We Took the Backstreets

We Took the Backstreets

We took the backstreets too often
trying not to be seen, hoping not to be heard.
We were convinced that everyone was happier than
we deserved and so we made the shadows our friends.
We deserved nothing brighter than the alleys,
or so we thought. The spotlight blinded us and sent
us scattered across the way. What would they say when
they saw us dressed so differently from them, handsewn
rags from mediocre wardrobes. We never thought the songs
were for us and so we never memorized the lyrics.

We took the long way home nearly every time we
returned. What would we say to those who thought
they knew us and paused to chat or ask us questions,
or insist we swallow some offered food with them.
We should have trusted them. But we had trusted others
and their food nearly poisoned us right in front of everyone.

We had no way to measure the honesty of the light we met
along the way. He had no means to assess what harm there
might be in giving them space within our shivering minds.
We had been treated as paupers before, morsels received from
clenched hands. So we found ourselves suspecting every
motion from shoulder to elbow to hands.

We would give anything to walk through the neighborhood,
stop at the cul-de-sac and chat with the children and puppies
with eyes happy to see ours. We would throw our hearts wide
open to let the better words lodge as their parents saw us and
laughed along with our improvised conversations. Maybe the
light can shine again, maybe we can come out of the shadows,
take the front road and not the alley. Maybe the pain we
experienced
was inflicted by people with as much pain as ours. Maybe
there was a place to play like sunny afternoons in meadows
that musically laugh the healing songs of human bonds. The
clash we once felt might be the beginning of lively moments of
daily discovery like a child finger-painting the sky.

Springing from Within

Springing from Within

(“But if someone loves God, it is certain that God has already known that one.” 1 Corinthians 8:3)

Suddenly the air was clearer, the skies without fear,
the echoes without terror. What we were used to hearing was
war muted by the long lines of melody played over the
top of the clouds like a violin motif inviting us home.

We felt it like love streaming in tropical dreams,
like a mother’s nickname for her newborn child.
We simply sampled what had been offered from
eternity past into late night conversations loosened by
a couple of glasses of wine.

How lovely is the handiwork, the sculptured horizons,
the landscapes of brilliance and the offers of peace
on earth. Why we had ignored it made no sense to
some who had hummed that tune from their earliest
breaths.

But for others those days gave way to harsh assessments
of diving expectations, adopting overbearing stances
like brick walls disguised as fences. But some refused
to let go of their notions of liberation, their images of
deliverance. For them every heartbeat was another reason
to sing the most astounding of songs. Eyes upturned,
their hands were full to share the food and warm words
to the onlookers simply hoping for something better than
hyper-critical evaluations of the crowds.

They knew the jargon but found it empty. They
used to use the same language too. But, astounding,
and alarming, the moment their hearts had turned the
old dialect was found wanting
and empty on the scales of exuberance.

Now, where once there were armaments of warfare in
the names of their god
they found and sang and walked the ground like
pilgrims and nothing more. Their nothingness was
turned to cantatas of simple tones that toddlers
could learn and fill the rooms with unqualified love without
judgment. A new song of emancipation springing from within.

Danced Like Toddlers

Danced Like Toddlers

(“As soon as I heard the sound of your voice, the baby inside me jumped for joy.” Luke 1:44)

Could all this mean that we were born to be dancing,
scooting around the rhythmic floor with higher dimensions?
Could our feet move at the first sentence sent from the
purest hearts? Could our hands clap at the sound of the
leaves falling for joy? I’ve fallen for stories like this before,
and was sometimes deeply disappointed. But what if we still
were meant to listen for the next story, then turn our ears
toward the familiar music with a new way of hearing. We hear
the frequencies as we listen with new angles, as we attend to
the old tunes with simple guitar and drum and feel like
sliding all the way across the ballroom.

The pulses of joy rearranged our thinking,
the words barely full-throated and we were ready.
The echoes off the walls and mountains, the repeated
verses from peak to peak celebrate
a dawn like no other. A day hardly begun
and we are ready to walk the way we had
hoped to follow so many ages ago.

We swore we had attempted it, we remembered
the day it left us behind. We mourned our losses,
we grieved the silent pain. We could not resurrect
a single note of the ancient song.

But this refrain, reframed in such solitary silhouette,
opened the cracks where the light had filtered
in for ages. But now, unhindered, the music drew us
to cacophonous celebrations. Oh, that we were still young
enough
to cartwheel across the yard. Our voices are aging
and barely find the notes, but it matters less than the
dancing that renewed our crooked feet. That day when
the song crept in to find us in our darkened caverns
was the day we walked into the light, finally, in years. And
old as we were from the hiding and cold, we danced
like toddlers trying to hop for the very first time.

