Poeima Revised Aug 2014

Lisa M. Russell

Dr. Linda Neimann

PRWR 6520

1 December 2010





Poiema


"Get the hell down here!"

I knew I had better go. I edged down around the wall of my bedroom and
out into the hallway. I made my slow descent down the 100 year-old
staircase; step by step as every other grungy gold carpeted stair squeaked.
I grabbed the wobbly handrail delaying the inevitable at the landing. She
waited in crazy rage.

"When I call you, you damn-well better come."

It hurt. Her long manicured fingers connected with my round 8 year-old
face. The slap, however, did not sting as long as her commentary:

"You are so weird."

I bolted past her and escaped out the forbidden front door of the old
house that was my childhood home. We were never supposed to use the front
door, but I wanted out of there. I wanted to be away from her insane anger,
but not too far away. I ran around the white clapboard house to the back
porch. The back porch led to the mudroom and then to our old kitchen where
she spent lots of time, not cooking, but talking on her harvest gold bell
telephone. She always had someone to call – her sisters, her friends, or
her own mother. She always had someone to listen to her as she ranted. I
perched on the back porch step, just in her view. I wanted her to see I was
slapped, but not defeated.

As I sat, I noticed the black flagstone path framed in lush green
crabgrass. Each flat stone that formed a walk to the blue gravel driveway
began to look like a series of chalkboards. I grabbed a piece of ragged
blue gravel and began expressing myself on each and every flagstone on the
walkway to the driveway. I scratched the same message on every stone:

"I hate Mom. I hate Mom. I hate Mom . . ."

Exhausted, I moved to the swing set in the side yard of our expansive
property. I just let the swing take me away. My face hurt, but not as much
as my heart. My older brother, Brian broke into my brooding:

"Mom's dead! Mom's dead!"

Brian was not given to drama so his running cries were startling. I
ran to the back porch just in time to see the red and white ambulance
pulling up the blue gravel driveway and parking in front of the flagstone
path leading to the back porch. There was no siren.

Mrs. Matchelot, our next-door neighbor, came running from the ravine
and grabbed me from behind. A deep wooded ravine separated our properties.
She made her way through the path my brothers formed when she was called to
come. I was her favorite. She called me her "little Lisa." She had only one
daughter who was away at college – so she was there for me.

Mrs. Matchelot wanted me to come with her to her house. I refused to
move. I was frozen and committed to see this scene play out.

The ambulance attendants pulled a gurney from the back of the vehicle.
The wheels popped down and jumped over the uneven gravel and banged across
the flagstone path toward the front porch.

Mrs. Matchelot tried to cover my eyes. I pulled away and watched as
the men pushed the bed on wheels into my house. After a few minutes, I
escaped the grip of my loving neighbor and found the side door to the
laundry room that led to the kitchen just in time to see the men strapping
my mother to the mattress and covering her with a sheet.

My mother grabbed the sheet and pulled it up to her chin. She was
clutching the white sheet in a strange way and chewing as if she had a huge
wad of gum. Bloody foam was dripping from the sides of her mouth onto the
crisp ambulance sheets. A trickle of blood came from somewhere on her head.

I started to run as the men pushed her over the back porch and slipped
on the red puddle beneath the table where my mother must have fallen and
hit her head. I kept going through the mudroom and to the backdoor.

I watched the men force the gurney over the flagstone path to the
waiting ambulance. Bumping along on each of the flagstones where I had
written:

"I hate Mom. I hate Mom. I hate Mom . . ."

When the ambulance backed out, taking my mother away for a long time,
I grabbed the green garden hose and soaked the stones trying to wash away
my shame.



My mother had an epileptic seizure and fell and hit our kitchen table.
She was carried to the hospital for treatment and came home. My mother
loved hospitals, doctors and weird illnesses – if not for her, then for her
kids. She was Munchausen by Proxy before it was cool. Almost a year later,
just before I celebrated my ninth birthday, my mother sat me down to have,
"the talk."

"We have to go to the doctors soon."

"Why? What for?"

The talk was not about my impending launch into menstruation, but
about a drug she took when she was pregnant with me. She started her
twitching.

My mother had a nervous tic that manifested itself when she was
thinking, working or nervous. We used tease her when she was knitting by
saying, "Knit one, twitch two." Her twitch was going and I knew I was in
for something big.

She made me sit on the brown and gold frayed couch. She skipped the
"facts of life" and went straight for the invasive procedure.

"Before you were born, I took a drug to prevent miscarriages. Now they
have found out that DES causes cancer and deformities in the daughters born
after the mothers took the drugs. You are a DES daughter."

"What does that mean?" I was mad and did not even know why. What did
she do? Why would I have to pay for it?

