The beetle with a big heart.

The air was cold, and dark, and silent as I snaked my way down city streets, disappointingly empty for the hour and my enthusiasm. Now waning. The car's headlights cut a bright swath through the bible-black moonless night, pushing ever onward in an infinite figure-8 around the sleepy town. Nothing moved save the deer and raccoon, and the occasional fox.

Out of the silence scratched a familiar static, and the words I could make out stopped me, the car, the wildlife, and even the wind in the tree tops, so that all was still in some kind of empathetic hush. The way the world resolves into itself just before a storm breaks, as if searching for the inner strength to weather what's ahead. The static ended and all of the blood in my body rushed to my face, burning my cheeks and leaving the rest of me cold and angry.

What kind of a treason had just occurred and for what?

A two-second lapse in the span of silence and it left me with no answers, just a red-hot anger and a torturous mountain of questions. And in the next second, God in His omnipresence took pity on my absolutely stupid predicament and put the most apt song He could conjure up, on the channel I had randomly tuned in. Foot to pedal I resumed my figure-8, rolled up the windows, and turned the volume as loud as I could afford and still be able to hear the static, should it call me.

I have to admit that there was a moment, perhaps as long as a heartbeat, perhaps as short as the space between, where I wondered if it was some kind of a communication, the static. A sign that only I could understand, to tell me that I am really not as alone, or isolated as I sometimes believe. I ran down all of the possible ramifications of such a choice on his part, and the decision I came to when I reached the end of the rabbit hole was that I didn't care.

A Hand came down and lifted a Jurgis amount of weight off my chest. I realized that there is no way that one can rationalize all of the events of a lifetime, and that perhaps even if one could, it would be a Pyrrhic victory over personal history, at best. We stumble, we falter, we get up and dust ourselves off, and we carry on.

The expanse of silence that encapsulated the night was broken every now and then with more static, and from the far reaches of the northern shore I was able to gain a perspective that, previously, I had not. It was almost foolish, really. The tripping and the ego and the pomp and the sense of ownership. I watched the lights of a freighter drift slowly from west to east, as it sliced the horizon in half on its way. The lake wind brushed my cheeks as it went from one window to the next and in a moment of divine clarity I felt unowned, and with no possessions in tow. Sometimes the simplicity of life is so beautiful that it crushes me.

I sat for some time and watched the eastern sky alight with reds and purples and magentas as the world came back to life. Rostropovich filled the car with music, and when I answered the call it was a friend just to the west, who was keeping watch over the rising sun in the exact same way as I. We talked, and laughed, and made plans as our wards began their commutes around us.

And when I got home the thought right before I fell asleep was from Marcus Aurelius, that Things have no hold on the soul. Onward, upward.

The Loneliest Monk (with tongue in cheek)

How amusing, in a way. The narcissism of youth, or maybe, the idiotic simplicity of a black and white world where Cinderella always gets her glass slipper back, at the story's end. A stoic Prince Charming endures despite the tortuous agony of years with the evil step-family. Black. And. White.

If only.

How sad she'd be, the princess of our monochromatic fairy tale, if she knew that the world outside was grey, muddy, complicated. Her creator himself, the great American progenitor of fantasy, was an embittered anti-Semite alcoholic. Who can even venture to guess with what hypocrisies he comforted his all-too-human flesh and bones. It is only with hubris that we, in hindsight, pretend to be able to diagnose a reason. Or, more fitting, a why.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. I am ready for it to be done. Over. I am through pretending that any one of any similar experience could bend a sympathetic ear. I simply do not care. My wild west heart has stitched itself up and moves forward, unknowingly, in the direction of God, in the direction of what stirs within. In moments of calmness it moves with an egalitarian empathy. That is, in between the beats of pumping bile, and raging within every capillary against itself for being so foolish, and falling prey to such utter folly.

As an aside, I never did believe in Cinderella. She has no place in this ephemeral world of ours; of blood, and sweat, and heartache, and confusion. She cannot last but between the crisp white layers of book and binding, and if, by some weakness of character, she is allowed to sublimate from page to palm, well, the effect can be deleterious to those of fragile heart. She can perch to such heights as to draw plans of great domestic bliss and a ridiculously saccharine monotony that could, perhaps, be enough to satiate oneself. But only in the weak moments.

