Pour it Out

“But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have not drunk wine or strong drink, but I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.’” 1 Samuel 1:15

There is pain and desire so deep in the human heart that words fail in expressing the anguish. I have friends whose two-year-old son has just been diagnosed with Leukemia. This just a month after being married and the same day as the transmission went out in their car. What can they say that adequately describes their state of heart?

So Loved by God

“Meanwhile, we’ve got our hands full continually thanking God for you, our good friends—so loved by God!” 2 Thessalonians 2:13a (The Message)

Greg and Ann are friends we have known over 25 years. The sad thing is that we haven’t seen each other in almost 20 years. Greg is an enthusiast. It doesn’t matter what he tackles; business, sports, or the next church project, he dives in headfirst, swims till the end, and shouts encouragement to everyone along the way.

Fields on Fire

Fields on Fire

Set our fields on fire, spark or accelerant;
ignite our desire, let it burn beyond the heavy brush
and let it rush in a controlled burn consuming, down to bare earth,
each dry and dusty remnant of yesterday’s harvest.

In a cauldron smelt our ore, in Your foundry
refine us sweeter to the core. We have guarded our
oxidation, our patina only shows our age.

In your kiln collect finish our shape, in Your furnace
fire us freer to belong, light years from the place we’ve become.
Stamp us, your imprint, your handprint, solid as heat,
blazing and glazed with your glory.

Let our fields, rid of the dry, accept the rains, the splashes,
the lightning, the flashes of brilliance that coax the grain
green as spring and
ready for late summer harvesting.

Let the river run overflowing past the burn’s black and ash,
let the fawn drink at dawn, the barn owl nest, resting at dusk,
and life return where fire cleared the brush of previous
generations.

Jaw Bone Hill

Jaw Bone Hill

(“When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.” [I.e. the high place of the jawbone] Judges 60:19)

When we toss aside the tools like
Dixie cups that children drink
we litter the waysides with our excess ego.
Then we name it like a monument, neither
to God’s glory or later progeny

But to a jackass’s jawbone.

We erect the highway signs,
“historical marker ahead”
and people stop their cross country
caravans
to view a craggy wasteland where
a simple man who could not keep a vow
for more than a day
cast aside the homemade weapon like
a Frisbee.

A thunder man with elephant ego,
a passion man with voracious thirst,
a hot sand man with unconscious feet,
a swirled head man with indifferent creed

Yet led and finished each deed,
and after, still a miscreant of disregard,
grace settled where, in the final place,
there were no more jawbones to be found.

Breathe With You

Breathe With You

(“We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.” 1 Thessalonians 2:8)

I would wait forever until sunlight replaced
the rain of tears, the claustrophobia of clouds
that dropped upon your nerves as you stood
at the threshold of the auditorium that held
the next experiment. Storms come from nowhere
while sunlight dances beyond the threshold
in the auditorium where
she smiles like a beauty queen
wiser than all the students of meteorology:
warming globally or aging icefully.

I would breathe with you, slowly, each weekend
the drones followed their pipers, leaving you to
be better than following, wiser than magnetism,
surer in your skin, improvised, without/within,
based upon the classics; a spark, not a conflagration;
a starter, not a copy of every day lived by thousands before.

I would carry your bags daily, sweat or chill,
until you knew the steps, rep after rep,
and left me behind one day to fly away
into the cloudless sky. You are the choreographer,
the lyricist, the weather’s director

Flying where few have begun,
walking in and out of the sun,
singing what rarely is sung,
and, closing in on the last day,
but barely begun,
I’ll watch you far beyond those
with party lines and worker days,
because your dream lasted longer than
the storm. Your dance twirled final and
first until,

Beginning and uncertain, you
heard the curtain close, the applause and laughter,
the sun leaped up the next day after,
you had flown above the clouds,
softly aloud, and landed exactly
where your heart could wander and love
forward of the crowd, a leader, a teammamte
and master, unscattered by paperclip
anxieties, and a home for the next few
who needed to hear their souls were created
a masterpiece, no print or copy;
a home decorated for the next few
who you knew were just like you,
and more unique than sunrays or snowflakes
a million times over.

Keep Listening

God’s Message; “Guard my common good: Do what’s right and do it in a right way. For salvation is just around the corner, my setting-things-straight is about to go into action… Make sure no outsider who now follows God ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class. I don’t really belong.” Isaiah 56:1, 3a

Why do people classify themselves as “conservative” and “liberal”? It seems these labels cause divisions more often than they define anything. And, do these labels help our spiritual life at all? Here God says that we should be careful to guard the common good; doing what’s right and doing it in the right way.

God Will Repay

“Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he committed toward his father in murdering his seventy brothers.” Judges 9:56

Abimelech was an unsavory character who decided to take the throne by killing all but one of his 70 brothers. He wades through rivers of blood to accomplish his desire for power. The lone surviving brother Jotham, tries to warn the people that supporting Abimelech is a bad idea, but the people ignore him. They make him king and Abimelech reigns for three years.

Down the Middle

Down the Middle

(“Put up with each other, and forgive anyone who does you wrong, just as Christ has forgiven you.” Colossians 3:13)

I walked down the middle of the street just to
see how the traffic flowed. I walked against
the oncoming cars and left the crosswalks behind.
I walked toward the beginning to see the
source of the stream, where everyone was going,
where they came from, what was the scene at
the mouth of it all.

Later and later the sun convened its rays,
so I shielded my eyes from the western glow
while I walked up the middle of the road
just to see how the traffic flowed.