"We have to go to a specialist in Rochester – the University Medical
Center. You will have to have a pelvic exam." She twitched and grinned
some more.

"What's that? Why do I have to go? I don't want to go. What's a pelvic
exam? I am going into pooberty?" My mother laughed at my mispronunciation.


I didn't understand what a DES daughter was, but I felt weird. I did
not understand. She tried to explain without ever apologizing. She did not
understand why I was so upset. It was a road trip to Rochester. We would
get to stay in a hotel with a pool and go out to eat. My sister would drive
and it would be a girl's only trip. A girl's trip – that's one way to
describe it.
When I was older and had become a "woman", I remember her telling a
funny story about how her mother explained menstruation.

"Back then, we used rags folded up with sanitary belts." My mother
told with a dramatic flair. "So, Ma found out that I started and took me
aside away from the boys and said, 'You do it like this.'" My mother acted
out her Ma's demonstration of putting on the "rag."

My mother was more prepared than I was. I was about to go have an
invasive pelvic exam – stirrups and all. I was 9 years old I did not have
a clue.

The rigid nurse told me to completely undress and put on a hospital
gown. The room was cold and clinical. I was quivering and alone.

"Hi, I am Dr. Peyton." The male doctor introduced himself. He
remained at a clinical distance.

"I am going to take some pictures of your insides. It won't hurt. It
will just be uncomfortable. It won't take long."

"Where's my mom?" I held back tears.

"She is waiting outside. You will be fine."

It was just the doctor and me. I stared at the white ceiling and
counted the holes.

He lied. It hurt. I bled. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I felt weird.
I felt invaded and did not understand what DES was or why it had invaded
me. After the exam, my mother never reassured me that I did nothing to
deserve this invasion. She always believed doctors and did whatever they
said. She never fought for me and said,

"No, she is too young."

She never told me anything, but she told everyone else. She was trying to
get absolution. She told anyone who would listen about her daughter's
strange ailment in graphic detail. She loved the attention.

"I think the doctors in Rochester Medical Center are writing about
Lisa's case in medical journals."

She didn't call me weird, she did not have to – I felt like a living
specimen destined for the Mudder Museum of Medical Oddities.

Why did she take that drug? Why me? I may not have babies someday – I
may die of cancer. Why can't she just shut up? I hate her. I will never
trust her again.

The 1970s were a flood of moves; a divorce, reconciliation and a
salvation marked the disco days. I was a teenager and even more rebellious
than most. Except my weapon was my faith.

"Your grandmother would turn over in her grave"

My grandmother died in 1979. She was precious. I know she loved me and
made me feel special. Quite a feat, since she had a multitude of
grandchildren and great-grandchildren as a result of her 10 children.

I used to love eating at her table with greasy spoons – really greasy
spoons. She used to make Jell-O and pour milk over it. Other strange items
came from her South Buffalo kitchen. I think I inherited that from her.
She was authentic and loving – I have only met a handful of people with
those traits. She was real and she loved me. When she died, it broke my
heart.

At about the same time my grandmother died, I met a group of people at
Swamp Creek Baptist Church in Dalton, Georgia. We played softball, and went
camping in Red Wine Cove. We went down the water slide and ate out together
at Shoney's. They became a family to me because they liked me and they
loved me. I came to accept their God and let Him change my heart.

One night after a hot sweaty day of youth softball, I let God change
my heart. The youth minister, knowing my family, knew this was going to be
a difficult transition. He asked the youth to come around and tell me what
it means to be a Christian.

I only remember one piece of advice that night. It was from a skinny
goofy teenage boy, "The best thing about being a Christian knows that God
has a plan for your life."

Poor guy, he didn't realize that in just five short years, I would be
a part of Gods plan for his life for decades. I married him 5 years later.

Things at home only got worse. "No. I am not going to your baptism.
You were baptized as a baby. Your grandmother would turn over in her grave.
You are in a cult."

"Mom, The Southern Baptist Convention is not a cult."

I tried in earnest and did for 30 more years to get her to see what it
meant to be a believer. I tried to live it in front of her, but I just
couldn't keep my mouth shut. I stopped talking about it and attempted to
live it...but one night, I just could not shut up.

Our argument was a mixture of teenage rebellion and righteous
indignation. I proceeded to tell her to get saved and told her where she
would be going if she didn't. She was red with rage and came after me. I
jumped up and ran to my room and locked the door.

"Open this damn door. What would your Christian friends think of you?"

She banged and kicked until she broke into my room. She pinned me face
down clutching my neck. She was choking me and cutting my neck with her
nails all the while mocking me,

"What would your Christian friends think of you now – you are so
weird."

My father came home from work and ran into my room. He pulled her off
of me.