And so, as a hermit, I retire to my cave. To wait out eternity in contemplation of a benevolence that has to be inhuman. So, go with God, dear reader. And, if not that, just go.

I ramble too much.

The crush of lead against bone, tendon, flesh and fur in the hot August heat, the pregnancy of a low, late summer sun. The flies knew before the animal did that it had died, as they pronounced him from the vantage point of a gaping wound, while his legs wind-milled a last and valiant push. He had been poisoned, and this, I told myself, was far more humane. I thought about the groundhog a summer ago, and its gnarled and yellow teeth, and the girl who stood above him who waited for the boatman, if there is one for such a crossing. How different things were now.

And it makes me wonder what she'll be doing in another year's time, how she will look upon the girl standing on the sun in this day in her mind. The list of things that she wants to attain, her moral aspirations. I remind myself of the Roman's words, things have no hold on the soul, and I make a tentative internal truce that each day is another chance to start anew. To be a more perfect reflection of the eternal. With St. Michael at my side.

The silence in the car often languishes awkwardly, but only because the gears in his head spin so loudly, trying to fill the void with something. Anything. It's kind of like being the narrator of a play, but also being a character that has to participate in the dialogue from time to time. My lines are memorized but the emotion is all gone, and the sentences come out dry and listless. And it amazes me how different it can be. Before, we tripped over each other's words, completing phrases and reciting the other's thoughts. The same hunches at the same times, the same observations of the same things. We were a team, and our record spoke for itself. Now it's more like being saddled with a weight, which forces me to thoroughly analyze each situation before I get into it, to see if I have enough left to carry myself through, plus the added liability of the other. It is unbelievably frustrating when I have to honestly tell myself that no, I don't.

It's just that it's been a bitter week or so, and I can't wash the taste from my mouth. Most of the time I feel like that circle who found its missing piece. The totality of it. I get into my uniform and everything sort of just falls into place. I am what I was supposed to be as I regard myself in the mirror. It is too easy, too natural, to not be exactly right. And I wonder if that's how she feels in her turnouts. If when she gets to the call she just somehow knows, instinctively, what needs to be done. Suits up and does it. There is no need for questioning, just a process of analyzing the most efficient way of getting it done. You pack up, go home, wait for the next time, and take the meaningfulness of it all for granted. Sometimes. We save the world (one microcosm at a time) and wonder if there isn't something more that we could be doing, something more that we could give. And can't begin to fathom the ones who would slow patrol the side streets looking for criminal activity afoot, with tongue-in-cheek.

We've only got this one go around. There is so much to be done to leave our name plates in the same regard as our forebears.

In the details

Driving aimlessly as the corner edges of the sky began to turn from black to purple and slowly past magenta to blue. The pre-dawn darkness is denser than the most moonless midnight, and I meandered without headlights to test the difference between rod and cone. We played the "your favorite" game for as many categories as a giddy 6am creativity would allow. A radio keyed, the static momentary silence, and the voice of our LT telling us where to go and for what.

We rolled up and they were right where he said they'd be -- victim and suspect -- and as always, it was like inserting myself in a previously written and rehearsed script. I read the lines for Cop 1. Or was it Cop 2? Driving back to station I wondered silently to myself if being "developmentally delayed" or whatever PC term slow brain function goes by these days can horn in on culpable mental state. If there was a sliding scale of personal responsibility.

I took his fingerprints as Cop 1 and Cop 3 asked him questions and as the confused and childishly evasive answers were rendered I could not help but focus on the tobacco stains on forefinger and thumb, and the way some of the joints were stiff and unbending. More than the lame justifications or pathetically obvious lies, it's the physical defects that makes it all human, that blurs the script (if only for just a moment). And when I read his statement it hit me just how much there is that I do not understand, despite my vanity, despite my ridiculous ego. In perfectly impeccable capital print he had written one sentence which made absolutely no sense in regards to why he was spending the morning with us, "I HAVE A SEIZURE CONDITION AND HAVE CAME TO WITH MY SHOES IN THE STREET AND ME ON THE SIDEWALK."

