Until I Reached Home

Until I Reached Home

(“Also the Spirit helps us because we are weak. We do not know how we should talk to God. But the Spirit himself talks to God for us, while we cry and cannot say any words.” Romans 8:26)

I keep my lips ready to voice the mysteries I
cannot
understand.
And so it looks like I am merely whistling as the
world turns
around.
Tears peek out underneath my eyes,
my diaphragm contracts like a cat on the roof.
Words are swallowed up before they ever
meet
the air.
With my mouth wide open I find I have
nothing
to say.
I cannot define the places or the pieces that
I always thought would be easy when the
tragedy
hit.
But words escaped me and God must have been
exasperated with my limited vocabulary. I had
very little left to
express
these
canned prayers I had heard from others so often.

There was a moan that started within me,
from my gut to my throat. It pushed all the
meager
words
out of the way as it escaped through my mouth.
There were tears that carried the entire alphabet
down
to
the bottom of my shirt. There were no more
poses,
no
bowing or standing with arms upraised. In fact,
I was walking when the spirit took
my feeble attempts and presented them to
God,
a bouquet of longing and song of redemption.
I uttered no words but was satisfied until I
reached
home.

Irrigation

Irrigation

(“So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me.” Romans 7:21)

Something has clogged the pipes;
the clear water pours out cloudy.
Every moment we desire purity another
argument is made to wrap ourselves up
into the longer way home.
I am the rope in this infernal
tug-of-war.
I could send more money if I drank
less whiskey.
Who can cut the ties to the shell of myself
that disturbs my best intentions like a shovel
of greasy dirt.

I could play all day if these shadows
would allow. I could have that conversation
we have been hinting at for years.
But something sways everything I try to say it.
I could repeat the melodies I once memorized
and sing them like hope on the horizon.
But my memory is faulty and something
tells me I’d start a fire if I pointed out the
muscled desires that wrestle me so far from home.

To tell you the truth I am afraid of people
and the time it takes to discern what harm
they might impose if we got closer than now.
Do I look fine and does my face disguise the
battle inside? Have I fooled you as well as I
have fooled myself? Or can we both admit
the gravitational pull that sucks us below the
waves of grace?

But the current that threatens to tear me away
from myself
is weaker than fresh-water eddies that
carry me deeper into the heart of it all.
I’ve been cut off by parentheses, first and
beyond. But, opened by two swipes of a pen,
I can read again the paragraphs highlighted in
blue and green. I’ll read them again to
remind myself that mercy is almost always found
just around the corner and just inside our foolish
assumptions of death. The waters bring life
and irrigate my waiting mind.

Expand the Joy

Expand the Joy

(“Such people are too stupid to know what they are doing. They close their eyes and their minds to the truth.” Isaiah 44:18)

Tell it to me truthfully; let your eyes tell the story
from end to end. Do not avert them, do not close them.
Keep them open so the light can fill you with truth. I
know you haven’t slept well in days. What is it that
keeps you up, that spins your mind so violently, that
makes slumber an impossible dream?

When did it start, this disassociation from the light?
How soon can you return, can you come back,
can you discern the poems written to bypass the
guards on duty in front of you brain?

You sectioned it all off like voting districts the
shape of dragons. The confusion threw you off your game.
When did you get the idea to fashion an idol out of
a narcissist that stole all the gold? How did it finally
happen, these new accolades you gave, this
brunt of the joke?

Long before when we knew our pathway so straight,
we could take in the full light of day and make a party
of it. But now the darkness has bought you for a song
and a dime and will not refund a millisecond this time.
Will you feed your idol with promised votes for every
scheme it deceives you with? Will you dip your toe in
the water on the shore that was created to wash your
eyes clean again? Your idol did not even conceive stars or
the planets and could not deliver the healing it promised.

Come where the sunshine bleaches the dark pattern baldness
that tied your worship up in with rubber-band hands.
Let the light burst your bubble, the echo chamber that
changed your faith into futility. Turn panoramic,
and get the bigger picture that idols can never fill.
It’s easy to wrap our worship around something that
hands out promises like Christmas candy. But look
in your hands. Are they sticky with sugar, or are they
calloused from trying to get back over the fence?

You’re welcome here, the invitation still stands.
We can walk the meadow in the sun and then
walk the urban sidewalk where the homeless
gather hoping for someone to see them, to see
them clearly, to sit with them nearly an hour.
That’s what changed my eyes, and that’s how
I expanded the joy I had sought so long.

Raising My Hand

Raising My Hand

(“God’s grace is multiplied even more for many people with the gift—of the one person Jesus Christ—that comes through grace.” Romans 5:15b)

I used to be the first to raise my hand
and ask leading questions in search of agreement.
I used to jump through the opening sliver of windows
to explore the meanings I had already defined.
I could take them like mountains on the skyline,
I could refine them like new words unsigned.

