Pace and Patter

Pace and Patter

Just around the bend where the trees greet the
river’s corner in obeisance; this is where the daylight
reminds me of the afternoons that
passed far too fast,
the conversations that began so haltingly,
like a long freight train leaving the station,
then gathered speed until the pace and patter of every
sentence
felt like the rhythms of life itself.

Sometimes your eyes captured mine and I simply enjoyed
your voice’s décor while the meaning poured past my perception.
While the light caught the coffee hue, your eyes were
my new therapy. Your invitation kept us in sweet captivity
into the opening afternoon.

Words fell upon words like leaves dance from the trees
in long lazy spirals, barely moved by ghosts or zephyrs,
circling each other and holding tightly their invisible hands.Our sentences were chains of campfire smoke, exploring easily

the air above our heads, the branches held out in open invitation.

And so we explored every question we ever raised,
every commitment we phrased to love or duty,
to friendship and beauty.  And the wisps of our explorations
did not collide in cast-iron conflagrations, but built more
solid for our uncertainties.

There were a few who, sitting apiece in the same place,
upon the same rock, with the same view and
same sun with shade,
rays and shadow made to open the soul to exploration;
with solid argument and booked definitions, broke our conversation
into pieces upon the forest floor. We perhaps talked a half hour;
never more.

But you (and all, and many, and one) knew there was no bite
in our spiced exchanges; only soul and soul in lucid uncertainty
becoming what we hoped, and know now, what it could be;
only love’s best friendship in all its freehand splendor.

Half the Supply

Half the Supply

(“Here’s what believers who are in low positions in life should be proud of. They should be proud that God has given them a high position in the kingdom.” James 1:9)

The days are dry without end, the summer light
grills the ground, the constant beige baked into every
rock and stone. And hours since the light is gone
the rugged desert floor radiates the same heat
toward the stars. Stingy with its release, the air only
becomes breathable
a pair of hours before dawn, before
the sharp light and arid sky provide
only half the supply life needs for thickets
and underbrush other ecozones display
with less effort than a butterfly gliding
bloom to bloom.

We walk soon after dawn, before noon and the
straight-line blaze from the sun and its rays overheat
every possible path. Flat as a billiard’s slate, no shade
breaks the invisible beams; no respite for earth and its
captive passenger to take a breath, wipe the sweat,
and hope new rain will fall swallowed by washes
and sent to start the seeds awaiting the second half
of verdant genesis.

And while the wait, and during the walk, some
30 feet distant on the dusty floor, a color far outside
the decorator’s wheel; a bright, a sheen, a damp magenta
and intense yellow;
the solo desert flower caught the eye. The parched earth
below a gasping sky had offered more than the forests
of coastal mountain ranges.

In its poverty the desert offered an isolated endowment;
the smallest of flowers from the poorest supply
greeted the eye with more reflection
than a thousand on a rainforest floor.

At the Table

At the Table

(“And he said to me, ‘This is the table that is before the Lord.’” Ezekiel 41:22b)

The restaurant was darker than most, the walls splayed with
lights of neon green. The large booth received us well, our family
that dines together and fills the air around us with high notes
of merriment,
low notes
of secrets,
intervals of silence between an almost-forgotten joke
and the beginnings of laughter (the respectful kind
that knows a father’s punchline well before he gets there.)

Before the food ever arrives the server greets our little tribe,
and we would feed her too if she didn’t have other things to do.
Philippine Paella family style is the majority vote and
the food arrives before the royal princess can finish
her third story about her best friend and learning Mandarin,
and cousins and the new dog that owns the home.
She carries the conversation at six and nearly seven;
theater and spotlight runs deeply in her veins.

Once a year our scattered family tries to meet; the
hug is Minneapolis with Dallas, Chicago, Baltimore,
California and the Pacific Northwest the remote abodes
strewn across the continent.

We fish our favorites out of the giant pan before us,
sweet mussels and sea salt clams, luxuriant crab and
salacious shrimp, along with sausage, fragrant and spice.
All of it resting upon rice turned playful in the saffron sauce.

Food needs a table, meals need a family; we never remember
the quick peanut butter sandwich at home for lunch or
the leftover meatloaf spread across competing rooms for dinner.
One does homework, another reads, and others watch Jeopardy
with memories barely jarred.