More than the fact that he had both shoes on and was walking away, with victim giving a slow and determined pursuit, when we found him; it was that he had described himself in such a way, "and me on the sidewalk", that gave me pause.

Thinking about it now, it makes no sense to be stuck on such a tiny detail. But the mind sticks on it anyway.

And on the drive home the sky condensed again, and it rained. And I unbuckled my collar and threw the leash out the window into traffic -- to be done with it all, completely. Positive change can only be effective when it's initiated for oneself. We can't be happy for the sake of another. And with a nod from my brethren I'm taking a forward step; alone.

Like ships

It's different variations of the same dream, but it always ends with me being on deck when the big wave crashes over the bow. Sometimes the water is warm, and blue like turquoise, with the sun turning the spray into millions of tiny jewels as the sea looses itself upon me. Other times its dark and cold and unforgiving and when I wake the lingering feeling is of oblivion, and the understanding that nature conquers, always.

It occurred to me today that for three generations we have held a sacred trust on the northern shores of the lake. Grandfather started east, father moved westward, and my oath is the span of shoreline that bridges sand and lake between the two. The sun sets in shades of red and orange and magenta and I keep watch in much the same way as I am sure they did. Mind fast-forwards to long and lonely nights in winter, when the water is frozen to the form of some far away planet, a scene as barren and foreign as from the moon, looking back down at the earth winding blue, a million hours away. What else could there be to ponder but one's own mortality, and how the harshness of the cold always gives way to spring, and to life.

Black and red freighters skirt the horizon, cutting the sky from the lake in an optical illusion. I imagine the sailors telling ghost stories about the Edmund Fitzgerald, and wonder what name they have for the Gods of the deep, and if He is as fickle as Poseidon.

The Car Handler

She smelled like cigarettes, vodka and wet shoes. Her hair was all mussed and she carried her puppy fat in a way that took me back to Athens, and Jenny. She was so dramatic in her explanations of how she made money, her lexicon was like a cloak that she used to keep us out, a line drawn in the sand deeply and with a drunk's urgency. I drink to forget, her eighteen year-old flesh and bones said to me. And I couldn't help but thinking of The Little Prince, and how fallible it is to worship a rose. How all of this is ephemeral.

I knelt down there, in the tiny and dark and disgusting foyer, and whispered to her that it wasn't her fault. That she had done nothing wrong, that it was not her fault. She sobbed and passed out and woke up to cry again. Doubled over with the realization; the mud and the muck that some paths carry a person through. As always I watched myself from above and behind and recited the lines as if it had all been scripted, as if my being there was carrying out some kind of pre-determined turn in the plot. I thought of Athens again, and Emily, and the story she told of the hotel room and the idiot girl, and how things had turned out so differently for her. I wondered about the blood that courses through veins, that carries oxygen to brain, and how it can inflame such different fires and passions in people. Some of us are born to be warriors, and some are born to be victims. I waved the thought away like all the deer-flies when I run. How could I have become so cold and detached, and in so short a time?

There is a way to analyze your actions, that leads you to the next logical conclusion, and the next, and the next, until you finish the choose-your-own-adventure book that is this life. There is a part of us that knows what is going to happen. Some of us choose to drink to forget. Some of us choose to run headlong into the mountain, never doubting that we will reach the other side. The difference in thought process (which page will you jump to?) is where the truth of a person lies. Where the soul dwells, to be melodramatic.

Driving back to the station in the bible-black pre-dawn. Running through my mental checklist of things yet to accomplish to be able to go home. The unlit street was darker than a tomb in the mist of a light rain. My partner nodded off and on in dream land and my thoughts strayed to the concept of comfort, of family. I thought of the coffee pot in the other department's kitchen. I thought of the sunset over the lake, and of parking car to car in cul-de-sacs at 3am. And how important those little things are to me.

And when all the paperwork was done, and then sun had come back again, and I wound my way back through fields and farm and town, I drew my own line in the sand. Fragile, and shallow, and unsure of itself, but drawn none-the-less.

Blessed Father guide me.

