Walk into the Warm

Walk into the Warm

(“For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6)

I saw the ways that sleep overtook you and
the moments you woke fresh-faced from your dreams.
I could remember the days that left you begging
like an unconscious tambourine. You tried every
escape you knew and yet
the discontent
only grew. You were sure there was a way
to scribble a new portrait that appeared more like
the appearance of the divine you had imagined.
You were so afraid of failing that you
masked your innocence with a succession of
prostrate prayers with your face to the carpet.
You learned to preserve the emotions that
collided against the walls of your heart.

Take a breath. Ease yourself into the day.
Lay aside the effigies you erected to present
yourself to the world. Even though it feels like
slow-motion
there is a trajectory within that moves you
to the wholeness you crave.

You can come into the light, you can exit the
cavernous unrest into the un-echoes of transformation.
You are far away from the starting line; overland
your journey is nearer than you imagined, sooner than
you knew. You can walk into the warm and feel your
icy nervous system melt like a baby being born.

You do not need to hide; you do not need to subscribe
to every anxious thought. You will finish this marathon
with life left over to smile as you survey the distance
you have come.

One Moment to Breathe Free

One Moment to Breathe Free

 

I know the rhythm of life you yearned for;
I know how you longed to hear the voice that
allowed you to begin again. Apart from
the notions of unity there was the constant motion
that pulled you apart from life as you chose it.

I know how you wish it all would evaporate;
I know how your brain runs backwards from night
until day. Every situation feels like an uncrossable ocean;
every moment like sand dunes void of life.

A single day goes by that allows you to breathe and
you think it is over, that the hours could be sunny
and alive. But it lasts only a moment until
the abusive memories enter like arrows
through your heart.

You wish there were hugs that lasted forever,
but you wince at the thought of the touch of a hand.
You wish you could speak the deepest part of you;
you wish you could be heard for all that you are worth.

Years of pain have eroded your joy. Laughter
feels so uncommon that you question anything that
makes you smile. Convinced you do not deserve
even the simplest pleasure,
you go about trying to please everyone else with
tongue-tied fervor. There came a point where
every thought was called an illness, every need
a mental weakness until you were convinced
you walked unworthy of the things you needed the most.

How can I listen better; how can I gently hold this
place where you can safely say what you have not
said in ages. You do not need to be appropriate with me;
you don’t have to guard your words or your wants.

I would stand beside you, hold you, give you all the
time you need
to open those scary thoughts that make you feel unloved.
I would kiss away the pain, embrace your quivering heart
and tell you, until you can repeat it from memory,
that you deserve love, you deserve affection, you
deserve the gentle touch that only wants to
bring a smile or dry the tears you sometimes hide
so no one will know.

I feel your days go by; I know your fluttering
memories. I would give you a sky clear of clouds
and full of love. I would remind you the
moment you forget that
you deserve it all.
You deserve it all.
And the color of love might just fill your
face again. Here now,
let me kiss away the doubts and warm
you like a summer day even though
midwinter stays. I would give you anything,
I would offer you everything to give you
just one moment to breathe free and hopeful.
You deserve it all.
You deserve it all.

Much Further than Yesterday

Much Further than Yesterday

(“Wake up, sleeper! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14b)

My thoughts can scatter like marbles
out of the bag
rolling across the floor with some lost
underneath the couch.
My thoughts can darken like fog forming
on a late night downtown
blearily luring me to sleep.

But I can see straighter, eyes opened,
and light filling my miscreant mind.
I can find the sun I had lost track of,
the moon I had forgotten existed in the
middle of the night. I search the stars to
keep me awake with patterns drawn over
eternity.

I could go out for a ride while the smog
chocked my lungs;
I could turn back and find the coordinates
for the home that had challenged my dying thoughts.
I could order the same food as a day ago
and think it was the first time ever.
I could let my brain get some rest
and see things anew once the sun rose again.

I could wake up like a baby waiting to be fed;
I could go outside and feel the dew on my feet
while my eyes became accustomed to the light. I could see
much further than I did the day before yesterday.

