All the grace

the morning sunlight sends the trees to the interior walls. dark shadows shaking in the breeze. the doorknob clicks too loudly, my tired hand pulling slowly the door to closed.

i need sleep, but the still cool morning air and the thought of hot coffee in my favorite mug, a candle that this morning chose not to burn, beckon.

my pen and i pray, or really i cry first and then pray. i’m so tired. i’m so angry.

i’m angry at patriarchy. angry for its pervasive secret ways. angry for its brash and unapologetic ones too.

i am angry how it shaped me, pressed down and molded by its meanness. how it shaped my mother, my grandmother, great and great greats too.

its violence and rage toning itself down with every generation, just changing its clothes, really. just changing its tone. making itself more palatable.

i’m angry how it shaped my husband. shining back at him from the tv screen, the comic book, the Bible. how it crushed beautiful little boys into men.

i’m angry how it slipped into our bowls of cereal while we waiting for school buses. how it spoke to us from those in authority and how it beaded together the words we heard on Sunday.

i’m so angry that it still does this moment, this hour, this very day.

i’m angry how it slipped into every crack and cranny of our growing years, our college years, our married years, our young parent years, and our old ones too.

i’m angry how it shaped our country. how it has shaped humanity. oppressing, terrorizing, and taking what wasn’t theirs. white teeth smiling, soothing voice soothing.

i’m angry how institutions have and still do embrace it like a shield to guard its powerful. scared and powerful. weak and powerful.

i’m angry that change takes so long. that change is too easily undone. angry that some can’t see. that some can’t hear. angrier still that some choose not to. that some do and embrace it, blood and all.

I’m angry for the moments, the years that i didn’t know its name, its ways, its work. angry for the painful unraveling that is every single day, this pulling it apart from me, from all of us.

Lord hear our prayers.