Sometimes Being Hidden

Sometimes Being Hidden

(“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3)

I must be hidden because so many friends
cannot seem to find me.
I don’t blame them, I’m as dead as I am alive,
more dead if you look inside
and see the sticky black tarmac
where may takeoff seems to
never get off the ground.

I must be hidden, I cannot find my own self,
my true self,
my do it well self; my death knell self
has done all the heavy lifting.

I am hidden in the world but seen so well,
I am not yet invisible, still vulnerable.
I am on display the way they catalogue fingerprints
from suspects who try to hide in dens and alleys.

I trust my smokescreen, the dense debris of intellect and
good intentions; who would guess the rest?
I’m too easily discovered, my hiding place is indiscreet,
when I’m finally discovered the street only laughs
and the grandstands grow deadly silent.

I could be far too dead to change,
but alive enough to try.
Sometimes being hidden
feels like being lost.

No Sweat

No Sweat

(“When they enter the gateway to the inner courtyard, they must wear only linen clothing. They must wear no wool while on duty in the inner courtyard or in the Temple itself.” Ezekiel 44:17)

Buffy Sainte-Marie said that time is the magic length of God
and I believe she is right. What if time is a straight line,
running from the bees to the hive and to the next century’s meadow.
But lines have no dimension, so therefore contain nothing.
Or everything.

“No sweat,” they said. “Just follow the pattern and the fabric perfectly.”

But what if time is rounder than that? What if bee and flower and hive
thrive within the circumference we call the clock. Seconds and minutes,
they don’t carry watches,
and the meadows arrive on the scene before we’ve taken the time
to see them.

“No sweat,” the replied. “What you seek is less precise; more implied.”

 But what if time is angular like that? What if it ricochets off every cell
and stays inside the hive until it boomerangs with a bee to the purple meadow.
I was stung once twenty years ago, but I can feel it today. And the honey;
every variety dances across time like a cardiogram. And, just like you,
I invent flowers with my thoughts, pictures of tulips from Amsterdam.

No sweat,” they laughed. “Please take your coat off and stay a while.”

I met them halfway, still wondering how to measure God. Could I
put a tailor’s tape around God’s waist and now the dimensions of the divine?
Could I ask the bees who understood nectar, or the lavender who
seduced the bees? Would they mind if I assessed the length
of their life by mine?

“No sweat,” they opined. “We also have been weighed and found wanting.”

What if time is more like weight, and I carry the burden of generations?
What if the plight of the man I’ve never met is connected to my ancestors?
What if God sees the same cruelty and crime as thick as a cotton-picking sack?
What if God carried the mass of it all (and its width, and its essence,
and its pretense, and its violence) like a cross. What if the racist,
the nationalist, the slave owner, the crusader, the president, the shopkeeper,
the police and the beaten are all wrapped in the same teardrop of time?

What if your sufferings and mine meet like bees and lavender?

We Shall Play Again

We Shall Play Again

(“The peace of God is much greater than the human mind can understand. This peace will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7)

For Laurie

There is a swirling of conversation that can connect
two people more closely than
another one thousand miles closer.
And still, in the whirlwind of the mind,
there are only spoken words, inflections heard
and occasional nuggets of gold in the bottom of the pan.

If I write that I am going to write stream-of-consciousness,
do you still understand and have I accomplished my mission?
There was a time I did not care, and it did not scare me either,
to combine images of spaceships and a pretty girl’s hair. Now,
though I’m not all that proper,
still I want people to go “hmm” before they go “ohh.”

Sometimes one talk takes the place of a dozen therapy sessions,
(do you know how hard it is to find a therapist you can trust?)
I must confess, that’s why I see a therapist and not a priest.
I want to talk about myself, not our thoughts about God,
or your thoughts about how I’m doing with God. (How would you
know, child of clay and sand, sparks and spit?)
But my unconscious knows something I had yet to admit:
“I don’t believe in God anymore.”

I knew you wouldn’t shrink, which expanded my words.
The background was gray and green, a shadow scene with
my body stuck between standing and tottering. And then I said,
to everyone who was listening: “I don’t believe in God anymore.”
Oh, did I tell you it was a dream?

But that is why I called you, to bring you into a space that
stunned me; a waking gasp at “anymore.” And everyone heard
every word, every firm statement of final disbelief.

I was not relieved.

