TRUNK TALES

Image is one of the surviving fragments of the London Bridge ~ via Wikipedia

I was reading the nursery rhyme "London Bridge Is Falling Down" and I was amazed at how limited the version was that I grew up with. Apparently they were having a real hard time with London Bridge. Much more so than the childhood game we played of hand arches held high to capture those caught in London Bridges free fall. The original rhyme tells of quite a struggle to keep the bridge in tact. It speaks of using iron, steel, brick and mortar and even silver and gold to "build up the bridge". Each helpful suggestion is met with defeat and anticipated failure. It seems they had no hope to "build up the bridge". It appears the bridge did indeed fall and remains in a fallen state. Life sometimes feels that way.

I talked to my friend Missy yesterday and she told me about a lady she knew from her Church that had gone through a horrendous time in her personal life. Her friend had an affair that had destroyed her marriage and to compound her "bridge falling" she had also started using drugs. Missy described her friend as a late thirties, early forties woman who had it all, a name, beauty, a witness, a perfect life. She eventually ended up homeless with nothing to show for her life. She had traded her beautiful life for a bridge view. She was literally living under a bridge. A bridge that was falling down in slow motion all around her. it seemed there were no child's arms arched towards the heavens that could hold her world together. She fell down. Her bridge collapsed.

She had 3 perfect children and a trophy Attorney husband. The parting sentiment by everyone was that she had it all. She had gained and lost the American dream, almost overnight it seemed. Missy said that she was beautiful. The kind of daunting beauty that you just have to take a second look at. Beauty that you squint your eyes to see and analyze. It seemed life had taken its toll on her beauty. Action and consequences.... Such a heavy lesson to accept in life. One I struggle with daily. I think we want to believe in hope and redemption. It is breed into us. Woven into our make-up to be a people of hope. But sometimes there are no free passes. No "oops, sorry" words to make our world okay again. When "London Bridge Is Falling Down, Falling Down, My Fair Lady" there are times that all we can do is watch it fall.

Before her bridge fell it rose. She rose. She rose from her self imposed rubble, dressed in sin stained rags, dirty, with the filth of this world still dripping from her hem. She rose to face the masses. Her masses. She dug deep within her pocket and retrieved her pawn ticket. The one she got when she pawned and forfeited her family, faith and her God to chase after the greener grass. The pawn ticket she had used to try to fortify her bridge. If only I had met her I would have told her the green grass is only a figment of our imagination. A passing fancy that ends us in burned rubble. I would have wanted to be her detour. Her stop light. Her hope in a hopeless world.

She took her pawn ticket and blew the dust from it. She used her palm to press the ticket straight again. She held it to her heart, tight. She breathed in every lost memory, every lost moment, every lost word... and then she left her bridge view to go and claim her family back. After several years apart she stood on her now perfect green grass and told her husband she wanted to come home. Naturally and fleshly and humanly he was less than excited. For this I hope he forgives himself. He was simply acting as one of her necessary consequences. The consequence of loss. Despite his rumbling and fears she returned to her rightful place. To her home. Looking out of sorts as she was still shedding sin and still weak, she made one last glorious lunge at the enemy! The father of all lies who had led her to seek the "greener grass" in the first place.

Here in perfect imperfection she reclaimed her kingdom.

Several hours and several memories after she had reclaimed the property of her family she started having unexplained and sudden seizures. She had not ever had them before that night. Her condition was severe and spiraling out of control. Within several hours she died. No one knows what she died of. As quickly as she had returned to her home she was gone. This time for good. After all of her many wars with life and all of her bridge building, she simply slipped backed into her life to then quietly slip away, forever. I have to wonder if in those final moments if having redeemed her family pawn ticket had made a difference. In the end did her life fit her? Fit like a glove, snug, tight and familiar? I have to believe that she re-entered her "rest" and filled her lungs with the life only God and forgiveness can give us. That deep, drenching all consuming gratitude for the moment. Yes, in the end, her end, she had a moment. A moment in the SON, again. Ahhhhhh.... I am sure she sighed a deep release as she left this earth to enter her rest. The timing...? Who can fathom a resonant God when He is at work? Clinging to our faith we can only deduce that all ended well with her world. In the end that is all we can ask for. It is her family I grieve for. It is their loss of her or perhaps words they did not speak, that time and pain did not allow, that will continue to live and haunt them, unless they perhaps find their way to her bridge. Unless they go and sit a spell under her falling down past, breathe in the decayed air she lived in, the fear, the embarrassment, the shame. Only then will they be able to see exactly how far she had traveled to return herself to them on the night she died. They need to see not her failings but her victory. Not her sin but see how she wore forgiveness. They need to see her as God does. They need to call her by name. The name she earned.

The name of "My Fair Lady".

I am convinced that under the bridges of our lives lie the mystery of the Trinity. It is here that we see that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost abide in even the lowest of places, the lowest of souls, even the most sinful, lost souls, if they are called by Him. She was.

So, today I will wonder about bridge's falling in mid-flight. I will wonder about her. Her life. Her fear. Her sin. Her exit. However, I am assured of one thing and I need not wonder. I am assured that my God sent His angels to form perfect, strong, gentle, open arches that would never fall down. Arches that would line her path to Him...