I’d Like to Buy a Thousand Angels

I’d Like to Buy a Thousand Angels

(“God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:4)

Your retail price for a thousand angels ($1000 dollars check or cash)
is far more than I can afford. Incidentally I already know of nearly
a thousand
that surround me day and night.
Some have faces I recognize, some have names I have forgotten,
some are invisible, some as small as butterflies.

Why do you take the money that belongs to individuals,
why do you charge for blessings that are free?
Incidentally, I have wondered how my cash increases my
angelic horde, how they surround me, just based on your word?

I’ve walked in the rain enough times to know
that the range of angelic protection each day does not include
a promise to stay dry. It’s not their fault,
I need the rain to wash away doubts and inhibitions.

You promise an enemy to my enemies,
and I gasp that you call it gospel. You have
drastically raveled up the beautiful story,
the one that gives enemies our love.

The story is plain, the position insanely more pleasant
than prying dollar bills from an old man’s hands.
I’ll keep my angels, thank you, and move my offerings
to someone who refuses to make insane promises,
to someone who has no idea I gave them anything.
I’ll keep my angels, I’ve known them too long now
to start new incidents and replacements for those who
have hung around long enough to put up with my
doubts, suspicions and desires to visit the donut shop.

So, here I stand, with messengers who have walked
with me through swamps and deserts, through inhibitions and
oppositions. But never did I ask them to become an enemy even
to my most ardent foe.

Like Paving Stones

Like Paving Stones

(“The disciples then began to argue about which of them was the greatest.” Luke 9:46)

You’ve laid out arguments like paving stones spaced
so far apart that mud is inevitable. You stood up in front
of dozens
with your toupee tilted toward the side. You took
swipes at ones you deemed dangerous and inconsequential.
You thought you were talking for God and
you couldn’t hear
how your ego was louder than anything that came
out of your head.
You never questioned your certainty and
that is why
your faith was insubstantial. You thought you
were a high-wire act, but we saw the
rusty chains that held you up. We would rather
go for a walk in the sun.
You meant well, but you weren’t on the level.
You dreamed of hundreds following you to heaven.
You imagined what you should have examined,
you measured your life by how many were wowed
by your words.

I read a pageful of numbers, a long stretch of
dimes and dollars. I listened for the crisis others
ignored. I longed for larger spaces between the
stated and the questioned.  You were taller and
several covered their heads as your words shot
out like hailstones without warning.

Let’s sit on the back porch, let’s wait in the sun,
let’s allow the neighbors to speak, let’s quiet ourselves
like babies falling asleep. Let’s listen to their music
though we have never heard it before. There are cadences
we can learn
if we stop our chatter for a while.

The Storm Threatened

The Storm Threatened

(“Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” Luke 9:23)

The storm threatened more than mud and slime,
it continued to mock both function and design.
It was predicted,
and we evicted the plans we had for a picnic
afternoon.

It drove us to pray for promised deliverance,
It captured our imprisoned intelligence.
It was so sudden
there was hail in the garden
and conversations were muddled well into
the evening.

We watched and wondered at the thunder that
drove so many home. We woke later than usual
with eyes red from dust and distrust as we ached
over the mockingbird’s song that repeated the
false charges, wary accusations, and verdicts
made of sand.

(Crucify)

And we breathed the air that was burning plastic,
acrid and across from the garden torn up by
the onlookers in their rush to ridicule with words
the prisoner nailed to lumber. Why won’t he
come down? No one wanted to see that, of course.
No one wanted to spend more than half a day
glaring at the sky stripped of everything that
would open their eyes.

Everything turned black, every sign was
beyond belief. Every person felt that pain in
their chest and their minds found no rest as they
wondered why he ever was called a king.

Before the storm we heard him say they might

(Crucify)

Him. But that day was sunny and we never imagined he meant anything more than some days would go slower, that some days might be over later than we imagined.

Now the storm, the thunder, the pounding drops of rain
so thick they kicked up the dust all combined to confirm
our hope was gone. We could not let this night go by

(Crucify)

We did not know the storm would pass, at least not
that we could predict. But women found the
garden in the morning sun and surprised us all with
something we hoped was a new dawn,
a fresh beginning, a new ache that makes us
want nothing more than to follow, storm or sunlit days,
the trajectory that disengages us from reliance on
various changes in the wind.

He Sent the Mourners Away

He Sent the Mourners Away

(“But he took her by the hand. ’Get up, child,’ he called.”) Luke 8:54)

They had been wailing outside, the
mourners
who came to grieve for the dying daughter.
Barely catching their breath before the next sob started,
the took their place along the mudbrick walls.

A stranger approached, escorted by her father,
the stranger spoke, “Don’t cry. She isn’t dead, she’s asleep.”

