Waving Us

Waving Us

(“And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Mark 3:23)

When light stands up displacing the haunts of darkness
and
the rivers flow solid with richer healing than imagination,

Why do you still ignore your Creator?

When a night of certain-death is redeemed with a Word of forgiveness
and
a stone is moved like mere liquid from a tomb’s gaping mouth,

Why do you still resist your Rescuer?

But some still can see a shadow with crisp lines early afternoon
and insist there is no sun to make them.
And others will never, (evidence aside), believe, crucified,
the Man rose alive while earth was shaken.

And so darkness wrestles grayness,
sickness wrestles faintness.
The forgiven walk ashamed,
the Risen One remains the Anointed One
the Right Hand Man, whose wounds still bear
the scars of love’s best wager.

Demons scream at His name, and we still dabble
in our darkrooms hoping to discover the germ that
started it all.

Or we steady ourselves by our daytime labors,
our professions and provisions making sense of
the calm that comes before the final call.

He sits on the shore with breakfast
already baking, waving us shoreward;
He sits on the throne with mercy
already won, pointing us homeward

If we will walk in the light; creation’s best invention,
and redemption’s best intention; once (then, there, here, now)
for all. The strength of love revisited awaits
the next open moment, the silent solace of grace.

A Star Will Come

A Star Will Come

(“I see someone who will come someday, someone who will come, but not soon. A star will come from Jacob; a ruler will rise from Israel.” Numbers 24:17a)

I have lost friends along the way like crumbs falling off
a white chocolate scone. Some are buried by time,
faces fading from memories. The first time ever I
saw your face
is how we listened to each other’s’ movement. But,
the last time ever I
saw your face
we ate burgers at Denny’s and talked shop.
Some are time’s possession.

Some have dropped at latest weakness, with each
new mistake I make
new heartbreak unwraps the comfort
of ageless friends who now are better than
I ever was. I have no defense, what they have heard
(or observed) is probably true. Although, one thing
I would note,
that what they hear is not
all the truth.
Some are my transgressions.

Some I have left in other states, though
part of the same Union,
too many state lines make for loss of breath
for people at our age. The hurdles have grown,
the route is longer. So from Baltimore to Minneapolis,
Chicago to Dallas, Sacramento mostly and
the East Bay I love; I’m in a corner that no one
passes through on the way to another.
Some are my vacations.

Some have left me like children turning over a rock
lying atop nearly melted ground; and having found
ugly bugs, earthworms and slimy colonies of
we-should-have-known, and having thrown the
stone in disgust at my feet, discuss my biography
like book clubs chewing through chapters.
Some are my repentance.

Some new have entered my breakfast routine,
though I am slow to open anything beneath my
wrinkling skin.
I carry my failures where no one can see,
but believe me, they are my closest companions
(when I know they shouldn’t be)

I cannot wait for someone to come,
a star on the horizon, a scepter over my scars,
when my sins and your sins,
my memory and your assertions

Are the zero-sum of the next step,
while listening to some vinyl like we used to do
all summer.

What the Sliver Sees

What the Sliver Sees

(“Son of man, the ones living in these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land, but we are many; surely the land has been given to us for a possession.’” Ezekiel 33:24)

The moment our numbers reach a peak, our towers loom above the
jet streams that streak across the sky; the moment we’ve made a million,
counted the membership fuller than a beehive; Pride

Is the slight breath that blows our towering egos to totter and sway
the way an elephant on skates loses momentum, and cannot find
gravity’s center for the life of him.

Hand me my profit, today’s bottom line is higher than yesterday.
Hand me my commission, I’m ready to spend it now
and next year the same. Watch the graph point to the sun,
we’ve added on and jammered on, led interested buyers on
enlightening tours of exactly how to build it better with nothing more

Than staying late to close accounts and learn a handbook full of
redefinitions. And, I’m happy to say, the building is still bustling,
the roof is renewed and the money keeps flowing through
the front door into the anxious pockets that own everything they see.

But a handful smell the tar that constantly fills the holes,
a sliver see the misdirection that keeps the bodies inside the building
so those who enter are counted with the exiting and reports are doubled
like lightning.

There is a new creation that never aspires to awards and plaudits,
but, in horizontal architectures, builds across the boundaries that
counted some in with money to spend, and some out until near the
end of another business day. A new creation enwrapping every
block on the street, bum on the avenue, executive at the bus stop;
every junk shop, swap meet, back street and front row seat. A
New Creation where everyone’s view is the best view in the house.

The walls are sand now, fortifications unemployed. The guntowers
and turrets
are belfries and steeples now; the sales charts ripped from the wall
while
new songs older than creation fill the hearts and throats of all
willing to love bridges more than the
barricades of yesterday.

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

(“Teach me how to live to please you, because you’re my God. Lead me by your blessed Spirit   into cleared and level pastureland.” Psalm 143:10 {The Message})

Now  the last phone call I received was well-intentioned,
but I have a view from another side of the mountain,
If I speak as I see, acknowledging the focus of the other’s scene,
everything can be disremembered and spread like stale smoke and perfume
until my observation is dissolved as completely as the last bubble
in old champagne.

If you looked at my heart carefully, microscopically, carefully,
a quarter century ago; you know before the first peek; you hear
it speak in healthy rhythm, and you would doubt any deficit of
love or
surrender,
sprint or
marathon;
though the breath may be heavy, and the mistakes plenty,
you would find only the few healed scars from crashing
friends and cars in laughter afterward.

Examine again the intention. Listen once more for the intonation.
Hear the songs resound off the walls, and give slow devotion to
the wafted savor of fewer or two who sing outside the encampment.

Like Moses who could not
care less
that 70 prophesied around the temple
and two within the marketplace; and only wished
that all and complete,
the Spirit would fill, and splash, and gush and flash
like tropical thunder from every heart before or after

Human inspection.