I once thought words, phrases and questions were sent by
strong concentration, fasting and sweating prayer. I also knew
they could come from nowhere.
So, days later, my disbelief haunted the days and I read a book,
(perhaps on civil rights in the 60s, perhaps a bio of Socrates)
and an arrow pierced my mind right behind the word “anymore.”

“What if now, God believes in me?”

II.

The crazy trumpets broke the night like the saxophones laughing;
but it was never the song, it was how I heard it.

So I take up the mandolin again, fingers swollen from aging,
and release the expectations of virtuosity. Sometimes it’s better
just to play.

Remember how I said the piano is my soulmate? Remember how
I said I did not have to think? The place for peace is the place that
belief has recused itself from me. An opening, not a void, for
the quiet voice that never said much to me. And now doubt,
(that devilish and scattered word) has become the very earth in which
a new trust has begun.

We shall play again, fiddle, guitar or melodion.

Only the Breath

Only the Breath

(“This is what the Lord God says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will live.” Ezekiel 37:5)

Nightmares grab me by the throat,
turning ghosts from the past into
terrors and muggings and threats,
waking with the sweats and pushing away
the hands around neck that once said
they were only trying to do the Lord’s bidding.

But only the breath of God-- haruach Elohim--can turn these
dusty bones to life. Where were you, people of the spirit,
when my breath was fading so fast? Where were you,
oh people of faith,
when the wind swept me to the desert alone?

There are no demons or idols or tiny gods with big hands;
but they did their best for you.
There is no haunting in this house; but only a mind
scarred by failure and padlocks that keep the
prosecutors penned in within it.

You asked me questions; I answered confidentially.
You asked me questions in front of the penitentiary.
You revealed my sources, cut out my entrails,
and laid them on the table for the holy gathering to divine.
I would not make music for over a year.

But only the grace of God—hesed Elohim­­—can upgrade
images to stars. Where were you, people of mercy and love,
when my body was wasting so swift. Where were you,
with my faith in decline,
when my body felt only the loneliness of dry and desert bones?

Still the Spirit speaks, no matter the voice of man,
Still Ruach utters, no matter human game plans,
Still the heart is whole, though divided time over time,
Still faith can live again, despite the remains of the day.

Every midnight I wake screaming, throwing pillows across the room,
will be another day of dealing (my pain is post-traumatic) with the tomb
that I thought was sealed
and yet enwombed
my embryo unharmed
until born (do we know its meaning) again
bone upon bone,
flesh upon flesh,
with only breath,
in Spirit known.

They Also Traveled Alone

They Also Traveled Alone

(“And you, my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are my people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.” Ezekiel 34:31)

It wasn’t a game, this vagabond life unleashed
near the end of marking the map carefully, reading
the words like carpentry, measuring twice and cutting once,
never allowing the slightest variance, never taking the unlost
navigation of nuance.

Who would leave me? Who would stay? Who would say nothing
so I never knew either way? The landscape was gray, the air
heavy and filled my lungs like lead, like the dread of becoming
a gypsy alone.

It should not matter, I told myself. I need to get where I am going,
though the destination is befogged with doubt and unknowing. It
should not
matter. I could tell others had traveled the same route, and by the
footprints I knew, they also traveled alone.

I was too old to wander, too far along to travel that far from home.
I was too lonesome to travel single, but no one I knew was on the path.
I was too unsure to travel friendless, though some spoke on my behalf.
But all I wanted was provision to make it home, all I needed were
contributions to shorten this exile with a check or a song.

You see, I know less than I knew before. I probably know less
than the initiates at baptism’s door. I’ve shed so much skin,
emptied the backpack entirely. The days and empty sidewalks,
the pain and the silence are grinding me down to the barest bones
of belief; the dust of a soul undone.

This detour seems like a moving away from faith and
the beginning of unbelief. The destination stays clouded,
the navigation unclear.

Yet, less knowing than hoping, in the emptiness, the thinness,
the silence and the desolation, there was, not much more than
the opaque slice of dreams, another who walked with me,
another who watched my feet, another who believed in me
better than all my unbelief. I’m still a vagrant and I still wander,
but I wish I could travel far beyond the sign posted “lost”.
Then, maybe then,
another would discover me waiting where the streams run dry and
the meadows have turned to brown.

