Tears and Claims

Tears and Claims

(“Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: ‘What kind of backing do you think you have against me?’” Isaiah 36:4b [The Message])

On one side of the road they pass me by in cap and gown,
dissertations glowing on well-laid classic or wove;
on the other side they barely notice me,
stuck in the corner of the switchback as I am.

No one taunts me anymore, (except my own thoughts,
oh that they would stop and let me breathe),
no one taunts me anymore, nor ignores. I am
simply the driftwood that landed on the side of the road
days after the flood receded to go back home.

I crutch in the solitude of my own making,
though I did not choose this isolation;
and limp alone (I walk upright and straight in the
presence of life’s companions)
uncertain the destination.

I heard a 90 year old dying, oh so slowly,
ask for her mother so breathlessly
you might believe she mother was just in the kitchen
bringing cookies and afternoon tea.

I am not alone in my loneliness,
travelers left and right watch the daily traffic,
the world passing us by on both sides of the road.

How can the wife of a husband like me
understand my tears and claims of ennui?
Is she not enough, she must think, and more so
she is; enough and more.

And Lord, oh Lord, how can the path wind in sorrow
with the Joy of the Universe my Companion? How, then,
my faith, my heart, my goals burnt like a mildewed map,
will I find the laughter along the journey again?

Of Pain and Suffering

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” Philippians 1:29

Even though I have suffered with a chronic headache since November 2008, now over two and a half years, I feel like I am whining if I call my experience “suffering”. It seems especially complaining when I compare it to the suffering that early Christians when through; the kind of suffering Paul refers to when he tells the Philippians that they were granted “to suffer for Christ”.

Life on Purpose

“So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning. You don’t want him showing up unannounced, with you asleep on the job.” Mark 13:35, 36 (The Message)

I wonder if too many Christians live for Christ by counting the number of things they no longer do. We are content to share a testimony that enumerates all of our previous bad habits that we no longer practice. So, for us, Christ has become the ultimate personal life-coach, taking us from drinking to sobriety, cussing to correct language, promiscuity to restraint and partying to piety.

Unfinished Conversations

Unfinished Conversations

Perhaps we can walk to the river and
finish our conversation there.
I would speak with you, sitting next to you,
on a craggy overlook with the sun behind us,
the river ambling past us,
and the fog nearly lifted above our heads.

Perhaps we can put a period to end
this unfinished paragraph without
rewriting the letter over again.

Walk with me to the river,
we will find the shade that makes the afternoon
nearly as contented as morning.

I will hope, (I have no indication for my hope’s veracity), but
I still hope the water past us, different as it is from the river
we knew a year before,
might also carry our words full distance to the
ocean where all things mingle without competition.

Perhaps we can sit by the riverbank
like we did only once before
and finish the sentence we started,
the ellipsis that translated everything without saying,
so your implications only left me wondering what lingered
between the dots.

Walk with me to the river,
there is more below the surface tension,
the quiet ripples that reflect the winks of the sun,
there is life beneath the mirror stream
beyond sight of our myopic vision.

I will slow my listen, and hope (still, evidence unseen)
the same life lies beneath the questions you left
the last time I thought I took the bait.
This time I’ll ask the questions out loud that
only bubbled below my fear, and trust, not you,
nor me

But the river to take the best sentences we have
out to sea and beyond reclamation.

Wake me Mid-dream

Wake me Mid-dream

Wake me up mid-dream from the slowly building magma,
swim with me midstream or float or wade, just be the company
I keep because I’m either weary or lazy and it’s so late in time
I cannot tell.

Pull me out of quicksand sideways until I realize someone actually
has a hold on me. I have more to see than the dark-lit haze
of needful naps along the way. Take me down the highway
full of surprises before the road rises near midnight
and sets me down at listless.

Shake me up to just to remind me You are there.
Skim across the opaque pond, a rock skip into my pining.
Become the comrade I say when the late side of the day
tells all others to stay away.

Take a whiff of me like a rose, pull me out of the doldrums,
and remind me of the rhythms that play in the backyard
where the bees fly flower to flower, the pill bugs crawl into themselves,
and the mocking birds try to sound just like my dog.

There was nothing sad except I made it so, when friends were
best during day, and dreams were what we should play better the next.
Homemade kites out of newspaper pages and the man down the block
with a garage-full of railroads chugging in HO gauge.

Let my nap refresh me again, not the place I wish I was every moment
I am doing something else. Let me walk with a friend, smile leading the way,
pain the simple and occasional salute to frowns once accommodated,
now nearly outdated. Let me wake
to awaken alive like the living child who made
boats out of sticks to float down the gutter
after the summer’s first shower.

