Answers Writ in Childish Script

 

Answers Writ in Childish Script

(“So I tell you to believe that you have received the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you.” Mark 11:24)

I was too weak to have any faith left,
I was too weak to see things in ones and zeros.
It takes a resolute mind to binary the wonder out
of the wonderful,
It takes a granite heart to up and down the spiral
eternal.

But I had slept in past noon all week,
and had slept past my best life the whole decade before.
I asked and asked for pain to work its way through my being
to show the strength the Almighty promised.
I prayed long before that for simple wellness or
general anesthesia to let me finish my journey.

(Though, truth be told, I may not have made it to the end
anyway,
with my broken toes, stumbling feet, and distracted heart
that kept me from playing first-string most of the time.
The ownership is mine.)

But still I cried. And my requests were denied. Longer
days with the pounding in my head outpacing the
beating of my heart. I would vow to begin, to start
an hour earlier from my bed. I would promise to wait,
to shed the last vestigial organ of doubt, knees keenly
placed on the floor. I would capture the playing blocks
of faith
until they spelled out my name.

I believed well enough decades ago and the rain stopped
before the downtown gospel show could begin. I believed
just as well
a decade later and the rain was unrelenting on our baptism
and burgers by the river.

I measured myself (didn’t my crew measure too?) I
measured
myself
by answers writ in childish script
in the drying sidewalk pavement. I wanted
it as concrete
as the stories the fellas told in retreats renamed
“advances” (who could take a chance with such a
faithless title?)
Do not think I am angry, do not think I am snide,
I just know what I heard, but also what I saw inside

And finally understood the mind is more supple than
we imagine. Oh, miracles happen.

But my brain still hurts like the dickens, like hell,
after a decade full of prayer (and do not tell me
I have not believed). Unrelieved I cried myself to sleep
last night;
unrelieved I began another day

And wished I would not have to begin another.

And still
I
love
The Name
more than I can say. Though silence is my answer
(Jesus, where O where are the hands and words of love)
though silence is my answer
I will not apologize
for these raging questions and this dead end
I despise.

Dots and dashes may serve an old code well,
but I need elbows and eyes and fingers. Where O
where
Jesus
are the incarnate ones to bring you close to me?