Children of life are we

I remember a cold December night, maybe six years ago, maybe seven. She was tiny then, clad in puffy pink down, and the half-strung Christmas lights were strewn about the front yard. Tangled and chaotic, I recall thinking, as if they could somehow mirror the emotions within the adult of the vignette. Children playing at grown ups, guiding children. The webs we allow ourselves to be tangled in are complicated, and never-ending. Sometimes.

There was some kind of confusion over the keys. Time has washed away the specifics of it from the story in my mind. I remember volunteering to attempt to locate whatever was lost, but was superseded by this adult-child, and her need to be an important member of the cast. I remember watching her walk to the truck in her puffy pink youthfulness, the way she strode her big-kid stride to the driver's door and looked for something, some trinket, that was never there in the first place. I remember the feeling of all the let-down in the world crushing down on me that winter night, as I watched it all unfold, as if on my heart there was a harness, and the driver pulled the reigns tightly and all at once. As if somehow I could see the path ahead growing wild with weeds and falling off into the ocean, no caretaker to keep it up. How much heartache you will know, and even by the hands of the people you should trust, and feel comforted by.

It comes back to me like this, in waves, in inopportune moments when I'm looking into her green eyes, so deep that you can see yourself reflected down in the bottom, you can see the whole world looking back, as synapses fire and thoughts are bridged. It comes back to me, these tiny tragedies, and I am awestruck by how someone who has seen so much heartache, and so young, can be so loving and so brilliantly intuitive.

I sat there during the ridiculous ceremony, and we played rock, paper, scissors, and I put my arm above her on the back of the pew, and I knew. In my arms, it was the reflection of God I was cradling. And would that the reflection was as resolute in me. Someday.

Like a sunflower in a parking lot.

Every so often, at odd and random intervals, the body takes a greedy panic-stricken gulp of oxygen, the heart races and the mind surges forward at warp speed, as if it has become some type of demonic "choose-your-own-adventure" novel where all the possibilities of every turn of the page have to be decided upon all in the same instant. My blood pumps with adrenaline and I feel powerless before the feeling of being cast out into the rough and open sea.

Last night I was sitting in my new patrol room, analyzing the new cast of characters and I felt the blood vessels constrict and pupils dilate just prior to the onset of the panic. I had a memory in my mind, playing as clear and colorful as a movie, of me in the old basement locker room, fastening my duty rig, with the normal jokers leaning against the door frame, and my sergeant walking down the hall to prepare for shift, and my best friends grabbing their go bags from the rack just outside. And I wanted to rip my heart from my chest when it dawned on me that I won't be going back to that.

I had a dream this morning, after so much of this rumination. I had been locked in the back of a patrol car, and was being whisked away on a violent getaway pursuit, the car driven by a horrible mix of one of the guys from C shift, and one of the new K9 officers I'd just met. A creature from purgatory, or another such outlying and terrible province, I am sure. I pressed the panic button on my new radio, but there was no cavalry. Then I noticed a black and white cruiser ahead, with the familiar almost too-small badge sticker on the driver's door. The familiar face of the scrub behind the wheel, and I turned in my seat and frantically waved at him to follow. And he saw my pleading, and he obeyed. And he put the call out and the wild dogs came from near and far and descended upon us like St. Michael and his legions. The car overturned, the window broke, and I was able to crawl out and help them "detain" the driver. And when I woke up in my dark, stuffy room, sunlight trying its best to penetrate the blackout shades, I had the emptiest of feelings in the middle of me.

I lay there and I thought about all of the guys, and the way we did business, and what it meant to we lucky few. And how lucky I am to have been able to experience that, even if it was short-lived. It's like the anxiety of the past five months has given way to a quiet but constant grief, with this new-found permanence. And all I can do is go in, learn as much as I can, and try to have the faith that all of this history goes beyond my understanding. And to be thankful.

Because who knows.

Rise

I followed him down the dark hallway, and like a wall the scent hit me and memories of tan lockers, black leather chairs, coffee, cigarette smoke and the sound of mischievous laughter came flooding into my brain. I was a kid again, following my dad around his station, with his navy-blue clad colleagues towering over me, asking me questions which I could never quite answer quickly enough. In awe the whole time, letting each sense absorb as much of the place as it could. As if somehow the experience of the building would help me to understand the kind of man my father was.