Change your Clothes

Change Your Clothes

(“So get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to; the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires.” Ephesians 4:22)

I am told that our sense of smell is the strongest of our five senses, and that it is the one most associated with memory. A few years ago I was sitting in a coffee shop, and a couple of ladies who were perhaps in their early 60s were sitting behind me. Within moments their perfume wafted into my booth and I was instantly transported to a memory of my grandmother. I am not sure if it is a law written in stone, but I think every woman over 60 wears the same perfume.

Any Room Large

Any Room Large
(“Jesus would not let anyone carry things through the temple.” Mark 11:16)

Take a shortcut through the prayer meeting,
carry your briefcase to Bible Study,
update your status, answer the next text,
all while footing past the quiet few listening
for their answers.

Why try to bash your business through the front doors of the temple?
Ignore some more the careful view that some have painted to let their
hearts soar beyond the work-day.
Why keep your phone on? Why update at all when Mighty Attention
draws you tirelessly to His rest.

Burn your smart phones on the next idol pile,
stop your talk of tomorrow’s deal, leave the invoices you carry
behind.
We are not fractions; the Universal Passion will not live
in any room large enough to house second loves and third.

Turn them off the next whisper you hear,
there is desperation that demands meditation
uninterrupted by the need to display your centrality;
you cannot be unconnected for a moment.

Disconnect the next instant quietness calls,
put down the deal to seal; do not trample
buoyancy with the weight of your importance.
You mean more to the Speaker Eternal than
the next caller to place the next order.

Take the long road next time,
stop hurrying through the House of Prayer,
take the scenic route tomorrow,
no more scurrying unaware

Of the worshipers seek the hope of
a single word undistracted by my parade
of self-importance.

Take the Day like

Take the Day like

Take my day like I wake it, and transform it beyond my reach;
Visit my moment like the potent visions I fear, and flame it bright and clear;
Wrap my itches, the wishes for easier conversations, with hugs and
unembarrassed kisses.
Explain my anxieties, the varieties raised when I was far too young
to understand their impact on society;
And while you’re at it, explain my piety, as well.

Take my sleep like I steep it, and rewarm it like hunter’s stew;
Visit my trances like the last week’s groceries, and serve them like new cuisine;
Dress my scratches, the patches to bandage my owies, with hugs and
unembarrassed kisses.
Explain my procrastination, the cadence that comes just behind the beat
and right before the song is finally over;
And while you’re at it, explain my lack of patience too.

Will we walk until it’s over? Will we travel like hobos until it’s finished?
Will my shoes last? Will my feet last? Will my headaches cease and will
I finally find inner peace? Will You accompany me, please, like you said you would
until the day is over, until the day is finished,

Counting the pebbles like joy to fill my pocket
until
the pain of walking is done.

When the Path is a Puzzle

“Back on the road, they set out for Jerusalem. Jesus had a head start on them, and they were following, puzzled and not just a little afraid. He took the Twelve and began again to go over what to expect next.” Mark 10:32

It must have been a dizzying three years for Jesus’ disciples. Within a typical week they might have heard him teach the most amazing concepts about God, turning their preconceptions about religion upside down; seen him heal, raise the dead, along with other miraculous signs; and witnessed the attacks by the religious ruling class on His authority and Jesus’ deft replies.

Unintoned

Unintoned

Now and then words come stumbling out,
over the tongue and teeth, past the lips,
free-falling like battle-leafs, grumbling from
sleepless eyestrain and prickliness,
crumbling on the floor

Of the hearts of those we truly love the best.

One word begins the barrage in hope of
a white flag waved,
and then the same word, a different word (same meaning),
a longer sentence (the same sentence twice removed),
then adding decibels to repetition our original mission
lies forgotten in the war room, while we resume our
insistence over again.

What often is worse, then and again, is the terse expectation that
our foe, our love, feels the verses we see, sees the worth we feel
and will nod vigorously at the first word of our hurt and trouble.

Trouble is we presume too much, and the words double back
upon themselves in the vacuum of assumption. What we knew
to be
conspicuous
is merely a
contagious
brew of emotions times themselves.

Let me start over, I mean ages ago,
so
I can bundle my words only once
with bows and ribbon
and leave my insistence in the bag
to crumble unseen, unsown, solo and
unintoned: noted.

Sharing all Good Things

Sharing all Good Things

(“Be very sure…that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.” Galatians 6:6 [The Message])

The circuit-rider, coat and tatters, rode through the woods
from station to preaching station, stopping barely for water
and a breath of forest air to fill his ailing lungs and refresh
his gauntly frame. The coat was holes, his shirt coffee as dirt,
and his boots patched like centenary quits.