Wrapped Itself

Wrapped Itself

(“You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Luke 18:22b)

What has wrapped itself around me like a boa
squeezing the life from me? What have I wrapped my hands
around so tightly my knuckles have turned white from my
over-protection? What is it that, so shiny, captures my
gaze? What has cemented my feet into this tiny island of
wanting what is mine?

What have I missed with this hoarding habit of mine?
What has twisted my devotion like broken handlebars on
a brand-new bicycle? When did I decide to
keep it all to myself? When will I relax my
muscular grip on all that glitters and still is not golden?

I’ve always feared poverty; I’ve never owned very much.
But the way I save myself looks like a miser blowing the
dust off his last penny.
I have worn out the paths I thought would enlighten me;
I have fallen over the edge when no one was watching.

Who is this that is calling me; who is it knows my
name so well? Who wants to ease my clasp around
dollar bills or diamonds? I’ve always thought I might
lose it all too soon so do not give away as much as
I could.

I have a talent for pretending consecration, for
acting like a penitent face down on the carpeted floor.
I don’t mind giving as long as I have enough for
tomorrow’s good meal. I don’t mind giving so long as
I get what is mine before I sign the check.

So, here are my hands, as open as I can offer them.
Here is my heart, as supple as I know how. And
lately
I sit and wonder politely.

Circles of Pain

Circles of Pain

(And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Ephesians 2:22)

The pain has grabbed me around the neck today,
pressing its way into every thought,
cauterizing open wounds
and blinding every well-meant phrase.
It’s been that way for two days now
and I could not sing and could hardly finish
a walk in the cold February air.

I planned on writing something full of spirit,
full of life and daffodils rising before a hint of
spring.
Instead I record these words and know they have
little meaning to those who can walk through a day
with doubts cast aside like rubbish and last year’s
party ribbons.

There must be some sense to this all,
I used to say.
There must be some purpose that leaves me
more whole by the end of the day.

I planned on wondering about how we all
are just walking each other home,
but I can barely give myself permission to
leave the house.
I planned on igniting some well placed
lightning
to scare the pain away.

Do you remember how we used to sing
with
only a guitar and made-up songs? Do you
remember
how we used to walk on the same hills where
the cows grazed on late afternoons?

There must be some sense to it all,
these memories that take my time away
from knowing anything for certain.
There must be a way to embrace
the new wine the spirit brings and
share the cup like sneaky teenagers again.

I got up from a nap to write this.
I was hoping it would do me some good.
But I pause before each line and want to
lie down again
except that sleep eludes me and
the pain
makes me homesick for the dwellings
of friends
where we gathered in laughter and naivety.
I’d call you again, but it hurts to speak
about the transfixed nature of this circle
of pain.

So, for now, I’ll repaint my boundaries
with hopeful words of remembrance
and how good it felt in those days so many
decades ago.

There may be a space so safe that spirit
draws open the tears and reminds us
we may not have this chance again.

Just in Time

Just in Time

(“And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near.” Ephesians 2:17)

It is no disgrace to hear the morning gloires open
to the slowing sun. It is still the grayest of days and,
like sifted sugar, the snow sits atop the foothills.
With our mouths full of wonder we could have
second-guessed every word. There was something
human
about the message that graced our anxious waiting.
From parallel planes we had carried the animosity
of the ages. How would this announcement take us
from our place to the other with the river blocking our paths?
We were gauged by the notice we took that the shorelines
had changed.

We both awoke at dawn with time zones between us;
We heard the song with same ears we had used to
berate the far country we thought we knew.
We had stubbed our toes on the concrete drama
of religious dogma. We had tried all this before with
no one listening. We toed the party line and never
tried to find the common thread that ran from one
life
to another. We were chosen and they were neither
blessed nor corrupted. They were just born that way.
But their very touch, as seldom as it occurred, could
drive us to constant ritual cleansing of our souls.