I remember being in junior high and sneaking into his closet after school and trying on his uniform shirt. The white short sleeve pressed polyester lying loose and roughly against my tomboyish frame. Looking in the mirror it occurred to me that no matter what your age, the uniform brought an unmistakable authority and appearance of maturity. The gold of the lieutenant's bars made my heart stir in a way that I couldn't have possibly understood then. Regarding myself in my father's uniform, I felt so proud of him. And was convinced that I would never be strong enough to follow in his footsteps, that no payoff was worth the kind of sacrifice that job required.

But we grow up and life changes us. For better or worse we find ourselves in the present moment and we carry on. I am reminded of that afternoon whenever I get suited up for my own shift, in my own uniform, when I see the last name etched in silver just above the front right pocket. Each letter is like a dedication that I make to everyone who went before me, that I will never let them or their name be sullied.

My mind let go of the memory and I found myself sitting in the dark confines of my new supervisor's office. OSU paraphernalia all over the walls and the Christian radio station coming out of the 1960s console from the back of the room. I closed my eyes as he spoke into the phone and was amazed at the level of anxiety I have accepted as normal these past five months. My heart raced, my palms were clammy and the insecurities waged a war of constant derogation against my right to be there, and my ability.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, I said a prayer of Mitakuye Oyasin and instinctively knew that I would never be alone. A few minutes later out in the hallway were each and every member of my army, near and far, departed and not, and I thought, my God, what have I done to deserve all of this blessing?

Onward. Upward. There is much to be done.

Seagulls

The waves broke over each other in three and five foot swells, in a chaotic and surging race to the shore. The tops were all capped in white and the under current turned the lake water thick and brown and dangerous. Poseidon's diminutive brother, whatever his name, (who lost out on the grand inheritance and instead was given charge of the lakes) was out in full force. And with calculated hubris we, the living, ignored him completely. The slight not going unnoticed, only fueled each break and recession of the faux-tide.

In my mind I traveled back several years to a stormy afternoon and the ocean tide, the waves churning fast and brown and thick. Standing there on the walkway with Emily, the sea having swelled to the boundary that normally marked where the man-made structures like hotel and restaurant and pool where left untouched by the tide. But not during storms. We stood there as if waiting to be tested. I will follow you in, she said. And I will follow you. And more than any other thing in this life, those words have always brought me strength.

We got the call as we were heading back in to station, the completion of a countless number of figure eights around the confines of our jurisdiction. Mutual aid the metparks, two swimmers in distress and being carried out, the third not able to be seen from shore. My fingers instinctively found their home on the new siren buttons, lights activated, cursing each car as it jerked and stuttered into an awkward stop on our approach. And passing. Halfway to the beach it dawned on me that all we could possibly be tasked with in such a situation was to bear witness. And how angry the realization of that made me.

The top of the stairs was a swarm of humanity, staring from us, to the lake, and back to us, waiting for me to pull a miracle off of my duty belt as I ran down the steps and onto the sand. They were out about thirty feet from the end of an algae-slick sandstone pier, about 200 feet from shore. Bobbing with each crashing wave, they were three sometimes, and then they were two. Out on the pier, with the onlookers' gaze pressing into the back of my skull, into my very soul, I prayed to St. Michael to intercede. I prayed for something, anything.

And then God walked up, with his dude-speak, and his toned body, and cool as a cucumber he tore off his shirt and walked down a slick rock and into the water. He fought through the rip tide the way one might imagine an unpopular prophet would walk through the unfriendly throngs. He reached her, the one who went under and less and less frequently came back up, he wrapped his arms around her and he dragged her back to the slippery rocks. And her friend saw and she followed, mustering whatever reserves of strength she had sequestered away for the final moments when she was to make her peace there, at the bottom of the lake. We dragged them back onto the sandstone, and carried his charge back out to the sand. She was shaking, and couldn't speak, and her lips were blue, and I fought against the demon within who wanted to yell all kind of obscenities at her idiot bones for going in, in the first place.

