​Stuck by Deb Grant
 
Stuck happens
when the needs and
the fear
outweigh
the wisdom
or the comfort food
or the coffee
or money
or the patience
or the body of flesh.
 
Stuck happens
in disasters big 
and......
I was going to say small
but no disaster is small
when it happens to you. 
 
Allow me to write 
you a prescription.
You can tear it up if you like.
It may hit you as
just another refrigerator-magnet philosophy
that tries to reduce your
problems to a stocking gift. 
 
It is not original to me. 
Arthur Ashe said it first, I am told.
Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can. 
 
Last Sunday I visited
a community that had
been hit
by scam real estate developers
who left many with no paved roads or
reliable plumbing or safe houses.
They were hit
by storms with flooding,
by waves of cruel trash words, 
leveled at their children,
by walls of wealthy church people
a ditch and a railroad track away
holding in their fear of the
stranger. 
The community that night
laughed at times
and looked sad at times
and watched after their children 
and offered me a place to sit
in their midst and
offered me food. 
 
Their needs were great....
and yet, they were less stuck in that moment
than I was to know
how to respond to their disaster,
to my disaster of knowing their needs
outweighed my wisdom or my body of flesh. 
 
So I start where I am.
I use what I have.
I do what I can.
Yesterday I made this "Story Stick."
 It's two feet tall and 3" wide and hangs on a nail on a wall. 
Bigger than a refrigerator magnet,
but disasters tend to require a bigger stick. 
Make me an offer for the stick,
I will take the highest offer
and send the stick to you
and the money to the community the needs it. 
Or make your own Story Stick....
Or donate to your own charity...
Or volunteer an hour or two...
 
Start where YOU are.
Use what YOU have.
Do what YOU can.
 
###

​O Christmas Tree by Deb Grant
 
My Christmas tree was made 
from pallet wood 
from Harvey-ed homes
rebuilding.
 
The tree was made
with slats of wood
painted by a friend
named Thelma.
 
She painted while her
husband worked to
fix the lights in a Harvey-ed home.
She painted while a disease was
stealing her memories.
 
Thelma painted and hummed hymns
so deeply planted that
the roots of her music tree
were still
beyond the grasps of the
memory thief. 
She painted the wood
with her melodies.
 
After Christmas the blue slats
that Thelma painted 
will become art to sell
to help the people still
in Harvey-ed houses to
have a Christmas tree again
in their own home.
 
My Christmas tree has 
a story about 
never forgetting how to
love.
 
###

My new book STORM is also available at my ETSY shop.  If you want it autographed to yourself or someone else, I will be happy to do that for you. It includes one of my handcrafted gift cards. 

I wanted to write about the experience of hurricane recovery in a way that would help the readers.  For those who are survivors, I hope this evokes memories that will help them heal. For those who have not experienced this kind of disaster, I hope this evokes a deeper understanding and compassion to help in effective ways.
​
Poetry helps bring readers into the emotional eye of the storm.  I hope it is meaningful for you.
My ELOGOS readers, I cherish your continued reading as I continue to find way to serve with the gifts that I have. May you have a blessed Thanksgiving as I thank God for you.

​Deb

​Sinking by Deb Grant
 
I worked last week
in a flood-damaged house
in a flood-damaged community
near a town
where freed slaves
settled after 
the first civil war.
 
The cemetery there
has headstones that 
sink deeper into
the ground each time
it floods. 
It floods a lot.
 
The sinking is
happening
inside a cliche.
The other side of the tracks.
The other side is well-known
for its manicured affluence.
It is sinking too.
Sinking in the denial
that 
we are all in
this together. 
 
###

Growing Up Place by Deb Grant
 
I grew up inside
a Currier & Ives painting
of a New England town.
 
I walked to school,
to church,
to the library,
to the drugstore 
that had a lunch counter
and root beer floats on the menu.
 
The exact moments of sunrises and sunsets
were hidden behind hills
we called mountains.
At least I did until some Rocky Mountain friends
laughed at me. 
 
