That Calls You Beloved

That Calls You Beloved

(“Look, my God will help me. My Lord will support me.” Psalm 54:4)

I’ve seen what the external voices have done to you
building a brick red barrier around your heart. I’ve seen
the locked door that sealed up the most human of your hopes.
I’ve seen how the music has changed, how it challenges your
perception of time. If only the days would end sooner;
if only the quiet would be sweeter;
if only the love captured deep inside you would win the day.

I’ve heard the same voices; you know I have. They still
show up in my dreams, don’t they? And yet you live with them
like words to your face to channel away any joy you had
accumulated over months of collecting the smallest moments
like semi-precious stones discovered along the riverbank.
You hid them away and hoped they would not be found.
You wrote about them, journaling the discoveries that
helped your chest relax, that steadied your breathing,
that allowed the tears to flow without embarrassment.
You hid your writing too; fearful it would be discovered
and cycles start all over again.

I know how you want to be alone to heal,
I know how loneliness can pierce your head like thunder
invading the middle of the night.
I know how you deserve love, I know how you wish
to be held, and pampered, and treated with everything that
love means.

Your trust is like a frayed rope. You feel ashamed that you
feel only half human, when you would rather live a heart
wide open to the ones who see you truly.

Instead, you are not allowed to speak your mind or it
will disintegrate into screaming. You wish you could
stand outside and let out all that has been stored within so long.

I see you. I love you. I want to hold you. I want to tell you
the truth that lies deep within you. I want to whisper you are worthy,
I want to sing that you are more precious than anything I could find.
I want to kiss away the tears when they come and let them drop from
your eyes to my fingertips.

I want to be your new voice that you hear until you hear your
own voice again. I want to tell you, even as I write this, that you
are a diamond for me, as rare a jewel I could ever find.

I want you to know that, besides me, God is especially
fond of you. Fond like a mother’s cuddle, fond like a father’s
laughing eyes. Fond like a light that guides you to the
end of the trail, hand in hand.

Write to me and send it like a letter to the sky.
Write everything you cannot say and find every word
that sticks in your throat. I’ll read every line of you,
I’d drink a case of you, I’d memorize it and repeat
it back to you.

So, I share this very quietly, my words mere sighs
beneath the noise of apprehension. I will never compromise
what I say to you, your worth, your esteem, your value
in my world.
In this wide world.
Hear the voice that calls you beloved in each breath
you take.

Their Repeated Words

Their Repeated Words

(“So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!” James 3:5)

I should have noticed it before but the people I know
who have the most impassioned and bombastic prayers selcom
sought me out for coffee or lunch.
I always wondered at the lengthy prayers of the silky voiced
elder who never said much in the end.
It only took a few words to
sting me in the heart. It only took the smallest spark
to burn what was left of my dignity.

It goes without saying, though, that I have dropped words
like bombs
unaware myself. Did I really tell that poor mother to
try to give a little bit more than she had? Did I really tell
that single father that families are a mom, a dad, and kids?
And all I knew to do was apologize for something that hit him
right between the eyes. My words were lobbed thoughtlessly
and were received as heavenly proclamations.

I’ve learned that silence is the best choice when struggling
with what to say. I’ve recruited the unspoken to speak for me.
And yet, letter by letter, I compose these words on the page and
wonder
whether I should restrain my forays into streams of consciousness.

More than once people laid their hands on my head and tried to
drive away spirits and demons that caused my depression. But
no one imagined the harm of constantly leaving the impression
that I should just get over myself and submit to their graduation
of spirituality. They had answers for everything and nothing changed.
They had words to describe every eventuality but no time to
spend in exploring the world right outside their doors.
Our bubbles, our echo chambers, brought more shame than
healing. Our words were swifter than wasps and landed
with their stingers between our eyes. No one modified their
language. They only excused it as an attempt to make me
feel better.

I’ve sprinted far away from the run-on sentences that tried
to enforce voices that could not hear the damage their repeated
words had done.

To Share Your Wounds

To Share Your Wounds

(“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22)

I’m surprised at how late I’ve shown up to some
of the appointments I’ve had for days. I should have
been there earlier; I should have greeted you distinctly.
It had been on my calendar; I transferred it from the same
date last year. How did I almost miss it this time;
how did it nearly escape my notice?

Some days my thoughts are spattered through a sieve,
they are scattered like dust in a storm. I think I have been
protecting the damaged corners; I think I am hiding
where words cannot find me.

I used to visit the hidden hearts who carried more pain
than I knew. I used to capture everyone I knew by name
and carry them to brighter fields in the sun.

These days I sit and listen; I do not have much to say.
Sometimes the words flow right past me and I turn to
see them fly away. I could not catch them with the
whirling motors of my mind.

But I’ll give you the few lucid moments I have saved.
I’ll make room for you within the dusty remains of the day.
I’ll buy you a beer and turn my ear to hear the words you
long for someone to remember. I know you’ve told the tale
a dozen times or more
and that merely says the story is not yet complete. But
will it ever be?

I have so many unfinished rhymes, so many leftover notes
for songs I never wrote. But we can dig together, can’t we,
to the bottom of the proverbs that have sunk beneath our
unknown perceptions of time. Today I will find a way,
if a way is presented to me,
to share your wounds if you’ll share mine, and we may laugh
before our time is over.