At odds, the new song kept trying to break through the
tangled catechism we both held on to. I worship this
and you worship that, and we both end up condemning
the practices we called idolatry. We stretched our
definitions to include the final judgement we knew
they deserved.

But at one point of time, in one sphere intervening
and filling everything, we heard the words that we
were afraid to speak. We heard a question that seemed
to answer everything.

We traveled toward each other, following the air waves
that had finally caught our attention. And we arrived
near noon,
just in time to see the marigolds glow.

Everything You Wanted

Everything You Wanted

(“No servant can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Luke 16:13)

Have you gotten everything you wanted;
have you wasted your time wanting more?
Have you stashed it away from prying conquest;
have you labeled it for later use?
Sooner or later the accounts will be settled;
credit will be given to the poorest and debts
cancelled in a single
day.

How many days have you set aside:
how many shiny coins are stored in a tin can
in the dark?
Or did you spend it all on diamond swatches
of tomorrow’s greed?
Did the seeds of your discontent
burst like moss too heavy on your winter roof?

What tastes have you acquired:
what timing for this brief untimely stay?
Can we share coffee or give away new
slices of cake?
Can we agree that we want more than will
every satisfy our perceived needs?
Why don’t we leave our opulent windows
and doors
to move outside where the ground is level and
where the poor man sits all alone?
Why don’t we join the resistance,
pool our resources, and swim against the tide?
Why don’t we give away what we will
never entirely consume? Why don’t we
offer our silence against the selfish voices
of rage?

That Leads You Home

That Leads You Home

(“At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you together.” Zephaniah 3:20a)

 

Slightly lower below the
sunrise hills
there glows a beacon that
leads you home.

It does not screech, it only beams,
it intervenes between hope and
bleak shadows that have
occupied your mind.

Some days the sun shines
but your shoes are not ready for walking,
The next day the fog lays
across the hills hiding their ever green.

There were no frowns, only furrowed
foreheads and unlikely thoughts of what
had turned this dark so soon. Some mornings
beckon with a better tune.

Suddenly our riches were fading, our coins
melting in the danger of the day. Quietly, though,
a new economy was coming, a new exchange,
all for all from unguarded watchmen who found
their pockets full of misting and rainbows.

Overnight someone sent invitations,
late afternoon we all made our plans,
early evening we gathered the adulation
we felt when we knew our clan was meeting
with us for good.

The First Thing I Noticed

The First Thing I Noticed

The first thing I noticed was the vacancy
at the table, the chair you used to sit in,
the door left unlatched, the void where your
voice once filled the air.

You were no longer invited after taking your fall;
your name was forgotten after your honesty took the stage.
You lived putting it all together and leaving your mind
behind.
You could not accept the constant dissonance any longer;
your ears needed the chords to resolve. You had pinned your
hopes on the lyrics you heard earlier in the day.
You trusted promises that were left hanging like
torn sheets in the wind. You looked for the hand
that once carried you through the riptides of
bewilderment. But they had withdrawn to find their
own place in the sun.

You started the song again, this time all alone.
You played all the instruments because everyone had gone home.
You could no longer sing, though, like you had decades before.
You wondered why you even recorded anything anymore.

Doctrine had caught up with you. Creeds had kept you
bound to the chair at the table where only the most exclusive
were invited. You spoke too soon and were deconverted
unnaturally. Your place at the table dissolved even
more once you mentioned the poor. You were resolved
to live unnoticed like a seed underground.

The first thing I noticed was the way you
turned the tables
and lived again in the margins. The first thing
I heard were the words you said unleashed from
the strain you used to bear of living up to the dogma
of yesterday.

