Between If and Then

Between If and Then

(“A woman came to Jesus with a special sealed jar of very expensive perfume. She poured the perfume on his head while he was at the table.” Matthew 26:7)

Can I be honest?
I’ve reached the end of my vial. The contents were not costly,
(more ordinary than rare), but I’ve emptied them now, and somehow,
feel quite unsatisfied.

How do you feel?

I thought
if
I poured out all I could
then
You would appreciate the effort, though
not up to the standards
of your usual saints.

So here I am now, in the weightlessness between the
if
and
then,
still looking for Your face, still listening for Your song,
still wanting to be pleased with Your pleasure in me.

Do we need this ritual throughout my lifetime? I
believe,
I think,
that Your pleasure arises in simple being and presence.

But my brain (that unwieldy part of my body) sends weeping
over apparent acts unnoticed. And now it upbraids me for
wanting notice at all.

I would pour out more, but I’m dry as the desert in winter,
weary as the old man I’ve become,
and yet have more miles to traverse than treasures stored
heaven or earth.

I’ve failed more than the woman who perfumed your feet,
and failed after faith, after baptism, after profession, after vows
and bows before myriad altars.

I would create more, but the words are these words,
nonsense without incense, assumptions without perfume.

Is it unholy and sacrilege to say; if there is any way,
would You pour from Your vial (the smallest spray of mist)
to let me know this time between times
contains as much grace as the moments I could barrel my way
and unload kegs of devotion, or know Your voice so present that,
between breath and breath,
if and then,
I would still weep for better reasons;
mercy at banquets and love in lepers’ homes where
extravagance is misunderstood.

All Tattered and Perfection

All Tattered and Perfection

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

Where lives intersect; eat and play and love,
we can dance the steps of the joyful,
we can hear the melody redeemed,
we can note the steps, follow the quarter-tones,
and wonder at rounds geometrically opposed to
the strict sounds that stayed within the walls of
our protected subdivisions.

But we must not journalize the stranger; bell and chant and candle.

Here in the day we are reduced to children again who
play by the rules until the rules hinder the play. Why can’t
the newest one have four strikes, not three? Why shouldn’t the
corner boy paint portraits in pink and green?

Once we have discovered our New World we die if we think
the discovering is done.
Each coast is clearly concocted of sand dropped in new
frameworks against the horizon.
Each cavern is deep or dry, shallow or dripping with stalagmites
dialed by time slower than the kitchen wall ticking.

Dry eyes, warm clouds, sand crabs, foreign sounds,
hands raised, knees bowed, hymns sung, voices loud.

A hush at supper, a shout at soccer; vespers and incense,
chocolate and cadences; each soul is its own invocation,
and benediction can begin

The moment we embrace the introspection that longs for
the dances we’ve never learned or seen or heard.

The Dancer is not of this world or your world,
The Dancer spreads the music through every crack in time.
The Dancer indwells each space between movements
and encircles the down-beats tapped or clapped or missed
in our tripping attempts to follow.

The Dancer is invitation; all tattered and perfection,
torn and covered with the crash of waterfalls and the
force of hurricanes. The Dancer is whisper; the epicenter
of creation’s silence fully alive.

Mud and Roses

Mud and Roses

("What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?")

The smell of mud and roses,
that is how the chosen perceive the world.
We cannot embrace perfection, but love the spaces between
earth and bud, bloom and dirt. First the rain leaves pockmarks upon
the garden bed,
then the earthworms sneak along the perimeter before light plays
upon the newly broken clods. Robins meet for morning breakfast
and coffee
and a little to go to feed their young.

The perfect green stems with new rubbery needles embrace
last year's old growth now gray and stiff, their thorns more apt
for a Messiah's crown.

You cannot work the ground alone. You cannot inhale the garden's perfume
in a florist's shop. One is rich, one is sterile. And yet in the garden they are
the prelude to the day, the annunciation of sun, the breeze's benediction at
the lowering of the afternoon.

The chosen do not consume doctrine devoid of mud nor roses apart from
the dusty hands that tended them.

Faith is the moment where earth and roses meet, where lotuses bloom on
muddy ponds, where divine and human see each other in the beloved space
of imperfection's grace.

Sometimes the Desert

Sometimes the Desert

(“But you were unwilling to go up. You rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 1:26)

The drive is too far, the desert cold;
the needles bite the sky and capture the clouds in their teeth.
How quiet the pain when mountains crowd the horizon;
but it shouts when the road becomes too full of ghosts.


We leave one giant to face another. We hope to leave the effort behind.
For more than the best of us, and careful for the rest of us, they loom after one hour’s nap at a midlevel rest stop.

The rest is never our final destination, another winter wind whips the sand in our face.
Crossways it captures our coats and our hats and tosses them into the desert alone.
We stand at the edge of designated borders, feet obedient to the signs and fences.
It does not enter our minds to seek another passage.But we have come too far, resigned our bridges, retired our employment and
vacated our tents a long time ago. To return from our turning only postpones
the new land of promise. But we fear. 

So we wake the next morning, manage our pain, and venture on the next leg
that leads us closer to anonymous towns where life is larger, names are sharper,
roads are confusing and the earth harder than before. 

How do we face the giant when it was the giant we thought we had left behind?
When pain is the master, the driver and the passenger, even pebbles threaten the
passage of time. 

Sometimes faith is not having a choice. Sometimes forward is the only gear left.
Sometimes the corner forces you out into the cold. Sometimes the desert opens your eyes.