Afternoons Slip By

Afternoons Slip By

(“Lord, make me aware of my end and the number of my days so that I will know how short-lived I am.” Psalm 39:4)

I looked behind me to see how crooked
the line had become. I think I waited for
perfection
to creep up on me.
I may have let the days pass too innocently,
and the words I spoke so incoherently
as I tried to explain the reason I would not
walk in the rain.
I don’t regret a single conversation I had that
led to no conclusions at all. I would have more if
I could find someone to talk to.
We incubated words and hoped they would hatch
into new ideas about how to spend the day.

I might open my eyes underwater, I might
reach for the sky and capture a cloud. But I wish
I had called you more often, that I had made a list
of all the silly jokes we would tell over the years.
I might try the phone number I’ve known since childhood
but I’m convinced that number has grown extinct.

Afternoons alone slip by so slowly while
the years I remember zoom by like supersonic spies.
Time draws lines like fences broken by the rain.
I bring to mind underfunded misfortune and laugh
under my breath
at the thought of it all.

Will you meet me for a beer before it becomes so
late that I’ve forgotten your name?

Angels Can Appear

Angels Can Appear

(“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2)

Something seared my heart so severely it had
shut down. It caused me to never think twice about
closing the door. I’ve stopped the bleeding but
the pain remains. My heart is cramped and crammed with
uneasy expectations of strangers sojourning with me.

I listen to the same songs and watch the same channels on TV.
I’m enclosed in the circles of my routines. To ask me to share that
with anyone is to ask me uncomfortably. It’s hard to believe
that I once housed teenagers and grandmas with open arms.

I never cared about the consequences so long ago,
I rarely worried it would intrude upon my blessed habits
or peer inside my measured habitual humanity. I was too
spiritual for all of that.

I have always been broken but only shared it with a chosen few.
I have spoken of grace like it was pure medicine
and wondered about how many angels watched while I
unlocked the doors.

This time it’s harder. I thought I would receive a warm
commendation for taking the difficult road to peace.
I’ve locked my doors from the inside; I’ve canceled
my reservations in the hope that I could continue on my own.

I reserve the right to see angels show up like
the rising sun after the rain. I would watch for wings upon
the backs of those I welcomed to my home. My arid soul
longed for an apologetic that made the houseguest become
a messenger from forever and more.

Though I had grown used to my solitude I grudgingly agreed
to an attitude that disturbed my silence behind the closed windows
that suited me fine. I’ll roll the dice this time
once again
and consider the notion that angels can appear like
someone needing a home.

Laughed at the Dream

Laughed at the Dream

(“You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers.” Psalm 30:11 [The Message])

I couldn’t stand at the back; they had put me in charge
so I waited until all the singing was done to begin the
morning lecture. But I was muddled, I was muggy, I was
unprepared, I was disarrayed. I wished I had stayed home
to protect my unsteady hands.

It was five minutes before twelve and my time was almost
gone. I had not even begun. I wasted eons wrestling with
technology I had carefully tested twice and more. The microphone
went silent, the images swarmed the screen. The words would
not come. The room had been full, but some stood and
began to leave. Long-term friends were sitting in the
front row and they began to follow the exiting few.
But she, the wife, urged him to stay and I finished my
time merely a minute late. I do not remember what I said and
few of the faces that left me unrecognized.

But old friends I hadn’t seen in decades waited for me
in the lobby just to shake my hand. Most others were out
the door quickly to their appointed reservations for brunch.

I went home winded. I was surprised at my disabilities that day.
But I put on music by Dylan, then listened to some Cohen. I wished
I had more Stevie Ray Vaughn to play. But as the day counted down
to evening the drapes on my heart were hopefully opened.

It was only a dream, I said. It was nothing new. I did a quick
review and realized I was probably right. The smile I had misplaced
found my feet moving like raindrops on the sidewalk.

So, I stepped outside into the fading day and laughed
at the dream
that previously would have made me cry.

The Footsteps were Relentless

The Footsteps were Relentless

(“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6)

He awoke to the sounds of the city just beginning
and blinked the night from out of his eyes.
His sons had already left for the day and this
wife kissed him goodbye moments before his eyes were opened.

He felt like orbits had spun around him unchanging for
year after year. There was love enough for everyone in
his small house and family yet he felt unsettled, and
he was embarrassed to say, deeply lonely.

He knew the incongruity that left him well tanned on the outside,
and shuddering sad within. Face to face he had
little to say though he knew his words carried more meaning
than ages ago.

He barely remembered what it was like to shop for gifts
until the perfect one jumped off the shelf and came prewrapped.
He wished he could shop anonymously, but now he lived in
a rural village and no one was new. He felt guilty about that
too.
Why would anyone avoid the friendly glances of neighbors
and friends. He thought he had run out of things to say
and the rest got caught in his throat. He had been captured
by his words so often that he rationed them like rain.

He had to admit, in his quiet moments, that though he
was often misunderstood,
he also was asked for wisdom he was not sure he had.

He could not argue with mercy; he could not debate with goodness.
The tiniest footsteps crept up on him over time,
like a grandchild wanting to surprise Papa with their hands
over his eyes.
He could not deny the eternal home he had found;
he could not explain the melancholy that captured him
mid-sentence when he only wished he could sing better.

He got out of bed and, walking, listened for the footsteps
chasing him down, the footsteps he recognizes everywhere.
His mind clattered with unease and built fences to keep
his precious wounds out of sight. But the footsteps were
relentless, and he stopped to try half a conversation
in the late morning sun.