God-With-Us

(a little late in the season, but I've been mega-busy!)

God-With-Us

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name ‘Immanuel’; which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us.’” Matthew 1:23

Have you ever awoken from one of the dreams that seems so real that it influences your mood for a good part of the day? You may not even remember all the details, but the mood, the emotions stick with you. It is not that you simply remember feeling sad or happy, you still are sad or happy. Perhaps you actually dreamt about someone you knew, and somehow you have the same feelings toward the person once you are awake that you had in the dream. Having dreamed you have upset a loved one, you wonder what you have done to make them angry. And you keep telling yourself, “Self, it was only a dream.”

The Shortest Sentences

The Shortest Sentences

(”He took the seven loaves of bread and the fish and gave thanks to God. Then he divided the food and gave it to his followers, and they gave it to the people.” Matthew 15:36)

And the plains rolled slowly from the feet of the hills,
westward and looking, gazing and turning the questions upon themselves
over and over again. The crowd filled the grass,
every blade bent or broken. There is hunger here. There is thirst
and desire. There is aging hope, and fame sinking down the drains
of earlier expectations. The antique prophets spoke,
the burnished teachers with sparkling swag turned the thunder
to cuss and spit and anger. The wrath of God, in their hands,
was just the politics of borders.

But new and older, without a place to lay his head,
another spoke with patina. Our hunger deepened, our thirst
a dry and violent hole cracked well past autumn. Yet, the

shortest sentence fills us like banquets.

The slightest promise

Coaxes rain from the empty skies,
and empties our eyes of a life-full of precipitation.

We crossed the borders and He knew us,
we marched with refugees on the sands of worn leather,
arriving later than we had planned,
the party must have ended,
the budget overspent,
with only the roadies left behind packing up the
double-bass and banjos.  We doubled our pace

And discovered

There is not late, no ever, there is not there, nor never,
only fullness and every hungry for more.

Wide for Two

Wide for Two

(“God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.” Psalm 18:30)

Think there beside me, there are no strangers,
we are not alone. You are too sweet to die by
lying words. Hear truth, the two-edged sword of
bright hues and life.

This is your destiny that calls you, speaks your name so softly you
hear each syllable peal like the
morning chimes through fog.

You are created; love and power, and a thirst unquenched.
A satiated heart, filled with its own words and senses, never
discover the colossal passion of the
hunger that only cries,

“More, my Lord. And never let
my eyes
become accustomed to the hues You create
for my daily plate, the divine nourishment
of love.”

Though the world conspires to clothe you only
with cast-offs, you have the same brown overcoat
daddy and grand-dad wore. Swaddled in the
well-worn lining ancestral discoveries mingle
with future longings and hope takes fire

Lit by prophetic miles, wide for two, and long
enough for all.

You Speak to Me

You Speak to Me

(“Then he (Jesus) went up on a mountain where he could be alone and pray. Later that evening, he was still there.” Matthew 14:23)

I don’t think I could stay there all night,
in fact, I tried once, and ended up eating donuts before dawn.
There is so much power,
so much I could tell if only I could keep my feet
on the final swell from midnight till daylight.
I don’t know why I could not stay longer
with the one who,
I don’t know why,
loved me. But my mind is a prison

Of carousels and mosquitos that demand my attention.
I could excuse my thinnest moments on Your invisibility,
yet I can imagine the length and breadth of love or passion,
debates and conversations that never end. Arguments I’ll
never resolve
play merry-go-round, beginning, end, middle and then
starting someplace or other again. And the insects gnaw at
my best intentions; buzzing like radar, stinging like zeroes
and biting the truth in two.

Yet the moments when, at last, the mechanics of my mind
brake uphill and stop turning, when the gates have closed and
all conversation ceases, the quiet is dense as chocolate cream.
Frightening silence when half a newspaper, swirled by the breeze,
interrupts my reverie. The moments when the firing neurons
take their nap and leave my tiny spirit alone, the whisper of truth
which had hovered there all along, takes me hostage untethered
to a hiding place of lucidness, a cavern lit from within;

Those are when, a minute, an hour now hardly matter. For
I have heard the words I quivered to know,
thought myself unworthy to know,
and bow down, or leap up, or walk about or seek the star;
all are the delight of the solitary moments when
You speak to me. 

Until No One

Until No One

(“The sacred vestments of Aaron shall be passed on to his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them.” Exodus 29:29)

I know you want the title,
I heard you’ve been renamed.
You’re the prophet who can change
any ashes that have remained from
the fire we burned last night in the hearth
where we stare at the flames till midnight.
No one blames them for going cold after so long.