War No More

War No More

(“They will pound their swords into plowshares and their spears into blades for trimming vines. Nation will not raise the sword against nation, and they will not learn how to wage war any longer.” Micah 4:3b)

War no more; Hear the chant in beats and plainsong.
War no more; Look upon the faces ravaged by the storm.
War no more; Believe there can come an end to nonsense and plunder.
War no more; Lay down your messages and arrest warrants.
War no more; Pick up the new flowers for Peace Gardens to come.
War no more; Burn your bullets with their casings.
War no more; Smelt your rapid fire rifles into golden.
War no more; Retool your swords and prune the fruit trees
War no more; Bench your aggressive drones on the side of the road.
War no more; Melt your spears into shapes that imitate the sun.
War no more; Leave this scenery of battles behind.
War no more; Fill in the trenches completely to the top.
War no more; Let the doves land upon your helmeted head.
War no more; Watch the lion lay down with the lamb.
War no more; Redraw the boundaries and the locks on the gates.
War no more; Rewrite every song that celebrates bombs bursting anywhere.
War no more: Go to school again.
War no more; Learn the sweet savor of diversity.
War no more; Open the door, swing wide the windows, let the breeze whisper,
War no more; And let it become the refrain of new anthem celebrating
War no more; And sing it standing, kneeling, lying down. Memorize
War no more; And learn every line like a school child sing
War no more; Memorized like a new pledge of a new allegiance to
War no more;
War no more;
War no more.

By the End of the Day

By the End of the Day

(“Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy.” Jonah 2:8)

Fascinated by the worship of dreams we focus on
specters manufactured by our minds. Contemplating what
is in it for us,
we cannot get enough of the thin air surrounding us.
We put crosses and American flags on the same platform,
insisting our every instinct is the tide-turning revolution
just an incantation away. We don’t even need to pray
because we have determined the outcome from the beginning
of the day.

If you could listen closer, quiet the demands of sharp-toothed
politics; if you could leave the masquerade behind that
quotes verses to keep everyone in line; if you could
quit your addiction to strong arm tactics and endure the
withdrawal symptoms, then maybe
you could join the small family of a dozen or so
who prefer a doubt or two over your unholy
attention to certainty.

I was stuck in the narrow hallway where there
was room for only one voice at a time. No place
to hide,
but no place to open my arms to embrace the
voices that were canceled by such closer quarters.
I tried to do what everyone suggested, I tried to
stay in the limits, coloring inside the lines.
But my hands shook and my paint ran;
I fell to my knees before the proclamations that
took their authority for granted. Who knew that
religion was an idol as sure as any leaden god
perched upon a window frame.

My head is finally above the water, at least for today.
Dismantling the careless way I believed every word,
I can find a way less self-assured. I can find the
new Creation by the end of the day.

How the Day Begins

How the Day Begins

(“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.” Galatians 1:6

My chest started out tight today;
underground memories crowded my mind.
Too many crimes congregate and push the
better moments aside.

The glassy sky was reflected in the dew that
was shaded from the sun to start and gone within
an hour. But the lawn was still wet to the touch
and the optics rewarded the future. We might be
able to see the river from here if we climbed a
few feet higher.

I confess I don’t take the time with the invasion
of thoughts that show up in night vision. I saw
you in a dream last night and I could not remember
your brother’s name. But you still held me in mind
and spoke lightly. You helped erase every unkind
infusion I partook in.

As my muscles relaxed, I walked with a slight
limp toward the same course I walk every day.
Unintentionally I rehearsed the silence that comes
following the storm that tried to make me remember
a decade or more of stumbling. I still fear the looks
of everyone I think knows the way my face shook
on days like these. There are warm pools that wash
away the creeping doubts, the increasing debts I owe.

My vision, though, is grace beyond the short-circuited
sight of my reoccurring sadness. It is all supernatural
and still invades my DNA like a steady rain covering
the fields with expectation.

The Moment You Banished

The Moment You Banished

(“They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth, and they turn aside the claims of the oppressed.” Amos 2:7a)

When you turned away to follow the gleam of gold
and the sparkle of silver you left the dust behind
for anyone you called homeless in your prearranged language.
You build statues to your name;
you cast away the foreigner from your front door.
You think you’ve received commission from the gods
and your bank account is enough to make you believe.
You take the whole pie for yourself and sweep the crumbs
under the rug. You would keep the rain from falling on
the poor man’s field and hoard it for you own if you could.
They are impoverished by the way you feed on the
vintages you make sure they cannot afford. You
have turned up the music and hear nothing of their
cries that carry across the canyon you have created.
You don’t answer the phone when it rings for you;
you don’t open the door to the east wind blowing the
songs of the workers from the castaway fields. You
cannot hear their winter dirges for the frozen dreams
you have pierced with your penthouse palisades.

