Circles of Pain

Circles of Pain

(And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22)

The pain has grabbed me around the neck today,
pressing its way into every thought,
cauterizing open wounds
and blinding every well-meant phrase.
It’s been that way for two days now
and I could not sing and could hardly finish
a walk in the cold February air.

I planned on writing something full of spirit,
full of life and daffodils rising before a hint of
spring.
Instead I record these words and know they have
little meaning to those who can walk through a day
with doubts cast aside like rubbish and last year’s
party ribbons.

There must be some sense to this all,
I used to say.
There must be some purpose that leaves me
more whole by the end of the day.

I planned on wondering about how we all
are just walking each other home,
but I can barely give myself permission to
leave the house.
I planned on igniting some well placed
lightning
to scare the pain away.

Do you remember how we used to sing
with
only a guitar and made-up songs? Do you
remember
how we used to walk on the same hills where
the cows grazed on late afternoons?

There must be some sense to it all,
these memories that take my time away
from knowing anything for certain.
There must be a way to embrace
the new wine the spirit brings and
share the cup like sneaky teenagers again.

I got up from a nap to write this.
I was hoping it would do me some good.
But I pause before each line and want to
lie down again
except that sleep eludes me and
the pain
makes me homesick for the dwellings
of friends
where we gathered in laughter and naivety.
I’d call you again, but it hurts to speak
about the transfixed nature of this circle
of pain.

So, for now, I’ll repaint my boundaries
with hopeful words of remembrance
and how good it felt in those days so many
decades ago.

There may be a space so safe that spirit
draws open the tears and reminds us
we may not have this chance again.

Just in Time

Just in Time

(“And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.” Ephesians 2:17)

It is no disgrace to hear the morning gloires open
to the slowing sun. It is still the grayest of days and,
like sifted sugar, the snow sits atop the foothills.
With our mouths full of wonder we could have
second-guessed every word. There was something
human
about the message that graced our anxious waiting.
From parallel planes we had carried the animosity
of the ages. How would this announcement take us
from our place to the other with the river blocking our paths?
We were gauged by the notice we took that the shorelines
had changed.

We both awoke at dawn with time zones between us;
We heard the song with same ears we had used to
berate the far country we thought we knew.
We had stubbed our toes on the concrete drama
of religious dogma. We had tried all this before with
no one listening. We toed the party line and never
tried to find the common thread that ran from one
life
to another. We were chosen and they were neither
blessed nor corrupted. They were just born that way.
But their very touch, as seldom as it occurred, could
drive us to constant ritual cleansing of our souls.

At odds, the new song kept trying to break through the
tangled catechism we both held on to. I worship this
and you worship that, and we both end up condemning
the practices we called idolatry. We stretched our
definitions to include the final judgement we knew
they deserved.

But at one point of time, in one sphere intervening
and filling everything, we heard the words that we
were afraid to speak. We heard a question that seemed
to answer everything.

We traveled toward each other, following the air waves
that had finally caught our attention. And we arrived
near noon,
just in time to see the marigolds glow.

Everything You Wanted

Everything You Wanted

(“No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Luke 16:13)

Have you gotten everything you wanted;
have you wasted your time wanting more?
Have you stashed it away from prying conquest;
have you labeled it for later use?
Sooner or later the accounts will be settled;
credit will be given to the poorest and debts
cancelled in a single
day.

How many days have you set aside:
how many shiny coins are stored in a tin can
in the dark?
Or did you spend it all on diamond swatches
of tomorrow’s greed?
Did the seeds of your discontent
burst like moss too heavy on your winter roof?

What tastes have you acquired:
what timing for this brief untimely stay?
Can we share coffee or give away new
slices of cake?
Can we agree that we want more than will
every satisfy our perceived needs?
Why don’t we leave our opulent windows
and doors
to move outside where the ground is level and
where the poor man sits all alone?
Why don’t we join the resistance,
pool our resources, and swim against the tide?
Why don’t we give away what we will
never entirely consume? Why don’t we
offer our silence against the selfish voices
of rage?

That Leads You Home

That Leads You Home

(“At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you together.” Zephaniah 3:20a)

 

Slightly lower below the
sunrise hills
there glows a beacon that
leads you home.

It does not screech, it only beams,
it intervenes between hope and
bleak shadows that have
occupied your mind.

Some days the sun shines
but your shoes are not ready for walking,
The next day the fog lays
across the hills hiding their ever green.