My parents were in trial reconciliation after already divorcing, but
after that night, he left and found an apartment and asked me to move in
with him. I never lived with my mother again.

She has always treated me like the crazy religious zealot because I
found another way to live my life. I was a rebellious teenager, but also a
new believer. Guilt was mixed with shame and she enjoyed the contradiction
that tormented me. She enjoyed the sport of throwing one sibling against
the other – a fight to the finish.

I was enslaved by what she thought of me and could not seem to get her
out of my head. I - the tapes were never erased.

I went to college to be a missionary. After all, what do Baptist young
women do when they want to go into service for God? They certainly can't
teach or write, so missionary was all that was available to me in 1980.

My mother had a special skill for ruining every major event in my
life. My high school graduation became a beer fest. This might be special
if I had been a drinker. My college graduation was all about her hurt
feeling because I chose to eat out with my father and his new wife. My
wedding was one drama after another. By the time I had children she had
moved back to Buffalo, New York. Thank God. I decided that the only way for
me to remain sane and productive was to keep a distance from my entire
family. The effects of my mother stayed with me and manifested in my
inability to have a healthy relationship.

I married that young man who told me God had a plan for my life. He is
the kindest and most gentle man I ever knew. He cried when we parted and we
wrote love letter to each other every day when I was on the mission field
in California. After years of living with a closed hearted woman, he had
enough and wanted out. To this day, though it hurts, I cannot blame him.

That is when I met Gloria. Gloria was our marriage counselor. She
became my counselor when she sent him home to work with me alone. Gloria
loved me and became a mentor and spiritual mother. I listened to her even
when I did not understand what she was talking about.

"Of course I know that God loves me!" I was indignant when asked.

"Do you know that God loves you?" Gloria said. "I know you know this
in your head, but has it reached into your heart?"

Her timing was perfect. She asked this simple question when my life
was so complicated. I did not know how desperately I needed to believe the
truth that God loves me. Still, her question offended me. After all, who
did she think she was talking to? I was a knowledgeable Bible teacher; of
course, I knew God loved me! She prayed anyway,

"Lord, let her know that You love her. So cuddle her in Your love that
she cannot resist you."

She was praying with me over the phone as I was sitting on the bed
with my boys. The baby was crawling all over me babbling baby words. My
preschooler was chanting,

"Mama! Mama! Candy! Candy! Candy!"

My oldest was just rolling around singing some tune. It was hard to
hear Gloria praying for me. What I did hear, I did not understand, but I
experienced a supernatural answer to her phone prayer. Her prayer opened up
a portal that has yet to close.