But the positions we inherit, the ranks we desire
do not fit us in our longings for something deeper,
something higher, something wiser than the mere headdress
of a priest at his duties,
or the half-Windsor knot of an executive’s silk tie,
we lie to other who know the truth,
we lie to ourselves and remain unmoved.

From the stars whose light fascinates our eyes,
from nebulae and galaxies we pretend to be our playgrounds,
the deepest call, (a Servant’s appellation), lands within our ears
quicker than light from iron-cold stars.

Fasten the nametag now, do not hesitate, serve the meal
with the wine
and take your place among
those who have heard you were once a criminal
or worse.

Today is your choice, today is the final verse of an Amen
louder than the last sound from the first black hole; listen now
to the level ground, the Father’s Son laid everything down

And kicked up the dust he first created so some would
lay down their crowns
to follow, thirsty, through the desert, until no one
knows our name.

We Send Prophecies

We Send Prophecies

("Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Matthew 12:30)

We make up names we found on scraps scattered on the ground,
torn edges of old poetry at an old author’s feet.
We rewrite the majesty, we make it fit for the streets,
but by the time we get there the houses are apartments,
the playmates have retired, and the grade-school hallways are
oh so much smaller than they were when we began.

We formulate the ways to eternity, we bake pies without recipes
and all along we sing the songs we heard from Mawmaw’s kitchen,
and wish she was still here to sing them.

We master-mind life’s navigation, steering past the last field
still cracking with marigolds and golden poppies. Next week
they break ground on the next Jacuzzi factory, mowing the
fair-haired garden down.

We send prophecies in the mail, we memorize the fictional apocalypse
seen through the latest novelist’s insistent of inerrancy. We study
multi-million dollar platforms and borrow a few thousand for
our daydreams. We turn a blind eye, (with misty recitations
explaining the third eye to a world lately myopic), we turn
the blinded eye toward the borders where refugees camp

And use the other eye to measure the miles per gallon
on the Winnebago we will ride cross country, freer than
the sky.

We make up names, we toss out the claims that Jesus could be
the Perfect Son and mean His sayings. We make him up; an angel,
an uncle, a poet, a hippie, a renegade, a god, a villain,
a vigilante, a brother, the other side of Cohen or Dylan,

But to bow in trembling unknowing is beyond our graphite ways.
We insist upon 8 and a half by 11, or we will not believe the dimensions
of Might and Compassion that cannot be worded except in the beginning
and incarnate among flesh and blood.

Dreamed-Up

Dreamed-Up

(“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them. We will come to them and make our home with them.’” John 14:23)

She woke up and thought she would write some words
to the one person she had refused her words for
five years and more. And then the words were only
the sudden hope of manufactured miracles,
the quick passing of canned words strengthened by seeing
it

All in a dream.

While he had suffered for seven years, the pain building
like a slow ascent up a Mexican pyramid, or the steep hills
you hike
that appear as one short jaunt until sightlines break the ridge
to see
more and more hills ahead; and in your periphery. More hills that
eventually end upon a plateau of pain; a restless place where

Each day drowns you underneath its angry intent of
shoving every thought out of a once active brain,
and your habits are soggy and sweat from the energy consumed
attempting to beat back the welding pen that has engraved “pain”
upon every movement of your body.

But she (who could challenge her motives) merely sent a “word”
that dreamed up a prophetic announcement that all his pain would
be finished soon.

And he would like an ear, for she would not bear to hear that, in a month
or a year,
the season had remained, the pain still plunging him helplessly
beyond anyone’s comprehension

Except God’s alone.

Courageous Love

Courageous Love

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to oppose an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn your other cheek to him as well.” Matthew 5:38-39

I can guarantee you that not a single person on the globe automatically turns their cheek to someone who hits them first. In fact, the way most of us tried to get out of trouble for fighting in school was by saying, “But he hit me first.” We have a built-in response that is like some free pass to unload on someone if they throw the first punch.

I Like this Song

I Like this Song

(“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7)

I can’t find the help I need, no one answers my call,
I’m stuck and I’m leaving, I’m famished and I’m grieving
over the cold feet that could be warmed
if you just asked one friend unalarmed, to find
the source you lost when someone Grasping for Life
held the door open so the winter cold would enter
and you would leave for the last time after time.

