How Long Will You Wait?

“So Joshua said to the people of Israel, ‘How long are you going to wait before you go in and take the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you?’” Joshua 18:3

The timing was no right for Israel to move in and take the land God had promised them. The time of waiting was over. God’s will and His guidance were clear. It was time to act. If they were to obtain what God had promised it was now time to move in, full force.

Untangled

“Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

I love Christmas. I hate the strings of Christmas lights. I am completely convinced that demons haunt the boxes of Christmas decorations from mid-January until sometime after Thanksgiving when families drag them down from the attic. Having made every effort to neatly store the cords with their tiny bulbs, they are invariably found tangled together like a nest of snakes.

Where Stories Meet

Where Stories Meet

(“Because you are now part of God’s family, He sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts; and the Spirit calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” Galatians 4:6)

I never mind dividing a slice and sharing
the findings around a table of good friends.
We meander and multiply, start stories from the middle
and watch them fly, landing in beginning of someone
else’s tale.

You, we have talked so often, I have categorized your stories;
from grandparents to college shenanigans, young dreams,
younger ambitions, and late revisions of a life ratcheting down
in slow motion.

You tell them so well that, labyrinths winding through time
and recollection, that same tale is garnished depending
on the season. Steak and strawberries in May,
sweet potatoes in October.

What puzzles we are, with histories that ebb,
tides that reveal more at sun and less for rain;
the beginnings, the ends, the outlines the same,
but the telling lets minutes seem like a montage
of 15 passing days.

You, I hope we talk more often, have a hidden pond,
an inner dialogue God knows alone. I know. I
sense the same mystery in me. We are not as free
as we believe, yet are more abundant than we
conceive
on a slow Monday morning.

That hidden place, like the maze through a cavern,
so deep we think it dark, and yet, the most brilliant
of all our human cause and effects.  Sub-original effects
notwithstanding, and all the retail branding we hope will
demand a higher value on today’s market;

That quiet space is what makes
your history so attractive to me,
my story so striking to you,
as if we’ve heard what we have never heard

And dined at the same table from conscious until now.

Overbaked

OverBaked

(“But in that day, the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious; the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of all who survive in Israel.” Isaiah 4:2)

Afraid to grow,
afraid of the hole I fell in,
I feel in the coming storm,
I felt in waking dreams
the souvenirs of failures
two steps behind the falling line.

Save me this time, O Branch with roots firmly grasping
the soil and granite. Reach down to my cannot,
grab me by my frantic, shake the haven’t out of my
narrow range of vision. I will place my feet on
the muddy bank
if you will hold me up;
do not leave me to sink on the shore
swept out to the vast no more,
beyond the cold cold roar where waves
are a distant silence.

My feet are sore, my head, overbaked, is dry
and crumbly,
my mind stumbling over itself; my feet
rebelling the next degree.

I want to run the sand, laugh the wind,
sing the babies, smile the sun even when
the shades are drawn.

I want to feel the blood rushing through me,
heart in tempo and strong, taking life-liquid
to the cells and nerves where the thinking waits
for a bit of refreshment to delete yesterday’s
fuzzy entries. The best brain is a hack when
running the same track deeper into the same
ruts steeper into the hole I fear I fell in when
I felt the coming storm.

I would rather eat an apple or a peach,
the sweet sticky clogging my fingers
reminds me that life that runs through me.
With nectar stuck on my lips and hands,
how can I imagine the Branch has lost the way
of the taste and ways of me.

Experts

“Then arrogant people will be brought down, and high and mighty people will be humbled. On that day Yahweh alone will be honored.” Isaiah 2:18

It pains me to say it, but God is not looking for experts. The experts who disturb me the most are people who know exactly how to raise children. Oh, not any sort of child-rearing expert; I mean the ones who have not had children yet, themselves. I was one of them. I had it figured out long before our first beautiful boy was born.

Do Good

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.” Isaiah 1:17

I usually have music playing in the background during my time in the office. Most often I listen to contemporary Christian music or instrumental hymns. Occasionally, just for a change of pace, I’ll put on some jazz, classic rock or blues. But most often it is Contemporary Christian.

Stars Inside

Stars Inside

(“Yet when [the mustard seed] is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” Mark 4:32)

There are stars inside us preheated before explosion,
preparing for expansion, spinning toward constellations
no eyes have perceived. Souls do have their dreams.

There is a universe within the smallest frame;
tiny fingers, bony toes, skinny necks, legs like sticks,
that contains the molecules and recipe for the masterpiece
hung on heaven’s wall; the melody played down heaven’s hallways.

We are not and yet, we are full and void, we shout the echoes,
whisper the amperage, and walk so small it is a wonder
we are noticed at all.

