Joseph Kreydt

Tag: lamentations

  • Grief Is

    Grief is the lover who gives
        And gives
        And gives
        And waits
        And does not receive
        And dies of starvation.

    Grief is why the widow —
        Who once slept peaceful
        In her lover's arms;
        Who once had dreams
        Instead of memories;
        Who once caressed
        Her lover's cheek and lips,
        Lost in cosmic wonder —
    Cannot eat more than
    A spoonful of soup.

    Grief is
    Going home without,
    And never again
    Going out with home.

  • BEEP

    Loneliness means
    Grocery shopping —
    Seeing the incredible colors
    And shapes and tastes
    Lining bright aisles
    Late at night;
    BEEP.
    Wondering at this wonder
    Available in every town
    Across America —
    Alone.

  • Enebrimēsato

    In this world, there are places with God and places without God. That is for a very good reason. If there were no places without God, we would have nowhere to run from him.

    For God’s love to be real, we must have the freedom to refuse it, to refuse him. It’s not true love if it’s not a gift, and it’s not a gift unless it can be refused. If we couldn’t refuse it, it would be an imposition, not a gift.

    God makes his love a gift by giving us places to go where his love is not, where he is not. But a place without God, the source of all life, is a place with death. Death is the cost of a world where love exists.

    Because we are loved, death is a part of this world.

    Today, Catholics celebrate Passion Sunday, in which we remember Christ being deeply troubled upon seeing his friend, Mary of Bethany, weeping.

    In John 11:33, Christ’s behavior is described with an intense Greek word, enebrimēsato, that translates to something like “he snorted in spirit.” Christ groaned from the depths of his soul, like a sobbing child, upon seeing the pain that death has caused his friend. He grieves at the pain caused by loving imperfect lovers.

  • Adoration, Wednesday Night

    On My Knees, In Adoration Wednesday Night

    Show me a miracle,
    One I don’t have to believe,
    One I can see.

    I want to know.
    Then I promise I’ll follow
    Wherever you lead.

    I know I’m not blessed.
    I know I’m not happy.

    I know I am aching
    For something I need.

    I see the pooling blood.
    But I can’t figure out
    What is making me bleed.

    I know this: I am lonely.
    I am lonely, please,
    Come close to me.

    Show me a miracle,
    One I can see.
    Show me a miracle.

    At the End of Adoration Wednesday Night

    After showing him this mess of mud,
    This man who bled water and sweated blood,
    I had no will to leave,

    And so I clung, like a child, on my knees,
    Until I recalled something,
    From where I do not know.

    It said, "I will be with you,
    Whatever happens, trust me.
    Go."

  • The Man Who Just Sat Down

    The man who just sat down,
    You smiled at him.

    He did not smile back.
    He’s a large man.

    You might have been offended
    By his lack of courtesy,
    But you’re wiser now.
    You’ve received the grace of pain.

    And so instead of taking offense,
    You wonder if his age and size
    Have amounted to a painful walk
    That felt, to him, like a marathon.

    And then you see his knee,
    The scar down the middle,
    The oceanic swelling.

    It wasn’t that he didn’t smile,
    This man who just sat down.
    It was that he couldn’t smile.

  • Permission to Lament

    There’s something beautiful, something like solidarity, about lamentations. I used to hide my own. Men, it is often believed, must not show pain.

    But “Jesus wept.”

    “David seized his garments and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. They mourned and wept and fasted until evening…”

    Lincoln wept. Washington wept. Grant wept. These men were not weak.

    Still, I hid my lamentations. Last year, when I rediscovered that part of myself, I wrote the following poem.

    An Old Part

    I fell in love with an old part of me today,
    A part I'd hid away so many years ago
    Because I thought his antics were the reason 
    Someone left me, hurt me, left me hurting, bleeding.

    Today, I saw him staring, peeking from the dark,
    Peeking from behind the dusty stereo,
    A relic of the songs we sang so long ago,
    Their echoes fading in my heart, rippling apart.

    I said, "come out," and he came out.

    To my surprise, he wasn't ugly, and he wasn't evil.
    He wasn't angry either. He was what I'd forgotten to be.
    He was hurt. That was him, this sub-soul of my soul,
    This notion I'd betrayed so many years ago.

    I'd said, "your lamentations drove her away."
    But I lament, now, by letting him come out.
    I lament at having hid that rare, essential part
    So deep beneath the shadows of my heart.

    All the wisest souls in all the wisest books
    Sing lamentations. Half of life is lamentation!
    And without it, how could we ever know
    The joy of claps and laughs and jubilation?

    That innocent soul I locked away so long ago,
    He hasn't changed a bit. But I have changed.
    I have found I couldn't live so thoroughly
    Without his heartfelt, melancholic shout.

    Over the next few days, I’ll post a few more “melancholic shouts.”