Appearances Lie

Appearances Lie

(“And I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind.” 1 Samuel 2:35a)

Let the appearances lie upon the hills like the spent shells
of last night’s 4^th of July display. It all smells of gunpowder when
the lilacs should fill the air. For 45 minutes we grunted with the thunder
displayed by experts who know which triggers to pull and which wires to touch
and which mixture must meet like teeth in a gear to fling the flower and stars
further than near.

Let the paper boats float in the puddles we created by hosing
the pavement at the end of our driveways. Muddled with gravel
and soaked like a dog shaking down the house after a rainstorm
it only goes so far before it descends a house, maybe two down
the street, stuck in the spaces of the storm drain, waiting one last
whoosh, a full push of water, and it falls, creases sponged with
no repair.

There is more sham, even among the shameless, than we ever hoped true.
There are speakers who never shut down, broadcasters never editing a word,
newspapers filling pages with paragraphs with words with jots and loose tittles
until the alphabet spills like toddler’s juice from lunch on the floor.

There are more costumes, even among the contestants, than we expected,
it’s true.
Every blue with another hue, iris and navy, sea foam and royal; like glitter painted
with ponytails the smell of greasepaint overpowers the latent effect. Did your
dress aim at meaning? Were you evoking anything from us, save a desire to
quickly shut down the store and send everyone home with a refund and a promise
to let them choose what-to-wear, ready-to-wear; not scotch cotton and plastic
balloons labeled “party fare”?

There is more talk, even among beanstalks that have seen more ingenious ways
to bring produce home than giants would care to disclose. Stand for a moment
and if we were not tricked, we know the words were trimmed just enough to evade
them when the questions come bouncing in. And the response-ads leap high
pretending to catch a big-league fly just about to plunge over the fence. Taped
before a life or death audience, the camera pulls back and we know the secrets
of one more candy store that tried to sell nutrition.

Where is Your Cohen, Father; the Faithful One.
Where is our Cohen Brother; the Truthful One.

Speak to us True as from Calvary’s grave
to the tomb’s incapacity to save the day for
the talkers who figured their way was done.

But You fooled them all, risen before dawn,
to prove truth is better served when offered
first forgiven; not instigated.

Available

“Someone who is trustworthy in a small matter is also trustworthy in large ones, and someone who is dishonest in a small matter is also dishonest in large ones.” Luke 16:10

It is invariable that, of 20 people to sign up for some new project, nearly half will find reason not to show up. We are all quick to volunteer, to raise our hands to help put in a new garden, help a neighbor move or take food to the sick. But it is surprising how many people bow out days before the opportunity presents itself.

Childness

Childness

(“May he bring you new life and strength while you are old. For your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” Ruth 4:15)

I heard the tornado spin through a child’s voice over telephone waves;
whining close to his house, upstate New York, the report included noise
and possibilities of boys being lifted out of their shoes to land flat-footed
on the soft green lawn of the neighbor’s dream.

Twisting wind never frightened him, it was curiosity that connected him
to such progressive torque. Alive or dead were unconsidered, and nowhere
to be found in his equation of childness and caution. It was more important to
radio in the information to travelers along the way.

You see, we were wandering, with his beloved aunt and uncle on board,
and he could see the possibility of a carhop drive-thru pulling up to order
a little less wind. He left his uncle a voice mail, with authority, with concern,
but little quaver; simply the courage a seven year old boy knows when he is assigned
the task of warning other about tornadoes.

The love of grade school cousins, or the affection of four year old granddaughters
are gifts bestowed between black spike storms that scare even demons
to their death and adults to quiver at the edge of the turbulent precipice.

The love of cousins, the pure joy of granddaughters never dissipates the threats at all.
But their courage turns black to song, shy to joy, and tears…

Tears now flow, but from stories read in a fairy tale full of princes and princesses,
where granddaughters cry when the prince is pained, and the princess may never
see him again.

And for one moment, Papa and Ani see each other, tear to tear, and know
though the tornados may come yesterday again,
the pause is enough to love the world good night,
and wake for joy of another day far away from prospects
and expectations.

Taught by the Best

“This is what the Lord, who saves you, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to do what is good, who leads you in the way you should go.” Isaiah 48:17

We get into a great deal of trouble when we start listing everything we have done for God. For one thing, compared to God’s perfection, even our best work would be far too shoddy to brag to God about. When we consider that God truly needs nothing that we have to offer, it becomes a bit presumptive for us to keep a list of any sort of “good deeds” done for Him. Beyond all that, it simply misses the point about our relationship with the Creator. He does ask for our work, for our cooperation with His plans for the universe. But our “work” is not the primary objective; that that is what we often miss.