We are tall and flat, we are poets and pedants, we laugh whimsy,
scowl about rumors, and crawl so huge we peek above the clouds
dragging our feet through the deluge.

There are demons inside us where we seldom lodge,
uneasy, we quote their excuses as if it reduces our
personal contribution to the thin layers of global harming.

There are sinners and angels, God’s image and Adam’s,
the conflagration of destruction, the inferno of purification.
We are creation’s wonder, and the source of mourning for
all our humility and hubris.

There is a Morning Star poised just below the horizon,
a speck of light in minute degrees sometimes seen between
the firs and cedars. There is a Daylight Name within each
layer of fascination. The voice to uneasy space, the full
to emptied disgrace; pulling all toward itself; the Gravity

Of a Humble King who is found among impossible things.

Any Day

Any Day

(“Look! The winter has passed, the winter rains are over and gone.” Song of Solomon 2:11)

Any day the tides may turn, the storms cease their
constant refrain along the easements of unsettled minds.
The thoughts once frozen can surely thaw,
the bristly sleet will warm to glad sheets of rain,
the day will begin early again.

We have heard the announced arrival, the blizzard
whistling down the gorge, the roar hugging the coulees,
and the doors slamming shut until the icy wind
and stinging snow have built their glistening lean-tos on
every western exposure.

We double down on comforters and hot chocolate.

But the day when the last snow shrivels, the final rain withers,
we hardly remember the hardships of winter. The daffodils
burst like butter, the lilacs perfume the ripening breeze,
while miscellaneous floes beg the inlets and shadows.

The first day of bare-feet, t-shirts and Dairy Queen
erases the hard reckoning that wears out our heavy coats.
The second week in a row we have to water the roses
we know no other season than the one when love is
likely to whisper. The girl with the braids
sees the boy with the braces for the first time since
Spring sang its arrival clear.

"It's All About the Service"

“I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?” 2 Corinthians 12:15

Perhaps you have a couple of friends like this. You go out to coffee, talk, laugh and share stories. Then, getting up to leave, he reaches for the bill without allowing me even a courteous attempt at paying it myself. Then, a few days later I visit another friend for lunch. We talk about mutual interests, catch up on old times and tease the entire wait staff. Without a moment’s thought she sweeps up the check with sleight-of-hand dexterity. I didn’t have a chance. Or, maybe we are going to a movie and the same friend is impatiently keeping his place in line ahead of me. Of course, I understand why once we are at the ticket booth and he is saying, “Two, please.”

Be Strong

“Be strong and courageous. Don’t tremble! Don’t be afraid of them! The Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He won’t abandon you or leave you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

Fear is one of the strongest emotions we face. It comes in many forms; nervousness, timidity, procrastination, shyness, intimidation and even aggressiveness. Most of the things we regret in life are due to letting fear talk us out of taking a difficult step forward. We may fear we are unqualified for a job and never pursue it. Fearing rejection, we are bashful, and perhaps miss out on relationships with interesting people.

All is Colored

All is Colored

(“Sometimes a man who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by a man who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” Ecclesiastes 2:21)

He is swimming in his loneliness,
drowning like ducks on the desert,
trying to space his words just far enough apart
to not run out before the breathing is done.

He started the tailspin, he began the helicline fall
with very little effort at all. Admitting so, he hoped
everyone connected also remembered his cry for help
before the spiral began.

The hair he let grow longer than before now
lay in a kiss-curl on his forehead
easily mistaken for a misplaced tear.

He is drowning in his loneliness,
swimming on the backdraft of yesterday’s success;
goals set and exceeded, awards granted unexpected,
applause and overflow, ovations and the high plateau
of questions about how to do it all over again.

Like a magician who whose props are burned to ash,
he tries to recreate the love and fire that took him
two steps a time up stairs and down. He limps
behind the smell of summer’s rain, never needing
to look behind…
except for those who have lapped his pace
and may pass him again in gray drizzle.

He is swimming in dreams unmet,
visions laid down flat on the concrete of cold memory;

All is colored by pain, the music is interruption,
sunrise a shame to miss, and tear-wells full
and ready to flow

At the least hint of another joy evaporating with time.

For the Next Sky

For the Next Sky

(“And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8)

How much money; the papers folded and tucked
in a wad, the gold stacked neatly, silver faced discreetly
out of sight of the needy.

How much hunger; the faces wrinkled and crisp
in the sun, the child faced empty, mother placed twenty
like eighty and minus the next harvest’s seed.

One tribe needs water, our taps run like background noise.
One clan freezes blue, our stoves burn red and yellow 80.

One friend stronger than champions of construction,
a contractor and genius, she pulls down the sky to
replace it with dreams and sweat no peer could conceive.

