When the Helper Comes

“When the Helper (the Holy Spirit) comes, He will show the world the truth about sin. He will show the world about being right with God. And He will show the world what it is to be guilty.” John 16:8

We live in a time when the existence of truth is questioned. We may even hear phrases such as “my truth” or “your truth”, as if some things change depending on the person or circumstance. And clearly, there are many things that are influenced and informed by the situation. That is why a person can be convicted of Manslaughter, Second Degree Murder or First Degree Murder. Depending on the circumstances of the case, one charge would apply more than another.

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

Yes, and, Our Back Pages

(“Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.” 2 Timothy 4:12b)

The leaves twirled on the winter grass like
sparrows dancing romance. The final rosebuds nodded,
the summer campfires have turned to woodheat inside
winterized homes. Morning does not break in the Northwest
autumn, but sneaks up slowly from late night’s dark insistence
to the day obscured by couriers of rain. Even the dog barks
at the fallen log that lay there just the same day before,
and before just the same. And the cat stretches, winking
at the careless movement toward afternoon.

Those mornings carry more weight, though far less sunlight;
this season asks for reckoning, extra apparel and friends
spending
an evening watching the children play, begging to
go out into the rain.

These days suggest the joy we left behind at summer’s end,
this life asks for memories and names and daytrips and old friends.
Old friends, the ones we saw every day when we were young,
and spent the duration of every day playing like night never comes.

This time reminds our eyes, our state of mind, that young love ages,
friendships are memorized in stages, and every book eventually ends,
the few back pages we slowly read, hoping for a sequel,
longing for another childhood recommended to take us on the
last several seasons home.

Today the horizon is broken by hills and changing trees,
if not, I might see you coming. If not, I might hear your footsteps
on the sloppy leaves wanting to know if, one more time, just maybe,
I could come out to play.

Leave them Alone!

Leave them Alone!

(“The people of Ephraim have chosen to worship idols. Leave them alone!” Hosea 4:17)

The pencil lay on the desk, just askew of the
yellow legal pad
with scribbled outlines, adjectives unfinished,
and another attempt to open a crack in the common
worship, the vulgar songs that, with their bland truth
became palatable for even the vainest congregant
who even showed up early to be sure all the seats
were well-dusted.

Down to a nib, with the eraser hardened and slick as
a river-worn pebble, there was little to say; it had all been said.
But it always seemed there must be another way to get through the heads
that misread every Scripture, misinterpreted every face,
that prayed for money and keys misplaced to the gods of
“At Your Service”. The rich knew their god would only make
them richer. The poor hoped their god would take the tithe
the Masters insisted would make them richer too.

Barely grippable, beyond the grasp of most ordinary minds,
the last words for the day began to fade away as the wood
over-closed the lead within. There was no safety now,
the eraser would tear a hole with its sharp metal edges;
and someone might read and wonder how one who clasped
the barrel with such passion would run out of resources and stop
mid-thought.

But the paragraph ended, though we are not sure forever, and read,
barely, with the yellow paint a shadow of the pale gray letters:

I resign my…hope….…..future…fix furnace…warm beaches…
…..prayer……wonders or not……return……when………
day….sinks…plumbing repaired. Prayer.

Signed,
(barely legible)

I Will Do Anything

“I will do anything you ask of my Father in my name. In that way the Son will make my Father's name great.” John 14:13

There is a current television ad that features a person who has just had an accident with their car. They look around, sing the “State Farm” jingle, and just like a genie in a bottle, the insurance representative appears on scene. Not only does he take care of their automobile, but it seems he has unlimited power to supply fast food and reunite families. If only solving my problems were as easy as whistling the right tune.

How Bold

How Bold?

(“For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love, and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7)

I suspect there are many who feel they do not need this verse. I would be the first to agree. There are whole groups of people who have no problem with timidity at all. They demand a new room in a motel of the sheets are the wrong size, or boldly jump the line at the grocery store without a glance back at the mother behind them, laden with packages, children and a purse hanging somewhere from her arms or shoulders.

Company

“Company”

(“Then Jesus poured water into a bowl and began to wash the followers’ feet. He dried their feet with the towel that was wrapped around his waist.” John 13:5)

Even a poet’s feet get filthy,
feel squishy between the toes after rain,
freeze in the winter.
But I would not claim to be a poet
just to redeem my claim to stand in line
for another pedicure.