Against the Law

Against the Law

(“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, show mercy to me, a sinner.’” Luke 18:13)

He lived his life carefully, keeping prayerfully
between the white lines. Although he was known
to speed on occasion. Stop signs were a reason
to step on the gas
and watch how fast
he could leave the others behind.

But still, he was on a mission, an important calling,
a committee of certainty to discuss the downfall of
the nation. He carried his credentials in the glove compartment
in case he was ever stopped and asked
to slow down.

He had learned his lessons well, raised on good manners,
flagstaffs and potato salad. From alcohol to etiquette,
he knew what to forbid and what to accept. The
Fourth of july was nearly as sacred as
Lent.

It was no wonder that the person only caught his eye,
a jacket or a blanket draped over a figure kneeling
on the shoulder. There was no time to stop, nor to
even notice, how the gravel tore into the figure’s knees,
how the blanket became a shawl, how the figure had a voice,
a voice so scratched with time and loss, it sounded like
a 78 rpm record found in the attic. He had no time to
hear it, and besides, he would have to cross the median
which was--certainly the figure knew--which was
against the law.

And like every other mission, he took his seat
around the table
just in time.

The Gods We Invented

The Gods We Invented

(“People who try to save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives will save them.” Luke 17:33)

Everybody wants a new slate,
Everybody wants their past erased,
Nobody wants to leave it blank,
Nobody wants to be unsafe.

This is where we find ourselves,
or lose our faith,
or find the earth between our toes again.

This is where we lose ourselves,
or find the truth,
or lose our place in the galaxy.

It is torture to believe so doubtless,
every objection must be answered,
every opinion cast in stone.
We write it in permanent ink,
but alone with just our heart beat and
our brain waves
we admit we pray too often because
we want the magic again.

And while you prayed for me, I still suffered,
while you argued with me, my pain increased.
While you pressed the issue, the pressure increased.
Your arguments and anecdotes provided no relief.

And while I prayed for you, you still hungered,
while I counseled with you, your tears still flowed.
While I missed the signals, the stigma remained.
My good advice and attention proved less than you hoped.

I am less confident; and less confined.
I memorized all the evidence; but not the mystic.
I am still hurting, still have scars, still have unanswered prayers,
and still am lonely beyond description.
But now no one will argue my faith is at fault,
for my faith no longer belongs to me, my faith has
been erased. I do not mind starting over, I have nothing
left to prove.

Everybody wants greater love,
Everybody wants their past ignored,
Nobody wants their life erased,
Nobody wants to be unsafe.

To begin again we must destroy the gods we invented,
and find a new reckoning in the kingdom of the forgiven.

There Was No Sea

There Was No Sea

(People won’t say ‘Look, here it is’, or ‘Look, over there!’ No: God’s kingdom is within your grasp.” Luke 17:21)

It was New Year’s Eve and I
was determined to meet the beginning
with knees bowed all night. I was nineteen.

I asked the pastor, “Can you lock me in the church?”
“Overnight, I mean.” Impressed with my spiritual hubris,
after our watchnight service
he turned the key to make the church safe
and showed me how to exit in the new sun morning.

I was determined to meet the beginning
with stomach rumbling. I started the fast the previous morning.
I read books, book after book, and knew that God
always
showed
up
when people were serious about skipping a meal or so.

The night started like brushes on a snare-drum playing
60s club jazz. I was glad I was going to do what no one
else wanted to do, though I was not proud about it. I
just wanted to put in the effort.

The sea was red only one night I remember when
friends pointed me past the breakers where the algae bloomed.

This night there was no sea, no mountain, no slippery waterfall
to climb and no music to pass the time. So I prayed. Then stood up.
Ten minutes in I said everything I wanted to say and wondered how
God could possibly be impressed by my short-windedness.

The Santa Monica Pier was a place where homes of embedded barnacles
embellish the pilings. Buskers played for money above,
teenage couples practiced kissing below.

This night there was only a linoleum floor, no melodies, no creatures,
no hippies and no lovers. There was only me, a teenager singly trying
to make God show up. And not for experience’s sake, I had a backpack
full
I wanted to unload. There was a library there, a turnstile of paperbacks
mostly about doctrine and victorious living. I picked one I hoped would
allow me to leave, finally, as a conqueror.

I have never possessed a string of pearls, nor discovered one in an oyster.
I knew they were made when the oyster felt itchy, and I was itchy
For an experience with God.

But not that itchy.

