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.

How the Day Begins

How the Day Begins

(“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.” Galatians 1:6

My chest started out tight today;
underground memories crowded my mind.
Too many crimes congregate and push the
better moments aside.

The glassy sky was reflected in the dew that
was shaded from the sun to start and gone within
an hour. But the lawn was still wet to the touch
and the optics rewarded the future. We might be
able to see the river from here if we climbed a
few feet higher.

I confess I don’t take the time with the invasion
of thoughts that show up in night vision. I saw
you in a dream last night and I could not remember
your brother’s name. But you still held me in mind
and spoke lightly. You helped erase every unkind
infusion I partook in.

As my muscles relaxed, I walked with a slight
limp toward the same course I walk every day.
Unintentionally I rehearsed the silence that comes
following the storm that tried to make me remember
a decade or more of stumbling. I still fear the looks
of everyone I think knows the way my face shook
on days like these. There are warm pools that wash
away the creeping doubts, the increasing debts I owe.

My vision, though, is grace beyond the short-circuited
sight of my reoccurring sadness. It is all supernatural
and still invades my DNA like a steady rain covering
the fields with expectation.

The Moment You Banished

The Moment You Banished

(“They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth, and they turn aside the claims of the oppressed.” Amos 2:7a)

When you turned away to follow the gleam of gold
and the sparkle of silver you left the dust behind
for anyone you called homeless in your prearranged language.
You build statues to your name;
you cast away the foreigner from your front door.
You think you’ve received commission from the gods
and your bank account is enough to make you believe.
You take the whole pie for yourself and sweep the crumbs
under the rug. You would keep the rain from falling on
the poor man’s field and hoard it for you own if you could.
They are impoverished by the way you feed on the
vintages you make sure they cannot afford. You
have turned up the music and hear nothing of their
cries that carry across the canyon you have created.
You don’t answer the phone when it rings for you;
you don’t open the door to the east wind blowing the
songs of the workers from the castaway fields. You
cannot hear their winter dirges for the frozen dreams
you have pierced with your penthouse palisades.

But there is one who hears, there is one who sees
every idol erected to your ego. You will find,
at the end of the day, how empty your idolatry
became
the moment you banished the oppressed from your
mind.

With Room to Breathe

With Room to Breathe

(“For you bear with a man if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, or if he strikes you on the face.” 2 Corinthians 11:20)

They call us the heretics, but we never made demands,
used serpentine words to manipulate you, or shamed you
into a faux repentance. We stayed resistant to the strategies
of those who talk with lengthy panoramas to convince you
they were the elite and the narrow way to God.

While they punch you into submission, making you unworthy
for only fasting a day; while they wave their arms like
backstreet gypsies, they list themselves among the top tier
consummate eras of pickpocket prophets.
They will tell you your fortune for a contribution to
their flag-wrapped  They predict earthquakes, they
promise a place at the top of the hierarchy, they have
occupied the pyramid since they learned how to
manipulate people’s fears.

Meanwhile the vagabond raggamuffins speak slowly,
their soft words barely heard above the boasting using
divinity for personal gain. They slovenly sit at banquets
of overpriced menus. They put on weight while their
authority floats as light as a feather. They boast about
40 day fasts and are ready to sell you a book all about it.

The only boast from the hobos who eat around campfires late,
is they never made any demands, had suffered at the hands of
many super-apostles trying to keep them quiet. But these
scrappy vagrants for Christ find little reason to speak today.
They know the fruit will show up at last, the love that does
not
demand its own way.

Within a matter of days their quiet campfires will burn
ablaze with room to breath and invitations to share the
true stories of the quietly redeemed.

Overtures of Invitation

Overtures of Invitation

(“I have had a change of heart. All my tender compassions are aroused.” Hosea 11:8b)

Have we measured yet how volatile love can be?
Have we discovered mercy behind the messy proclamations?
And yet,
noisy as a storm, we must listen to know the moment’s sound
is hidden within the fiery thunder we shiver under.
Yet we find ourselves favored in the midst of our
own discontent. The heat of your love melts all our
resistance. The light you awaken in us remains long
after we have turned away. If only we would carry
it closer than our hourly burdens of certainty.

We forget, so intimately joined to our previous suppositions,
so scathed by our attempts to escape. Sometimes I just need
to stop walking and discover the passage of time that keeps me
bonded when I feel unequal and unglued. I heard your
passions are stirred toward the worst we have done.
I saw you in the morning and found out loud that you
waited within me and invited me as a beloved apprentice.
We learn to practice what we have seen; we read the
music on the pages and sing the ballads of the secrets
made known that we thought could never be decoded.

We still feel the electricity in our nerves, the anxiety
that buzzes so loudly we miss the quiet overtures
of invitation, the understated pleasure of the divine.
But today we can RSVP to the joy strung up like
helium ballons. We can mark our calendars with
this day that we were reminded the world revolves
around the heart of Christ. We will not mince our
words, but dance like those who just got our
invites in the mail.

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.