Across the Great Expanse

Across the Great Expanse

I stood on the steps and gazed across the
great expanse stretched from yawning valleys
to sheltered coves. The complexities sent me
spinning. I’ve had days when all I do is
remember people 50 years ago whose names
I once spoke out loud. I watched you laugh
dozens of times from corner to corner dodging
the looks of thawing foothills. We followed them
there
and hiked the slopes like we were as harmless
as we looked.
We cheered the occasional thunderstorms that
scattered us across the landscape. We counted the
seconds between flash and boom and knew they were
getting closer as hair stuck to our heads dripping rain
from our faces to our shoulders.
We slid down the fall line, mud escorting us to
the flattened overviews where we wondered why
the cows didn’t follow our downward adventure.

What I miss is the bliss that rises from the thought
of one simple day acting like a child who wants to be
an adult. The sweet adolescence when everything mattered
but nothing was sacred. The time of our lives when
we treated scat and the blues and rock and jazz like
parts of a whole we imbibed like wine.

What I miss are conversations till midnight, slightly
tipsy;
just enough to make the truth come out. And we
dabbled in open-source voices and sounded out our
serious vowels as if they were jokes looking for a
punch line. I miss talking with you and thinking we
knew everything about what was to come.

Shall we meet up at the park where our kites
would fly above us, and where salamanders soaked
in the sun on the banks of the stream? I’ll meet you there,
these many years later, and see if we can recreate the
scenes we once shared without fear, sharing them like
warm sun that begs our hearts open fully and unafraid
to laugh at how silly we are at these late days of our lives.

Unsnapped

Unsnapped

(“To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless.” 1 Corinthians 4:11)

I became unsnapped from everything that
held me tightly,
untethered from the orbits that explained everything.
The strings of lights hung from the eaves,
the deer wandered through the yard. I was
learning to walk, to explore, to live like a
vagabond, a drifter, a nomad. We were better
at being ragamuffins than royals, so we pulled
up an old folding chair and wondered what the singing
was about.
We were enriched in our poverty,
homed in our wandering, healed with balms
of lowly scents from the muddled petals from
flowers that grew in the forest.

The truth is, I always feared being poor.
And I missed the beloved’s smile that looked on
my paucity as a gift. What should I give away
to know your love deeper than I have before?

Once again, I hold onto the things that have escaped my grasp,
the memories that were felt so deeply that they
color my moods like finger-painting.  It is too late
to learn to play a new instrument or think about
buying one. I should play even if I play alone,
leaving the sound to encase the walls of my sitting,
to gently adorn angels I imagine live between the
strings of my mandolin.

I unzipped myself from velcro attachments and
found, though poorer, my days were fuller than I knew,

Planted Years Before

Planted Years Before

(“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:6)

The fingers are wringing every leftover nerve
I have. Squeezing at my head like an anaconda,
making me forget easier days. My words are limited because
the pain constricts my thoughts and restricts
my smile to grimaces misunderstood. I’d
love
to uphold my end of the conversation, but I’m
not sure what I would say.

There may be words planted years before that
have
wilted at the constant ache that hides them from
the sun.
I never make appointments; they are too easy to miss.
I am halfway to tears most days, and when conversations begin
I feel the hairs on my hands signaling I must not
violate the air around me.

Today I am tired. Weary to the bone.
Today I am hoping for someone who simply feels like home.
Today I should feel lucky to have all I need.
Today my spirit moans and spits up seeds sowed so long ago.

For a few moments I play the songs freehand and hope I haven’t
skipped a coda or stumbled overboard. I slip home as soon as
we are done. I slip home without a word. I never
minded the difficult days before that pain; I would walk through
them like an arch into another place. Now I stand silent,
and wish for a place to sit until the noise is over and
I find a new place to leave heart to hang out again.

Take this mud that cakes my heart and make it the seedbed
out of this pain. Let the shoots fight for the light while the
ache dismisses every dream I once hoped to be true. I’ll wait
until Spring.

On the Backside of the Day

On the Backside of the Day

(“God chose what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something,” 1 Corinthians 1:28)

We were pretty certain we would arrive before the night fell.
We were convinced everyone would meet us on the road.
We were busting out with words,
we were advertising our prophecies.
We were on our way past the obstructions that
we believed we had overcome.

We found our thrones were just we had left them,
we climbed up and surveyed our territory.
We were royal and carried our scepters with pride.
We were untested though we thought the speeches
were expected because we had so much we had
crafted in our houses of extravagance. We lacked
nothing that we knew of.

