My God!

Martin Luther King

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

"85% of communication is non-verbal" 

This is one of my favorite sayings and if you have walk through life with me you'll have heard me say it countless times.  

The image above was captured by me in a small monastery in Tuscany last year. It is an incredible wood carving depicting one of the most profound non-verbal declarations in Humanity's history. It cries out for an answer to a deep feeling of abandonment. 

I'm a writer and while I dabble with the camera occasionally, my preferred canvas has always been the blank page and my palette is the endless stream of words available to a Bard. I look at the picture above and I "feel" the woodcarver captured a snapshot of God that I can only ache to replicate in words. The wood is unflinching in it's hard edges and rough feelings while words can so easily be smoothed out and rounded off. 

I'm aching for a better way to communicate the utterly tragic state of this world I see and unlike the woodcarver I just can't seem to find the right combination of words to express the agony of hanging around waiting to see your kids' faces on Christmas morning when they realize Santa didn't bring their wish list. Of wondering how the political football called "The Fiscal Cliff" might effect my family and friends. 

What does abandonment feel like? Here is my wordy woodcarving of a 21st century cry...

There is the stranger standing at the intersection of Olive Blvd every Monday morning asking for money for food. He stands there in rain, snow, freeze, or heat with a desperate strength, hoping in the idea I will find the humanity to drop my window and give to him from my incredible excess. 

He hangs there stretched beyond endurance, hoping the agony ends soon, yet holding out against the lung filling mucus that threatens to choke the painfully earned breath he just dragged into those broken lungs. Each car that rolls to a stop, offers the hope of life, and so he forces his legs to propel him upward so he can find the air to energize a cry for aid from another. The justice inherent in his agonizingly slow death sentence is not readily clear. Perhaps one of the multitude who walk past will stop and offer him some relief?

Sadly far too often "I" have lacked the forethought that was required to go to the ATM and ensure I had the cash ready for his needs. "I" forgot he would be hungry on Monday morning as I traveled safely to my next meeting. "I" forgot his agony when I got up that morning. I misplaced my humanity and arrived unprepared and because of that he probably felt abandoned as he watched me drive past him without stopping to give him just a small drop from the torrent of excess I have fall on me each week.  

I'm aching to see the hungry fed, the broken hearted comforted and the frightened protected, yet all too often I forget to prepare to feed, comfort and protect. I want more than a "get out of hell" free card because He died in agony 2000 years ago! I want more from "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" than a religious Robert Millar taking the moral high ground and looking down on the sinners around him. 

I'm sick of my own silences and frustrated by how little impact my own creative attempts to speak make upon this world. 

So this morning I'm hanging in agony, carved into an instant of intense speculation on the meaning of abandonment and wondering if it means anything at all to those who walk past. 

My God!