I Wander Less Lonely

I Wander Less Lonely

(“May he be pleased with my song, for my gladness comes from him.” Psalm 104:34)

With open arms I master the song that pools through my mind.
Every breath is full of the divine,
every step so much closer to his abode within.
I throw off the apprehension that keeps me a child of fear.
I create unedited psalms for the king who occupies my ways.
The words from my mouth, the lyrics I write are
meant to be
full of gladness and running over with praise.

It is the little things, after all, isn’t it? A grandson
who wants to play tag with his Papa, who wants to sit in
his lap to read the same story three times in a row.
All this, and more, directs my heart toward the Creator
of my song. Children occupy the altars of my mind,
the spaces left open for celestial celebrations of joy.
Every playful invitation to play is seen as God’s invitation.
Every giggle another reason to breathe fully the depth of creation.
Wouldn’t it be right to take the funny language of toddlers
as the holy voice of God? Wouldn’t it be healing to believe
every unequaled squeal as the instigation of faith?
And when he insists I share his popsicle,
how can I seen it as anything other than the generosity of God?

And so I search the atmosphere for more clues of
the ways of God in the universe. So I take each birdsong as
an invitation to sing like I belong to the continuing creation
and nature’s own symphony.

Taken together, the songs and the words, the play and the giggles,
the unending repetition of his favorite things, I wander less lonely,
I carry my burdens more lightly. And I send words toward heaven
like the flight of the swallows over the fields.

Before my Memory

Before my Memory

(“Let my whole being bless the Lord and never forget all his good deeds:” Psalm 103:2)

Renew my remembrance, let your righteous deeds shine
through the clouds. Tap me on the shoulder and I’ll
turn around to see the face that has called me child from
before my memory, from before your kindness entered my dreams
and flooded my mornings with sunny reminders of love.
I must confess,
I remember less your benefits than I feel yellow jackets
bumping across my brain renaming every panic I ever
felt from yes and no. There was a day when everything felt
like dancing. And the next day I fell exhausted onto the floor.

If I could put my finger on it, if I could wrap my brain around it,
if I could memorize the words that set me free and included
every possibility of wholeness, If I could refrain from the
ennui that settles like fog before the sun burns it away.

My soul has felt weightless only to fall to earth again
smashed against the gorges by gravity. Time set me up
like an unconscious answer to questions that were never asked.

Why can’t I say I’m just not feeling it without
guilt flooding the spaces around me? Where are the words
I pledged to you just moments ago?
Something strums my heartstrings and threatens to send
vibrations deeper inside the thoughts that belong to you.

But you have melted my anxiety before, turned my cavern days
into fields of grain. It still seems out of balance, it still feels untrue,
to spout words of expectancy when my heart is colored so blue.
I’ll live through these days with my imperfections on display;
I’ll look for you behind every shadow and skip the cliches.
I’ll listen long enough for clouds to scatter and to help me remember
the moments you’ve met me unexpectedly.

A New Version

A New Version

(“These words I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. For in the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.” John 16:33)

I have drafted a new version of our agreement and
may send it over to have you read it through. It is dense,
and for that I apologize, but I needed for us both to
banish doubts about simply following the day from the night. Emerging
from my thoughts I reunite with the self I left behind,
worried it would wound me deeper than just keeping the rules.

That is why I am sending this short word and might bury it
in the back yard for fear someone will read and consider me mad,
think of me as too far gone. Reality is,
I am closer today than I have ever been.

Once upon a moment I could generate the laughter that would
ravel my day. I could smile at nothing and feel it warm me
inside out. But the years have been cruel, the years have been
wasted, the years pasted without relief. So, I steal another’s smile
and wonder how long it will take for that smile to fade.
Shine sometimes, and I’ll look around the corner to see
the shadows that testify I have made a difference on the
red siding on the barn.

And yet, in the middle of a brightening day I feel my
sadness heightened without reason. So, I’m writing this tome
and casting it to the wind. A world decorated with
seasons of joy, and fear, and sadness, and hubris
has left me wondering if the multiplied days really
matter at all. Put the pieces together, if you will,
and recite who I am to me
carefully.

