Of Feasting and Wine

Of Feasting and Wine

(“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to Me will never be hungry. He who puts his trust in Me will never be thirsty.’” John 6:35)

Nourish my soul again like an apéro in France to enhance
my waiting for the later feast that would fill us until deeply
slumbering.
Brighten my eyes with refreshment like waters from the
mountain spring that set my mind to waking refreshed.
I feel hollowed out, not listless, but unsure of where the
next step should go. I feel ready to meet a dozen questioners
who laugh between bites and sometimes sing when the
meal is over.
I never wanted to take my meals solitary, but avoided
the call to ordered
groups
that met over stir fry and casseroles to revisit their
latest protestations about everything they thought was their
proper use of their locked up Spirit of God.

Their meals made me blush, my face, sometimes red
with hurt and anger held back, wishing I had not joined
their buffet. I found their sustenance wanting,
I found their repasts repeating words that had already found
their targets with arrows sharper that truth. I arrived
late
to avoid as many of their scattered incantations as I could.

If only I could find some, even merely two or three,
who would share a meal in joyful reverence, in laughter
that is
invitational,
in stories told about stones overturned while preparing
their flower gardens.
We knew their roses were the most fragrant in town.

Even the rain outside my window cannot muffle
the water being poured out over our wounds. Even the
clouds could not cover the waiting in our hearts for your
eternal food. I can taste it on my tongue, this new dish
served that never runs out. I can feel it running down my
throat, this new wine that revives the weariness that weighed
heavy in the air.

Full, complete, revived and ready to meet the
path I will walk today. The new energy caught up with
me and pointed me to the next banquet of joy.
I’ll show up early and hopefully hear another
traveler’s tale
of feasting and wine.

Unexplained Lunches

Unexplained Lunches

(“So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” John 4:26)

We wondered and pondered our way around the fields;
nothing escaped our pierced view. Cannily we knew that
just a few moments ago there were unexplained lunches
on the lawn.
We walked the aisles between children and easily
saw the sun in their eyes, never going down too early.
We were unprepared to serve the crowds sitting on the lawn.
Voluntarily we moved among them,
we had read the books before, memorized the scripts
and repeated them like expanding ideas etched on the sand.

Some were meager, some were scarce, some were simply
the median expression of daily hunger. But all showed up
to hear something like an invitation to the biggest dayclub
ever known. We sat like sundials measuring the time across
eventual horizons. We recognized our names in the
phasing of everything we remembered and some of what
we should have forgotten.
We thought of antique monuments erected while we
waited for the closing prayer. We wrote poetry in the mud.

Every basket was filled; every mouth was smiling.
We noticed the atmosphere had changed and so
midair
we promised we would gather without waste;
we would serve without fainting and would remember the
stories that fully adorned the day.

Concrete Creations

Concrete Creations

(“Even before time began God planned for Christ Jesus to show kindness to us.” 2 Timothy 1:9a)

I woke up with nothing to do and stayed that way
till far after noon. I sip my coffee; I drink loads of water because
my physicians are making sure I do. So, religiously I put ice in a glass,
pour the water and drink four or five glasses a day. If you read this would
you be kind enough to attest to this with my favorite practitioners?

It is not entirely true that I have nothing to do,
my fingers are tapping out these words, aren’t they?
But I forced myself to sit here today although there seems to be
little of the artisan words I desire to punch out of my brain.
And perhaps grace covers that. Perhaps grace fills the starved
and closed quarters in my mind.

I’ve written about these things for 25 years now and I seem to
have less to say the farther I go along. I had it all down pat,
I knew how to write a riddle or parable. I knew how to turn
the ending in such away that you wanted to stay all day, or
sometimes
you wanted to simply run away.

But I never wrote wanting you to be bored, or to scratch
your head
wondering why this word was glued to that one.
Like the disciples locked up in a room after the resurrection,
I have become a hermit, talking to no one for hours at a time.
I confess my words sound hollow because they come from a hollow
mind. I once
knew what I believed,
and now I am not sure. The pendulum has not swung for me.
Instead I find myself in the middle where it has come to rest with
no movement at all. I wait for the breeze to shift. I pray for breath
I can hear. I wait for the Spirit to be bestowed even though I have
no point of reference to know full I can become.

Truth? I feel empty. Other truth? I feel full. Have I been on a diet
that of so much fast food that I slowly make my way to what would
otherwise, have been inevitable. I must fast a meal or two to open this
place meant to be filled renewed. I must open wide the doors for the grace
to flow through. I must not puzzle over nothing to do; perhaps that is the
best way to receive. Yes, I will breathe. And breathe. And welcome the
grace of the Spirit to fill me complete. I will tell you what these moments
create once they pull me into the reworking of the words I use for art,
even when I am listless.

So I hope to become full of concrete creations that paint sacred
landscapes where holy places can be found.  

Technically the Timing

Technically the Timing

(‘Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping.” Job 12:5)

The timing could not have been more perfect,
technically it should never have happened.
But you find him near the cliff’s precipice and could not
refrain from words that pushed him over the edge.
You had no taste for his tears and so your imagination
ran wild
finding tenured reasons for his downfall.
You thought you could burst the final thought bubble
of peace
he held on to.

You should have known the signs that pointed toward
an uneasy reckoning for careless words without ears.
You forgot the destination he was heading for,
forgot the fate that pointed away from your unsanitized claims.
You tucked it all away like yesterday’s insanity and
quietly went home to your candlelight suppers.
It was too easy for you to ignore the pain so apparent,
the grief so transparent. You purchased your tickets to
calloused hearts and hands.

