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.

My Heart’s Thin Veneer

My Heart’s Thin Veneer

I’ve stood at your doorway, my toes tickling your threshold,
wondering if I should knock, if I should see if you are home.
I know you’ve told me to come over any time, but I still feel
it is such a risk
to let you see me out of my element. You may ask me to
leave early,
or not to come inside at all. It’s almost like a wedding where
the groom has only heard of the bride and
worrying what she will think at her first look at
the one who has written the words line by line. His
face might betray how afraid he is that the door will stay
closed
well after rapping softly on it asking for entrance.

I’ve told you about my heart, maybe a half of it, maybe more.
But now I stand at your door knowing this time you will
see all of it. The falls. The lies. The uncomfortable way
it shies away from dropping the façade it wears. So far
you only love half of me, and the other half remains in shade.

Would you dare to embrace the darkened shadows
I’ve hidden from you? Would you let me in the door
not knowing? And yet some unbidden hope tells me
my heart may be already welcome inside your own.

I’ve protected it with words as thin as onion skin,
I’ve ventured to this door with a resolution to say
all I am afraid to say. You may think I have said
it all
already, and that may be true. This time I’m knocking
like it was the first time we met. This time I’m hoping
you and I both know what it’s like to be lonely. This moment
I might be brave, or I might slink away. Would you invite me in
once I dared to hold out every thought of my heart?
Would it be like the start of a song with every stanza
unrehearsed and every note belonging to you?

Here it is, my anxiety on display. Here it is,
knowing all I want to say, and knowing the
risk there is in unveiling everything.
Still, I cannot wait to hear your footsteps coming
to open the door.

The Idol

The Idol

(“You are not to craft for yourselves an idol or anything resembling what is in the skies above, or on earth beneath, or in the water sources under the earth.” Exodus 20:4)

His voice was crackling like firewood,
his face hotter than an embarrassed teen,
his gait the sideways hustle of a man convinced he
is sent from God. His words full of lies and deception,
His proclamations completely committed to retribution.
And all the believers, the jesus type of people who drew
iron circles around the mountains of faith, they all called him
the messiah sent from god.
And yet not one could see, even if they had wanted to,
that the man was a fraud, a Nero-type psychotic,
speaking like a despotic king taking charge of everything.
And worship leaders hawked their words for millions and
power. They bundled real estate like late night shots of tequila
to take back the land for god.
Like Delilah they tied him to a chair and did unspeakable things there.
He was their prince, he was their paramour, he was the answer to
cultural morose battles.

But still there were a few who, lacking portents of anger,
gave water to the thirsty, walked to the courthouse with immigrants,
carried signs asking for sanity, and sang the songs of peace and
unity.

We were not the silent ones, not after an insurrection with a gallows
lifted for the head of the second in charge. We knew, against all odds,
the time was over for indistinct words of spirit that very few understood.
Instead we wrote our names on the sidewalks of every town,
guiding them to hot meals, warm beds, and rural hospitals
still standing, for the time being. We did dance. But only because
we have met the Lord of Love and know, without a blink,
that he has nothing to do with the hot-faced wannabe king who
is trying to take over everything.
God will have his day. The tear gas will clear. The horizon
will be decorated with double rainbows by day and
the aurora borealis by night. We cannot capture either,
cannot bring it up for a vote. But we will stand without moving
as we see the face of Christ connecting everything through love.
As we see the cloud of the Spirit cooling every angry word.
As we see the love of the Father, undoing our idols, tearing them down,
and leaving them post-revolution, broken on the ground.

I Tried to Lasso the Wind

I Tried to Lasso the Wind

(“The wind blows wherever it wants to. You hear it, but you don’t know where it is coming from or where it is going. It is the same with everyone who is born from the Spirit.” John 3:8)

Yesterday I tried to lasso the wind,
it refused my invitation, ephemerally slipping loose
and, so softly I hardly knew it,
kissed my cheek with a whisper.
Yesterday I tried to catch my breath,
it was far behind me, hiding beneath the yellow brush blossoms
and evaporating into a field where rabbits play.
Yesterday I tried to dictate the Spirit,
she refused to obey me, cooly uncoiling her
love power so quietly my voice lost its authority.
She beckoned me to a place in the middle of the river
where the mainstreams flow. I decided to go,
having decoded her intention to vivify everything mortal
with eternal notions of change.  

You cannot control what you do not understand.
You cannot understand what you refuse to hear.
You cannot hear with your ears filled with orations.
You can only follow the glimmers that are so small
they reflect the hummingbirds’ wings, and fill the neighborhood
with songs so good that old men come to listen.
We learned to stop trying to capture the tunes that
came in the afternoons and only celebrate the reprieve
they brought from working with sweat on our furrowed brows.