UnMasked

UnMasked

(”For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

I hardly knew what to do when the gift was dropped off
outside my door. Should I open it; what was it there for?
I set it inside on top of a coffee table and went about my
day, making lunch, drinking wine, and wondering how much time
I had before I heard the famous voice that thundered everything
into place.

But the noises outside and the people who cried
that justice looked sad were in the streets today.
There was no peace from the camouflaged recruits who
pummeled observers of their over-privileged gunfire.
Hard on the way, they lay another one upon the concrete
as if they are simply punching bags for practice.

It was all on video, for those who would watch it.
It all was heard, though many refused it.
It was unlicensed aggravation and children kidnapped
from outside their schools. It was a nurse to veterans
being beaten for pointing his phone at the officers of fear.

But thousands showed up and broke the silence. Thousands
sang songs of resistance and beat their drums above the anguish
laying low and loud. They are trauma-breakers assisting the wounded.

And still the gift sits unopened, its contents hidden underneath
layers of paper and perforations. We have thrown away the wealth
of harmony paid at such a price the universe trembles. The estranged
are invited to join the sanity that is richer and offers reunion
to armies of boots on the ground. Unwrap the present and join
the mass apology for the pain created by the masked unrighteous
ways of hardened lawless masquerading as officers of the peace.

Small Things

 Small Things

(“If you receive this child in my name,” he said, “you receive me. And anyone who receives me, receives the one who sent me. Whoever is the least among you—that’s the one who is great.” Luke 9:48)

They started well, like an evening stroll through the forest,
like a dog greeting its owner, like a baby laughing out loud
for the very first time. But things expanded, they got bigger,
they demanded more attention shown to the leaders who started
out lying on cushions and now were seated on thrones.

It all got away from us; we got caught up in the hype that
everything we prayed for would make everything bigger than
we could ever imagine. And for a while, it worked. For a while
we convinced ourselves that the more obedience we demanded
the less bitter the future would be. We put our faces down to make
sure we toed the line and never stopped asking questions of the unaligned
who were a beat too slow when we sang our decorated hymns they
should have known.

We could have waited for them to learn the tunes,
to hum them unworded to start. We could have slowed it
all down but we had more people pounding down the doors
to get their next fix of what we advertised week to week.
We promised new songs given by the spirit,
we promised good health while they waited in line.
They crowded in to hear us pontificate about the triggers
that forced us to send them out against immediate enemies.
We grew, oh how we grew, like a creeping vine in midsummer.

We forgot all about the toddlers sleeping on Sunday.
We let the baby stay awake and left her at home.
We shushed the children who giggled too often,
we muted the questions the preteens asked too precisely.

We missed the wide-eyed fascination with canticles of faith.
We forgot how tiny voices could stay in our minds long after
the sermons drifted away.

We called for dedication, but left discernment aside.
We relied on lofty pronouncements when the truth was among
pint-sized.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the treasure we find in
cast aside converts who attempted to backslide. We doomed them
like the choking black of a moonless night.

But their story is truer. Their words full of life.
Their questions childlike, and their laughter
more holy than a dozen hallelujah shouted
full-throat by everyone in the balcony.

Don’t Disappear

Don’t Disappear

(“Christ died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from the dead so that they would live for him.” 2 Corinthians 5:15)

Don’t disappear over desperation that knocks
noisily in your mind. Don’t lose the ending just because
the beginning is out of view. The time of rising has
arrived. The time of sentient exploration brings you
closer to the pathway you have dreamed. It could
be today,
it might be later. It might be sunny, it might be
unwieldy. It might be the visions of a well-earned
peace on the streets of disaster. It might be transportation
from airlifts that move us from complacent complaints
to marches of confidence. We will speak confidentially
with those who wait within hollowed homes for the
announcement that holy joy is rounding the bend.

But it all looks like death right now,
doesn’t it. It reeks of deterioration,
it smells like decomposition. We cannot
ignore it and fly right by without noticing
the targets on the backs of colors we no longer
want to accept. Brown and black are hiding behind
doors of terror when the peaceful are called radicals
and the warmongers are called leaders. Get in line
they tell us,
and wait for your apprehension. The cuffs dig into
the wrists of the wrongly arrested. We stand
next to the fallen. We find the marks upon the mothers
who hide their children from the camouflage pretenders
who pace the residential avenues with fear.

There is still a stream that flows through the city,
a living river that sweeps the dead dust away.
There is still a hope that breathes and listens
for the wings of the Spirit. There are still streets
that are alive with healing at every turn.
Sanity demands we embrace the metamorphosis
of dying to living, and see through revitalized eyes
the imprints of the divine being born even while
we cry.

The Sacred Meal

The Sacred Meal

(Therefore, since we have this ministry as a result of the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged.” 2 Corinthians 4:1)

We no longer hide behind manufactured words
and disguised shadows in the sun.
We no longer panic when the winds blow
cold from the north and try to pierce us through
buttoned coats. But we will continue without pretense.
We are filled from the beginning by methods of
grace
that have opened our hearts to newday like flowers
seeking the sun.