Nothing Remains the Same

Nothing Remains the Same

(“The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the Lord has clothed and encircled Himself with strength. Indeed, the world is firmly established; it will not be moved.” Psalm 93:1)

I’ve walked the pavement, I’ve breathed the morning summer air,
I’ve watched the ravens circle the field, I’ve felt the mist of fogs.
I remember the words that used to bring solace to my soul,
I meander on this earth like a vibrating guitar string.
I’ve on the edge of the highway just to see if anyone knows my name.
I’ve tossed my certainty into the silver water,
I’ve abandoned the language that once bound me to speak
in faith without wondering.
I stayed inside today, though the sun was bright.
I napped inside today, and wondered why.

My thoughts had become pinwheels, blown by the wind in
concentric spasms. My heart was smitten by the way
light played with shadows in the air.
My soul had always been saved. My bridges unraveled
above the abyss as I walked across them. I did not fear
the falling, only the words that made the echo like the
cry of a rabbit in distress.

I would tell you what I think now, I would recite my beliefs,
but I need a new language, I need reupholstered words. I will
not simply replace them,
without defining where they have been. They are all linked,
they are all combined. They fit together with infinite space
between them, they dance like electrons crossing the sea.
God does not care that I have circled back,
God does not require my faith or confession.
God clothes me when I’m unexpecting and encircles
me beyond the sight lines of my horizon.
I do not believe in prayer though I practice it.
I do not believe in healing, though I have been mended.
I do not believe in sunrise, I know the earth revolves in space..
I do not believe in new moons, I know how long it has circled us.

I awake to changes and nothing remains the same.

The Edges of Satisfaction

The Edges of Satisfaction

(“All those registered in Judah’s camp…will set out first.” Numbers 2:6”)

Who knew the highway would land me on the land;
who knew that my way might be confused and misunderstood.
The earth, flat against my feet, urged me to walk without shoes;
the sky, wandering without competing, welcomed my eyes to
echolocate the vast gardens of the day. Who knew
the byways would lead me with fewer opportunities
but full of possibilities this side of town.
Who knew my arms could reach out that far.

I might make it home from here, I’m almost
halfway there. The signs register the mileage,
the restaurants are magnets luring my soul.
The apple tree, its fruit still green,
invites the neighborhood child
to reach for the branches and snap a sour
fruit down. They knock on the door to show me
while their pet dog grabs one on the roll, playing
with it like a tennis ball.

I wondered who might have merged on my rugged road,
who knew, less than more, that destiny was a mixture
with air and arms lifted out until there was someone
to embrace.
I waited to watch, no matter how I started or ended,
that I was coaxed silently by those on the sidelines
who wondered
if my walk my just be a hoax.

as alone as I live
there is no shortage of signs along the way
that I could find evidence of life anywhere I looked,
a highway passable and pleasant, full-limbed and
extended to touch the edges of satisfaction and
the darkness of discontent.

We Keep an Eye Out

We Keep an Eye Out

"In every direction, in every conceivable merciful convergence,
the heart pounds like someone waiting for the alarm to go off,
whetting our appetite for the congregation, the happy twirling
like the spinning of a yarn.
Memory is the gift you get for living.
Dreams are the seeds you plant, saving the future
like a first grade concert in the park.

How many breaths scatter across the hills,
how many landslides shortly after noon?
Can we hear the forgotten refrain,
can we see the genesis of creation imbued
with atomic fondness for the divine?
We talk while our joy is unescapable,
our song is an opening along the horizon of
everything, including moonlight, sunshine,
and stars late in the deep night. We can
name a few, along with the planets too.
We thought the lyrics were only English
with a smattering of Spanish. We thought the
words were enough to get us through the day.

We count the background; we gaze toward the sky.
We watch the sanity of uncertainty land like a dove
upon the boughs of cherry trees adorned by
fruit this late in the summer. We cannot wait to
carry them full-handed into the pail we have
used for a decade now and offered at least half
to the children who live next door.
We share it, also, with the deer that amble
through the inhabited cedars shortly after the
sun goes down.

We keep an eye out for the next doe and maybe a fawn;
we keep ourselves busy awaiting the next whistle the
sparrows sing. They are sonnets that surround the day.

