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.

The Waning Day

The Waning Day

 ^(“He will take away death for all time. The Lord God will dry tears from all faces.” Isaiah 25:8a)

What will we become after we have waited for
the setting of the sun? How shall we meet the long
shadows of the waning day? Time sped up while
we were busy carrying the hours on our backs.
We would rather not walk in the rain.

We took the time in parcels, portions meant to
be divided at a moment’s notice. We wrote the
return address in red and green to be satisfied
it would be seen. We were hedging our bets and
circling zip codes and licking envelopes stamped
with names we thought we remembered.

You must forgive me but I’m trying to capture
as much radiance as I can
before the lights go out and the air turns brief.
We wanted to share the relief that the coming day
was certain to bring.

Grief can make you feel invisible. Grief can
continue long past the due date other have
scribbled for you. Grief is silence in a world
that seems to have nothing to say and says it
from the start of every day.

But there is a love that is stronger than death,
a light brighter than a cloudless noon,
a hand wipes the tears and wounds away.
Greif and hope can exist in a single heart,
learning to cope with loss and future at once.

The door is open, the latch is unlocked,
The moments will come; days will last
from circle to circle and round and down,
the tears will be dried and the songs will

Remind us that every sunset had its day.

Another Color, Another Hue

Another Color, Another Hue

It seems it is time to wander
through the afternoon, looking for love
or something to call mine.
I had settled in for the evening when
the phone buzzed like an area code for
somewhere I had forgotten. I could have taken
things slower if only there were more people
to gather around a central theme.
Morning turned a cold shoulder to me
so I am depending on the afternoon to light
me up like a few friends sipping beers.

The days pass too quietly for me,
the moments full of melancholy that
masquerades as perpetual motion.

It’s true the days get in the way of
lightly wondering where the next smile
will grow. I did not invite this pain;
it shows up voluntarily. Truth is,
I probably could not find an interesting
sentence even surrounded by a handful of
friends.
But I still must fill the afternoon with something.

I turn slowly back to myself when the
loneliness comes like fog hugging the coastal hills.
I could sing you a lifeboat full of courage if
only my voice would not crack like ice, like rain.
Today is dressed up with nowhere to go. It merely
twirls and winds its way until the sun begins to set.
It brings the meandering morning to a close. I will
look for something new, another color,
for coming from so far away.