It Used to be a Cathedral

It Used to be a Cathedral

(“You neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness! Matthew 23:23b)

They think they have it all figured out,
they post their demands on the underlings’ foreheads.
They think their cause is just when it is
merely
the same chant they’ve hummed from day one.
They fashion their bombs and measure them by the ton;
they load their words like ammo for a machine gun.
They insist everyone pays their way;
they record everything they say and
play it back
just to listen to their own voice.

All the while the song beckons from
under our feet and over our heads;
the song is no longer today than then,
but we mishear it and shoot ourselves in the foot.

It used to be a cathedral,
now it is just an armory.
It used to be a library, but all the books have
been banned, they’ve been burned,
they’ve been ripped to pieces by incisors
of know-it-alls who never learned to celebrate
the paragraphs the send us into the world.

Every book you erase leaves another author
ready to rearrange tomorrow like it needed to be.
Go fold your laundry, find a good book,
get a glass of wine and read something classic,
or challenging,
or, if heaven allows, something rambling
that opens the world to take that little house on the corner,
open the doors
and allow the stragglers a place at the table.

They think they have the answers;
they have written them on index cards.
They think the lyrics should never be played backwards,
and ignore the plainsong that used to
remove the cannons from the parapets and
melt them into fork and spoons, along with the food,
that never was paid for in the first place.

They think we’ll be impressed with how
impeccably that are dressed. But we are just fine
with thrift store finds. We are waiting for
the day when we obey the truce that was
declared ages ago. We are ready to shed
our garments of pain and leave the battlefield,

Transforming it into a park with a bandshell
where the song is flung in every direction and the
children play undetected where we once
wrestled forged enemies to the ground.

A Muddled Encounter

A Muddled Encounter

(“May God, who gives you this endurance and encouragement, allow you to live in harmony with each other by following the example of Christ Jesus. Romans 15:5) 

As I was walking, jacket braced against the cold,
I passed a neighbor across the street I seldom see.
I glanced toward him
and then away, when he said something to me.
With my earbuds tuned to a favorite podcast,
I barely heard what he said. Indeed, I could not
decode it.
So I turned my face back to the sun, smiled, and
waved and hoped
it an appropriate response to whatever he said.

The possibility remains that he said nothing at all,
just background noise in my ears. Or he said something
to his pet pug at his feet.
The possibility remains that he asked me a question
and I dismissed it with a wave.

I hope you did not misunderstand me; I hope my response
was appropriate. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow to rearrange
my words into a more palatable stew. Maybe you didn’t even
notice me. Maybe you wished I knew your name.

It was those few moments of a muddled encounter that
stayed with me through the afternoon. It was such a
tiny thing
occupying the front door of my thinking. I always
pet the dogs I pass, and wave at the cars. But I
will never know if my neighbor thought me unsocial,
or noticed me at all.

An Open Window

An Open Window

(“But you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Romans 14:10)

My soul was an open window but you
persisted in pounding on the door.
You talked like you knew everything I’ve owned,
you thought I was hiding from you.
Once you saw the wounds but named them
inadequacies. There were shortages to be
sure, but not because I ignored them.
My soul was drafty until I found
the touch
of healing in the person who looked deeply
and refused to walk away.

The scars are still warm from the fever they felt,
and grew hotter the more exposed to the fiery gaze
that read them like tea leaves cursing my weak efforts
to escape,
the constant stare that sought to make me more aware
of the sighs heaped upon the weakest places in me.

I’ll keep a warm corner ready for you,
I’ll light a fire and put on the coffee.
I’ll set a place for you even though you gave
so little space for me.
And if you feel exposed, I will only pass you
the cream and sugar, put another log on the fire,
and ask if you would like to stay just a little longer
into the early evening of the day.

He Called it Presence

He Called it Presence

(“When they suffered, he suffered with them.” Isaiah 63:9a)

He danced the dirge like a ghost,
and felt like a silent shade. There was
nothing substantial he could remember.
There was nothing future he could predict.
He pulled the sod up over his shoulders like
a blanket to keep out the cold.
There was no one there for him,
at least that is what he was told.

It was like the beginning of creation,
It was less than the sun could shine.
It was like the last day of celebration.
It was more than the moon had to show.

He never thought anyone knew,
He never saw the eyes that saw him.
But there was another dancing, another echoing
his sad spinning. He did not think he was suffering.
The truth is, he did not think much at all.
But he could not help but see there was another
day someone might call apostasy.
He just called it presence and kept up his
sojourning ways while his heart gave way
to the questions he had been asking for
a lifetime.

Would the one who began it all
finally move his direction? Would the last
of days, ancient in its ways,
feel the tears as hot as his own?
He hoped it was so. Neither questions nor
answers
soothed him in these rotating seasons.
He just hoped the unknown visitor would
stop by before the end of the day.