Come Out of the Shadow

Come Out of the Shadow

(“I’m giving you a new commandment, and it’s this: love one another! Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:33)

Come out of the shadow, into the light
that bathes the corner shining like an unmined diamond.
Once more you will see, if you drink it slowly,
that the darkness has no hold on you.
The darkness is so untrue that only the
brightness can show you the truth.
Peace has been chasing you; hope, it’s instinctive double.

These days the silence has been playing tricks on you,
the hum of nothing makes you beg for bricks to build
another level over the brackish air beneath.
Conversation made you nervous,
performance left you shaking outside the stage.
Dreams were cut short before the gavel came down.

It wasn’t your fault; you were forced into hiding because
no one showed up when all you needed was
a drink from the spring that everyone else bragged about.
They thought you made so much money that there was
nowhere in the universe you would feel alone.

If you feel the shadow is all you can take, I’ll
join you and we may see the sun rise if we keep
our eyes open. We found our passage slowly,
we walked out the door mostly to breathe the
reborn air. Some moments it only takes
two people breathing at the same time.

I’ll walk with you to Mars or to the moon,
I’ll steer the light with my fingers. I’ll train your
eyes if I must. I’ll help them listen behind me and
look before me and know
we’ll find the diamonds of crystal carbon that
illumine our way.

Once Creased with Pain

 Once Creased with Pain

(“As for Me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to Myself.” John 12:32)

The day was wearily moving slowly,
eerily suggesting more than we could see.
But I had awoke too early to shatter any records
or remember any dreams that directed me gravely
toward an old headstone of a friend who once
was as enigmatic as the first few moments of
the silent breeze the cleanse my mind after resting
longer than I needed to, I was happy to recall her
smile after all. Now it’s locked in my memory the
same way her husband locked me into his own.
It was good to hear her babies lived with joy
mixed with tears, gratefulness mixed with questions,
sorrow mixed with a readiness to embrace something
more eternal than exterior views of emperors dancing
on their thrones.

We are all just jesters, aren’t we, trying to find our way home?
We are fools for fools’ sake, animals sniffing around the edges of
eternity.
It was good to hear words that let sorrow settle in like
a corporeal fog, something we could touch in the distance.
It all brings back to mind the days we sat around propane fires
watching the meat boil and the people waiting together,
giving away blankets and quilts, and saying the things we
would carry for longer than we knew.

We have learned to forgive ourselves of the behaviors we
learned to save us from the trauma we could not name.
We thought it was simply a sinful self that kept us addicted
to ways we soften the pain. But now somehow,
the crucified one has taken all the damage onto a splintery
tree, made that torturous cross his throne by which he
calls us to tell him the harm we could not name until we knew,
he felt it too.

How are we daily drawn by the magnetism of unreserved love.?
How do we imagine a place that soothes every reason we have to
push to the front of a line that will take the same time for us all.?
Ending at the entrance, all together now, we see the relief on faces
that once were creased by pain.

You Wept With Us

You Wept With Us

(“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” John 11:33)

“It’s not time,” they said, “to change the way we see things.”
“It’s not time to answer the questions that plague us like parasites.”
They were right, of course. The answers whirled around the
early evening shadows that were longer than that exposed the
insane preoccupation with ignoring the obvious.
Death is death, there is no other way to explain it.
Underneath each breath, surrounding each tear like a
trapeze artist flying high, unspoken groans gave vent to
inexpressible holes left inside each heart that ever lost
the unimaginable. Now that hole in our heart weighed us down
like an iron anchor hitched to the ground.

I’m sorry we expected you so early. I apologize for pursuing
you. Our tears had not let up for the four days since he
fainted casually dead. We sat with him in his sickness but
we never imagined he would live us without a concrete goodbye.
It’s not time,” they said, “to change our awkward lives.”
It's not time to ask why we always lost the questions with
holes in our pockets.
The day began with sighs and groans and you showed up and
wept with us. You wept with us.
The pangs we felt like swords in our chest were pangs he
took upon himself. He mirrored our grief,
he reflected our heartache, he took our sorrow as his own.

We followed him to the grave as we craved his company.
The sun was setting and we wondered where his weeping
would carry us. We watched in anticipation as the tomb was
opened and his words; brief as a summer shower, invited life
to walk out of the grave like the earth giving birth.