Firm in the Faith

“Be careful. Hold firmly to your faith. Have courage and be strong.” 1 Corinthians 16:13

It would be easy to read a verse like this and launch into a diatribe on the evils of today’s society and write about how much better it was “back then”; whenever “back then” was. What we miss is that Paul wrote these words before the first century was over. It is a great mistake to read them as if they are written in reaction to some sort of ungodly time we currently live in.

Teach us to Pray

Teach us to Pray

(“When you pray, say: ‘Father, may your name always be kept holy. May your kingdom come.’” Luke 11:2)

For many people, prayer is the most challenging aspects of their relationship with God. That is not to say that most do not want to pray, but it presents a number of difficulties which we should face honestly. It appears even Jesus’ disciples felt a certain deficit in their own prayer life. Jesus had been praying, and when He finished one of His followers asked Him to teach them to pray.

Imagine playing clarinet in an orchestra and sitting under the tutelage of one of the world’s greatest conductors whose primary instrument is also the clarinet. One day you hear him playing a part you have struggled with constantly. In awe, you listen to the maestro’s accomplished melodies. You ask on behalf of the other musicians, “Master, teach us how to play.”

It is not that you had been faking it; you knew your instrument quite well. You had practiced diligently, could read the music, produce the right notes, and play nearly anything with enough time to prepare. But, having heard the master play, you realized how much you had to learn. You knew the notes, but he knew the music. You could play the song, but he could bring people to tears.

So it is in our prayer. We see Jesus’ constant fellowship with the Father in the Scriptures and realize how much we lack in understanding the heart of prayer. We will never discover the beauty or the depth until we ask, along with the disciples, “Lord, please teach us to pray.”

Jesus does not reprimand them for not praying well enough. Instead, assuming they truly wanted to learn, He said, “When you pray…” The first lesson: Do it! God is not interested in perfected language; He wants us to simply come to Him. We will never learn to pray if we avoid prayer!

“Say, Father…” It is simple. God is the Perfect Parent. He desires to nurture us, provide for us, care for us and lavish the affection of the best Mother or Father. He is “our” Father; you are not an only child. When we call Him “Father”, we indentify ourselves with the family of all who follow Jesus.

See Him as your Father when you pray. If that is hard, go no further. Ask Him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to change your imagination. Ask Him to take out the old images painting Him with lightning bolts and a voice of cruel thunder. Ask Him to help you see the caring Father He is.

Think about your desires for your own children. You would do anything to help them overcome a difficulty. You would supply anything they needed to have a fulfilling life. You would never leave them alone, allowing them to think you had forsaken them. You do everything you can to fill their hearts with confidence about your love. Why would God do anything different? He is the perfect Heavenly Father, wanting to fill your life-experience with the confidence that comes from knowing His love.

He is our Father whose name is “holy”. We must always keep the high view of God in view. Because He is holy, He deserves worship and complete submission. He is the image of perfection. As we learn to pray, we learn to align our life to His purity. Prayer is not a way to convince “Papa God” to let us have our way. It is meant to help us submit to His way.

That is what “May Your kingdom come” means. Jesus taught us that prayer always begin, not with a list of our wants and needs, but with a deep desire to see God’s plan worked out in the world. Bring the poor to the Father who cares about them. Pray for many who have not heard about the love of Christ and forgiveness provided at the cross. Pray for the widow who cannot figure out how begin her new life. Pray for the teen bullied by those who think she is different.

Most of all, make prayer a priority. Set aside a specific time, and do not let anything interfere. Your Father God looks forward to conversing with you even more than you do with Him. And, dear one, He misses you when you don’t show up.

One More Time Again

One More Time Again

(“Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has come to me, and he looked as frightening as the angel of God. I didn't ask him where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name.’” Judges 13:6)

I would ride the rails of frightful suspense
under hope and over trembles, passing the ridges
over and over again. I would straddle the morning
as the steel wheels chirped the overheard songs they learned
from the passages of time.

I would meet You, if I could, full armored and full beloved;
I would find You, if you would allow me entrance, my face
stubbled with left-over coffee and red eyes staring through the night
trying to catch a glimpse of the dodgy star brighter than the rest,
or at least to sight the fuzzy Aurora Borealis.

If You were a bonfire I would stare all night,
a performer in the center ring of a second rate circus
and You would still hold my interest.
But I must say, (perhaps I merely wish to) invisible as You are,
my attention flits to words on a page, written or still unwrit.

Having seen Jesus I have seen You, Father, and I believe it better
than I believe any other. But I must tell you, I think it is time
for a road trip to find the place where Your concealed
name and place of origin are
better discerned for my habitual panic.