Multiplied Fortune

Multiplied Fortune

(“When the workers arrived, the ones who had been hired at five in the afternoon were given a full day's pay.” Matthew 20:9)

The day was elastic, it was short and round;
I turned in my hours and found I worked for
more and put in so little time I could not be considered
an employee at all.
Was I worth a dollar, maybe two? But how could they
pay me for an entire shift when I barely was there at all?
I barely showed up,
I gave it my all,
I surely did not deserve
the wages I did not earn,
paid the same as workers there from
morning till last call. Should I contact the manager;
was there a mistake?
Should I bank it or invite someone to dine with me
to celebrate my good fortune?

I stared at the check and subtracted the zeros,
I wondered if I would be paid the same tomorrow,
if I would work a longer shift and be rewarded more;
would this benevolence continue, or would I have
to trade my pay in for
a favor I had not anticipated? I rubbed my fingers over
the ink and the numbers; they did not run.
I wondered was it a mistake, had I heard the offer all wrong?

For now, all that mattered was meeting a few friends
to celebrate with drinks and buy the first round. I could
barely hold it in,
I could scarcely begin to describe my good luck,
the grace I discovered when I was the last one in
and the first one paid. I’d show up tomorrow and
work for wages I did not deserve and wonder where
the manager got the idea
to multiply fortune to someone he found lounging
hoping for a minimum-wage job.

There Were Children Dancing

There Were Children Dancing

(“So God will choose the one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.” Romans 9:16)

I listened to the laughter coming from the next room;
there were children dancing to a whirling tune
I did not know and could not repeat. They circled
each other and leaped up and down. It was on a
stormy day with winds roaring from the east; foothills
to the coast, and the rain splattered the windows like
tiny balloons thrown by fairies.
It was rarely this easy. But today their feet moved
together, their giggles were not disruptive, and their
words were improvised along with their song.

There was something vital in that moment, there was

untitled poetry at play. It came from within them,
it came from without. It came from planets above,
it came from the earth below. It crept in through the doorway,
it circled room after room until, soon enough,
the laughter gave way to lavender exhaustion.

Not a breath was wasted, every movement was intentional,
every word was invented, not a syllable fell pasted to the floor.
They floated like dandelions, they tossed themselves like
pillows in the air. They sounded like cherubs, they looked like
an hour in a day without care. They slipped in their favorite
colors and poked around the edges of prayer.

No one planned it, no one invited the parties;
it was all the children knew to do with their spare time,
it was everything they had waited for since morning had dawned.
And all the adults learned laughter halfway through the dance.
Next time maybe they would lead it, maybe they would leave it
all to chance.

Questions Don’t Always Have Answers

Questions Don’t Always Have Answers

(“Then he said, ‘I tell you the truth. You must change and become like little children. If you don’t do this, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” Matthew 18:3)

I’ve seen you playing basketball in the street,
practicing your layups, your three-point plays,
your bounce passes and the hopes you will get to start
the very next game. But, though a teenager now, the child
hasn’t completely left, has it? I know you will even jump
on your trampoline with your 3-year-old sister. Maybe you
just put up with her, but that is what older brothers do.

I’m sure you’ve seen a slew of problems you would like to know
the answers to.
And even though you live right next to me, don’t hold out any hope
for certainty from me.

I know a girl whose mom died when she was 40. She nearly beat that
wicked cancer,
she did. But then her body was done. Her organs began shutting down,
her breathing became labored, and she was compassionately kept as
comfortable as possible.

We laid hands on her, didn’t we? All the relatives; her mom, her grandad,
her sisters, her daughter and their sometime pastor. We were convinced
God could do anything. We were persuaded God would not leave this
5-year-old child alone.

We used to ask for prayer requests at Sunday Services
and Nancy, that was the child’s name,
always asked for prayer for her momma. She asked for prayer when she
was in treatment,
she asked for prayer once she was buried. Nancy only knew God had
to do something good. And the something good would be having
mommy back in the house, laughing with her daughter, making
pumpkin pie together and walking in the fields to collect kindling
for the woodstove through November to February.
God can do anything, the Pastor even said so. But it seems so
unfair
that the God who can do anything refuses to do
everything. Children feel this more deeply than us all. God,
what in the hell did we do to you for you to take away a mom from her
vulnerable child?

My neighbor keeps practicing his shots from the field. I believe
he is getting better, and I’ve never asked him about God.

I only know that I’d rather live with the questions children ask than
the vanilla retorts adults learn from books that give 1000 answers to
questions that are never meant to have answers.

I see Nancy from time to time. She was the last person I every baptized.
Even then, as she went under the water (she did love Jesus), her question floated
just above her head: “Why, why, why, is my mother dead?”