Prayer #4 (in the aftermath of rape)

Let me not do more than slam, hammer, pound
and send all the contents smashing against the ground,
the wall, glasses, books, whatever in the vicinity of this holy rage.

Let me not grind my teeth endlessly or linger too long
in the fantasy of obliterating the one who trampled innocence.

Call the gatekeepers, please.

Call the standard bearers, too.

Rouse the warriors against the wave of scurrying human cowardice
that reaches rapidly to blank out, redact accountability
and stroke, stroke, stroke the enablers.

Let me not be so done with children posing adulthood
so fury-blind that I alienate them every last one
in the fallout of the brutalization of one actual child.

Open our eyes to the beasts we pursue in the hopes to subdue,
subsume and subjugate, feeding our own inner monsters
while we weep under the light of the moon
wondering why our children have been devoured.

Stop the generational wreckage smash and crash
rolling through the fast lane in the here and now.
For once, end the long game, the one where the children pay
and pay, and pay for the violations of the fathers.

Keep us all sane, keep us all open to being better people
so the ones who’ve paid a price not their own,
can know safety in our presence.
Make our lives, our days, our minds, our hearts
and our actions a refuge from delusion and insanity.

Waken the dead, the walking dead
who thrive more in pretending love
than the doing of care, of forethought, of protection.

Wash over the blistering wounds made,
the whispering haunt and the innocence fade.
Conjure from the cracks a tree more resilient,
refusing that perpetual derision as it rolls downhill,
mocking how precious the sighs and pulse
of our children, our heritage, our hope.

Conjure creation’s cure, a resounding war cry,
calling from the heart of mother and father divine a raging justice,
insisting growth, smashing lies and building newness in the after.

photo by j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved

 

jruthkellyLeave a comment

Power Over

“What posturing and performance share in common is a deep disconnect between the inspired heart and our gut instincts, between rising up and sensing ground where all life dissolves into the rich humus of earth. Make no mistake white bodies are capable of sensing deeply and can become conscious of the insidious ways that colonization is held within our flesh and blood. We may squirm and distract ourselves, but we have what it takes to dissolve these century-old impulses to cage, control and power over body. With awareness, we can begin to recognize our conditioning and through attention we can allow our primal impulses to grow a capacity to dissolve the distortions and claim life-supportive gestures and expressions.” Liz Koch, excerpted from the post on her website, Core Awareness, titled “White Bodies, Psoas, & Gesturing Power Over”

We colonized the land and the people of the land we now call the United States of America and we colonized our own bodies. Power over is the rabid beast created when we divorce ourselves from being soft, hairy animal human. We infused our religious beliefs with power over. We insisted on obedience like we insisted on this land, raping and violating the bodies of children in the name of discipline and good behavior and, for some, godliness. I can say that my daughter and two sons have birthed me because they broke my heart open and opened me up to my own tenderness and the validity of the wild human. I could not fathom how the sort of discipline inflicted on me, and on my sisters, in the name of Jesus was anything remotely connected to love and that realization occurred when a baby girl came out of my body. Everything changed. Who was this sacred creature? How could you thump her on the forehead for speaking her mind or challenging you at the dinner table? How? You must be divorced from your own body, colonized from head to toe to soul if you do this and you must be addicted to power over. Dethroning the inner tyrant anchored on the seat of the heart and placed there by fear, that is a work on which to commit a life. Enshrining love as a fully-muscled set of doings and thinkings and makings of solid evidence of love and value decolonizes the body, rids the mind of toxins long dormant. And the work never ends. There is no arrival. I don’t know what I’d do without people like James Baldwin who lives though he’s gone and Liz Koch who is here and now shining light on needful truths.

Here’s to freedom from power over and losing all the baggage that goes with it.

jruthkellyLeave a comment

There Are Times When…

I hear someone pouring out her heart about a wrenching upset,
something burdening her whole being,
something precious to her,
it may be as simple as a slight,
or an all out attack on her honor.

Or she may be troubled about something like a relationship struggle,
or a time when someone treated her rudely,
or she stubbed her toe and it brought out all of her frustrations.