Hours passed, I read book after book, interspersed with repeated prayers
(though I was sure God hadn’t forgotten what I said by my third go around.)
Two hours in, two in the morning, and my faith felt as alive as shorn hair
at the feet of a barber’s chair.

I slept on a pew, though I vowed to stay awake. I read, though my eyes
began to ache. I prayed, shorter and shorter (and had visions of steak.)
I knew nothing about listening; don’t know much now. So I called my
girlfriend (quite early on that New Day). She came quickly and whisked me
away
To Winchell’s donuts where I ate chocolate greedily and with shame.

The evening began like a jazz trio and today I know better, so I let God
say whatever he will through the wandering bass, the ravenous piano
or the frugal drums merely marking time.

Incognito

Incognito

(“But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head—Christ.” Ephesians 4:15)

He often traveled incognito,
he often traveled in disguise,
but no matter where he went,
no matter who he met,
you always knew him by his eyes.

He was a gypsy, a vagabond,
he spoke with swords, he was unarmed,
so no matter who he met,
they knew what he meant
when he said, “no need for alarm.”

He spoke so silent, stirred little dust,
he walked city blocks, slept in parks,
and no matter who saw him,
no one could ignore him,
he knew all of their missing parts.

Some invited him, some walked away,
some hoped forever, or today
that he would always know them,
he would never spare them
the gaze that welcomed them to stay.

As thick as the summer air, as light as ocean foam
Just before dawn;
As quick as a scissortail diving from the trees, as still as
An autumn fawn.
All things to all of us,
Winsome you surround us,
Within, without us,
Before the world was founded,
As true as love, you love us wounded.

Only Once

Only Once

(“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and his heart was stirred with love and pity. He ran to him, hugged him tight, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20b)

I have only once been kissed by a man,
a big black man,
10 years my junior,
6 inches higher.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
save my father as I bobbled saggily in diapers,
but I was kissed by a man in
the last church my dad ever attended.

I had skipped several meetings, the table talk,
the bread dipped in wine. The last time had been
weeks beyond my memory. But he saw me
as my feet fell into a carpet covered Sunday.

He is boisterous; he thinks everyone is wonderful.
He is full noon at the beginning of the day.
His wife, not quite prim, but proper, shines
more silently.

I have only once been kissed by a man,
black-suited, like a heart-seeking missile he
saw me enter and
wrapped his huge arms around my receptive shoulders
and kissed me on the cheek so quickly
I had no time to think and no place to run.
I was stunned in the most gracious way.

Sometimes our hearts are towed from squared
basements and foundations
toward a horizon where the sea mist caresses us
like the first time I ever
was kissed by a man.

I Need a Getaway

I Need a Getaway

(“I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.” Ephesians 2:8)

Yes, it’s true; I need a getaway.
I need a gateway to another lane.
This one has become narrow and the end
is impossible to see.
I just need to get faraway.
I need a fairway with easy approach shots.
This one is hilly and constricts
my point of view.

Yes, it’s true: I have wandered far;
far beyond my better welfare (or so they say).
This globe has become slippery and my shoes
squeak like spaceboots on the moon.
Look how easily I’ve squandered
the content I acquired from garage to alley
and back. There is little room remaining
to add another point of view.

Yes, it’s true: I shouted:

“I don’t believe in God anymore.”

And if it is any solace to you, it was
at the tail end of a dream, but still,
everyone I’ve ever known could hear the
honest scream like it was streaming
through every device upon the planet.

I hope you will not fan it into flame,
I hope you will not forget my name,
I hope for one, maybe two, who will take the fall with me,
will let their life stall with me,
bent just like me, bent just like a question mark;
front and back. Oh, the mockingbirds on the lawn
have not inquired about my faith.

It was only a dream, but it pushed open the pressure valve
that I kept closed and sealed so no one could see the leak
and puddles
of my doubt.

But now you know; I need a vacation;
I’ve heard all the explanations;
They are imprinted on halfsheets of scratch paper
And in every synapse firing through my brain.
Just the same; I need a holiday.
I need a holy day that doesn’t make me
darker or stab me sharper than
than the lightning that stings my devoted
attempts at piety.

I need a getaway; a merciful respite where,
though unaware of the divine at all,
I am cared for personally hidden from those who
thought my gauzy revelation (my god, my god, why?)
was surely my downfall.

