfing my senses. He comes and my tear ducts respond in the midst of his nearness, his fragrance, his touch.