And I catch my breath.
Because it strikes me to my core
in that moment,
that I have to push past the old programming
shoved at me perpetually, daily, hourly
stating that nothing matters save giving up
yourself and your concerns to Christ’s love.
There’s no need to overflow, to spill,
to let it show because it can all just rest at the cross.

I remember this in a flash, a moment when my heart
instantly feels deeply with and for another
all while the program’s smashing attempts to haunt,
to strip, to devalue value itself clashes
with the natural flow.

We are not our own, see, we belong to Jesus.
As long as you can bring it all to him,
corral it into submission to how he has solved everything
(though good folks die and honorable names are smeared),
then you can rest knowing all is well even if it doesn’t look well,
or feel swell, or even feel at all.

It hits me in the solar plexus.

Oh how that program shatters the value,
the soul, the heart of what it is
to. be. human.

And I am achingly grateful to feel,
to be moved by the biggest and the smallest
concerns of those who are changed by what life is.

Think of what it might be like to have that cut off,
to be only allowed to feel deeply into what someone else supposedly did for you,
something that negates any reason to grieve, cutting short,
masectomizing, castrating the heart of being human.

I sit with the realization and allow it to flood
any lingering hardened fields,
places where I smashed my humanity flat,
suffocating breath and pulse.
I sit and watch the water work its way in
and past the resistance to being flesh and blood real.

I am beyond grateful to know the depths,
the feelings from the stubbed toes to the unspeakable losses,
to the quiet joys and splashy promises bearing hope
and to know that I can treasure them all until time to pass them along,
sacrificing nothing but the lie that we are not truly beautifully whole
as we let go of our crutches and learn to walk our stories
amongst ancient witnesses who have learned there is love,
there is divinely radical grace in losing the Jesus no one should know.

j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved, 2020

jruthkelly1 Comment

Salvation

Semi-cultic subcultures wanna love you, baby.
They wanna show you the way and draw you to their great God, Jesus,
showcasing his masterpiece affliction, the covid19 pestilence,
an example of his latest work to call people to him.

Ain’t nuthin’ better than a viral attraction to the best God. Ever.
He must love us, see, ‘cause if we don’t do right,
he gonna kill us all.

See, now you know it’s love, when it’s open wide or die.
Yeah, man, they got the viral meme for sure.

See they hug rapists and invite them to dinner.
Say one thing won’t happen and do it anyway.
Invite you to forgive them for violating you for decades.
And they just don’t understand how they got to where they are today
where you won’t hug them or come out to play.

They don’t know when you push that gas pedal,
and steer in that direction you will most definitely arrive
at that exact location,

‘Cause they got it all upside down and inside out
with shame for the one who made an appearance after being invited by a court to do so
and nothing but cutesy terms of endearment for the man who raped their daughter.
Over and over again.

Wear the badge of honor, Ruth.
Wear it proudly and loudly.
They are ashamed of you.
These who see love thus.
These who can do no wrong.
These who lie, claim Christ falsely and have mutilated their own souls.
They find you an embarrassment.

Glory to Goddess, you are finally saved.

 

jruthkelly2 Comments

A Mere Formality

We say one thing and do the other, standing back as they roll out a defense against our own depravity.

Their fury.

But the recriminations we face if we validate it…

Oh hell to the no, we’re heavenly folk, not guilty broke.

See, now that we’ve had a history of bullying the four of them for decades,
their fury is real, is wholly healthy, so we’ll declare them intimidating
(we’re cornering the market on “isn’t that rich” since our parenting creed
for decades was “you must break their spirit”. so, how fitting
that we are intimidated by their full-grown adulthood,
and if you fall for our excuses, then you’re one of us, the morally insane.)
and the fact that our betrayals commenced
well before their valid fury unfurled, that fact will be an irrelevant fact.

The women. Got angry. They ranted. They threw down ultimatums.
Nothing more to know here, for there is no greater sin than women angry and demanding.
Rant after we betray, and legitimize our treachery by that rant because, well, female.
We’ll send letters declaring our total loss to understand the situation, as well.