Then again it was the crush of the bystanders, and the uniformed people around all yelling, and the sun beating down, and the wind whipping, and the same people shouting the same things, over and over again, into the radio. All are out of the water, everyone is okay. And it struck me that when I first reached the beach I expected that she wouldn't make it, that we wouldn't get to her in time, and that I was okay with that. As if I had signed a truce some time in the past and in the fine print I gave over my ability to be incredulous, or even doubtful as to the motivations behind even the smallest act.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

I watched my colleagues as they passed through anger and disbelief and helplessness and rage and almost felt impotent as I stood there, with the sun beating down, and felt nothing, really, for the girl who had almost been carried out and for her friends who were shaking violently from the fear of having almost lost her. And I wondered if I am broken. It played out as if it were a movie, with my part skillfully scripted, and what could I do but say the lines as they were printed? And I wonder still, if perhaps I am broken.

In all ways. I have offered up my heart, what is left to grieve?

Whispering, you still hear.

Noticing my passing reflection in the window glass, it strikes me how much I look like my Bohemian grandfather. The long face and nose, high cheekbones and glacial eyes squinting against the sun, taking in the outside world and all its beauty. It occurs to me that body and soul are like a jigsaw puzzle of my ancestry; mother's hands, father's determination, grandfather's laugh, and the pride that so many generations have left me by giving me their name.

The good news came in like a tidal wave and for nearly a whole day I rode the tide above my terrestrial confines. I couldn't have realized how much of a relief it would be to just know concretely. No more of the "she's just part-time" to contextualize my reason for being. No more needing to qualify my purpose. I have a home now, and soon, a new oath, and I have never been as grateful for anything in my life. How important and meaningful things become when they're taken away -- you spend all of your energy working to get back to where you left off, and when you make the circuitous loop you can finally take a step back and see just how much strength you found along the way. Who carried you and to whom you offered your prayers. These things we only learn about ourselves during the trials.

Blessed Father, thank You for the many blessings that You have bestowed upon me. Thank You for giving me another chance, and for believing in me especially during the dark moments when I couldn't find the strength to believe in myself. May I ever be worthy of serving You, may I strive everyday to carry out Your mission here, as You do in Your realm. In all ways.... I am so incredibly thankful.

Lazy Sunday.

A shell with calcified outer layers turned into the wind, feet dug strongly into the sand, waiting out the storm. It's what remains inside that counts, you tell yourself. I am sometimes ashamed of my incredulity of being led around by leash and collar. As if I am being denied some birthright, as if there was some mix-up and at the front door they told me to go around to the service entrance. My body shakes and my will tries to force it out. Keep your head down and remember that being humble is being close to God. There is absolutely nothing in this world that you are entitled to, not even your own skin and bones.

Remember the promises that you want to keep to yourself. Remember where you would like to be in a month, in two months, and get there. There is no way that anyone or thing can stop you, once you've made up your mind. Decide, and the body follows.

Going, going, gone.

A deep breath in. The wave of anxiety washes over and you take a moment amidst the bedlam to scan the body, going through your mental checklist, to find the source of the accumulated worry and doubt. What is there left to do, what other hurtles to clear, tunnels to crawl through. The scan reveals nothing and just for a moment the mind resolves itself into a tenuous truce with the body, keeping frayed nerve endings and tired muscles at bay until the next wave breaks. The timing of it is random and unquantifiable. And more than anything the body, the mind, the weary heart needs rest. You traded in the frantic mental game of four months for an Olympic pace of work, work, work, and it takes its toll. Like treading water in the tank when we had to pass a heavy brick around in a circle without failing. You complete your task because the mind tells the body there is no other choice, but there is a part of you that wonders which would be the first to give in; the mind or the body. And what is the part that holds the two together in such a punishing pact?

Today I hurled myself down into the rocks and dirt and held the plastic and metal frame of the rifle to my face and chest in a lover's embrace. I pulled the stock into my chin and splayed my legs as if it was a position my body was accustomed to. Left eye closed, right eye focused on the front sight and the blurry target 150 yards down range I felt my lungs slow down and my heart rate taper. In the curve of breathing after each exhalation my finger slowly squeezed back towards the fleshy pad of my thumb until with a thwack the round loosed itself from the barrel and found its home beyond the paper and into a clump of earth. I imagined Beslan, and Columbine, and Israel, and I realized that there are those among us who choose to act not out of a sense of duty, but because it is all that makes sense in such chaos. My finger slowly released itself forward again until it felt the trigger reset click and in the shallow of the next exhalation the dance repeated itself and I reminded myself that yes, I am a gunfighter. Rifle, hands, sights, elbows, knees, breath, heart, all wound together there among the rock and debris and wind. I felt the presence of my grandfather, and my father, and all the brave souls who answered the call before me, as I loosed ten more rounds downrange.

