Announcing the Dawn

Announcing the Dawn

(“This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5)

Shades of pale blue christened the opening sky;
there were songbirds waiting for the dawn to begin.
The were ready on their branches, attentive at the stations
to usher in the first rays of sun.

While we wait to awake from a dreamless night there
are hearts beating the overnight timing. Can you repeat
the stories we have memorized as children.
Would you repeat them like nursery rhymes?

Are we listening for the Spirit to usher us to the
middle aisle. Are we ready to finally admit how
empty we have begun. Are we waiting for the
fullness that will make us complete? All I know
is feeling full at the table is better than the pronouncements
of patent lawyers telling how it is supposed to be.

I’ve got the evidence in my hand;
I’ve got the witness within my breathing.
I am away now and the Spirit, already dwelling
within like a dove in a box; I understand now
the nearness that is closer than the implications
of dust.

Someone sent me a postcard engraved with gold
and love and it arrived just in time to show me
how fulness feels, how the dove coos,
how hope, fragile and strong, would never
be without breath, without life,
without the opening song of the robin
announcing the dawn.

How Narrow the Places

How Narrow the Places

(“Or does God belong only to Jews? Doesn’t he belong to the nations as well? Yes, of course, to the nations as well.” Romans 3:21)

How can we narrow the places God inhabits;
how can we design a temple so exclusive that there are
more waiting to get in than mumble prayers within.
How many children belong to you, only the first two
and not the last?

Heaven delights in every song of the nations,
from leaps and tambourines to dulcimer sounds in
the mountains. Where do you think God
exists if not in your neighbor, if not in the
sounds of relief once the plague has run its course.
Would you withhold bread because they come
to you with a different language, vowels and verbs you
misunderstand. No one should need to beg to
be loved in this glorious family. No one should be
left out in the cold.

Take me up so I can see the wide expanse of your
invitation. Elevate my eyes to perceive the eyes
of your children brighter than the ocean reflecting the sun.

Listen, my darlings, and you will hear the music that
resonates among the stars and spheres; enjoy the
sound of
divine creation that began far before our false
divisions claimed that others had
deceived us with their worship, and we were
truly the only, decidedly the foremost of
those formed by heaven.

But like two dancers in the night, while the moon
smiles above an endless sky;
perhaps we will perceive the inclusivity of the
Kingdom we thought we were fighting for.

The Old Paths

 The Old Paths

(“Yet my people have forgotten me and offered sacrifices to worthless idols. This makes them stumble along in the way they live and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. They have left them to walk in bypaths, in roads that are not smooth and level.” Jeremiah 18:15)

What made us choose a road so unknown?
What made us turn away from the beloved highway?
Did we think we would find
something to soothe our minds
and unfold our wandering hearts?

Our parents were our navigators, for
better or worse,
but we chose our own way with views of the
valley and the desert beyond.

We gave up our perch on the mountain,
we abandoned the well-worn paths.
We found the old ways tired with tradition;
we needed a change, to our ambition.

But we hear a word coming from all the
points of the compass,
we see full spectrum what we thought we
had seen before.
It dawned on us as another sun set,
that the light and dark, the moon and sun,
the stars and galaxies, the sand and the dirt
were here long before we thought we were experts
of navigation.

We had shredded our maps and set out on our own,
only to be lost once the first tree of forest was
behind us.

But we heard a word saying, “Here is the way,
walk in it.” We were alerted this time, rested from
our funk and frivolity. We chose the way we
barley saw and followed the voice that
transcended it all.

Like Picking Up Fall Leaves

Like Picking Up Fallen Leaves

(“He told her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed from your illness.’” Mark 5:24)

She had heard the stories like picking up
fallen leaves from the lawn. She had wished for
them
and turned her face to feel the sun.
She knew the sweet fragrance of new cut hay.
She gave away every resemblance to her younger days;
she tried to remember them like sunshine before the rain.

But the day it all began, she cannot remember the date,
but she still knows the moment when her body betrayed her,
when it gave way to a disease so chronic it threatened
to become her. The walls closed in on her isolation
while she heard the accusations that she must have failed
someone along the line to carry such a persistent haze.
The day it became and this day were connected like a
seam of blood-red thread encompassing everything.

She longed to sing in the choir again, her solo voice
had torn her up and down. She wanted the voices beside her,
resonating with her own alto altogether.

But she had heard the stories, and then she heard the throng.
Was it him? Would he walk though her neighborhood?
She listened as the airborne mixture of mere humanity
floated through her window. She caught a glimpse of him
and, hope for hope, she halted, seconds waiting like a
statue coming free.

“If only” she thought. And she continued to wonder as she
felt her feet leave for the front door. She must move stealthily,
between the bodies pressing in to see him. It would be easy to
be silent
while the crowd shouted and murmured for attention.