See, we’re the slickest shit.

We can vote for Trump and call ourselves the “called out ones.”

He gropes and violates and gets elected so, our time has come, too.
We’re real cozy with violators. They earn nicknames, not shame, and a place at our table.
Most especially if they violated our own.

We can malign those who trusted us after we rebuked them for not trusting us previously
to not do the thing we did, after all, do, so hey ho, we’re noble souls.

The joke is on them, the four we slander, hammer and malign.

We have cornered.

The market on.

Duplicity Divine.
Moral Insanity.

All that the Good Book refers to when dragging up Leviathan, we are it.
And we would invite you to have tea with our murky pet.

Just don’t get mad at us if we violate truth or devour you without regret.

We’ll use it against you, judge you unforgiving, call you uncouth,

Invite you to court and play on your ignorance of just how dark our hearts can be.
(the witnesses we invite from your childhood will be part of a “mere formality”)

jruthkelly1 Comment

Circles and Curves

We wend and reach ’round curves,
our circles and circuits of intent.
And whether we mean them to or whether we’re oblivious,
our days become us as we stretch
towards sun’s warmth with hope,
and a strange courage revealed
only by life’s catastrophes.
While we break, our resilience refines itself
sifting through the bits left behind,
a quiet knowing we’ve yet to find,
and ’round another bend, a field of growth flourishes as we weep.
Though we sleep through days on end,
awaiting a less raging grief,
these circles and curves unfold us
eternally towards the sun.

j. ruth kelly, 2019

jruthkelly1 Comment

I Ran

I ran so far across noble terrain, full of intent to prove love makes us whole,

to prove love is what we’re here for,

to prove unity grows from and within love,

to prove the living of this life truly worthwhile,

to prove love can transform all the worst demons,

to be empowered despite loss, to be present ‘though pushing through disease,

to be accepting and expectant without entitlement because love,

and so, I ran hard at the work, in the work, in the rest and the play of it all.

And I hiked.

And I climbed.

And I fell, and I fucked some things up.

And I coasted, and I even flew.

And here I am looking down and across the miles behind me.

And I have loss and miscarriage where I least expected.

And I have declarations of love coming at me that ring empty, devoid of any action to make it real,

And rejection of who I am, of how I am who I am, blithe, unseeing and judgmental eyes looking back at me, forgetting when we laughed and held on, forgetting all the love knitting.

And I have proof of love’s work and unity where I least tried and with some unexpected.

And I have uncommon bonds, those seldom known, the kind of connections few experience.

And I have proof I can persist and release, celebrate and grieve.

And I know that love doesn’t make us whole as much as it melts into loss, imparting resilience, filling up the cracks.

And love doesn’t raise the dead, this I know, too.

And I have a crisis of meaning if I look at the lost harvest and the heartaches love couldn’t resolve.

And I have endless grief if I look long at the hurt life handed the ones I thought I could protect, the disease I thought preventable, the power I thought I had, we had.

And I want not to run.

I want not to climb.

I want to release proving.

I want to accept what needs accepting.

I stand looking at the path behind me and there’s a woman clawing her way up the summit.

Her hands are amazing, their strength endless and her legs flex with all the sinew I once knew.

The sun has loved her and the moon, too.

The earth delights in her ministrations.

The rivers know her soul intimately and she sings their songs.

One glance at her climbing my way and I know.

She’s singing and has paint on her chin, ink on her palms, dirt under short fingernails.

There’s a bit of moss and flower in her hair, wild.

She has some wands on her back, ones I thought were forever gone.

Those locks are flaming red, none of the sprinkles of gray gracing my own head.

She isn’t smiling, but she keeps singing strange chants tugging at my core.

She simply won’t stop.

She’s got the air of one who knows and instantly I remember her from dreams past and from dances under leaves, twirling innocence.

We were one, before the running began.

And I can’t remember anymore when it began.

But she couldn’t keep up with me in the clamor of my proving or the running towards meaning.

She had to do her own thing until I stopped.

She grips for the final reach and grasps up at my hand,

And we pull each other up.