That’s when the mocking laughter began.
How did he know? Had he been here with the family
from the first moment she fell ill? How did he know?
How dare he give false hope, how dare he
talk such myopic nonsense?

The father waited expectantly; one ear tuned to the wailing,
one to the stranger’s confidence. But she was dead.
How could a father believe? How could he expect what
had never happened before?

But the girl heard only one thing, deep in the sleep of death,
“Get up, child.” Slowly the stranger raised her up, his hand around hers,
while bedside they brought her food.

Oh for the hand that reaches through the curtain of death,
for the voice that speaks even when laughter mocks with its hired breath.
Oh for the touch that extends through the doldrums,
the words that speak costly sentences for no charge.

The father was silent, his daughter in his arms.
And tears mixed with a new sort of disbelief. He
touched her face, her warm and flushed face,
laughed to himself a new sort of mirth
that looks death in the eye and renews his joy
on the day that seemed darker than all others,
for a gift that seemed so delayed.

And he sent the mourners away.

Daffodils

Daffodils

(“Those on the rocky soil are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and yet these do not have a firm root; they believe for a while, and in a time of temptation they fall away.” Luke 8:13)

It smelled like mud where the excavator was working
building a new road into the new subdivision. Five
houses in all have been built, or are nearly ready.
The trusses pointed to the morning star until they
closed it all in.

The smell of mud is bracing, the smell of mud
invites the promise of spring. The road being built
will hopefully last as long and as well as every measurement
and lined with daffodil quilts, their bulbs warm below the
the winter sod. They wait there, under the surface,
for months at a time until there is more light than dark,
more day than night,
And slowly poke their way through the grass with
buds closed and delicately protected.

I like the ones that stay, that grace my walks with bright yellow
imitating the sun. I like the fences where they flaunt their full display
along a 12-foot section. They are butter and their stalks are made
of mud enriched by the neighbor who owns the fence. Facing west,
his daffodils get the sun for the warmest part of the day. There
are no stones in his flower bed. That is apparent from the joy that the
colors bring and how long they keep their mouths wide open
to the rain.

Would You Walk with Me?

Would You Walk with Me?

(“The Son of Man came, and he ate and drank, and you said, ‘Look at this man! He is a glutton and wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and other outcasts!’” Luke 7:34)

Would you walk with me along the field where the
yellow daffodils form the border between tree lines
and grass? Did you see this day coming, did you wonder
if the rain would last?

Would you come if I invited you to
a table with common food? Would you let me
fill your glass with wine,
would you be happy with spaghetti and a
slice of bread?

I remember how the bougainvillea climbed the
patio sticks holding up the roof and
made it feel like Hawaii when we danced to the
listing moon.

We were too young for alcohol, too old for
musical chairs;
we were testing the boundaries, we were
choosing up couples and pairs on an
early adolescent summer’s eve.
We waited until the night was over to
dance with the one we had danced with
in our heads. We could not believe it when
she said,
“yes.”

I have to admit these days are split between
wishing to have someone who tells me all their wishes,
and sitting alone watching the news on tv.
I’d rather play in the band than practice
a few moves alone before the black and blueness of
the night wrapped it up for us.

The field will still be here in the morning,
the path winding past the cattle and geese,
and I would extend my invitation and wait
on the corner for a chance to speak with you
about the questions along these streets.

Anyone who will tell me their story has
already won my heart,
crossed the path from unknown to spatial
and relieved my discontent.

I’d love your company, but I fear the conversation
that leaves me speechless when you ask me
what I want.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

(“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of heavenly forces, will be with you just as you have said.” Amos 5:14)

You keep moving the target, you keep changing the rules,
you declare some things illegal and others gifts of gold.
When you based your opinion on third-hand
professional gossip you got lost in the crystalline darkness.
While you laugh I cry that you
have held the truth at arm’s length. And you mock
the prophets who speak showers of rain,
not your disdain for what you cannot understand.

These moments are over like the fading rainbow,
and we do well to remember the colors once the
spectrum has gone from our perception. (Does it
get brighter
the longer we stare?)

So they hijacked 700 without due process,
they commandeered them across the skies
without a clue how many were wrong or right.
And then I hear your voice pronouncing judgment
on them all,
making them guilty, making them criminals,
making them subject to your cartoon caricatures
and two-dimensional portraits. You paint them
all the same.

Sanctuary. We hear the mission bells.
Sanctuary. We hear the widow’s tears.
Sanctuary. We wait the summer sun.
Sanctuary. We wait the promised sage.

Sanctuary, we hear their calls to hear their case,
a place safe enough for their stories to be
safely shared over soup and a bed protected from
the managers of messages who lengthen the shadows.
And we hear the babies gently cooing themselves to sleep.