Your words are a string of letters flowing from immediate fingers,
not the dipstick pens of unresolved stories. Let the flurry
wipe your vision clear, the frigid blister steel your resolve
and look further forward this time than ever before.

I entered your story around chapter 16. I heard you recite
vignettes from six and seven. You quoted dialogues of two characters,
both with the same name, though their sentences were
of nearly equal length while you filled in the silences.
I knew you were future.
I hoped you were not fastened with invisible fishing line
to stories that would become ancient by the time your
narrative is ended.

The indelible ink has dried, the silent pillows cried
along with your unrelenting fears that played like
silent movies upon your sleeping cranium. But, with
chapters and dialogue still to be written,
seek the Muse whose style can match your
past unbidden

With a future unhidden, when
day becomes brighter from sunrise over the mountain pass
to noonday’s reflection upon the stillest river flow.

I’m out of predictions, used my last half a century ago,
but the story will be written, the lines like poets write
with jazz in the background and a favorite friend who,
each time the band begins, says again,
“I like this song.”

The Same Way

The Same Way

 ^(“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26)

I judged so hard I cannot see what the judging meant to me.

I dug so deep the stones slept below the shoveled repeats.
I ran so fast the artificial track burned my barefoot heels and
artificial grass. Run again, to hide from the looks that guided
the criticism back at me. Running still, to discover the hopeful dollar
because I knocked one hour longer than all the rest.

I’m feeling the same way all over again.

I have not been fed like a pet left alone with a bowl and water,
like a parrot talking to the air or a
cat reigning from the sunlit chair.
All the desires, nearly most, and some of the best,
were coffee houses on open mike Fridays,
were student-published staple-bound copies that
made the rounds from temporary buildings on the edge of campus
to dots on a page of the Milton press.

I’ve never liked sandwiches; bologna or tuna; but when a sunny friend
asked would I stay for lunch,
I ate like a seaside café had plated the catch of the day.

I’m tasting the same way all over again.

I thought he sang better, (no, I knew it true) but we sang together
the light and the blue, the crystal and the few lyrics we pieced
from our own short minds and limited time. A single night recording,
four track Teac tape, sitting on my brother’s bed; we said this
was our best, an acoustic set. Two guitars, a recorder, a trumpet
and a flute. We sang of the Lamb of God, the one slain before
earth’s foundation was laid.

I’m searching the same sound all over again.

Yet pain is still the song the brings shadows unbidden;
sleepless, my thoughts are hidden behind grammatical corrections
and dramatic protests to my Autumn. Well-fed, sleep is
the only option what leaves my mind simply rested. 

In All Seriousness

In All Seriousness

(“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3)

I had a notion long ago, like an ocean full of logic,
that God needed informants, sleuths to testify of
loose gears in the machinery to management. I dearly loved
the agency,
the sanity I thought was saintly. I never clicked my tongue
or filed a report but I plainly
explained every missed question on the test;
and wondered how they test-taker graduated with all the rest.

Some of them became teachers, these ones with private files
printed upside down upon my desk. I confess I read them, if
not to the rest, to myself. Some of them led millions,
these ones dressed with waterproof ties, shades over their eyes,
while I thought my casual garb was more naked than theirs,
covering less than theirs; showing more of my bleached ankles
and skinny wrists. My mind was insulated just as well,
buried deeper than the death knell. My tears distracted the
prying eyes.

When did I believe I was richer than I had begun? What piles
of treasure,
uncalled-for leisure on mountain slopes and summer isles
had I amassed? My balance is higher, square footage greater,
new car faster; while I’ve read more books, learned more tunes,
bought more songs, and composed my poetry better than
I’ve composed myself. Because,

In all seriousness,

The nightmares I walked off on high school nights
are the same dreams I hide because old men should be
over them by now.

This is How

This is How

(“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 1:18)

I don’t know how the angel felt, or if angels can feel at all;
to announce it, to unroll the scroll of the new and holy meeting
God would have with the waiting world. Though nearly every mother
dreamed
her baby boy, her firstborn, would be the one, the foretold Son

The Lord promised would bruise the serpent’s heel.

Though *YHWH promised, the prophets had announced in clearness
and shade, the coming and anointed One, the expectations ebbed and swayed
as days delivered less vital force and more simple hand-to-mouth tedium,
when God is acknowledge but seldom sought or begged.