You only had one thing to do; you had no excuse for
your ignorant betrayal on the sands of indifference.
He hoped to hear hope like a distant waterfall but
all he knew were your uncorked opinions. You poured
out the canister of iced indifference. Your cold
decisions froze him in place while you left him
aching for relief like the rising of a midsummer sun.

You could not have timed it better,
he slid on the icy judgments you left and,
once he fell you could tell how right you had been
all along. You were certain he was guilty of every
heretical handheld encasement. Otherwise, he would not
be so bitter when you ignored him purposely while you
tour the country in your cadillacs of champagne.

A New Place to Listen

A New Place to Listen

(“Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy when the elders laid their hands on you.” 1 Timothy 4:14)

I heard you crying like a child who cannot wake up.
We cradle them until the brightness returns.
We wait for the sun and forget the rain,
we talk until 2 in the morning, we drink coffee
until the same.

Our tears were distilled and run through the mill.
Our weariness overtook every plan we had made.
Could I tell you one more time how it means so
much to me
to have you fan into flame what sometimes disappears
beyond my fenced imagination? I fear sometimes
that insulation has hindered my brain and I’ve forgotten
the exact, the point, the meaning of it all. I want to give
it all away
again.

When we reach so distantly, insisting there must be
a way to discover something new, we play some jazz
and memorize the patterns that improvised over our heads.

I took a bottle of wine to my friend who had cried
for days. He could not put his finger on it, and I knew
less than he,
so we poured our glasses and reminisced on better times.
We recognized in each other’s eyes the questions that had
hemmed us in like concrete. He told me he never imagined
he would turn solo after so long. I was silent, I knew what
he meant.

We once understood the steps in the dance that brought
the delight of heavenly joy. We were players, we were
instrumentalists, we were singers some of the time.
But now we couldn’t find a venue to play. We hummed
a few tunes while we finished our wine and decided to find
a new place to listen to the music we missed and find
one or two who would learn them through like children.
We were ready to be useful again.

Sit With Me Awkwardly

Sit With Me Awkwardly

(“To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Job 6:14)

Your lectures were limitless as you gazed at my pain.
You consulted your books and diagnosed my improbable suffering.
You discussed it amongst yourselves and came to conclusions
no one could understand.
You never sat in my chair but just stood on the porch
launching your next catapult of guilt my way.
Did you ignore my tears
or just think them unmannered as hell?
Did you assume
I forgot heaven’s kiss and turned away far
longer that allowed? Or did you argue with your friends
assuming I had overstayed my grief? You could have spent
more time saying nothing and
I would have sat with you all day.

Who taught you about misery? Whose prayers did you
assume should have healed me? What cures did you offer
before listening to my list of hundreds I have tried?
What courses did you prescribe for me that you left
untested? Did you taste the bitter medicine yourself?
Did you ever cry for companionship while being schooled
like children?

Turn on some music to soothe this ache of mine.
Make it instrumental, make it maximum. Make it
wordless so the notes themselves fill in the spaces
between us. Or just hum a tune,
I don’t have to name it or recognize it.

Or just
sit silent
(awkward, isn’t it?) Just sit silent and let our
breathing synchronize to prove we are still living.

Can you find your way to bear my pain, to shoulder a
handful of the granite that weighs me down? I fear the
absence of God, but your presence and your words only
push God farther away. Will you learn the agony that
burns my brain and then silently be the Christ I need?
Sit with me awkwardly and let us never question the
power of flesh and blood mortality.

To Be Seen in Public

 

To Be Seen in Public

(“May the Master of Peace himself give you the gift of getting along with each other at all times, in all ways. May the Master be truly among you!” 2 Thessalonians 3:16)

 

Veils of asbestos keep us apart in the way that words
remain unheard. All we remember is the last conflict and
how we had been proven right. The judges consulted briefly
and crowned us correct. We stopped talking after that; after
one win
we did not want the chance that we might miss the boat.
So beside the cry of the doves cooing, I hear no more arguments
from you.

It is an uneasy peace where no one talks and everyone thinks
there is nothing wrong. I doubt the Prince of peace ever imagined
we would hang a blanket between us to unsolve any future conflict.
There was a time when we walked together through a torrent of rain
and we shared the one umbrella we had. We were still soaked, but
only strategically.

But we forgot the words somewhere along the way. We left and
went our own path after the rain. We ran into each other downtown,
just a block from a mega million-dollar church. We greeted each other,
the obligatory hug, and shared updates since the storm. Then
we walked away again.

I heard you had lost your beloved, the one of your dreams, the one who
clung to you in every challenge of conscience. You were both in
a scrappy sort of love. There was no perfect picture way to describe it.
But love had battled hard and it hit you deep and sharp when she
lost the last battle of life.

I reached through the blanket that separated us, I tried to find your heart.
I spoke words of sorrow, wrote odes of remembrance, but there
was no sound from your side, no response to the offer of consolation.
It is an uneasy peace the relies on silence. It begs the questions
we never asked.

I am still here, and you are still there. Who knows how much
longer we have. Let us walk to the coffee shop around 2,
let ourselves be seen in public, and recount the ways we had
walked together so often we knew the route by heart. And
if the silence is because of me, I will beg your forgiveness. And
If it is due to you, all I offer are my hands outstretched to
the same friend I knew those many years ago. Our
lattes were hot, so we took them outside and walked along
the river. And there, the blanket was blown away by a
swift breeze that caught us by surprise.