Days with hammers, nights with drills, paint the walls
where they intersect tomorrow’s horizon. Her pets,
always underfoot, never hindered the work, the magnet
of her perpetual motion. I wielded tools, her and I,
twice or once, and I comprehended her hand and brain work.

Gave, her time, her tools; offered her good, her smiles;
never interpreted more that spoken, or heard more than fine.
Little pay, but always bounty, her joy was days, fellows
and banter.

Until exploding, the shock tore the hearing from her brain,
the balance from the train of thought that always connected
foundation to flooring, roofing to ceiling and worse. Left
aloof on the northern plains, her friends escaped invisible
while she recovered alone.

How much money; folded and saved
in a drawer, the amount tallied, the digits carried over
for a rainy day.

How much hunger; the friend anxious and only
in the shadows, she faced another empty, her tears still empty.

But one with a rainy-day fund decided (graceful and provided)
there is not a better return on investment than hearing the pulse
of a lonely friend slow, the breathing low, and the words
having swallowed the bitter pill well, now piecing the puzzle
at least for the next sky until now.

Devoted to Excellence

“He who tills his land will have plenty of food, but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.” Proverbs 28:19

There is no doubt that we can name plenty of hard working people who have lost their fortune. I have a dear friend, one of the hardest working people you might ever meet, who is now near bankruptcy due to a combination of physical challenges, properties what were flooded and dishonest business partners. Hearing stories like that we are tempted to say, “See, this proverb, along with the rest of Scripture, is unreliable.”

Counter-Culture

“’So then turn away from them, turn away and leave without looking back,’” says the Lord. ‘Stay away from anything unclean, anything impure, and I will welcome you.’” 2 Corinthians 6:17

Depending on how long you have followed Jesus, you may have heard this verse applied to everything including sexual promiscuity, style of dress, music preferences and what kind and how much jewelry a woman ought to wear. It is not my aim to support any of these particulars, or to belittle them. I hope, though, to crystallize the focus a bit.

Rise to Receive

Rise to Receive

(“For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.” 2 Corinthians 5:19a)

It is Monday, today, day two,
the second after Sunday, and the leading tone
toward Tuesday.

Moments are not paragraphs,
nor hours chapters,
nor days a story or
years a novel at all.

The day light was declared good
is the day hours passed and remained
just as fast,
just the same.

The dark afternoon when death was life
is the dark that passed and does not remain
just as true,
just the same.

Robin on the wire, your days are longer than mine,
your children hatch and learn and fly in that single season,
then leave the twiggy home for another fence post in
a suburban garden.

Doe and fawn who wander the blackberry blinds,
you hear more than I see, and lead the silent path
where last year’s Columbian White-Tail led
their own the river’s protected shore.

Humanity searches ruins of the ancient past,
kings lie in state and peasants have dusted away
while potsherds evoke possible tunes written upon the clay.

Who will find me and my own? Where, in all memory
have I played the songs that reflect the day, convey the way
life has invaded the unexpected waiting of Creation
and Adam. 

We rise to receive the Majesty and, believe,
earth and sky and child and elder are caught up together

In the Day when our imagination was much too small
for all the universe and the Father’s reconciliation.

River Sweep

River Sweep

(“The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Creator of them both.” Proverbs 22:2)

Wherever I be, straight line or crooked tree,
the rivers birth winter snow down the early May gorge
toward
the ocean full of swimming and floating,
diving and quoting the songs of Him
who made it all.

From midnight Marianas Trench to
luminous sandbars overrun by fleas and hermit crabs,
every stretch of imagination feeds our fascination
with the circle bouquets; life and breath,
gills or lungs,
eyes or tentacles,
fins or fingers;
we mostly blush at our preconceptions.

But let the unwashed bump me on the
crowded aisle of Wal-Mart AutoParts
and I lose interest in the theme of things,
the string of things that attach us all,
charms on a young girl’s bracelet.

Let the unknown language invade my
English comprehension and I might replace
my love of time and space with a catchphrase of
alienation; stepping beyond the border from outside
in,
we argue the space invasion. We bought this air,
this two foot square occupied by my intonations.

River run past the shanties,
river sweep past the cliff dwelling mansions,
river sweep the sweet sands and firewood to the sea,
to the sea,
and river bring back the wonder of living,
and breathing, and the Creator’s design
signed on each low and high with the same
name, Emanuel, for each. For all. For me,
for me.

Thoughts on Boxes and Treasures

“But we have this treasure in clay pots, so that the surpassing power belongs to God and does not come from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7

My father was an amateur magician. He delighted in using various sleight of hand tricks to illustrate sermons for children, and sometimes for adults. In one he showed the audience a red velvet bag with a handle on one end. He would hold it up, turn it inside out and back again, to show it was an “ordinary” bag.