Lord, Your table is spread, made ready for our hunger. We need
so much more
than we ask for or order.
So teach us to remain long after the check has arrived,
help us remember the clatter of kitchen sounds
every time we find ourselves eating and drinking
together

At the Table of the Lord.

Found My Hope

Found My Hope

(“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.” Hebrews 11:1)

I found my hope in better things than bathing my brain
in acid poured from angry yet unredeemed. I discover
larger breaths of love that blanket the earth; sunshine and rain,
righteous, unrighteous, colonized and desert. While we cling to
our angry gods,
our tyrants who teach us
that every brain is shriveled dust except
the brain that sees the world like us;

The Father of All, with hope that pours from an endless store,
begins with more than our short-term fuse, and refuses to drag
His feet
over nuance. While the religious battle evolution and
“secular science” and “doctors without Jesus” He extends
His grace with a grasp so great it can only be missed

By those who have been blinded by their own idols
and

Those who believe they have believed the perfect faith
because they have hated the lefties, harangued the righties,
and learn that telling half-truths gets people’s attention
so much quicker than the mud-and-air we mostly know.

Lay down your taunts, they shatter faith.
Refuse to insult; the menu of the King never included
demotion or demeaning. Faith and Love are first cousins;
You cannot spit and kiss with the same lips.

I found my hope in kindness; the smell of dewy alfalfa
on an Indian Summer day. I found my assurance in compassion,
the fragrance of morning glories that follow the Sun.

Don’t tell me of everything you’ve rejected. A grocery storeprovides, on the little town’s corner, victuals to all, familiar

and foreign. But tack it “secular” and a certain segment will
bar the door, complain to the papers, boycott the soup aisle,
and puff up their chests with more hot air than an Death Valley.

I have discovered my hope in waiting for mercy,
and dropping my messy crumbles that harmed the hurting.
I found my promise in crossing the canyons that separate
with anyone who needs to opposite wall.

Welcoming

"But the people learned where Jesus went and followed him. Jesus welcomed them and talked with them about God’s kingdom. He healed those who needed to be healed. " Luke 9:11

I know what it is like to just want to get away from people and be alone. Spending time with a few intimate friends always energizes me. I can get lost in conversation and mutual displays of wit (or supposed wit). But, much time in large crowds actually drains me. This has become more acute as I have dealt with my headache I woke up with almost seven years ago, and has yet do go away. I have a limited amount of energy I can spend on the buzz of human interaction before I need to hide away. Jesus, however, seems to always stop for those who need Him, even when He needs solitude the most.

An Economy of Grace

An Economy of Grace

(“Heal the sick who are there and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” Luke 10:9)

It is a close-up in sepia with venetian red from chin to forehead;
Her eyes are halfway open as the lids slowly meet; the lashes are so long
they nearly preclude the closing created by history, fatigue and pain.

Back it up, rewind those mysterious eyes, and replay at half-speed the
cropped face with no context or place; perhaps it is a single frame, may two,
but the emerald glint is clear, two jewels hid between treasure chest lids;
she hides the beauty, for once the sadness is seen, our eyes can lie for us,
the gleam of turquoise, sapphire or aquamarine sent full-spectrum through our tears
betray our struggle with pain

Unless we look away at just the right moment, just the right angle,
and keep our eyelids resting upon the other until the observer takes leave,
distracted by some fully open eyes with every single ray of the sun finding
each natural facet in the iris speaking health to every spectator.

But, whether we think the eyes facing us
are the artwork of another fine cinematographer,
or message sent freely (to me) to us, we sense
one awake and one bored to sickness and we may often
leave them both alone.

Yet the two (who represent nearly all) may both be mourning,
hoping a new storehouse of pastels will renew the hues we’ve
allowed to disguise the pain we hardly let the spectators see
and, unhealed, we keep smiling with our eyes,
or sleeping with our lashes barely touching so we can
bit by bit take a slice of light in.

Let the watchers say, whether the light is lost or shining,
whether coasting or climbing; this ill-represented earthen
world
is not a kingdom with grace unfurled. There is another place
within this place, another answer that is Yes and Yes,
another jurisdiction without posts or fences or borders:

Just a healing fountain at every step you take toward
the King whose love pours in the light and ignites the colors
in fifth-world wonder. Waking, sleeping, hiding or weeping;

The kingdom is healing, its colors stream like repeater rainbows
opening the eyes alive and day-free, every-mercy. An economy
of grace that floods the red ledgers and destroys their discrepancies.