“If only” she decided. And walked between the narrow
lanes of bodies. She moved with purpose, her fingers
tingling with possibility. Within a couple of steps,
she reached our her hand to touch just the robe along the hem.

She turned around to return home, her sickness destroyed in
that single contact, but he spoke. “Who touched me?” Before
he even spoke shoe knew she as well.

And so this daughter, on a day of grace and faith
went in peace and found a few devoted friends to share
coffee in the afternoon.
She was once wooden clogs and now is
Cinderella’s slippers.

For Your Aching Wounds

For Your Aching Wounds

(“Surely there is some medicine in Gilead. Surely there is a doctor in Gilead. So why are the wounds of my people not healed?” Jeremiah 8:22)

I awoke to the same pain that plagued me day after day,
a heart pain, a soul pain, longing for awakening.
There it was, after all this time, an offer for healing in
the middle of tears flowing like rain. Oh, how little faith
must I have to
imagine
Jesus asleep in the boat while the storm rages.
Jesus laughing with friends while I feel unhealed.
I have plenty to eat but feel I am starving. (Can the
reader relate?) Are your hands splintered from pulling
too hard at the oars? Are you bruised from the hilts
and hints of swords? Are you weary from the way
the pebbles soar from the sling?

There is a balm for your aching wounds. There is
a salve for the open hurts that linger too long.
There is a day when healing arrives on the wings
of a love too transparent to ignore. Once there was a time
when we ignored the kindness divine that flooded
heaven and earth,
but now we have nearly drowned in the mercy flowing
from hills to dells and taste the offering of hope.

We shift and turn our aching tunes toward the one
who has changed our name to fit the family we nearly
walked away from. All the broken ones stand in
amazement and find the healing promised to
every son of daughter of the white sands of an
endless sea.

Loan Me Some Seed

Loan Me Some Seed

(“And when sown, it comes up and grows taller than all the garden plants, and produces large branches, so that the birds of the sky can nest in its shade.” Mark 4:32)

I began by wanting to ask you for a loan,
but I do not need money, I do not need bills,
I wanted you to loan me some seed that would grow
within my sorrowing soul. That would grow like it was
in nurturing soil. I’ve spent afternoons napping
and reading until my head ached too badly to continue.
I wish you could loan me something living that
could clear my head. The fog is bursting from within
the places between my brain and the rest of me.
I’ve settled in trying to compensate for this disabled
exposition with words written like togas wrapped around
my heart. I was a taller tree once, some time ago.
But then the drought hit and I could not survive;
the dangers were all around, waiting to seduce me
into another faithless action of cowardice. I turned around.
I don’t ask for much anymore, just a few trinkets,
sharing a beer at the bar, driving in the hills,
a cadre of cadets who carry no agendas but only ask
for light to guide the way.

Come in for a drink, come in for a story, tell me about your day,
tell me about the joy you remember from the days I have forgotten.
Sit down across from me, let me see your eyes;
let me hear the syllables like seeds dying into the ground.
Sow in me the mercy you have experienced;
take me as mere as mud and make me a planting place
for branches large enough for the birds of the air to
to roost upon, finding shade from the heat.

If you will do this tiny thing for me, I would be
eternally grateful. I don’t deserve great offers of dollars,
just simple seeds in the dirt that lays here in the dark.

You Can Choose

You Can Choose

(“’In that day, declares the Lord, ‘the king and the officials will lose heart, the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be appalled.’” Jeremiah 4:9)

You were playing games and changing the rules;
you were throwing the dice disguising the results with
light flashing like saber tooth tigers competing for survival.
You thought your prayers were the answer when you
filled the altar with dead words and loud admonishments.

You who proclaimed the end of days, will you be ready
for your justice to come calling? You were ready to deport
every dark-skinned neighbor over their birthplace a half
century before. When God meets you at the end of the road,
what will you say to justify the cruelty your declarations
incited?

You kings, you should never have imagined you were monarchs
giving matches to strangers to burn down the meager cottages
of the poor. From the throne to the backyard chickens, you
thought you reigned with impunity. Instead, it will be you
who will lose heart when you see the hand of God reducing
your words to sawdust to trample underfoot.

Take a breath you purveyors of underhanded mischief.
There is still a chance for your redemption. Walk away
from the conflagration you have created with
heat of your hatred. You thought you would never be
found out, that no one would see the loathing you
learned despite it all. You had your chances;
your stances were arrows aimed from your thrones,
and you thought they only advanced your cause.

You can choose today how you will learn the dirges of
the disheartened. You can change your tune; you can
unfold your cartoon character and feel the pangs of
hunger your policies have caused.

You can choose today. Look into the eyes of the One
who sees everything.
You can choose today.