Poet, defined; the words they line up in a dictionary:
one who writes poetry.

If the offer is to all who fulfill the definition, void of any
reference to the quality of work product, laureates or publications,

Then I think I will, if you please, allow my uncut toenails
be seen as I sit in between number one and three. They had
an appointment, and I decided at the last minute. My socks are
dank, end of day.

Poet’s sweat, anxiety happens.

Peter said it all for me, didn’t he? “No, not my feet!
Please don’t touch them! They are wrinkled, old with calluses,
black with city dirt and are quiet ugly, having inherited my
mother’s long second toe and my father’s hammer.”

Peter heard it for me, didn’t he? “You are not one of mine,
if I do not wash your feet. I know your objection: you are human,
I am divine. Now let me wash you; it is time.”

Peter said it all for me, one more time, didn’t he? “Then a shower, please!”

Peter heard it for us, didn’t he? “You’re clean already”.

Some think poets hardly work and would rather throw words to the wind
and hope they float down rearranging again into the next epic. And we do.
If it were possible. If world’s were created thusly.

He calls me clean and I still wash the sweat vigorously,
(my scent may define me). But today I sit in line, talk shop
with poets one and three
and wonder that any of us are asked
to keep Him company.

Buzz or Thunder

Buzz or Thunder

“The proud religious law-keepers said among themselves, ‘Look, we are losing followers. Everyone is following Jesus!” John 12:19

Sometimes the sounds of crowds are just the buzz
like ocean breakers
to lull me back to sleep, deeply completing the dreams
that never appear upon waking.

Just like the scrum after a fumble, with blues and whites
rolling on the green; no one can tell who the ball belongs to,
no one can see the possession, it takes so long to
wrestle the padded combatants from the leather ball
that looks as if it landed here from Mars or farther.

The noise at the endzone, winning or losing, would wake a baby
finally nursed, sweetly breathing. Sticking everything in the infants’ mouth,
from cheerios to fingers, pursehandles to jacket sleeves;
the thunder shakes the earth discordant. Though, if the child
grows up with the barking of partisans, she may enjoy the rumbling
the wakes the dead and keeps the dog shivering under the bed.

Success sells, they say, but my way of thinking is to sell the best,
and the rest will likely follow.

I am sorry, my Savior, that today we would rather cheer a
pink limousine, and hope that Christina A. or Britney S.
is riding in the back reading a magazine. It’s a story
for cafeteria talk, and the room would be ours once.

But, like Jesus disciples, we want the children to keep their
little mouths shut, walk quietly and properly around the house
we call His,
for reverence must outweigh enthusiasm, and so we have learned
to cheer at the far end of the endzone

And whisper at the end of every Amen.

God Does as He Pleases

“He considers all of the nations on earth to be nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven. He does what he wants with the nations of the earth. No one can hold his hand back. No one can say to him, ‘What have you done?’” Daniel 4:35

NOTE: Paragraph four begins the “wow” thoughts about this verse.

These are remarkable words magnifying the sovereignty and power of God over all creation. He considers nations “nothing” and exercises His will over all of heaven. When God decides to execute His plan over nations, there is nothing that can stop Him. There is no one above God, no one to which He must answer for His actions. Because He is both holy (completely good and righteous) and all-powerful, he can be both sovereign and independent in His actions.

Keep a Close Watch

“Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 1 Timothy 4:16

Besides being pastor of a rural church, I also coach the local high school drama club. We try to produce two one act plays per year as well as learning stage techniques and character formation. I try, by the end of four years to have offered my students the equivalent of a first year level of high school theater course work. Since we meet one hour, once a week, that seems an attainable goal.

Tell Me Again

Tell Me Again

(“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the One Who raises the dead and gives them life. Anyone who puts his trust in Me will live again, even if he dies.’” John 11:25)

Tell me again, because I do believe, the life
I find in the skeletal darkness, the afternoon when
the cold will not give way. Tell me again,
I still will trust, how alive the day is when
tears run like robbers from the scene of a crime.