But there is one who hears, there is one who sees
every idol erected to your ego. You will find,
at the end of the day, how empty your idolatry
became
the moment you banished the oppressed from your
mind.

With Room to Breathe

With Room to Breathe

(“For you bear with a man if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, or if he strikes you on the face.” 2 Corinthians 11:20)

They call us the heretics, but we never made demands,
used serpentine words to manipulate you, or shamed you
into a faux repentance. We stayed resistant to the strategies
of those who talk with lengthy panoramas to convince you
they were the elite and the narrow way to God.

While they punch you into submission, making you unworthy
for only fasting a day; while they wave their arms like
backstreet gypsies, they list themselves among the top tier
consummate eras of pickpocket prophets.
They will tell you your fortune for a contribution to
their flag-wrapped  They predict earthquakes, they
promise a place at the top of the hierarchy, they have
occupied the pyramid since they learned how to
manipulate people’s fears.

Meanwhile the vagabond raggamuffins speak slowly,
their soft words barely heard above the boasting using
divinity for personal gain. They slovenly sit at banquets
of overpriced menus. They put on weight while their
authority floats as light as a feather. They boast about
40 day fasts and are ready to sell you a book all about it.

The only boast from the hobos who eat around campfires late,
is they never made any demands, had suffered at the hands of
many super-apostles trying to keep them quiet. But these
scrappy vagrants for Christ find little reason to speak today.
They know the fruit will show up at last, the love that does
not
demand its own way.

Within a matter of days their quiet campfires will burn
ablaze with room to breath and invitations to share the
true stories of the quietly redeemed.

Overtures of Invitation

Overtures of Invitation

(“I have had a change of heart. All my tender compassions are aroused.” Hosea 11:8b)

Have we measured yet how volatile love can be?
Have we discovered mercy behind the messy proclamations?
And yet,
noisy as a storm, we must listen to know the moment’s sound
is hidden within the fiery thunder we shiver under.
Yet we find ourselves favored in the midst of our
own discontent. The heat of your love melts all our
resistance. The light you awaken in us remains long
after we have turned away. If only we would carry
it closer than our hourly burdens of certainty.

We forget, so intimately joined to our previous suppositions,
so scathed by our attempts to escape. Sometimes I just need
to stop walking and discover the passage of time that keeps me
bonded when I feel unequal and unglued. I heard your
passions are stirred toward the worst we have done.
I saw you in the morning and found out loud that you
waited within me and invited me as a beloved apprentice.
We learn to practice what we have seen; we read the
music on the pages and sing the ballads of the secrets
made known that we thought could never be decoded.

We still feel the electricity in our nerves, the anxiety
that buzzes so loudly we miss the quiet overtures
of invitation, the understated pleasure of the divine.
But today we can RSVP to the joy strung up like
helium ballons. We can mark our calendars with
this day that we were reminded the world revolves
around the heart of Christ. We will not mince our
words, but dance like those who just got our
invites in the mail.

UnMasked

UnMasked

(”For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9)

I hardly knew what to do when the gift was dropped off
outside my door. Should I open it; what was it there for?
I set it inside on top of a coffee table and went about my
day, making lunch, drinking wine, and wondering how much time
I had before I heard the famous voice that thundered everything
into place.

But the noises outside and the people who cried
that justice looked sad were in the streets today.
There was no peace from the camouflaged recruits who
pummeled observers of their over-privileged gunfire.
Hard on the way, they lay another one upon the concrete
as if they are simply punching bags for practice.