Though *YHWH spoke, and the Word so rhythmic and poetic, was
passed down in every sacrifice sent to desolation, and every feast meant
for celebration. Perhaps the rythmns of life had rocked the holy longings
to sleep. Perhaps the beloved napped away the moment when *YHWH
sent the explosive message to two who loved, and pledged, and softly waited
their joyous wedding day and consummation.

Oh *YHWH, how uncommon are your plans. We stumble in circles at the
turns you manufacture and the dead ends where angels wrestle us,
rupture our hips and call it a blessing.

But we do not plan the journey, the journey plans us. And you sent,
perhaps a cold April,
your brightest announcement through an angel’s whisper
to a teenage miss who only knew to say “yes” when angels come
calling.

  

*Not to be enunciated when read aloud. Leave a pause.

Dressed for the Dance

Dressed for the Dance

(“Pharaoh sent at once for Joseph. He was brought hastily from the dungeon, and after a quick shave and change of clothes, came in before Pharaoh.” Genesis 41:14)

They told me it was ending, the time was closing in,
the final act was over, we waited for the epilogue.
We had heard the announcement for ages, for lifetimes,
for moments we wondered would ever end.

But we kept on dancing, with our without the band.

They told me it was time now, the auditions began,
the callbacks, the final chance to make the team,
to be called an actor, a thespian, a professional
at my craft.

But, I kept on dancing, and never heard their laughs.

They agreed I had talent, I read well, they said,
“You have presence, you have intensity,
your belief is suspended and your belt holds up your pants.”

And I kept on dancing, avoiding cracks to save my mama’s back.

Which is where it started, with her, with mom. I was groomed,
I was dressed, costumed and confessed I loved the stage and applause,
while I was shy as a turtle who dreams of going to school without its shell.
I had done well to fight my bashful nativity until a guerilla war
left me slow to trust and playing in the dust; a quiet corner of my
personal prison cell. Books don’t talk back; books serve as friendship well.

But I dressed for the dance, scrubbed my face, neck and ears;
washed the ancient cream-colored Bug and picked up my date who
helped me

Keep on dancing. Dressed in rags or royal, my estimation is this:
esteem can be beaten, but dancing is forever’s food; dance on,
dance on.

On His Way

"On His Way"

Genesis 32:1 says, "Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him." Poor guy. He had been employed by Laban, his father-in-law, for twenty years. During his first year, he fell in love with Laban's daughter Rachel. Laban says Jacob can marry Rachel if he works for him another seven years. So Jacob does. He shows up on time, does his work, even going beyond what Jacob desired, and finally, seven years later, It is time to marry his beloved.

Stretching

Stretching

(“He (Jesus) said this to stretch Philip’s faith. He already knew what he was going to do.” John 6:6)

Everyone thought they knew, and they threw their opinions down like
challenges into the sand. The Messiah One has spoken to me, it seems,
so clearly,
that nearly everyone else should have heard to too.
The Master’s Plan is easy to understand, consult me first, I make it
clear to you.
My answers are quick, shooting off my tongue like bottle rockets
on Independence shortly after dawn. I’ll tell you who to vote for,
I’ll even take a photo of my ballot in the booth
and
splash on my social pages with comments neatly deleted.
Follow my lead, because I always follow His, and quickly,
no time at all, it’s true, we’ll turn back to the 60s when
everyone carried guns in the trucks to school. (Did I forget the
rules about separate drinking fountains and seats on buses?)
Listen to me as I listen to Him, we’ll dial it back to the 50s then,
“Father Knew Best” and everything got left to Beaver. (Did I
overlook McCarthy’s great day, when playwrights, artists,
comedians and misfits were painted so red they overshadowed
the Midwestern sunsets?)

I’m sweating on the inside, I only admit it to the so few who see these words;
the farther back I go, 100 years? The more terror I behold. Japanese internment,
females barred from voting, and it took more than two Native Americans to equal
one single immigrant. You would think they could make a Native equal two
after half had died in wars, raids, and death marches marking their way with tears.

Jesus make me see what I hear so poorly. Paint the impossible clearly
so I cannot be glib with good stories that can suck the tears straight out of
unsuspecting eyes,
but have little truth, little hope, and no facts at all behind them.

Jesus make me feel the burning in the throats of those who have cried
far too long over judgment days come far too early.
Jesus make me feel the rumbling doubling over inside the guts of
the tiny ones whose food comes and goes like autumn’s cold wind.
Jesus make me stop…

Make me stop.