And the crowds did come, the cheers convinced us
we were fulfilling all we had dreamed. They left us
breathless as we captured their unsuppressed praises.
Would our dreams coalesce on the backbeat of a waning
afternoon? The permanent residences were
unmoved, though, by our front-functioning terms
of affection. We even sent them invitations to feed us,
to bring the feasts to us, but they did not hear,
it would appear,
and stayed home with children barely born that year.

We had not considered how at a loss we were with our
degrees and plaques and awards and directives. We
knew what everyone needed before they asked, and we
kept loading it upon them long after the day was done.
You’d think we would know by now that God
dissolved the thrones built to boost the earth up
closer to the moon. God burrowed deeply into our
muck to bring our mud-caked bodies close to his.

We were less certain at the end of the day, we
were less filled with convictions; but we learned
the breath we used for proclamation was needed
instead
for soiled reflections of silent servanthood written
down on the backside of the day.

The Joy was Hiding

The Joy was Hiding

(“The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. May the good will of our Lord Jesus be with you!” Romans 16:20)

I would have written this early but my chest sometimes
feels like lead, keeping out the joyful rays and hiding the
love inside. The quiet interludes I hoped for created an abscess
that only echoed the sounds of unknowing.

So let me tell you this, if I can tell you anything you do not
already know,
I love you till the end of time little one,
I carry you close from last light until dawn.

I will confess that some of my days were eroded by
thoughts turned untrue by fear, the way a child first
climbs a stair. The joy was hiding and I am sorry.
But I extended my hand for you, my finger to catch
hold of you and you took to the stairs with a giggle.

I take everything so seriously. I took it all too hard.
I blamed myself and never felt the freedom to laugh like the rain.
I thought there had to be a chorus and refrain to
cut the darkness overnight. Now, as I’m writing this,
later and better,
I am ready to let giggles turn the tables on all my
cognitive biases that blamed everything on some
present darkness that held me tighter than my
knotted shoes.

I am writing this now, seriously engaging with joy,
and willing to laugh inappropriately if the situation calls
for it.
There are more devils expelled by laughter than ever those
with weeping tears.

We Had Been Disarmed

We Had Been Disarmed

(“The Lord's kindness never fails! If he had not been merciful, we would have been destroyed.” Lamentations 3:22)

Maybe the day would bring something better,
maybe the dawn would shine again. Maybe we were
hiding from the love we thought we never deserved.
Is it all too marvelous,
Is it so hard to believe?
And yet our darkness lingers, there is no argument
against that. The cries of the exiles crowd out the
silence, the whisper, the slightest breath of consolation.
We have heard the words before and assumed
they
were for the well-healed and polished words of
prayers that took elegant sweeps around the room.
We could not talk, the pain was so exhausting;
we could not listen, the syllables were still defrosting.

We had no weapons to lay down; we had been disarmed
at the beginning of the conflagration. We had no rhetoric,
our stumbling tongues met our teeth midsentence. We could
connect the deathly groans that echoed from throats strained
from crying. We were grieving more minutes than we were
given in a day.
And yet we still cried out in hopes we were heard.
We threw up the dust and wrapped ourselves in canvas,
hoping the coming day would wash the pain away.
The rains were slow, and we passed the days squeezing
out the splinter of faith that was remained. We were afraid to lose
even that much,
never wanting to hit the bottom where the embers of devotion
would die far away from their source.

Yet there is where we heard again, like the untarnished
coins of another realm. We felt the low vibrations
in the depth of our grief and hope began to open its
failing wings. From the depths we heard the hymn,
though our position had not changed. And we might be called
foolish for trusting a mere toccata while the atmosphere
demanded a dirge.

And so, we listened and considered these things. We counted
the days and the shades, the shadows and the rings that were
made by the same sun that had risen during our better days.
And we knew, though the pain was deep, that somehow, we
were heard and we would not be destroyed. We heard the
refrain of mercy, a kindness that, in short,
never fails.

Gatherings Like This

Gatherings Like This

(“Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.” Romans 15:7)

It was all so small, but warmer than it had been
in a decade of Decembers. Small family, restful smiles,
grace and a place where words and action met in
a holy embrace. It was quiet and laughter like a
Christmas eve with a dozen adults and children
evenly scattered around the room.

We might have wished for snow but that mattered
very little now. It was time to eat and share
gifts we had hunted near the end of the year. All the way
from newborn babies to a man in his seventies, time
seemed endless as we inhaled the atmosphere that only
these kind of gatherings can bring.

A guitar, waiting in the corner, was lifted and strummed.
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” started from small mouths
to older, and “Silent Night” was sung like a lullaby though no one
would be sleeping for hours from now.