I love You, I love You, and You understand,
don’t you,
why painful symmetry is the clearest bell
that rings dawn, clangs midnight, clanks lunch
and clinks canceled hope of Saturday afternoon
picnics or a tour around the back nine.

Tell me again, because I’ve read it true, how Lazarus, dead
plus 4, had nothing to say when You finally showed up a day
(or two) later than his sisters knew; how could You! Sick, You
might have healed. Dead, the tomb concealed his deterioration in
progress.

I love You, I love You, and You, Son of Man,
won’t you?
When You rang, clear as a bell a dead man’s name,
the heavens opened, angels sang, and the pangs of
putrid flesh sprang from the dirt baby-fresh and
eye’s alive!

Tell me again, because I do believe, my name,
is it worth just a whisper; today, this day, this
afternoon? To catch the death that caps my head
with bands of iron, could You mouth the words,
my name,
just once? To clear my conscience, and paint the
black against the white, I confess I’ve not followed,
believed, or walked upright; not like Lazarus, but

I love You, I love You, and You suffer too.

Lifting Up

Lifting Up

(“Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.” 1 Timothy 2:8)

There once was a group of men who thought it their task
to trip up the unwanted (liberals or lesbians), and unmask
the true who they were, like they knew who were the true.
The unmaskers wore death on their own faces, handling
truth as if it was their own invention, rambling about who
drank champagne at a wedding, roaring about the collared preacher
sharing a drink with a constituent at the bar. They never
realized how unseemly and bizarre the anger and red truly seemed
while they shouted until their throats nearly bled. But truth be told;
they never doubted they were the redeemed.

There once was a gullible few who surrounded the local school,
having heard, (hushes please) that a practitioner of witchcraft actually
had a home room where their children sat every day. This witch
might take every bit of their faith and purity away and must be
stopped. Surround the building, pray it down, let the angry God
they loved so much, take away her means of existence, and send her
homeless to another school where they didn’t care quite so much
about pagans again and again filling children with campaigns of
walks in the woods.

There once was a Man who had lunch with a man the best had
run out of town. He was chained, far past the first stoplight, clad
in clothes and holes ripped from the rages he could not control.
But One
began to step right into the man’s pain and suck the poison out
just like you would any rattlesnake venom.

There once was a Man who did not hide His affection for drinkers,
or prostitutes, or sinners or thinkers or stinkers like me. He
(I finally realize) enjoys my company. And, having come to see
His love is the gravity that pulls us in reverent orbit around the sun,
I will not join another group who tries their best to make a lesbian homeless,
a pagan jobless, a pastor with a beer graceless. I am (finally realizing)
made of the same stuff as them. More weeds than garden, but full
of colors and enough seeds for next year’s harvest.

Always in Every Way

"May the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with all of you." 2 Thessalonians 3:16

Peace can be defined in so many ways and experienced in a myriad more. We talk about the “peace” of a person whose inner life has gone from restless to tranquil. The various components of personality are pretty much pursuing the same things, longing for the same goals, and inner stress is lessened. Most inner turmoil is the result of conflicted emotions: I want to be raise my children well, but I also want to be their best friend all the time.

Personal Strength

“May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father… encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.” 2 Thessalonians 2:16a, 17

We humans are the only “animal” given to self-examination. The more conscious of our true self we are, the more mature we are likely to become. Our language is funny, though, because we call someone “self-conscious” if they are shy or concerned about how others may respond to their words or actions.

Kum Ba Yah

Kum Ba Yah

(“He will oppose himself to everything that people call a god or make an object of worship; he will put himself above them all, so that he will sit in the Temple of God and proclaim that he himself is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4)

Another brag cracks the theater curtain and the followspot
aims through the theatrical smoke to produce one more mouth-sized
deceit staging its newly aged last day promise to cure cancer
and bad breath; our millenium’s elixir, snake-oil and QVC--a
perfect pair to merchandise religious fakery. The litany is
echoed without offense, since, without sense at all, it is a potpourri
of every wish without a mendicant’s objection.

We worship God and country
(does anyone leap to protest?)
and disguise national borders in
choir robes keeping pagans out and holding the elite
American Holy and Republican Democratic Society of
the First-Born of many in;
until we declare what we’ve been taught to beware,
the Late Great Planet might be Taken to the dance
sometime in Late December 1012 (read the papers, they’ll
report our near misses).