No Time for Questions

 

No Time for Questions

(“So Mary and Martha sent someone to tell Jesus, ‘Lord, your dear friend Lazarus is sick.’” John 11:3)

I read the letter halfway to home,
and finished it arriving in the driveway. There were
requests I could not fulfill,
anxiety I could not quell. But I knew love,
the old love,
the complete love that befriends nearly everyone
with a heart wide open like the North Dakota plains.

How many friends did you have, how many did you
cover with blankets of warm summer evening comfort?

Even now there are loved ones whose breath is shortened
by the unwelcome infections of dis/ease. Even now,
at the end of the letter, are the pleas for presence
and the possibility of miracles. Anything can happen,
any time the pressure can ease around the bed of the
frail and beloved friend.

Even now the street lights beckon, leading me home.
Even then the questions spun like uncertain diagnoses
and breakfast bringing up the last part of the morning.
No one ate that day, no one could. Everyone cried,
everyone revived their hope that this would not be the ending.

We pulled up next to the house, we heard the crying
over the lumbering engine. We cried too, how could we refuse;
there were tears from the front door to the kitchen and turning sharply
to the dimmed room halfway down the hall.

We opened the door, and we knew the sickness together.
We left extra late and arrived slightly early. We sat with
the illness speaking between us. It was certain that death
had filled the room and smirched our hopes. Taking his hand
we implored mightily, joined our voices with the others crying
for your vitality. But your breath faded, slow, one or two
lungfuls left. Your heart listened until the final groggy beat.

Where was he, the miracle worker? How did I get there before
he arrived? What would come of tomorrow with our friend
all but dead? What faith could we borrow once he was entombed?
His sisters had sat with him the whole long day. And now they
exhaled a breath they had held for nearly four days long. The
tomb was ready. The time was now. And I offered to wrap him
in strips of linen for the friends to carry him to the grave.

We cried because he could have been saved. We had seen the
chosen
one
cure even worse maladies and late. Why wasn’t he here,
why did he delay. We had no time for questions. It was time
to lay him on the bier and try to sleep the night away.

It’s Easy to Dream

It’s Easy to Dream

It’s easy to dream once your eyelids close;
it’s harder to dream what you want like a set
of your favorite clothes.
I tried to direct the choir, now I just play the piano.
I tried to feel the fire that had burned in my heart
all afternoon.
I hoped to live within the ropes that tied me to you.
I remember how ICE dressed like masked gang members
to confiscate some human’s feet from the concrete.
I’ve seen the gulag where they keep them like
cattle waiting slaughter. I’ve heard the mumbles
about the bible, I’ve seen their inchoate references
to excuse their handgun executed arrests.

I threw my hands up hoping you would see that
I cannot excuse or stomach the worship that parades
itself like confetti on the front rows of avenues.
There are no demons to attack, there is not warfare
to extinguish,
there is only love, love only love, left for us from the
One who forgave every notion of adversity from the pain
that would have driven sanity from the best of us.

I saw your attitude inside the congressional halls, the
room of the people. I saw your faux prayers that you prayed
to push through the bill that removes hope from millions. I’ve
heard your prayers on the corner in direct defiance of Jesus’
direction to pray alone in our own room.

I threw my hopes down the tunnel created by hidden boys
thinking they could hide inside the dark trees and foliage.
I dreamed the American flag was removed, finally and for all,
from every church’s stage. I dreamed we learned that empire
is the enemy of following the Lamb.

It's easy to dream when you sleep so late. It’s lately
uneasy, but I’ll keep speaking and trust the words will
end up carving a new way in my mind overnight.

The Pockmarks of War

The Pockmarks of War

(“He brings an end to wars throughout the earth. He shatters the bow and breaks the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” Psalm 46:9)

I don’t need to think about it,
I don’t need to start again. I’ve heard the cry
of victory that savors peace like an early supper.
I’ve heard the mothers begging for skirmishes
to cease. I’ve seen the pain melting from the faces
who swore to study war no more.

Throw the spears into the forge, remake them into
garden rakes. Throw the guns into the furnace, remake
them into gazebos where the only invasion is music
on summer evenings.

Heed the voices who are crying. Heed the babies
who have been dying because you had to avenge
everything that ever pained your land.

The refugees hover inside whitewashed tents,
they take cover when they hear the missiles whistle
overhead. The children know the drills too well.
I’ve watched them huddle, leaving behind every
vestige of nationality. Sadly, the vileness of violence
followed them to nowhere home.