I never contemplated long, it all was a bore;
but I filled my head with information and could tell you
what all the thinking was for.
I could take the voices, I could sing the songs
much longer than the epochs would allow.
I could see the heart of the matter inside the
walls that held every cautious belief safely inside.

I kept it up for far too long. I was certain I would
coax the applause of the redeemed by my well-reasoned
monologues and time. But the sand moved
quickly
beneath my feet and the heat of a thousand suns
pushed me down until the launch party I had
dreamed about burned on the sinking ground.

I heard silence and it was frightening.
I had no more questions to ask.
I had no defense. Everything felt recent,
every turn of the road another foolish move
meant to find the meaning of my vanishing words.
There was one breath I could not escape,
one song, one tune, one lyric of grace.
So I walked softly again and tried to apprehend
the way the sand felt between my toes and the
sun toasted my shoulders.  

Parroted

Parroted

(“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Matthew 15:8)

Were your so worried about repercussions that you
turned down the plea of the ragged sojourner?
Did you insist on teaching her the holy lyrics that
you parroted on weekends to thin air?
Did you ask them how they voted to be certain
you had vetted their appropriate costumery?
You might stay with them while the daylight lingered,
but where are you when the shuddering night begins?

Did you inquire about their language, the chief way
you measured their worth? What were the weights you
manufactured to put around their necks again?
How many demands have you made of their antiquities,
how many reprimands for their wrinkled skin?
Do you expect everyone to hear the way your
doorbell announces the days, the hours, the power
that ignores the passion at your door that is stronger
than a ghost?

You wear a gun on your hip when you walk into worship.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
You hold meetings to discuss the upkeep of a building used
only a few hours a week.
The poor shall be filled.
You still smolder over stakes you have claimed that
left others in the lurch.
The peacemakers will be called the children of God.

You want a nation more than you love the church.
You want pats on the back for handing out tracts to those
who can barely walk.
You’ve drawn the line so wide that
it’s become a moat. And the drawbridge is never
lowered
for the occupants left on the outskirts of your hegemony.
You use your authority and excuses to reduce your own liability.

You’ll be shocked at the ones you held at arm’s length who
find God’s embrace before you finish public piety and amens.

Did You Pick Him Out

Did You Pick Him Out

(“When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.” Matthew 14:14)

Did you pick him out of the crowd,
the lonely one barely drudging through his grief?
Did you stay just a moment longer to
share his tears as your own?
He turned away,
embarrassed at his shame.
But like daylight you came
and sought him out anyway.

His years were longer than he could count,
his afternoons yawning into early dusk.
He was invisible to those who knew him longest,
silent to those who had heard him cry.
They had memorized his ache,
had touched every blemish on his face and felt
they knew all there was to know and so
left him alone.

He blended into the throng, didn’t he?
He had walked the curving shoreline so long
that his feet throbbed the same as his face and
he imagined you might see him anyway.

Did the crowd call you? Did they dig into
your recent loss? Did your heart capture their signal
like a radio after dark?
Did their eyes call you from your solitary heartache
into their own? You saw them all but you also
saw
him
who wondered if things would always remain the same.

Healing the sick,
feeding the hungry
has always been your way, hasn’t it?
Seeing the one,
touching the single
among the throng you healed them all.

Overgrowth of Grace

Overgrowth of Grace

(“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again. In his joy, he goes away and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44)

There is more underfoot than simply the understanding of
sand and soil. Someone sowed the gems into the ground and
another one found them. Hidden became probable and
discard became possible on a sluggish walk back home.

He did not own much and owed more than he gained.
His accounts were in arrears even though he had watched
them like a hawk after a field mouse. He never imagined
the daylight would lead him to see what someone else had forgotten.

It had not occurred to him that luck had a hand to play.
It always had been a day to day of just scraping by.
It was not a lack of effort that caused him to walk that day.
It was just another moment when the thoughts were imprisoned
in his head.

He was never cloud-high, his feet always reached the ground.
His mind was one day dark and one day fire, and mostly full
of memories he wished would return. He endured the hoary
downturn that made up epithets that never rhymed.

But this day he stubbed his toe. This day the overflow
made him stop short and look. The sun was refracted
through the late mist and just as he stopped walking he
bent over to see the treasure below. Who had hidden this
there?

He rooted through his pockets; he examined all his
balance sheets and decided to buy the land that had
bruised his toe. The well-enclosed walls of his soul
opened like the first morning of the week.

No one had predicted this and no plans were made,
but happenstance surrounded his sodden walk and, like
a jackrabbit from a coyote, shot him from the old
illusions to his present overgrowth of grace.