I Replaced Myself

I Replaced Myself

(“He knew what all people are like. He did not need anyone to tell him about any person, because he knew what was in a person's heart.” John 1:25”)

Tell me who I am, now, recite my name and my place;
The days are no longer kind, the nights bring no relief,
I stumble over my feet and my words,
I repeat the twice, and they still sound foreign; mere bookmarks
for things I once treasured in my mind.

The world is far too large now, I’ll never be now, the
places I’ve never been.
I replaced myself with another more times than
anyone should. And now, towards the end,
when I want to befriend myself, I am short
on the few who knew I was harmless.
I am less than I ever was, when I hoped to be
a mentor of a few.

I am old and still apologizing
for not fitting in. I’m a jigsaw piece without
a puzzle,
a horizon blocked by the downtown mall.

In this corner pain repeats its chorus and verse,
tied to a silent hill, tangled without a player
to hear the songs I wish I wrote; miles from lonely,
and desolate between here and there.

Tell me who I am, replace me where my joy resides,
take me to success again; when the spoke well of me again.
I am the loneliest man I know, and the only one in this
foamy corner. My heart is a frozen knot, my tears the
thaw of the thoughts I once considered true. My mind
is lost now; cast off now.

I’ve practiced forgetting, I’ve erased the names and places;
but they invade with a vengeance the peace I hoped to make.
I’ve displayed forgiveness, I’ve buried people and words;
but they are live each morning and I die by degree.

Change me, make me madly in love my final days.
Move me, place me closer to the souls I know like mine.
Take me, (and I mean home), I am tired and there are no more

Successes left for me.

And Blessed

And Blessed

(“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.” Genesis 14:19)

And blessed be the Lamb,
the One that was slain;
and blessed be the ones
who
follow with faith their only weapon,
love their battle-cry.

They have no enemies of their own making,
they capture no land,
they are pilgrims whose feet are beautiful upon
the mountains,
whose lips speak no deceit,
whose pens bleed the ink of their own wounds
and write of healing to the nations.

They do not long for better days,
nor predict the end of the earth,
they speak of grace that fills the valleys
and mercy that flows from the peaks.
They drink the wine of reconciliation,
eat the bread of perfect peace.

Yet some call them jaded for turning from violence to hope,
others insist Satan has trapped them when they do not bow
to the placards of hate.
They have embraced life,
and held it with compassionate arms.

They know wars are on the horizons,
they see the storms as well;
they know poverty and falsehood may
have their way again.

But they have followed the Lamb not the Warrior,
they have seen Him Die to Win. And having seen the
Creator
emptied,
they no longer fill themselves with human decay.

Tear it Down

Tear it Down

(“I know your works, your love, faith, service, and endurance, and that your last works are greater than the first.” Revelation 2:19)

The world’s gone insane, and those who wrap themselves
in Jesus’ name,
and God’s love,
and speaking in tongues,
and knowing the hymns

Did not shudder when Clayton Locket writhed
43 minutes
on the table after injected with
the trinity dose of death the state bought from
pharmacologicals who don’t mind making a buck off death.

Not only did they not shudder,
when the story was told one study around
a table
so quickly the mouth opened “And how long did
his victims suffer?”

And the thunder came down, and the lightning bruised the sky
from top to bottom,
the tombs opened and saints walked the earth when the Son of God
in

Agony

Suffered for sinners: murderers, thieves, hypocrites and big-mouths
like me-like you
who
can’t keep our mouths shut long enough to consider

What is it Our God Would Do? And who want to change history
to prove how we’ve always been Christians from shore to shore,
and from one border they want to double-wall, and the other
northern where scary Muslims arrive.

And yet Jesus went out of His way to talk to Samaritans,
And Jesus chose Paul-the-terrorist for His team,
And Jesus told Peter to put down his sword,
And Jesus is called the Prince of Peace,
And Jesus blesses the peaceMakers as His children.

And, yes the victims suffered, no question about that. But, you
who want your Second Amendment guns, why don’t you also desire
no punishment to be cruel or unusual; clear as the militia mentioned in
Constitutional script.

Cover it, Cover it with compassion. Die to self, don’t lie to self,
and let the walls come crashing that we
rebuilt shortly after Jesus ripped them down,
tore them down bare-knuckled, with bleeding hands,
the wall of separation that kept man from man,
land from land, and made the 2 into 1 (have you not read?)
You were never commissioned to rebuild it again.

Tear it down, tear it down with compassion. Die to self, don’t lie to self,
and let the arms receive the worst offenders in the same arms spread
across the lumber for you and I. 