We have to get our minds right, he said. We have to be prepared for what our job demands of us. Amen, I thought. The sun beat down on my black t-shirt as I locked the rifle open and climbed to my feet, up off of the rock and dirt. Later we joked about the short autobiography that I was required to write, and he told me to be sure I included that I aimed to be the first female on SWAT. I laughed my distrustful laugh as I looked into his eyes and saw a very familiar mischievous glint shining back. If only.

Mixed messages

The look on her face and that there was nothing I could do, or say, or think to make it better. The helpless feeling of being the adult, of being the one she sought and of knowing how important the position I had was. Of just being there, of just being safe.

I picked my cup up and drank the water slowly. My soul is parched. I am tired. But I'm not supposed to rest, not yet. I am tired of being the only one. Tired of cleaning up messes all day long, tired of starting over, of always starting over. My body complains but the mind refuses to listen. To acquiesce. What else is there but to go into the hills to pray. And remind yourself to expect nothing.

What does Jesus do while we are in the storm? You'll love this. He prays for us... So where does that leave us? While Jesus is praying and we are in the storm, what are we to do? Simple. We do what the disciples did. We row... Much of this life is spent rowing... Getting out of bed. Fixing lunches.... More struggle than strut.

And you tell yourself over and over the one lesson that you forgot more often than remember, but need more frequently than anything else. That the only mind you can understand is your own. The only truth needing to be claimed, yours. Forget all the over-analyzing and strategics, your life is already too full. One foot in front of the other, slowly you climb the mountain.

At my side

It was that he sent the message to me, and the timing of it. Contemplating mortality, the fragility of going about our business every day. Flesh and bone. It was a cryptic message, the text made more meaningful for its truncation. It reminded me of being a very small kid and spending afternoons with him watching old westerns on TV, drinking mugs of heated milk with just a hint of coffee. I used to imagine that he was the tall, imposing cowboy with the white hat and that I was the quiet, observant child in the background, waiting for the chance to ride next to him.

And now at the meetings we sit together. We know the same old-timers, share the same lexicon, and narrow our eyes the same way when scrutinizing the outside world. Full circle. And I am grateful for every moment. He is my hero and it was no lie when I told the background investigator that everyday I try to live up to the name that he gave me. Lord, let me be worthy.

On a walk today I contemplated what it is to be honorable in a world that has no scale for morality. I wondered who you would call if it was the middle of the night and you needed help now. I wondered who I would call and I envisioned myself as Leonidas, walking towards home with only a broken spear, knowing full well that no obstacle could hinder my steps. I wondered how many others out there have no insurance policy because failure is so remote and unlikely it doesn't even make it into the pondering. Not that it's ego, but more like an unwavering faith in the will, and that with God one can never be defeated.

Funny how a tender embrace the morning after can change the way the world looks.

An echo

I read somewhere that God gave Job trials, not tests. I understood and appreciated the difference immediately when I saw the words next to each other. Instead of seeming like an unfortunate flesh-and-bones man, Job became to me a sort of Olympian, a warrior given the gift of a hard-fought faith. Battle tested. I like to think of the difference between the two words lately, when the hole in the pit of my stomach weighs me down and my eyes betray me with their watering.

I never wanted it to be easy, I remind myself. I know that I am not able to accept achievement if there was no great sacrifice on my part for the attaining. I listen to my friends on our shared channel, several miles to the south, and when the heartache shortens my breath I thank God for the chance to embody humility. When I am confronted by another obstacle in my path, I am thankful for the lesson in patience and diligence. I remember, not always but more often now, that my job is not to prove myself to anyone at all; there are no tests to be passed. My job is simply to remain true to my self and my calling throughout the trials, having full confidence that I will come out the other side whole, hard-fought faith in hand for always.

There is only one way, and that is through the hill. And you never thought it would be easy.