Why do we use words like love and caress our bombs?
Why do we mutter syllables of peace and prime the fuses?
Why do we pray and send away for more munitions?
Why do we hug it out and then paint targets on people’s backs?

Do you see creation? Do you see the children’s songs?
Do you hear the sound of tomorrow? Do you hear the robin’s song?
Can you feel the beauty of lands where pockmarks of warfare
have ceased? Can you feel the daylight that opens the door
a self truer than military salutes and slogans?

Perhaps a Doppelganger

Perhaps a Doppelganger

(“A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ I did what he said. When I washed, I saw.” John 9:11 [The Message])

Another long day placed him near the pool where
jokers and religionists, housewives and jesters,
would was their vagrant sins away. He was certain
the waters could heal his blindness; he was just befuddled
as to which sin had taken away his sight.

Had had to resort to begging, not being able to look them in the eye,
I suppose his coffers grew more slowly than the sighted ones who
could coax some mercy and a sliver of shame from the passersby.

some were wearing turbans, some were wearing fedoras.
He could not discern their readiness, he only could listen and
hope
their voices told their readiness to contribute.

But then a man approached and said not a word. He looked at him,
this Jesus, and spit on the ground. Making clay with the saliva,
he rubbed the paste on the blind man’s eyes. The blind man
shivered; what could this mean. Then he spoke, this Jesus,
and told him to go wash in the Siloam pool. He sent him there
directly.

The man went. The man washed. The man could see.

Scattered across the portico the people held court and could
not believe. Perhaps there was a doppelganger who had alwayscoul
had his sight. Perhaps they merely mistook him for the man begging
at the gates.

inally, he spoke up, “I’m the man, the very one.” His voice was
happy but shaking.

How did this happen? The clowns asked from the circus motif.

I can see. Does that bother you? A man named Jesus made a paste
and rubbed it in my eyes. Does that offend you? He told me to go
to the pool of Siloam. Does that confuse you? I did what he said.

When I washed, I saw.

Does that make you want to follow him?

Instead they marched the man to the religion experts who
dressed finer than cocktail tuxedos at night. They knew it had
to be a fake;
it was done on the Sabbath. He was healed on the Sabbath.
Jesus did work with mud and clay on the Sabbath. The man washed
it off on the Sabbath.

And every adjudication contained a clause that insisted miracles
cannot happen on the Sabbath. They take too much work. You cannot
rest and restore sight at the same time.

All the man knew is that he was once blind but could now see.
Jesus could have healed every blind person that day, including the
clowns posing as experts, if only they knew they could not see.

I Sweep my Emotions

I Sweep my Emotions

 

I was tempted to lie about my status,
to tell you I felt loved and whole.
It’s not that I’m left alone, or misheard,
or disrupted by delusions of my late afternoon words.
I was even questioned in the friendliest of ways
about my plans for the afternoon and weekend.

There are dozens of friends I could call on,
there are maybe a hundred that know my name;
there are scores who have witnessed my wounds,
and fewer who blame me for my forgotten moods.

Even as I sit down to write this, I question every
word or phrase,
I sweep my emotions out the front door and do not know
if they will return in the morning to
remind me how stolen I feel. I remember the voices
who said I drank the Kool-Aid,
who told me to get over it,
who said I shouldn’t feel any sort of way. Even the sun
feels foreign on this summer afternoon.

I’ve asked, as if anyone is listening, if it is dark yet.
I’ve wondered how long the days can be. I’ve wasted
my days with endless talking heads and tried to write when
all I knew were tasteless odes to disembodied heroes.

I heard it was a five-year-old’s birthday in the restaurant
I retire to when I want to read and sip a beer. I gave her a dollar
and loved the way she giggled and smiled. If only I knew
every child’s birthday.

Someone said I was obsessed with politics when all I
wanted
was for a few believers to love the Sermon on the Mount
more than their pet projects that canceled the hopes of
thousands. When will love be the answer? When will
devotion look like another helping of soup without
questions for the hungry ones who only needed a
spot of daylight to create unconscious acceptance?

I won’t lie again to be more accepted. I won’t
support your rebuttal of good science. I’ll stand
up every day for the unassuming immigrant who only
wants to find a new place to call home.