All & Every

All & Every

(“The Lord God says, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the One who is and was and is coming. I am the All-Powerful.’” Revelation 1:8)

Take this heart invisibly, the One created-not-born,
and unbreak the fissures, or fill them presently
with the passion unending.

At every point on every line,
every line on every plane,
every plane on every facet interface with me.

Higher than my suspect prayers,
deeper than my conceived potions,
sweeter than my anger disguised as righteous,
kinder than the hidden thoughts behind flashing eyes;

Be to me everything I cannot be,
within each molecule, the air between elements,
the charged plasma between electrons darting around
the center of each atom,
be all in me, all for me, all me and only me.

And delete me as well as I delete my digital words
with calloused fingers on the keyboard. Delete the
me that uses me as a portrait of best things when
the rest of things are undone.

All, my solid footing. Every, my absent nothing.
And as darkly as I see through the glass smudged with
strong-minded sludge, be my light behind the shadow
and the joy for the window of my soul.

Welcome

Welcome

(“The person who says that he is in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.” 1 John 2:9)

Welcome to the party, come inside, find your place along the wall,
or in a chair, single or dual.

Did you ride well, or walk, did the rain drip
down your back, and were you able to find a plus 1,
is he parking the car, or she, or preceded you pulling some
pate de foie gras from the platter with pointy bread or salad.

Welcome to my home, wipe your feet, leave the mud outside,
never mind the dog’s nails, the cat’s hair, the cockatiel’s harsh songs,
oh my, they are all so talented.

You don’t like dog breath on your face, allergic to cats, don’t mind birds
but would I unplug the music that sounds so messy accompanying Debussy.
You agree about their talents, though, am I right, and have not mispronounced
your name or stumbled upon your toe; tell me.

Welcome to the patio, inhale the air, let the manicured carpet tickle your feet,
mosquitoes and horseflies are mostly gone now, electrically dismissed by
blue sparks, the marigolds and tea tree oil pick up the slack, you’ll
mostly be left alone, except of course,

For the dog and the cat.

Oh, this is your plus one, and your name, sir, and your occupation, and
what libation would you desire, you would rather drink water, though
not entirely unheard of, bottled or tap, and lastly, before I forget, you
were told, or read, or overhead at the latest meeting, that we are gathered tonight
to make our school safer for the little apples of our eyes.

These three are ours, and you have two, boy and girl, we must call the others
and begin our brief consultation, come, gather around, a circle will do, find your
place and we begin:

“Our Father in heaven, we have full hearts from Your outpouring of grace.
We depend upon Your mercy, and call upon Your wisdom. See how we,
singles and marrieds, widows and divorced, have come in Your love to
meet this wonderful night. Guide us, be with us, let Jesus’ name be above
every other name, Amen.”

Murmurs, and a few throats cleared, feet scuffed and shuffled on the concrete
patio floor.

Welcome to our meeting, and, uhm, we, well, we have a question, have you
been praying, we have a question, and a devilish problem. Have you heard,
and how will you answer, we have, in our own high school

A teacher, a lesbian,

And another, a witch.

Welcome to God’s mission: suggestions on how to rid our school of them.

False Projections

False Projections

(“And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words.” 2 Peter 2:3a)

You’ve made you words tools so slick
they mention “grace” and trick the ear to follow
your foolish ways that, discovered further and later,
alter the abundance called charis into a claustrophobic
closet of destruction.

You love so well, it would seem, that your words go
down sweetly, honey and cream,
and sell the love that smothers truth from young lungs
not yet learning to lie.

You give so well, it appears; charity of time and money,
cash and minutes…yet disappears at the first sign
the chosen few can see through your veiled morality.

Sometimes it takes years to dig deep enough to know
the truth you’ve been hearing
is no truth at all. And sometimes
it takes more light to come out of a cavern
than it did to be ushered within.

Be the beloved and leave the shovels of treasure seeking
behind the shed;
see the rain the waters the seed, that disturbs the earth,
moving clods aside to embrace the sun (along with
every other sprout planted with purpose or
scattered haphazard)

Share the coveted place inside the crowded spaces
where finally the light has broken the voices that
vanish like the morning fog near noon. They
held nothing and offered less; their smiles
were aliases for minds waiting to deploy their
final appeal. Padding their philosophy with
references to karma or “sowing and reaping”
they live in style until

The light dispels their false projection on old barn doors.