The sun had not tanned him, he was nearly white as death,
the days stealing his health as he rode from place to place.
There was no pay for doctors, no time to seek relief, only
the moments to share the best news, the words to lift the lonely
from their isolated grief.

Yet his horse was strong, brawny and sleek,
well-kept, with a stallion’s physique.
Fed the best of the best, and rested every moment allowed,
riding slowly under sun, making time under clouds.

It was a bold contrast, and suspicion to each eye,
why the beast was so well fed, healthy to say the least,
and asked, upon departure from one small chapel, “Why?”
“It is I who look after the animal,” was his reply,
“but you who look after me.”

The Thrill is Gone

“What has become of that blessed enjoyment? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes to give them to me.” Galatians 4:15

Truly good news almost always is met with a joyful response. To a couple who have been waiting forever for their first child, the words, “You are pregnant” can elicit squeals of delight. The graduate who receives a scholarship to her first-choice university cannot wait to share the news with everyone. The promotion that means a young couple can buy their first home is celebrated with a night out to dinner.

Quiet Words

“The quiet words of the wise are more effective than the ranting of a king of fools.” Ecclesiastes 9:17 (The Message)

From my experience it usually is borne out that the one who yells the loudest has the least amount of reason on his side. If we are persuaded that our argument will bear scrutiny, we feel little constraint to yell louder to make our point.

Gleaned Clean

Gleaned Clean

(“When you pick grapes from your vineyard, do not get the gleanings later, for they go to the immigrant, the fatherless, and the widow.” Deuteronomy 24:21)

We all crawl sometimes, hitched to the vacillations of time,
We all stoop through the chainlink hoping the barbs don’t catch our clothes,
sometimes looking for what we could not afford to buy.

We all miss the daylight sometimes, hidden behind cubic desks,
making ends meet, making the columns measure up, making the
checkbook
balance,
well into the dark, after the kids have gone to bed and well later
than they will ever hear our meant-well lullaby.

We all exist on lint sometimes, pulling our pockets inside-out,
and hating to ask for a handout, we never wanted to stand out this way.
Hinting around the corner, we ask for the leftover crumbs from
our daughter’s birthday chocolate cake.

We all limp like wounded soldiers sometimes, well-limbed or less,
our prospects dim at the sight of bygones just beyond the reach
of our preliminary gaze.

We all leave bread for the ducks, corn for the geese,
water for the dog straying from home. We all wait to watch
the raccoons meet for lunch, assumed before noon that
the kitten’s bowl belonged entirely to them.

We all leave more food on the table, meat on the bones
and 40% in garbage bins infused with rustwater behind
our homes.

We all miss, sometimes, the eyes that simply prayed
they might find the corner of our field ungathered,
and the lines along the fences unreaped in a bumper year.
We all joy, sometimes, to find our fields
gleaned clean.

Final Grade

Final Grade

(“You scratch out God’s Word and scrawl a whim in its place.” Mark 7:13 [The Message])

I asked how I rated and received a B plus in parenting,
And my wife was a half point better.
The moment I asked I knew I should never have spoken
such silliness of ranking my fatherly skill. If ever I desired
to excel beyond excelling it was parent to child.

You can tell me it’s not a race, not a competitive exercise for
placement to a school of higher learning. But I’ve forgotten my SAT scores,
and my IQ no longer applies, my grade point average is aging
across the lonely canyons I’ve already crossed. My salary is the
same as my salary 20 years ago, and my place on the ladder of achievement
remains unchanged as well.

I needed one more A to make the grade,
one more certificate to hang to make the sadness fade,
(please allow me some extra credit, another project to push me to the top).
You are my credentials and I hoped to do more than pass.

I should not cry over a score that is more than most would beg,
I should not do a lot of things I find blasting their way down into
the rules I’ve written all over the walls of my cell.

I’ve scratched out a few (few know) of the truest Words spoken
and admit my dance remains slightly tilted; still I hoped
for a better grade, an A, a report card to display to say
I had done the one thing I wished to do well, I had done the one thing
the best of all.

Who Knows

(“I hated all my toil at which I had labored under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man coming after me; and who knows whether he will be a wise or a foolish man.” Ecclesiastes 2:18,19a)

Don’t get me wrong, my children are a huge source of joy for me. But, like it or not, finding all of our joy, or our chief joy in our children is a roll of the dice. We all know cases of families who did their honest best and ended up with children who caused them pain and grief.