How do I show you what it means to have an intimate relationship with
God? How do I articulate my conversations with God and not be analyzed as
mentally ill? Why would I want to share this with anyone? A Muslim friend
told me that I should never write about my personal relationship with God –
it is personal. However, I keep hearing what Penn (of Penn and Teller)
said about someone who kept trying to share his relationship with God. Penn
was amazed at his persistence. He if Christians really believe what they
espouse, then they must really hate people if they do not share the message
with everyone. So how do I let you in on this secret? How do I let you feel
what I feel when I experience God interacting with me on a daily basis? How
do I allow you to "taste and see that the Lord is good?" If I am salt and
light as described in the New Testament – are you thirsty and do you need
shades?
Think about a song you love. How does it make you feel when you hear
those lyrics and the melody? Do you sing along and does it take you to
another place? What about a poem or beautiful prose? Does it stir you to
believe in something greater than yourself? On a beautiful day when the
air is crispy and the sky is so blue it hurts, are your senses heightened
ascending anew –if even for a few moments?
How much more can the beautiful Creator of all these things show you
His love if you let Him in? How much more can the One who moved across the
face of the waters invite you to dance with Him? Why can't this Poet, the
One who spoke the world into existence work on us? Line upon line He crafts
us from a rough draft to His perfection. Paul the Apostle used the perfect
Greek word in his letter to the Ephesians, "We are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus to do good works." The word workmanship in Greek is poeima
– we are His poem – He is the Poet.
This is the only way I can explain how I knew God's love intimately.
After Gloria prayed for me to be "so cuddled in His love" a series of
experiences changed my emotional life. I will use the word-pictures he
placed in my mind as He demonstrated His love toward me.
I walked into my living room and turned on the radio – we only had
local stations and I could hear the stereo from my kitchen while I cooked
or cleaned. I listened to Moody Radio a program called, Prime Time America.
I turned it on and walked into the kitchen and stopped. I was frozen by the
voice on the radio. No introduction and no explanation were given when I
heard this:
You will be stirred … touched… My friend, I wait for you with
open arms . . . . I rejoice at the prospect of sharing all my all my
eternal life with you. Do not fear, for I have only the best
intentions toward you. I hover over you
God reached down and grabbed me by the heart with these words. The
words of Phillip Keller's were from book, What is the Father Like? The
voice on the radio was the announcer reading from this book, but the moment
was mine from God Himself. The love I experienced in that moment was so
powerful, I had to stop and ask, "God, is that You?"
It was Him. God was whispering words of love to a locked heart. My
heart closed in preservation – broken hearts are messy. God was softening
me up for His next move.
The next day leaving my son's room I was walking down the long hall
that led to a small staircase that looked into the living room. Standing at
the top of those stairs, I saw something. I was awake and of sane mind,
while no one else could have viewed the scene, it was real. I do not know
if it was a dream or a vision or just thoughts in my head, but I was in the
presence of God. I could not a face, but I saw hands reaching out for me.
My stomach dropped and my heart twisted as I "saw" this presence drop to
one knee.
Fear, reverence, veneration, and overwhelming unspeakable love slapped
me. I knew it was Him – God using His way with words speaking to my mind
in splendid metaphor. The Almighty all-powerful God was on one knee. The
irony was complete. My husband wanted to leave me – give up on me – divorce
me and take my sons because of my inability to open my heart and love them
enough. Then there was God, wooing and courting me into deeper intimacy.
If you would have asked me at the time in my life if I knew God loved
me, I would have been insulted. "Of course, I am a Christian." Then I
would add, because I was a Bible "scholar," "Of course I know God loves
me and I also know all the Greek and Hebrew etymologies of the word love."
But I really didn't KNOW this because this fact had not made it into the
core of my personality that brought about change. I could not love those
closest to me. I did not think I was worthy of love and thus I did not open
myself up to the hurt that comes with loving. I taught about this kind of
love as a Bible teacher with longing; I wanted it to be true and real in my
life, but it was not.
And there He was, in my living room on his knees; arm outstretched
inviting me to share in His love. Just beyond this near-blasphemous scene
another story played out in pageantry. The scenes were of God's Son –
bloody and beaten hanging on a cross; His broken heart pouring out of his
sword-pierced side. And in my mind I heard God say, "This is how I can
propose eternal love to you – because of what He did for you on the cross."
The scene behind my loving God changed. A brilliant light of
resurrection showed the rest of the story: A valiant Christ overcoming the
world. The scene was full of life and energy – the resources I needed to
apply this great love and the power that raised Christ was the same power
that would open my heart to love.
Just as quickly as it came, the vision, the scene, the metaphor was
gone. Only seconds had passed and I was the audience of one. God used
images and thought that I would understand and words I needed to accept the
fact that I am loved – even if my mother could never love me – even if my
husband left me and took my sons – I was loved for eternity.
In a much longer process, I stopped believing what my mother on earth
said about me and began listening to my Father in heaven sang over me. It
took this intimate message from the lover of my soul to erase the abusive
words of an unstable mother.
My mother said I was weird with words and deeds as a child and as an
adult. But God said, "You are fearfully and wonderfully made. I knew you
when you were in your mother's womb and I chose you."
My mother rejected me when I refused to be manipulated from an early
age. God said, "You are accepted in the Beloved. You a child of God."
I am not the daughter of my mother; I am a child of God – a daughter
of the Father. My mother has never accepted me, but I am accepted by God,
just as I am. I grew up with instability, but my relationship with God
gives security. I am not weird; I am God's workmanship, fearfully and
wonderfully made. This is significant freedom.

My mother was wounded and unwilling to heal. She hurt those around her
and could not love. I forgive her for this, but I chose not to have
relationship with her. It made me feel worthless to be around her. But God
said, "You are my poem. Poeima. My workmanship created in my Son Christ
Jesus. You were created to do good works – fulfill your destiny and love
with an open heart with the same love that was given you."




Epilogue




On Wednesday night, October 27, 2010 just as the lake effect frosty
air crept over South Buffalo, New York, my mother passed from life into
death.

I heard the news as a cell phone message from Ellen, my sister:

"Lisa, Mom died at 5:45 tonight. I am with her now."

I did not cry. I lost my mother years ago and grieved that loss. I
pray my mother has found freedom. We had not talked for years, but she
left me something. My mother gave me an example of how not to treat my own
children.

If I do nothing else, I want them to know who they are and that they
have a purpose. They need to know they are mighty men and unique sons of
God with amazing potential- God's workmanship. I want John, Michael and
Samuel to know they are loved and wonderfully made.

They have grown into young men who carry that legacy of faith and
remnants of a broken cycle of abuse. As they have become fathers, husbands,
and significant contributors to their worlds – they have become what I have
always prayed they would become. Despite my failings and my own legacy of
pain they have found their purpose and are surrounded with the love of the
Father. They are His workmanship – poiema – God's poem.