There were no frowns, only furrowed
foreheads and unlikely thoughts of what
had turned this dark so soon. Some mornings
beckon with a better tune.

Suddenly our riches were fading, our coins
melting in the danger of the day. Quietly, though,
a new economy was coming, a new exchange,
all for all from unguarded watchmen who found
their pockets full of misting and rainbows.

Overnight someone sent invitations,
late afternoon we all made our plans,
early evening we gathered the adulation
we felt when we knew our clan was meeting
with us for good.

The First Thing I Noticed

The First Thing I Noticed

The first thing I noticed was the vacancy
at the table, the chair you used to sit in,
the door left unlatched, the void where your
voice once filled the air.

You were no longer invited after taking your fall;
your name was forgotten after your honesty took the stage.
You lived putting it all together and leaving your mind
behind.
You could not accept the constant dissonance any longer;
your ears needed the chords to resolve. You had pinned your
hopes on the lyrics you heard earlier in the day.
You trusted promises that were left hanging like
torn sheets in the wind. You looked for the hand
that once carried you through the riptides of
bewilderment. But they had withdrawn to find their
own place in the sun.

You started the song again, this time all alone.
You played all the instruments because everyone had gone home.
You could no longer sing, though, like you had decades before.
You wondered why you even recorded anything anymore.

Doctrine had caught up with you. Creeds had kept you
bound to the chair at the table where only the most exclusive
were invited. You spoke too soon and were deconverted
unnaturally. Your place at the table dissolved even
more once you mentioned the poor. You were resolved
to live unnoticed like a seed underground.

The first thing I noticed was the way you
turned the tables
and lived again in the margins. The first thing
I heard were the words you said unleashed from
the strain you used to bear of living up to the dogma
of yesterday.

War No More

War No More

(“They will pound their swords into plowshares and their spears into blades for trimming vines. Nation will not raise the sword against nation, and they will not learn how to wage war any longer.” Micah 4:3b)

War no more; Hear the chant in beats and plainsong.
War no more; Look upon the faces ravaged by the storm.
War no more; Believe there can come an end to nonsense and plunder.
War no more; Lay down your messages and arrest warrants.
War no more; Pick up the new flowers for Peace Gardens to come.
War no more; Burn your bullets with their casings.
War no more; Smelt your rapid fire rifles into golden.
War no more; Retool your swords and prune the fruit trees
War no more; Bench your aggressive drones on the side of the road.
War no more; Melt your spears into shapes that imitate the sun.
War no more; Leave this scenery of battles behind.
War no more; Fill in the trenches completely to the top.
War no more; Let the doves land upon your helmeted head.
War no more; Watch the lion lay down with the lamb.
War no more; Redraw the boundaries and the locks on the gates.
War no more; Rewrite every song that celebrates bombs bursting anywhere.
War no more: Go to school again.
War no more; Learn the sweet savor of diversity.
War no more; Open the door, swing wide the windows, let the breeze whisper,
War no more; And let it become the refrain of new anthem celebrating
War no more; And sing it standing, kneeling, lying down. Memorize
War no more; And learn every line like a school child sing
War no more; Memorized like a new pledge of a new allegiance to
War no more;
War no more;
War no more.

By the End of the Day

By the End of the Day

(“Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy.” Jonah 2:8)

Fascinated by the worship of dreams we focus on
specters manufactured by our minds. Contemplating what
is in it for us,
we cannot get enough of the thin air surrounding us.
We put crosses and American flags on the same platform,
insisting our every instinct is the tide-turning revolution
just an incantation away. We don’t even need to pray
because we have determined the outcome from the beginning
of the day.

If you could listen closer, quiet the demands of sharp-toothed
politics; if you could leave the masquerade behind that
quotes verses to keep everyone in line; if you could
quit your addiction to strong arm tactics and endure the
withdrawal symptoms, then maybe
you could join the small family of a dozen or so
who prefer a doubt or two over your unholy
attention to certainty.

I was stuck in the narrow hallway where there
was room for only one voice at a time. No place
to hide,
but no place to open my arms to embrace the
voices that were canceled by such closer quarters.
I tried to do what everyone suggested, I tried to
stay in the limits, coloring inside the lines.
But my hands shook and my paint ran;
I fell to my knees before the proclamations that
took their authority for granted. Who knew that
religion was an idol as sure as any leaden god
perched upon a window frame.

My head is finally above the water, at least for today.
Dismantling the careless way I believed every word,
I can find a way less self-assured. I can find the
new Creation by the end of the day.