The terrain of New England
tucks the towns underneath
small shoulders of land.
In the fall, those shoulders
revealed a shawl of color. 
After a time, laid it to the ground
where children and chipmunks
play. 
 
I had a maple tree. 
I claimed it as mine. 
It grew outside the bedroom window
where I grew. 
It splashed it's fall colors on my wall
and sent whirlygigs of seeds into
my hands to marvel at
what my tree had made. 
 
Now I am many decades and
state lines removed. 
As the saying goes,
I have learned to bloom
where I am planted.
I am a child again inside
a new canvas
of changing hues. 
 
I have brought the colors with me,
with pockets of imagination
and wonder. 
I am still in a growing place
learning to walk again
the gift of ground 
I have been granted. 
 
###
 
UPDATE:  Friends of ELOGOS, I am so grateful that you continue to read Word Food by Deb.  I cherish your comments.  I am working on the final stages of a NEW BOOK that will be offered soon.  It is my first book of poetry - a genre of writing I gave up in my childhood and have recently re-embraced.  The book will be called: "STORM" - Poems by Deb Grant.  With these poems, I paint a picture of the experience of a hurricane in a way to reveal the human journey of it. In the coming weeks, I will have more news about it. If you are interested in writing a short review of the book that can be used for publicity, drop me a line via email (revdeb@jazzwater).  Thank you! 
 
*******************************************************

​Calling out the Ritual  by Deb Grant
 
The tectonic plates have shifted.
I have felt it. So have you. 
It is not a time to be indoors.
It is not a time for our privileged
sanctuaries of rituals. 
 
Hear me out.
I like rituals. 
Take communion for example. 
Bread and wine 
by hands and into hands 
given and poured. 
Simple, exquisite, holy.
 
We make it more complicated.
Perhaps you know what I mean.
The who, and why, and what
and when of the altar dance. 
 
The ritual is lovely.
Some of it is a luxury.
Some are barred. Some bar themselves.
Some don't care. 
 
We are, whether we like it or not,
the remnant for this time.
We are born to be sojourners not
builders of temples for 
the obesity of our rituals. 
It is time for ekklesia -
the calling out of the Body,
to travel and attend to travelers,
to share a bit of bread and wine
and cherish the hands
that need and feed.
 
The time for
ekklesia has come.
You may bring a ritual.
Make it a good one.
Nothing empty or that
needs a lengthy explanation
besides the need for love
and hunger. 
Pack only what can 
fit in a backpack. 
It is frightening, I know. 
Let's walk together.
 
###
 

​Information Age by Deb Grant

Curiosity and learning 
are sustenance to be
gobbled. 
The synapses for 
discernment
listening for the plucked
vibration of truth
are to be nurtured. 

And yet,
this time is an abundance
networks of information
form a storm that overwhelms
toxifies
suffocates.

I would like to retire
the ostrich in the sand metaphor
and replace it with
old episodes of 
Little House on the Prairie
without wifi.

But I live now
I live here
this is my time, my people.
I belong here.
These are my data bytes to 
thresh the truth from the chaff. 
I can only do any good
here. 
By being fully present.

The information
can be as stifling as 
wet sand. 
It paralyzes or enrages
or chokes anyone still
aware of the precious
life we share. 

There is nothing to be gained
in a hole of sand or old prairie life
that will advance love,
push it by the small of the back
into this overwhelming time,
ready to participate.

I will pray 
for bravery
yours and mine.

###

​Questions by Deb Grant
 
If your life was a line, could it fly a kite?
What color is your pancreas?
If you were invisible, who could still see you?
What makes you cringe?
Who loves you?
What floats your boat?
What porks your chop?
How do hummingbirds fly in the rain?
How much money does it take to grow up?
What nickname makes you lean forward?
Is there an end to questions?
Can your curiosity be surgically removed?
Why do some people stop asking questions?
Why don't we take turns listening and being heard?
Why are we afraid of an answer we haven't heard yet?
What is your next great adventure?
What if your next great adventure is a person of a different flavor?
What if you are their next great adventure?
What was the question that you most wanted to answer?
What was the question that you most wanted to ask?
Is there fertilizer to grow love? 
 
###