To Confess My Loneliness

To Confess My Loneliness

(“The priest shall burn all of it on the altar, for a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, of a pleasant aroma to Yahweh.” Leviticus 1:9b)

I’m so tired of confusing every emboldened cryptic answer
to the questions I send by test balloon. I’ve kept my eyes open.
I’ve even shut my mouth.
I’ve waited for the reply that would set all my doubts aside,
but all I remember is the smell of grilling from next door.
I had hoped the breeze would bring more voices,
would open up the choices I had that could make the day
feel sooner that later. I’ve been told it’s nothing personal
when I get no answer,
it's just the delivery system that is broken. I do not believe
that silly response no matter how well it is spoken.
I’ve been taught that loneliness is not a big enough
reason to cry.
“Isn’t God enough?” they ask. They walk on down the road
while I scratch my head about what they said.

I used to be embarrassed to confess my loneliness,
the result of silence I never asked for. Everyone had
an opinion;
everyone laid down their advice like directives from a
commandant. I was born in a room full of noise,
of laughter and crying. I live in a room of silence so
I turn the music up loud. I could relax so much better with
someone to talk to who didn’t have the answers full of
conclusions. They want me to put it all on the altar,
to let it burn up every part of me. They do not understand that
I have so little left to offer that the smoke from my altar
would barely be seen.

I’ve walked this pathway before. I’ve humbled myself in words
full of self-loathing. I’ve let it burn until there was nothing left of me
except bones blackened by the flame. I left one ceremony early
because my baby was tired and getting restless and others
shot their eyes at me like I was a heretic or transgressor,
when I was just a father with an exhausted toddler.

I wish someone would draw different conclusions. I wish
they would sacrifice for me the way they think I should sacrifice.
I wish I had something left to burn. Maybe it’s because I’m old now,
maybe it’s because I remember for so long the screeching sounds
of cars suddenly breaking outside at midnight. Maybe it’s simply
me who has been wrong, maybe I spent too much time in the moonlight.

Maybe I need one person holding back their well-intentioned advice
and revising their presumptions about me. Maybe a single voice,
quietly whispering its way into my heart would inject something new
into the dreams that cause my heart to ache in the middle of the night.

Everlasting Springs

Everlasting Springs

(“Let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:38)

We had been patient, waiting for the day to begin.
We had approached from below, finding the hills where
we could look out across the river, shiny and silver,
no wind, no wind, no wind.

We look to the east toward the mouth of the river some
200 miles away. We wondered how many had sent their
best wishes toward us standing above the water today.

We walked down from the hill to feel the river on our skin.
We approached from above, finding the ledges that edged
five feet into the rivers running torso. Fishermen slung
their line across the lapping waves, stirred by a late breeze
in the afternoon.

We look to the west to the foot of the river, some 50 miles
away. We wondered how many ships turned from the sea
and followed the river to upland ports to unload their burdens
before the tugboats turned them round to the sea again.

We sensed this lane of passage was something within.
We determined this was a picture of something more tangible
we could carry like canteens. We drank water to refresh
our parched tongues; we shared water to brighten the eyes
of the solitary ones. We might practice solidarity with
those excluded from the river. We might lead them by the
hand to hear how the Spirit pours herself into us like
everlasting springs.

From watching and waiting we learned to listen well,
and we were more certain now at the end of the day that
the river was our mother, always ready to share her affluence.
The river was our mother, always ready to show us the confluence
with every other stream along the way.

Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice

(“The cherubim had their wings spread upward, covering the Mercy Seat with their wings and facing each other. The faces of the cherubim were turned toward the Mercy Seat.” Exodus 37:9)

The room was dark, but their eyes were bright
like cats caught in the middle of the night by a beam of moonlight.
Imprinted, their space was inhabited by curiosity and
mercy; their timing was perfect, their projections
silently filled the place with awe and dread.
It took time to become used to the shadows cast
upon the curtains hanging like fluid waterfalls.

I had fallen asleep and assumed it was a dream.
I saw my younger son as a child pretending to ride
our Australian Shepherd like a cowboy.
He liked to journey across the earth, ticking the
boxes
of every planet he visited. He logged his progress,
and I leapt conclusions. He always preferred to
visit somewhere new until his card was completed,
until enough time passed to make its memory dim.