It was all on video, for those who would watch it.
It all was heard, though many refused it.
It was unlicensed aggravation and children kidnapped
from outside their schools. It was a nurse to veterans
being beaten for pointing his phone at the officers of fear.

But thousands showed up and broke the silence. Thousands
sang songs of resistance and beat their drums above the anguish
laying low and loud. They are trauma-breakers assisting the wounded.

And still the gift sits unopened, its contents hidden underneath
layers of paper and perforations. We have thrown away the wealth
of harmony paid at such a price the universe trembles. The estranged
are invited to join the sanity that is richer and offers reunion
to armies of boots on the ground. Unwrap the present and join
the mass apology for the pain created by the masked unrighteous
ways of hardened lawless masquerading as officers of the peace.

Small Things

 Small Things

(“If you receive this child in my name,” he said, “you receive me. And anyone who receives me, receives the one who sent me. Whoever is the least among you—that’s the one who is great.” Luke 9:48)

They started well, like an evening stroll through the forest,
like a dog greeting its owner, like a baby laughing out loud
for the very first time. But things expanded, they got bigger,
they demanded more attention shown to the leaders who started
out lying on cushions and now were seated on thrones.

It all got away from us; we got caught up in the hype that
everything we prayed for would make everything bigger than
we could ever imagine. And for a while, it worked. For a while
we convinced ourselves that the more obedience we demanded
the less bitter the future would be. We put our faces down to make
sure we toed the line and never stopped asking questions of the unaligned
who were a beat too slow when we sang our decorated hymns they
should have known.

We could have waited for them to learn the tunes,
to hum them unworded to start. We could have slowed it
all down but we had more people pounding down the doors
to get their next fix of what we advertised week to week.
We promised new songs given by the spirit,
we promised good health while they waited in line.
They crowded in to hear us pontificate about the triggers
that forced us to send them out against immediate enemies.
We grew, oh how we grew, like a creeping vine in midsummer.

We forgot all about the toddlers sleeping on Sunday.
We let the baby stay awake and left her at home.
We shushed the children who giggled too often,
we muted the questions the preteens asked too precisely.

We missed the wide-eyed fascination with canticles of faith.
We forgot how tiny voices could stay in our minds long after
the sermons drifted away.

We called for dedication, but left discernment aside.
We relied on lofty pronouncements when the truth was among
pint-sized.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the treasure we find in
cast aside converts who attempted to backslide. We doomed them
like the choking black of a moonless night.

But their story is truer. Their words full of life.
Their questions childlike, and their laughter
more holy than a dozen hallelujah shouted
full-throat by everyone in the balcony.

Don’t Disappear

Don’t Disappear

(“Christ died for all so that those who live would not continue to live for themselves. He died for them and was raised from the dead so that they would live for him.” 2 Corinthians 5:15)

Don’t disappear over desperation that knocks
noisily in your mind. Don’t lose the ending just because
the beginning is out of view. The time of rising has
arrived. The time of sentient exploration brings you
closer to the pathway you have dreamed. It could
be today,
it might be later. It might be sunny, it might be
unwieldy. It might be the visions of a well-earned
peace on the streets of disaster. It might be transportation
from airlifts that move us from complacent complaints
to marches of confidence. We will speak confidentially
with those who wait within hollowed homes for the
announcement that holy joy is rounding the bend.

But it all looks like death right now,
doesn’t it. It reeks of deterioration,
it smells like decomposition. We cannot
ignore it and fly right by without noticing
the targets on the backs of colors we no longer
want to accept. Brown and black are hiding behind
doors of terror when the peaceful are called radicals
and the warmongers are called leaders. Get in line
they tell us,
and wait for your apprehension. The cuffs dig into
the wrists of the wrongly arrested. We stand
next to the fallen. We find the marks upon the mothers
who hide their children from the camouflage pretenders
who pace the residential avenues with fear.

There is still a stream that flows through the city,
a living river that sweeps the dead dust away.
There is still a hope that breathes and listens
for the wings of the Spirit. There are still streets
that are alive with healing at every turn.
Sanity demands we embrace the metamorphosis
of dying to living, and see through revitalized eyes
the imprints of the divine being born even while
we cry.

