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.