What would I see within the tabernacle,
what would I write after seeing angels in stone?
What answer could I give to the silent room where
no one could visit, except for high priests and novices
in dreams? In my enlightened imagination sunrise and
sunset inhabited the same moment and place. I could
breathe without pain;
I could speak without forgetting the refrain that echoed
relief from the unanswerable contemplations I had piled
in the corners of my mind.

The cherubim, heavy with the weight of glory,
unshadowed the primordial imprint that stained
my preconceptions.

It was a chilly and cloudy summer solstice with the
rain occasionally painting the hills. I remembered what
it was like to dwell with the ancient wings buffering
my descent and holding me mercifully from the moment
I stumbled on the steps to the temple. I was frozen
in fear
until the images of forgiveness played like light
from the sun a minute before it goes down.

Of Bread and Music

Of Bread and Music

(“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had been asking for a rhyme
to bring me closer to another soul like mine. Recent years have left me
frightened of conversation and forays into the depths of contemplation about
God and sunsets and music and the proper tempo to play a hymn.
My abilities have wavered as my fingers bend and tremor. Not
that anyone can tell, but I know my fine motor skills are no longer
fine and have left me with less skill.

But the trio invited me to join them as I walked into the bar
a midday Thursday afternoon. Two women with voices of angels,
one husband, a kind man, buys me a beer. We sit and talk music
and I’m invited to join a group of ukulele students with me on
keyboards. Recent years have left me skittish of forays where my
mistakes can be readily discerned. I’m a music reader and have
never played by ear well. I need to see it and from there it transmits
to my fingers. But they have been left dormant for so long they
miss the keys and come down between them in discordant half tones.

But the urge still moves me, while anxiety pumps the breaks.
To gather around picnic tables and share bread and wine,
steaks and beer, or anything else brought by the few who
(I hear) are as anxious as me.

Could there be angels surrounding us as we pass the
food down the line?
Could there be divine messengers listening in to our
musical etudes and attempts? Could our small talk be
a tactical vest to protect us from blushing at our inadequacies?
Whatever it is, and whatever we hear, whatever we eat, and
whatever we drink,
let’s let make music of heaven sink into our closed-mouth
inhibitions.

Tide Pools

Tide Pools

(“I will send an angel before you…” Exodus 33:32a)

The blue wall formed the front of the visage
from the cliffs above the sea. The marine layer
hugged the coast like a mother dolphin, like a day
when the sun yawned until noon.
We had driven overnight to arrive there, hoping
the tidepools were full of orange anemones and
sandy starfish. We wore our best shoes to keep from
cutting the heels of our feet.

When we looked behind us our shadows disappeared
into the frothing waves. When we looked above us
the blue was gray, and the breeze was unsteady.
When we looked before us we saw more than we
saw below us. We expanded the day beyond yesterday’s
noontime vigils. We had planned this for longer than we
admitted.
We could not see it, but we had been led there by
by the uncreated spirit of divine presence.

We heard the bells behind us pealing like iron
from a forgotten California mission. Had the worshippers
come from the edges of the city; had the celebrants
begun their homage to the sea?

We discovered more music surrounding us in
the whistling of the wind, the cawing of the gulls, the
whispers of the waves receding from the rocks. We
listened and the lyrics came to remind us that these
tight spaces on the earth can be fuller than a cup
overflowing
with late summer wine. We are spots, we are dots,
we are only the tiniest drops of water on the
sphere we inhabit. And sometimes, if we notice,
there is more to see than we came to see.

It’s All So Complex

It’s All So Complex

(“The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will receive my prayer.” Psalm 6:10)

She thinks you are indifferent and have sent no one to help.
She feels forgotten, she sees nothing on the horizon. She hopes
you govern in love
but learned little but coercion.
Hear her please. Hear her pleas. Receive her cry, respond to
her anguish, the residue of trauma.

It's all so complex. It’s jigsaw puzzles in four dimensions.
It’s air that feels too heavy to breathe. It’s earth that is blown dusty
by the northwest wind. It is every resume sent with
new hopes kindled. It is every rejection when you swore you
were the most qualified. It is your children feeling your anxiety
in their bones, but they keep on playing because it all seems
more mysterious than they can imagine.