The Sacred Meal

The Sacred Meal

(Therefore, since we have this ministry as a result of the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged.” 2 Corinthians 4:1)

We no longer hide behind manufactured words
and disguised shadows in the sun.
We no longer panic when the winds blow
cold from the north and try to pierce us through
buttoned coats. But we will continue without pretense.
We are filled from the beginning by methods of
grace
that have opened our hearts to newday like flowers
seeking the sun.

Once the announcement was made we learned how
honesty and repair looked once we opened our eyes.
We took it all to heart, we gathered our children
to celebrate new movements of sanity and purpose.
By this grace we have learned to make space for
dozens who do not believe yet, who think we may be
lost because we have moved outside their rigid restraints.

We invite them to the dance and hope they will join us.
We cancel our subscription to the prescriptions they
thought had healed us. Instead, we break bread with
the bare-faced children who come in with mud on their face.
We share the declaration we heard from further within
than we could imagine.

Open further. See sooner. Speak truer.
Live longer. Dance faster. Love deeper.
Dine at the banquet set with oval tables
in the meadow with seats for everyone.

We put down our visors meant to hide our eyes,
and look across the table at every tribe under heaven
sharing the sacred meal of the beloved.

We Refused to Turn

We Refused to Turn

(“These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.” Daniel 3:23)

You erected an idol to yourself,
you demanded worship at the statue of your
insanity. We could not comply, we could not
bow
like it was some worship song flowing up
from creamy faces to the sun. You
sent the worst after us,
to subdue us,
to confuse us.
But we refused to turn our faces to
the effigy built in your image.

You sent the worst to arrest us,
door to door you knocked with your
covered faces, asking questions we had
no obligation to answer. We politely,
but plainly told you to fuck off.
Your brutish hands clutched the door
and we smelled the acrid tear gas you
had punched into crowds that were countering
your evil directives.

In short, burn us in your furnaces of fury
if you will but the short and full of it is
simple:
We
will
not
bow.

Singe the edges if you will.
We will sing our songs of sanity
to your appropriated helmets of state-sponsored
status. We will move with resolve
to introduce the truth. If you arrest us
we will stand. If you apprehend us, we will
still speak. If you sentence us, we will steadily
place our purpose where it belongs. We will
avert our eyes from your monstrous image and
turn to the invisible God who is truth and truth
and truth.

Our Comfortable Borders

Our Comfortable Borders

(“Nothing is secret but what will be known. Anything that is hidden will be brought into the light.” Luke 8:17)

We assumed we were seeing well,
the light was bright,
and our apostles were speaking truth.
We were aligned and everything seemed righteous.

But the corner we occupied was filled with darkness.
Our eyes had dilated to let in the
limping bit of light that was left. Our prophets
were hidden with us, calming our souls
and caressing our egos. We sung it all
so well
that people outside patted us on the back for
our stellar harmonies.

But one of us woke up.
One of us ventured a few feet away from our
comfortable borders. One of us
happened upon the rays of light that could have
dispelled the dark side we had taken for granted.

Our egos had swollen in the dark, our narration
memorized to keep out the loudest voices of transformation.
We had become accustomed to every patch of
ground we stood upon. We were blind in our
stupor, we were stained by our hiding place.
We were constrained by our habits and lowlights
behind the scenes. We had locked down our faith
and configured it to fit our biases fashionably.

But one spoke from the outside, from the light that
unsighted our darkness at the first look. But soon,
accustomed to the rays and particles that filled space
like the facets of a diamond
we were confronted about our preconceptions.
We were no longer protected. We were no longer
accustomed to arrested proclamations.

We turned away from the darkened corner and
listened to the ones who had brought their
shaded self into the light. We saw the
unambiguous recitations of truth and were
confronted with our own contributions to the
darkened minds we once called sane.