She stands now in front of me and we’re facing.

And she wants to know if I’m ready now to know the deeper work of tRuth,

the one not dependent on proving anything.

She wants to know if I’m finished racing for what is and was always right here.

She knows the foundational work and breaking up of my defenses has been more relevant than all the racing to prove.

She knows the running for love, climbing and building, resting and dancing are not made futile by the scant returns or the seeming and actual loss.

She just knows more deeply what is more important than any other work now.

She knows me as my own teacher and my own saboteur.

She hugs the grieving, weeps the years ravaged by an illness that has yet to release me.

And she reminds me, insists I see that the miles stretched out behind us reveal the real, the deepest work of love was made more by love itself and by open-heart collisions than by the most potent intent or tenacious presence.

And so, now we can begin

singing,
singing,
singing

over these bones.

2019, All Rights Reserved

jruthkellyLeave a comment

A One Woman Riot

1 Corinthians 14:34

34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.

For more than the first half of my life, that passage of scripture cast a shadow over me, seeping into my physiology, accompanied by the style of parenting that sets it into the neural pathways, often choking, inhibiting, paralyzing. I’m past 50. I’m still ousting the darkness of its influence though I have long renounced its claim. The women of this epoch are making it easier and easier to oust. But the work is still mine.

When the song “Quiet” morphed into the anthem of the Women’s March, I was drowning in a silent scream of grief and life events way beyond my capacity to actually weather. I was holding my breath. So, I missed the originator of it, MILCK, though I heard groups of women standing, holding hands and singing “I can’t keep quiet.” It pricked my ears.

My sister shoved the video in my face, finally. And so, I can’t sing this song without sobs. So, I sing it a lot. And then some more. I have yet to get through the song without stopping to let things roll out of me. I’ll get there. MILCK found the words I haven’t. Imagine that. I have so many words and I never could keep quiet for long. It’s my biggest, baddest sin, that and boat-rocking, cage-rattling insistence on truthseek. And while it’s not like I have a big secret to tell, it is definitely that I and many other women are still unlearning the silence. Minute by goddamn minute.

Folks, girls are still raised under the strain of the lie of misogyny. Right now, and in the name of Jesus. I imagine he’s pretty pissed about it. It’s cloaked in all kinds of alleged holy. And it’s even dressed up in versions of pretend liberation, the kind that works as long as you speak up only within the prescribed, allowed lines. Dare not announce you will no longer tolerate certain things. Dare not boldly be. Dare not call people on their shit when you’ve had enough. Dare not be anything but a new version of quiet. Fuck that shit. All of it.

jruthkellyLeave a comment

Our Mother

Our mother who art underfoot,
hallowed be thy names,
thy seasons come, thy will be done,
within us as around us
thank you for our daily bread, our water, our air,
and our lives and so much beauty;
lead us not into selfish cravings and the destructions
that are the hungers of the glutted,
but deliver us from wanton consumption
of thy vast but finite bounty,
for thine is the only sphere of life we know,
and the power and the glory, forever and ever,
amen
(adapted by Rebecca Solnit)

photo by j. ruth kelly, all rights reserved

jruthkelly2 Comments

Under Leaves…

Under leaves those lies and shows you thought I’d grow up to blow
on my knees perpetually for your testimony of delusions,
the paradise you claimed and named as real,
all those lies and shows, all their fangs and claws,
chains and saws dissolve around me.

Under leaves I am.

Under leaves these cells sing, sound and bellow something never meant to be silent or still.

Under leaves every fiber of me hums, shouts, and pounds a drum no one can claim.

Under leaves and on their scatterings my feet bare and drinking, gulping up the gobs, sigh.

Under leaves the chunks and corpses sink into dirt, all the lies gone.

Under leaves the bones rumble to life, a resurrection unrelenting.

Leave me here, I’ll dance, I’ll laugh at the scars and all the servitude scenarios.

Fly these arrows to the missionary madness, leave me to the sane and true.

Under leaves you could never be.

Under leaves I am.

Photo by J. Ruth Kelly, All Rights Reserved, 2018

jruthkelly2 Comments