Some time ago a blogging friend suggested subscribing to The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. At the time I didn’t know who she was, how amazing, how she has written a book, married Jon Batiste, and that she battles leukemia every day. All I knew was her writing felt like a letter from a friend. Her prompts compelling.
Prompt 230 came from The Renunciations by Donika Kelly. I wrote from the line “Let this be a moment of remembering”
“Let this be a moment of remembering” Donika Kelly
Let us be bird and nest. Let
Margaret Simon, Golden Shovel for Jeff, my nest for 40+ years
me curl my toes around this
threshold to flight. You’ll be
waiting with your net of comfort, a
reason or two why this moment
shouldn’t crush me. Eyes of
love, we’ve been here before–remembering.
This post is also the first Thursday of the month Spiritual Thursday gathering. Today Karen Eastlund is hosting. She suggested we write about “words to fall back on.”
Over and over I fall back on Mary Oliver’s words. The line “You do not have to be good” from Wild Geese gives me the confidence I need to plow through. There will be days that I mess up, say the wrong thing, write something shitty. But we don’t have to “walk on (our) knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” We can embrace our soft animal body and let it love what it loves.
This Lent I have started writing in my journal using a line from the Bible as a jumping off place. This morning the verse I turned the page to was “You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created.” Ezekiel 28.15.
My response:
Guilt lives in my backpack.
I carry it with me wherever I go.
I’ve never done enough according to Guilt.
I’ve been selfish and without purpose.
Guilt is heavy and wants to break me.
Some will say, “You’ve done everything you could.”
I wish I believed them.
Where weeds grow, more will come
until you decide
their simple beauty
is within their blamelessness.
Reflections on the Teche 
Saweet Margaret! Thanks, Jim
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Your Golden Shovel is golden. The words flow. To be on the threshold of flight and have a net of comfort! And eyes of love remembering! That makes the heart full.
Then the reflection on scripture… guilt and grace.
Your writing is so beautiful. I love using the bible as a starting place for writing. Thank you!
Margaret: Your poem for Jeff is glorious. I especially love “threshold of flight.” The guilt thing is so hard to shake. I fall back on Luther sometimes: Sin boldly!
Beautiful and freeing ending in your second poem, thanks for the pondering there Margaret.
“You don’t have to be good”, yet from childhood up we are conditioned to be good, do our best, try harder. It is no wonder that guilt takes such a strong hold over us. What is a weed to one is a beautiful flower to another. We can change our perspective.
Your golden shovel poem is lovely especially these words, “you’ll be waiting with your net of comfort.”
“Embracing our soft animal body” contains worlds of wisdom. Thanks for sharing your words with us.
Oh, that beautiful golden shovel of love! This whole post resonates with thoughtful reflection and gorgeous language.
Margaret, how beautiful is all of this. My favorite might be: “we’ve been here before–remembering” but there are so many other lines I love from your golden shovel. What a gift for Jeff. That response to the verse in Ezekiel about blamelessness is another golden poem!
This post fills me with happiness. Oh, the heaviness of guilt. And, how much I want to put it down–when I could but don’t. And, “let this be bird and nest” is such a beautiful opening line. If your purpose is lifting up this friend today, you have fulfilled it. Thank you and amen.
Margaret, there is gentleness and love in your SJT/Slice post. “we’ve been here before-remembering” holds a lifetime of love in its sweet words. “Guilt is heavy and wants to break me.” – that is a universal thought but the way you wrote it seemed so personal. I looked at this poem in a different light-one of self-care. May your weekend be filled with love.
Margaret, You’ve chosen beautiful words: You do not have to be good. They remind me that nothing we do or can do earns us God’s love. God loved first – the all of us, the ugly and the beautiful. I try to remember that the best response to Guilt is gratitude. One Lent, I gave up guilt and replaced it at every turn with a thank-you prayer. And your golden shovel is a perfect one ❤
Thank you, Margaret! So good!