Once the announcement was made we learned how
honesty and repair looked once we opened our eyes.
We took it all to heart, we gathered our children
to celebrate new movements of sanity and purpose.
By this grace we have learned to make space for
dozens who do not believe yet, who think we may be
lost because we have moved outside their rigid restraints.

We invite them to the dance and hope they will join us.
We cancel our subscription to the prescriptions they
thought had healed us. Instead, we break bread with
the bare-faced children who come in with mud on their face.
We share the declaration we heard from further within
than we could imagine.

Open further. See sooner. Speak truer.
Live longer. Dance faster. Love deeper.
Dine at the banquet set with oval tables
in the meadow with seats for everyone.

We put down our visors meant to hide our eyes,
and look across the table at every tribe under heaven
sharing the sacred meal of the beloved.

We Refused to Turn

We Refused to Turn

(“These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.” Daniel 3:23)

You erected an idol to yourself,
you demanded worship at the statue of your
insanity. We could not comply, we could not
bow
like it was some worship song flowing up
from creamy faces to the sun. You
sent the worst after us,
to subdue us,
to confuse us.
But we refused to turn our faces to
the effigy built in your image.

You sent the worst to arrest us,
door to door you knocked with your
covered faces, asking questions we had
no obligation to answer. We politely,
but plainly told you to fuck off.
Your brutish hands clutched the door
and we smelled the acrid tear gas you
had punched into crowds that were countering
your evil directives.

In short, burn us in your furnaces of fury
if you will but the short and full of it is
simple:
We
will
not
bow.

Singe the edges if you will.
We will sing our songs of sanity
to your appropriated helmets of state-sponsored
status. We will move with resolve
to introduce the truth. If you arrest us
we will stand. If you apprehend us, we will
still speak. If you sentence us, we will steadily
place our purpose where it belongs. We will
avert our eyes from your monstrous image and
turn to the invisible God who is truth and truth
and truth.

Our Comfortable Borders

Our Comfortable Borders

(“Nothing is secret but what will be known. Anything that is hidden will be brought into the light.” Luke 8:17)

We assumed we were seeing well,
the light was bright,
and our apostles were speaking truth.
We were aligned and everything seemed righteous.

But the corner we occupied was filled with darkness.
Our eyes had dilated to let in the
limping bit of light that was left. Our prophets
were hidden with us, calming our souls
and caressing our egos. We sung it all
so well
that people outside patted us on the back for
our stellar harmonies.

But one of us woke up.
One of us ventured a few feet away from our
comfortable borders. One of us
happened upon the rays of light that could have
dispelled the dark side we had taken for granted.

Our egos had swollen in the dark, our narration
memorized to keep out the loudest voices of transformation.
We had become accustomed to every patch of
ground we stood upon. We were blind in our
stupor, we were stained by our hiding place.
We were constrained by our habits and lowlights
behind the scenes. We had locked down our faith
and configured it to fit our biases fashionably.

But one spoke from the outside, from the light that
unsighted our darkness at the first look. But soon,
accustomed to the rays and particles that filled space
like the facets of a diamond
we were confronted about our preconceptions.
We were no longer protected. We were no longer
accustomed to arrested proclamations.

We turned away from the darkened corner and
listened to the ones who had brought their
shaded self into the light. We saw the
unambiguous recitations of truth and were
confronted with our own contributions to the
darkened minds we once called sane.

A piece at a time we climbed out of our
cavern and, taking a backward look we were
astonished at what we had assumed. We
wept over our misapprehensions, over our
staggering domination of the narrative that now
seemed to be a pinpoint star fading into the background.

We were changed by the light we had shaded. We had
worn visors that hid the corners of our hearts.
The songs now were of resistance, of revolution,
resolution, and renovation that uprooted our attachment
to a few square feet of surety. We had crowded into
corners and thought the world behaved in predictable ways.

It was grace that created the new perception,
it was vast prairies full of sun that called the invisible
dawn that deleted our defense of a few square feet
of certainty.
It was a noise like bluebirds,
it was motion like rainbows rising from the plains.
And we left that claustrophobia that turned us into
inspectors of the imperfect and embraced the light
that led the advance of a new prophetic voice that
brightened the darkest acts of our religious wars.

The Circle of Mercy

The Circle of Mercy

(“God encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

I dreamed how many times I had fallen,
how often I was afraid of stepping over the edge.
I dreamed of tainted love that caught me napping,
of uncertain words of dread. I sweated sometimes
just remembering the sadness I felt and the sadness I caused.

But I also dreamed how two lifted me up, two who didn’t
mind walking next to me in the pit of my despair.
I put them on my calendar, today and the next,
meaning to thank them for breathing life into this
stumbling soul. I never meant to try to go it alone,
though that could be inferred from the way I hid inside.

I found them later that day, ready to shake their hands
and encircle them the way they had enfolded me.
But their hands were already busy lifting another from
the abyss where they had fallen. It’s not that they were
too busy for me; they invited me to come and

Join the circle of mercy along with them.