Show her just for a moment that she is chosen. Let her
snatch the words from the air that speak of sparks of
divinity. Let her journey into the warmth that is
fashioned my mercy. Let her walk today unhindered
by loneliness and loss.

I know you haven’t rejected her. I know you have remembered her.
I know she is one of your own. I know she hasn’t chosen this land
of the unknown. I would remain silent if I thought that would
amplify your voice to her. I would speak only softly with warm
rain words like late summer afternoons. I know she belongs to you,
I know she’s crossed more bridges than she can count.

I know the day is coming when the horizon lifts like a curtain
and the mystery will no longer be inky night. I know the mystery,
the secret of the inner life, will one day be a place of peaceful reflection.
I know you are affected by her plight and may have sent help already.
I know the fear of the silence too. I know the dread of days when
there is no voice to muscle the heavy lifting. I know the loneliness
of silent friendships.

But I am learning the comfort of solitude between the flighty words
of new friends who happily buy me a beer.

The Answer to Every Question

The Answer to Every Question

(“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” 1 John 4:10)

You would know me from a distance,
I have the same appeal I did when we first met.
We can start again because we have ended at the same
fork in the road. Tell me which way you will go and
I will turn that way too. Tell me your destination and
I will make it my own. Follow me, I may not know where
we will end up,
but I know I want to go there with you.
My car is old and slower than it used to be,
but we can still get there if we take our time.
I will take my time until the breeze whispers that
you are mine.
Feel it all, the large and the small; let the emotions
that are hidden come out into the afternoon sun. Put
them in my hand and I will massage them, the hurting ones.
Put them in my hand and I will cherish them, the loving ones.
Waiting only postpones the way our souls relate,
putting it off increases the ennui. Can’t tell if it’s
right or wrong,
I just want to sing the words of the song and watch them
etch beloved lyrics upon your face. You might smile
while I am awkward with the tune. But you will know,
later or soon, how much they mean.
We both have been bogged down in tradition,
we both have been forced to keep the rules that keep us
fenced up like incarcerated rabbits caught nibbling the garden.
Today I do not even need to persuade you,
today I only want to upgrade the love first begun.
We can get out and walk once we reach our destination,
we can feel the sand between our toes. We can feel our
hands lightly touching,
we can hear the surf filling in the words we have forgotten.
And in that moment you know and I know there is nothing
we could tell that would drive us away.
The universe answers with the deepest love when we
ask the questions we have been afraid to ask.
It is you, I have seen you in the storm;
It is you; I have loved you in the warm and quiet
afternoons. And only hope to be loved too.
Then you take my hand and put it on your face and
I know
No one can replace you, then or now, and I take
you in my arms and hold you softly as our eyes
kiss and we know the answer to every question we’ve been asking.

The Immigrant is my Brother

The Immigrant is my Brother

“You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 22:21

The immigrant is my brother, the foreigner is my son,
the stranger is my sister, the refugee is my daughter.
I will be their asylum, I will be their sanctuary. I was
a stranger once and I needed refuge. I was
seeking sustenance once when few listened,
looking for a place to take me in as a friend.

There were troubadours among them, songsters who
sang stories of long treks to freedom. They played with
sorrowful hope, they sang with joy like jesters,
they invited us jokers to learn their tunes. The chords
were native to their lands, their music helped them cope
with vacillating orders from an empire that closed their ears
and chanted words of arrestment to the ones who spoke with
open throats about their dreams.

They fired up their grills and cooked for the neighborhood.
Everyone was welcome, everyone had a chair. Their children
played
like children play all over the world. Language separated us some,
but not enough to keep us away. The day was warm enough
for water balloons and beer. The sun showed up and embraced
our outdoor cantina while we laughed at the toddlers trying
somersaults on the lawn.

I would be a clown for them, I would make them smile,
I would tell the ancient stories of slaves who found a way
to leave the oppressive state. I would tell them God is
on their side,
the persecuted are always the passion of the Divine. Children
always know what love looks like and they teach it to us
if only we will listen. If only we will observe them.

The undocumented is my neighbor and today we shared
a moment outside the lines of judgment and strict legislation.
The undocumented is my friend and today we learned
there are far less differences than people create. The
undocumented is the man who fed my dog today and
I was the one who tickled his child and ran with him across the lawn.