So, while bible-algebraics strain to make each chapter of Daniel
align with John’s Great Vision, (putting Russia and Communism
in their place,
The righteous USA disgraced, misplaced or embraced by God
first before any other little bitty nation (depending on which
arithmetic you read);

While they forecast their dates and identified the traits of the next
sure to be anti-christ wannabe,

I’ll light me an autumn bonfire, put my feet up on an old wet log,
sit back in the yellow armchair with one strap nearly broken and
sing Kum Ba Yah just like I did when all I knew was it meant
“Jesus, ‘Come by Hear’”, and “Come by Hear” is all I meant.

The Whole Picture

The Whole Picture

(“I will turn you around and drive you on.” Ezekiel 39:2a)

Jigsaw pieces scatter across the wind with one landing

in an opinionated lap, others on babies, some on scholars,

and half lost in the scraps waiting to be recycled on the evening

news again.

Let the highlights ignore the commas, let the soundbites bold case

the dramatic bits until no edges are left to orient the pieces

on our card table come Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That is why

I never buy

jigsaw puzzles

at antique stores.

That is why

I hope to buy

Leon Russell

at Tower Records

or another vinyl store.

“Mama, I cannot tell what color the little girl’s eyes are. The piece is lost

between twisted bookcases or couch cushions with seams unraveled. Mama,

can you help me? What color do you think the little girl’s eyes should be?”

Magog will attack, with Rosh right behind, miniscule references to

Moscow and Russia. Though linguists note no equivalence, some teach

by rote the day-by-day play-by-play of the last days countdown from

10 at 70 AD to 1 at nearly now.

Today I’ve noticed the air is crisp, skin-thin frost on my windshield,

a jacket across my back. Soon we elect the next in line to preside

over a country fat and rich, poor and suffering; hungry for bread,

a bite of truth; aching for work, a portion righteousness, decency;

simple dishes made in the country, chicken to pot, kale to sauce,

and a simple prayer before we eat that thanks Him who created

our feet to fit the earth we walk, our hands to caress the fruit

eat, and our minds to ponder all the truth we can wonder about

Him who created the jigsaw

complete.

I Like Birthdays

“And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:27

I like birthdays. On my next one I’ll turn 58. I’ve thought more and more about then end of my life and what I have or have not accomplished. But I like birthdays. It is my day. I get my favorite meal or dessert, my kids call me and friends who have known me forever tease me gently. When we were all in our 30s the teasing was a bit harsher, but we know now the tender feelings that accompany the downhill side of our lives.

Dangerous

“Jesus said to them, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.’” John 8:28

It is not as evident to us, 2000 years down the line, but the audience Jesus spoke to was very aware of what Jesus meant when he said, “You will know that I am he.” In fact, it was their understanding of his meaning that made them so angry. Here, as in so many other places in the gospels, Jesus speaks about himself as “God”.

Pure Expressions

Pure Expressions

Let my pure expressions be blameless before the
words of those who would discover wrong, rummaging through
the details in the dark or in the light. Let my spotless,
pure in sunshine white, speak better than my silence or
defense of intentions.

And yet, My Perfect Master, I find more to indict myself than
any picker through my life ever discovers. I fear I will never 
come clean enough to admit enough without
eyes popping open.

Oh my friend, where did you find such words to say?
And why, though my sores are nearly healed, do new
tortures show their teeth again? How can I plead innocent
to murder
when I've thought such angry ways to remove
the attacker’s influence completely? Come, walk with me
for an hour, and speak. I will listen to your complaint; I am 
ready to understand why your words 
paint me like dangerous quicksand.

And yet I am not a murderer, but still I am;
an imperfect follower, caught while fixing my wounds
and hoping to take the next challenge well.

So the tears fall again, the heart beats fast again,
and self-defense is foolish. But sadness tosses me
deeper and I will lie on the ground until sun sets tomorrow.

Did anyone see that my bandages finally were off?
And now another arrow to the heart, second hand ammunition;
though the words are untrue, I am never innocent, and feel the
burn of tears, the flush of nerves blooding my face.

I will love how I can; understand I would have stood by you
against every accusation thrown even when the evidence
was known all over town. And, still, I will sit by your pain
as friends do.

My words will be few.