A piece at a time we climbed out of our
cavern and, taking a backward look we were
astonished at what we had assumed. We
wept over our misapprehensions, over our
staggering domination of the narrative that now
seemed to be a pinpoint star fading into the background.

We were changed by the light we had shaded. We had
worn visors that hid the corners of our hearts.
The songs now were of resistance, of revolution,
resolution, and renovation that uprooted our attachment
to a few square feet of surety. We had crowded into
corners and thought the world behaved in predictable ways.

It was grace that created the new perception,
it was vast prairies full of sun that called the invisible
dawn that deleted our defense of a few square feet
of certainty.
It was a noise like bluebirds,
it was motion like rainbows rising from the plains.
And we left that claustrophobia that turned us into
inspectors of the imperfect and embraced the light
that led the advance of a new prophetic voice that
brightened the darkest acts of our religious wars.

The Circle of Mercy

The Circle of Mercy

(“God encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4)

I dreamed how many times I had fallen,
how often I was afraid of stepping over the edge.
I dreamed of tainted love that caught me napping,
of uncertain words of dread. I sweated sometimes
just remembering the sadness I felt and the sadness I caused.

But I also dreamed how two lifted me up, two who didn’t
mind walking next to me in the pit of my despair.
I put them on my calendar, today and the next,
meaning to thank them for breathing life into this
stumbling soul. I never meant to try to go it alone,
though that could be inferred from the way I hid inside.

I found them later that day, ready to shake their hands
and encircle them the way they had enfolded me.
But their hands were already busy lifting another from
the abyss where they had fallen. It’s not that they were
too busy for me; they invited me to come and

Join the circle of mercy along with them.

Rolled Up on the Couch

Rolled Up on the Couch

(“We were made like that man of earth, so we will also be made like that man of heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:49)

My feet are cold standing on the floor,
the thermostat is working, I just set it too low.
What I would give for a larger footprint
that kept me warmer while the rains plot patterns
in the mud.
I woke up early, two minutes I think, and I napped
for an hour waiting to write. My head aches,
the same as it has for 17 years and I wonder when
I will ever be able to jump for joy again.
I don’t mean to sound self-occupied or whiny,
I don’t mean to take all the attention.
But I’d rather be back in the middle of things
thinking I made a difference or two. Instead, I’m
holed up,
rolled up on the couch waiting for the echoes
to pass like yesterday’s thunder. I’m waiting to
play something experimental, keyboard configurations
of things so stable they are candidly spotted under
timed-sequences of tune. I want to cross over on
the bridge to another beginning, an angelic singing
of possibilities. I want to say it without feeling
damaged, but the past catches up with me, the future
pulls away and presently I am stuck inside a
cyclone of consequences that I’ve almost owned.
I’ve left most of my justifications on the side of the road.
One day I will not sink beneath the weight of pain,
I will rise above this gravity’s habits of resistance,
and simply be wrapped up like I once was before
I placed my feet on the floor wanting warmer mornings
and longer passages of joy.

Space Now Between

Space Now Between

(“God blesses you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.” Luke 6:20a)

Somewhere between complete confidence
and the quilt of unknowing
there are thoughts that once were strong as
mud-bricked walls. They have not fallen,
but they speak underneath my consciousness
and call me to listen above their current frequency.

Somewhere below my previous expectations
and above the poverty line there were verses
of poetry I had not written. And if I did, I swear
the meaning would be hidden. If only I had learned
the song long ago. If only it was committed to
the filing cabinets inside my mind.

Somewhere away from manufacturing
and toward clear crisp creation I faced a
new situation where want became the previous
shortcut I always took. Now I walked close to
silence, the stillness of innovation unmeasured
on the page.

At this point I would honestly say that finances
frightened me
like fire consuming my innovation. I pictured a
some day that would be a sunnier day without
the halting breaths between words. Today
I cannot tell you what will break between
midnight and noon or what phase the moon is
as it circles like a hula hoop. But there is space now
between what I know for sure and what I will never
discern
for sparks to ignite an avalanche of blessing
on the mountain slopes beneath my feet.