I am told there is a place where everything starts,
a home, a domicile, a castle, a studio,
and parking lots full of empty automobiles
waiting overnight for the forage of the morning.

I walked along the center of the highway
waiting for the law to keep me from my way
and send me to the shoulder or the sidewalk where
feet are meant to be.

I wanted to find the zenith,
for I knew the bottom-rock well.
I hoped to discover the king of the traffic,
the teller who directs these glaze-dayed journeys alone.

I hoped to find (out of my mind)
a director, a manager, who understood why
I had chosen

To walk barefoot up the middle of the road.

Taking Down the Tree

Taking Down the Tree

(…each one wanders off in his own direction; not one will save you. Isaiah 47:15b)

Taking down the trees for summer’s insulation removes the shade,
the shadow, the vantage point under the bough to see the
belly of the mountain jay puffing before the dewy ringlets
rise from the sand and dirt below.

Children play in the sand like bathtubs, while parents play
in the clearing, sucking their bottles before noon.

Taking down the tree for a month’s thermal warming
removes the snow ledges over the forest floor. One stove sputters,
another blasts careening smoke from the hillock to the
background mountains.

Children play in the snow like beaches, while parents play
in the new year, drowning their sorrows near till dawn.

I’ve waited a lifetime for someone from my past
to write me the letter that spells it out clearly.
I’ve watched from my window for someone from a dream
to drive up the gravel to my door
and hand me my happiness just once more.

I would replace the trees if it made a difference,
bounce the children on my knees,
interrupt the adult playgrounds,

Except I’m weary and, this late, this long shadow wait,
I find no place to start, no finish line beside fate.

I lay me down underneath the remaining trees and
admit the same disease begs the therapy it has from the beginning.
I lay me down to rest, my soul,
and listen for the closing sounds,

the hymn’s Amen.

Denser than Wit

Denser than Wit

(“God’s Son was before all else, and by him everything is held together.” Colossians 1:17)
A sandwich of protons, denser than wit,
hangs unlikely over every human head.
Light thicker than black holes contains
every thought conjured by unwitting to
university wed. Air shinier than the blast furnace
full of pre-alloy conjurations,
reciprocates every vibration from the beginning
until then.

Like swimming in a vacuum,
washing in the quicksand,
eating with your mouth open,
praying with your hat on,
or putting out your cigaret on the sole of your foot

Everything unlikely has

Already happened larger than we put our minds too
and closer than string and tin can telephones take us.

If we can only accept it, all is already new,
the tears shed are diamonds,
the sins tried are reminders
that the light swallowed them once the
darkness of noon yawned towards evening
and the Son breathed His last

Then

Breathed again before farmers awake on
the first day of the week.

Less Than a Day Away

Less Than a Day Away

(“And they brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull).“ Mark 15:22)

It was a deadhead where they brought Him,
a vacated cranium. It was empty-minded
thoughts, flotation devices that hung above
the well deep where wonder, despair, and
hope for better meet.

It was living and breathing, walking dead,
who made Life walk among the massive education
looming, ballooning their advertisements no heavier
than helium.

It was Language itself who never said a word
in the face of invented opinions meeting
capitalized religion together with abbreviated reason.

We cannot say we do not care
what happened upon that hill;
we may hate it, disbelieve it, embrace it,
mould reliefs, or ignore it, but fairly often
our opinion is stronger than we let on.

There was hope upon the ground that the senseless execution
would dull like morphine their mind’s constant goading
about the way Words and Reason made sense more
transcendental than dirt-bound philosophers or
ink-penned scribes.

The ruined One upon the tree refused every offer,
every drug-induced remedy. (We do not medicate to
expand the mind, but do quiet its constant truth attraction.)

One truth was placed on hold on the empty-headed hill,
Truth unfashioned by arithmetic or piety. There is nothing
to fear here, near Golgotha’s hill, save our own skull with
thought turned off
prematurely.

Heaven sent Truth to speak, to heal, to love, to reveal
the greater plan than man could conclude,
and we abused, excused and sentenced Him for
making Heaven sound far too near.

Even one thief that cruel Friday heard that
Paradise lay less than a day away.

No One Knows Me

No One Knows Me

“…but one thing I do: I forget what is behind and reach out for what lies before.” Philippians 3:13b)

Don’t think you know what is inside my head,
until you have taken the time to embrace my heart.
Don’t offer me crumbs and call them opportunities,
I would rather take my chances with chance itself than
open a gift mislabeled.

No one knows me,
No one loves me,
No one speaks truer,
No one shows mercy,
Like the Lord my God.

Don’t presume your position grants you rights
of inquisition,
until you spend a baker’s dozen tears with me.
Don’t cry over my failure before you cry
over my pain.

No one sees me,
No one frees me,
No one disciplines,
No one renovates,
Like the Lord my God.

I can only run as fast as my legs run today,
with the weight they carry and the scars from fiery accidents,
but I will run and not lie down,
until I reach the tape, even later than I hoped.

No one cheers me,
No one trains me,
No one plans the view,
No one paints the heights,
Like the Lord my God.

Though I wake with tears I will not lie down forever,
Though yesterday’s voices still nag like ill-advised administration,
I will curl my hear toward tomorrow’s trajectory,
and believe the dripping from last night’s rain
speaks only of floral, makes only new perfume
once new rays dance upon the opening roses.

No one writes me,
No one paints me,
No one plants foliage,
No one flings sunsets,
Like the Lord My God.