I’m asking for success one more time. To feel I’m
worth Your time again. I’m asking You to fill
my rhymes with truth again, change for good
without/within, and let the sound, the squeak of the wheels
arriving into our last station, the final destination;

And let the sound of the wheels seem to say,
though we know it never was before,
let the wheels say, our last reservation,
let the wheels say and we echo again,

“amen”

Stay Until

Stay Until

(“Heal the sick there, and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you.’” Luke 10:9)

I’d like to share a platter of fruit, a diving pool full of
happy jello, and see your face the moment it all runs out.

Because it never runs out.

I’d like to hold your hand forever, and never ever have you
wonder why I held it so long. I’d like to look in your eyes and
past the apprehension you felt, we felt, they assumed they knew too well,
to only see tears because the connection remained unbroken without
doubt, without
shadow,
without
pointing out
our gaze had met for longer than culture’s appointed season.

I’d like to bake you a bread, a toast with wine and cheese
outside the electric wonders of modern convenience. I’d love
to know your name and never forget it. I’d love to call your number
over and over without a single question from onlookers about
running up the bill.

I’d love to trash the suspicions, blind the onlookers,
silence the reporters who interpret everything they never heard us say.

I’d love to give forgiveness for once
in a way that made a difference. And I’d like to receive
it once, in a way,
that didn’t make me feel

You were doing me a favor.

I’d like to heal every scratch the nettles barbed,
I’d like to patch them with pink and yellow bandaids
and pour you an ice tea until the medicine starts working.

I’d like to give mercy one time too many
and receive it in pools full of late night swims
mid August with every person (teen to limping)
I ever laughed with our about and stay until

No one threw us out.

Don't Forget

“So Midian was under the rule of Israel; they did not cause trouble anymore. And the land had peace for forty years, as long as Gideon was alive.” Judges 8:28

Mr. Gideon was a farmer who God picked out to defend his territory and hometown Ophrah from the Midianites. The primary portion that has crept into everyday language from this narrative is the idea of “casting fleeces” before God. You can read it in the preceding couple of chapters in the book of Judges.

"Let Go of Living"

“Jesus said to everyone, ‘All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.’” Luke 9:23

A young child asked a woman how old she was. She answered, “39 and holding.” The child thought for a moment, then said, “And how old would you be if you let go?”

Sometimes we Dream ...to Live in a Space Which, Though Committed to Truth, Accepts all Variations in the Attempts to Understand it

Sometimes we Dream
…to Live in a Space Which, Though Committed to Truth, Accepts all Variations in the Attempts to Understand it

(“O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1)

Without hiding a single intention, I would like to share
indented inventions and the hopes I wrote down on the back page
of a red covered Bible so many years ago.

So far behind me now, I live in my future, I sit outside the circle I envisioned;
Adobes and an artistic community, Georgia O’ Keeffe and New Mexico,
Toas and Santa Fe and Albuquerque snow.

Or somewhere like it all; Santa Cruz or Sausalito would do,
to spin my gadgets like unwinding yoyos flying in the sky,
dancing over the bay, and, for every observation, there would be
twice as many weblog reports of unusual phenomena sighted
and dated
and photographed

While I shared pie at the coffee shop on the way
to Santa Fe
or up the bay
to Strawberry.

If I had the time I would write my rhymes like
Ansel Adams loved his wilderness; mimes
silently speaking the red filtered shutter God
had prepared for just that day.

I hate museums, unless I live near one,
and rarely visit zoos (there is no on there
to talk to).

I am charmed by beauty, the green and the grandeur,
I am grateful for vision, the shadows and the yellow.

My dream, my scheme for my pinnacle pronouncement,
was a local consort where minds were applauded and
thinking was as welcome as the next cup of coffee poured
by a waitress with a wink who knew we did not, did never,
know it all.

When will we (You know who) ever learn, faithful as You are,
You leave us freer than liberals to examine the facets of diamonds
just discovered,
to bounce the ball of interpretation higher than the boys in grade school.

It is not heresy to say
“I do not yet know it all; symbols or prosaic arcanity.”

Who Washed Your Hands

Who Washed Your Hands

(“Every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26)

It should have been me who washed Your hands
that night before eating the exodus meal; I should have
set the table neat with white linen, poured the wine
red
in the cups that speak so well,
set the matzo unbroken before our final
consummation, our ears not hearing
this was no celebration;
more memorial, a portrait predicting
what we would not speak throughout our
entire meal.

How could we know (except You had told us
time times it all) what we were too excited to hear.

We knew who You were, but missed who You are,
We confessed You Messiah, but doubted Your methods,
We wanted to follow, though unclear of our destination,
We asked the right questions, and lost the answers in our assumptions.

I cannot approach the table again with my sentences dotted,
my paragraphs complete.
I will not dine so certain nor stare down the uninvited,
I will sit with men uninitiated, talk with women untrained
and admit we are all simply amateurs, in it
for the love of the game.

It should have been me, washed Your feet,
but You took the towel, the basin, the water.