Intermission

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Moment by moment, I ready myself.

Of all days...

I am your Shield. No buffets of the world can harm you. Feel that between you and all scorn and indignity is a strong shield. Practice feeling this until nothing has the power to spoil the inward peace. Then indeed a marvelous victory shall be won.
You wonder sometimes why you are permitted to make mistakes in your choice when you sought so truly to do My Will in the matter.

To that I say it was no mistake...All your lessons cannot be learned without difficulty, and this was needed to teach you a lesson. Not to him who walks on, with no obstacles in his way, but to him that overcometh is the promise given.

So attain peace quickly in your surroundings, as well as in your hearts, learn your lesson quickly. And the overcoming is never the overcoming of the one who troubled you, but the overcoming of the weaknesses and wrong in your own nature, aroused by such a one.

No lower standard than My Standard shall be yours. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

My best friend.

She reads my mind and sends me pieces of clarity when I am most in need. Yesterday;

I am thy shield. Have no fear. You must know that "All is well." I will never let anyone do to you other than My Will for you. I can see the future. I can read men's hearts; I know better than you what you need. Trust Me absolutely. You are not at the mercy of Fate, or buffeted about by others. You are being led in a very definite way, and others, who do not serve your purpose, are being moved out of your Path by Me. Go very quietly, very gently. All is for the very best for you. It was out of the depths that David cried unto Me, and I heard his voice. All is well.

A cold and windy Sunday a week ago, a long and painful respite between trials. She was sitting on the grass, I standing next to her, I looked down and was struck by how much she looked like me. Her eyes were my eyes. Or was it I that looked like her? Face fixed with the focus of a warrior, mind given over to St. Michael, and the call to duty that waits ahead. Painfully ahead. There is no choice but to succeed. She looked like all of those pre-alarm early mornings at OSP when I would stare at the ceiling, steeling myself for the day. She looked like a mixture of stoicism and grace, ferocity and tenderness. A double-edged sword, the way the Romans must have looked as they marched to battle, hearts full of Socrates.

In the interview today I couldn't help but let my mind wander to my memories of the previous job. The ghosts haunt me less frequently now, but they remind me of my place from time to time. I thought of all the confessions, and the usually more embellished justifications. All of the catharsis and soul-purging that happened in the backseat of my cruiser, while I listened, and nodded my head, and prayed and offered up my faith with each rider. I always had a sense, doing my job, that God had passed through me, and that maybe for a moment there, just for a moment, God was me.

And she knows exactly what I mean, because she has felt God coarse through her arteries, felt God's presence pass through her fingertips in a far more intimate way than I ever have. And still she goes quietly, and gently, with a humbleness that could test even the most saintly.

And every night as I pray I give thanks for having been so blessed to know her.

Thank You.

The path stretched on for miles and lazily followed the swollen banks of a flooded river, the current furiously churning with the Ides of March. The day's cold front had excoriated every last cloud from the sky, so that the sun washed over us in uninhibited streams. The air clung to winter's frost, but the sun would have none of it, and radiated its heat back up through my toes from the warmed asphalt. We walked for hours and it was as if I stayed just one pace behind, the constant dialogue in my mind drawing correlations and taking measurements.

The birds called to each other from the tree tops, the wind scattered the forest's carpet of decaying leaves and my mind was consumed with the memory of another walk, around a lake, seemingly ages ago, and the perfection that can be contained in the simplest of moments when you line yourself up with the universe's desires. When you stop over-thinking and allow yourself to just. be. happy.

Mid-conversation at lunch my ears perked up and, unbelievably, our honorable mention song came on over the restaurant's speakers. Over the din of the lunch rush and the cackling of the ladies at the next table I was transported to another place. An elevator, the same song coming on, and me being amazed and explaining that it was part of the mix I had made. Music dropped like little signs, little reminders that I am not alone, and that there is Someone, always looking out.

Mitakuye Oyasin, by your grace.

The sun made my car look like a fire-red Valkyrie and when I climbed into it I had a renewed feeling of self-sufficiency, a remembered belief in myself. I have so much to proud of and grateful for, unqualified. In John it says, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.

Amen. Here's to the remembering, and to the Divine Hand which never fails to remind.