Flutes Upon the Hills

Flutes Upon the Hills

(“Circumcision and uncircumcision don’t mean anything. What really counts is that the new creation has come.” Galatians 6:15)

I don’t need to light another candle,
though I like the way they help me pray.
I don’t need a new amendment,
all things gleam in the eternal day.

I don’t need to study your words harder,
though they run through my mind anyway.
I don’t need a new translation,
all they do is get in my way.

I don’t need to smell all of the roses,
though I plan to plant some when I return.
I don’t need a new song to sing,
I have melodies yet to learn.

I’ll ride in a bus, I’ll ride on your bike,
I’ll pull you in a wagon, I’ll paint your tricycle red.
I’ll love my neighbor, I’ll love my enemy,
I’ll watch the wildflowers grow; breathlessly.

I’ll look toward the east, I’ll pray toward the west,
I walk northward for a while; in the south I’ll take my rest.
I’ll give you my time, and offer you a chair,
We’ll talk and talk with no notes to compare.

I’ll love you forever because that’s how you’ve loved me,
I’ll stumble in my promise, though I tried carefully
to be new when I am old, to be pure when I am soiled.
And all the time what mattered was that
all the time I belonged
in this new country; foggy or shine,
flutes upon the hills, fiddles on the plains,
all that has ever mattered (I’m finally resigned)
is the breath, the spirit, the mercy, the grace,
of Your life
in mine.

listening to "yer blues"

listening to “yer blues”

(“Say to the prophets who prophesy from their imagination: ‘Listen to the Lord’s message!’” Ezekiel 13:2)

Listening to “yer blues”
I’m reminded I’m not of the earth or sky,
I am of the universe, and that is what I’ll use
to decide the barrage of words that pass as
god-talk from people who just have no time to wait out
patient love.

(I’m so musical even my yawns sound like a song.)

You just cannot bring god down,
and you cannot just call him up from below.
You cannot make the fire fall,
and you cannot make a spring of water flow
from a rock.

(I’m so logical even my snores are antiwar.)

Why are you uncomfortable with silence,
Why do your god-words sound so much like your-words,
Your announcements are no better than palmistry
reading the wind.

(I’m so comical even my scars can spin a yarn.)

There is preaching in the zero syllable breeze,
there is gospel in the clapping branches of the trees,
the message is as certain in a stranger’s hug
as if Jesus himself stood among us unplugged
like a gardener.

(I’m so spiritual even my pores are open for more.)

Don’t preach when lunch will do just fine,
Don’t predict, conjure, invoke everything that enters your mind,
But walk in sackcloth, put on ashes, sit with the silent
whose words were stolen when the expectations of violence
became the sermon of the day.

(I’m so hopeful even my feet tread heels-over-head.)

One Playmate Who Knows

One Playmate Who Knows

(“Isn’t it clear, friends, that you...are children of promise?” Galatians 4:28 [The Message])

Some days it seems the children do not
want to come out to play.
They stay inside measuring the hems of everyone’s
pants and dresses. No one confesses they would rather
skip a rope. The work is their burden, the burden is their work;
and wouldn’t God be offended if they ended just a stitch too soon?

Besides, the children outside do not care what you wear,
the bubbles will float wherever the wind delivers them.
The sprinklers will spray the serious toward laughter and
the moonlighters toward day.

Some days it seems adults have forgotten their childhood friends.
The days come to an end too quickly, the porches sit quiet and empty
while one man’s tears plead for someone to search their memory
and remember his heartbeat, imagine his throbbing pain,
look south, or up, or in, to find him again. All he is hoping
is one playmate who knows, so their own tears well up in
Summer-time pools.

He must have fooled himself. He thought it was always family.
He must have misspoke far too often, mistook the blossoms
for perennials. But they do not bloom here where he has been
transplanted.

Come find me, I am not hiding. I never was good at hide-and-seek.
Ollie Ollie Oxen Free, please come and see me. My green lollipop
has melted, stuck to the preheated cement. But every word,
every card, every letter, every vowel was always meant to tell you
I could never give you up my friend.

The sun is setting, children are heading indoors, and still I sit,
praying, hoping, crying behind the bushes so no one sees,
that you will remember the playful days when skinned knees
meant no harm, and funny bones were cold, electric, warm;
The days when hearts were mended before the next game of
marbles in the alley round our circles of dirt.