It should have been me, broken like bread,
but You took the fracture, the spikes and the thorns.

It should have been me, poured out like wine,
but You spilled the blood, for our tears and sweat

And built a family upon winning one death final
like we thought we would die given half the chance
(accomplishing nothing).

And built a family upon dying like victory
teaching us with basins and nails the announcement to make
to a world dead of war and sick of valor.

Family DNA

“’But he said to them, ‘These people who hear the word of God and do it, they are my mother and my brothers.'” Luke 8:21

These words of Jesus are shocking. But I think the shock comes from how they sound, and not so much from what Jesus means. At first glance it seems Jesus is rejecting His family by blood and adopting family from an entirely different set of people.

Locked in Stone

Locked in Stone

("Look!" Joshua said to all of the people. "This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all of the words the Lord has spoken to us. Suppose you aren't true to your God. Then the stone will be a witness against you." Joshua 24:27)

Last time you spoke to me,
or I should say,
last time miniature terms bounced across
the predated conference table,
you would not admit the words you had said
to me in private just weeks before.

But the stones know,
the mortar and the field-stones that
the master craftsman quietly measured
to last on the walls longer than his sons or
daughters would live there. We sat within
15 feet
of his handwork,

And now there are
none of us who occupy the same space.

Except the stones who know
exactly what was said, and keep the vibrations
within their molecules for centuries

And may release them, decoded; rocks have no
particular point of view. They may release them,
like bar codes which cannot ask for a judicial review.

The rocks on the wall, the pebbles in the gravel,
they all heard it true, and will hold the marvel of humans
who think the air is a vacuum where nothing is heard without
a third person.

But the stones and the boulders, have no orders to obey,
no seared conscience to sway the opinions from fact to
a better face. Even mirrors will not truth our spoken,
less our broken image.

Hold the stone to your ear and re-hear.

Lest you fear
more than I,
it holds that half of conversation which I said too;

Forgotten or faded, it holds my words unspun
and empowered enough to blush me as much
as I wish it would for you.

Numbers Don't Count

“Think of it—one of you, single-handedly, putting a thousand on the run! Because God is God, your God. Because he fights for you, just as he promised you.” Joshua 23:10 (The Message)

When God is for you, numbers simply don’t matter. That is what gives the courage and resolve to people who walk so closely to Him that their hearts beat with the same passions that God does. God had shown Israel His power and His commitment to them by subduing every nation in the Promised Land. He accomplished that even though Israel was much small in manpower and lack military training, strategy and equipment.

Of Unholy Forwards and Gossip at a National Level

Of Unholy Forwards and Gossip at a National Level

(“John the Baptizer came and did not eat the usual food or drink wine. And you say, ‘He has a demon inside him.’” Luke 7:33)

The president speaks and we would rather
drop his words on the asphalt, stirred up with the hot
summer sunshine, and serve them back as if we
were there, front and center, heard every word,
counted the freckles in his eyes, and deflected his inflections
in forwarded emails so every gullible saint

Would know the truth that
we took the time to manufacture.

Snapshots with colors (greenish squirrels) prove
the acid rained exactly how we prophesied.

Let the bragging begin, if the church service is just an hour
only handfuls of god hang around long enough to overcome
the caffeine’s fine effects.
At an hour and a half, it is so long we lost our lunch reservations,
and the roast burnt t-bone, the stew dried in the crockpot while the
crackpot
pastor spoke too long.
But run up to three hours or four and the Holy Spirit has locked the door,
no leakage or early exits, God has broken through our resistant noggins.
We judge so well, that every song, announcement, prayer and sermon
is measured in Olympic style; (poor preacher who thought God could
help him make the point in 20 minutes, and excuse the good people to
ruminate the good food from Heaven’s Bread at home. The Sermon on the Mount
takes 15 minutes read.)

Did I leave you there? Were you still wondering about snapshots and
presidential pardons? Were you still snipping buds behind your back
in the Federal Rose Garden?

Some women spend little and mean it. Some men eat less without pretense.
Some men consort with the sinners, the poor, the abused by gossip that other
saints vilify and demean it.
Some women like a Chardonnay with dinner, but when the pictures are taken
they are lushes in future tense.

I have never hated a president (it’s true), and never thought one to be the
anti-christ (even truer). But I’ve come near an unholy rage when those whose
faith is always italicized cannot disagree with humility, and start their sentences
(after counting the freckles in your eyes) with,

“Now, I’m not saying he is the anti-christ…

Upside Down Messages

“Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.” 1 Corinthians 9:19

Paul was a master at blending in when it meant he could avoid causing offense to others. He didn’t mind causing a stir if it was necessary. Goodness know, there was a huge riot in Lsytra when he made it clear there was only one God, and only one Savior, Jesus Christ His Son.