Wide Open

Wide Open

(“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God.” John 1:1)

Wide open is where I want to stay,
walking on the paths, laughing daffodils and
seeing your Lyrics in every passing cloud.

Every missile launched rewrites the history
that divine language has conceived. Every
reference to war
erases the First metaphor written in
holy DNA; the life of the Beloved.

Every day is a rehearsal and bids us
memorize
the Song we first heard that caused us to
swoon at the mention of the Prince of Peace.
Every moment bids us to come closer to the
Sound we might have rejected had we
shut our ears to the Song that carried us
from a single spot of dirt on the earth
you created in Artistic collaboration.

Every piercing remark leaves a scar on
the hearts that were meant to dance at the
invitation to war-no-more.

We are curious
and want to hear more. We throw ourselves open
and listen for the beginning from the end,
for the Message you sent from front to back,
around the utter reaches of universal stars to
the patch of earth occupied by two simple feet
learning to Dance anew.

Firstfruits

Firstfruits

(“We will bring the firstfruits of our land and of every fruit tree to the Lord’s house year by year.” Nehemiah 10:35)

We took it all and laid it in piles,
treasures of golden wheat, bushels of dates,
apples round and red.
We gave away as much as we could and heard
the answer from heaven. We were only taking
what we were given from our fields and sharing
them candidly. We remembered how it all looked
like ruins,
the walls leaning and falling into the ground.

We captured the evening sun as it drew the shadows long;
we sang the ancient Psalms we had learned from our birth.
We stood together in the pleasure of bringing the firstfruits
of our fields.

We laid the sheaves side by side like open doors to the
interior of the house. Children ran between them, in and out,
side by side, chasing each other and giggling as the parents
paid little attention. There was safety in the air and amity
along the dusty paths. Everyone imagined a renewal,
everyone captured the revisions the sun cast upon the
exterior walls.

We held back nothing. It was our privilege that sent us there.
We felt no reluctance, we were so joyful for such a hearty harvest,
and the chance we possessed to twirl like dancers
and bring our best this time of year.  

The night grew cooler and we gathered around campfires,
warming our hands and finding new ways to rejoice.
We told our storied history, our deliverance from mediocrity,
and thanked, hands out and up, the One who supplied what
we had brought.

Ready to Announce

Ready to Announce

(“We had the courage through God to speak God’s good news in spite of a lot of opposition.” 1 Thessalonians 2:2b)

From the moment I opened my eyes the only
conversation I wanted was the one about grace.
And wider than I imagined, deeper that some friends
unknew, I awoke to speak more coherently than I ever had.
There is a lot to say that embarrasses me now, so many
stories halfway through their happy ending.

Threatened with hell, the sensitive hearts cry like God
would soon send them to the fire, to the everlasting flames,
to the torture of ages over a simple lifetime of missteps.

Threatening hell, the whitewashed tombs harden up
and put a Halloween mask on Jesus to scare the aching
hearts into catacombs of shame. No one showed them the
Father’s smile.

Peacemakers belong as children of God, but big-hair
and butt-hurt purveyors of steel grip doctrine don’t
waste a minute to imprecate anyone they think has
eyes too wide open. They see anxiety as evidence of
demons in crying eyes. They yell that depression
belongs to the devil and a dozen more people hit
the floor begging for some sort of change.

What if we woke and sat next to the dejected,
What if we took the hands of the anxious and,
without a word invited them into our space.

This is what opened my eyes. This is what made me see.
People needed more than fiery proclamations. How
can we reflect the father when all our affectations
pain him angry and ready to smite with wrathful fury.

Woke, I see the wrinkles from constant agonizing prayer
that pled to take every misstep away.

Nothing will keep me from being the Good Story
no matter how many take me as the original heretic.
I am ready to announce the world-wrapped hug
that God calls us to embrace. People, your doctrines
may be strangling you. Christ meant for you to
be free.

Kids Playing Giddily

Kids Playing Giddily

(“Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.” Colossians 3:11)

The lenses I used to use only saw the unabused
and kept the battered in the dark. I could see them
if I wanted
but only to point out their obvious flaws.
Did hide them or did they shrink from my view?
I could not help but think their invisibility was their own failing;
my blindness was sanctified by voices from emperors and pulpits.

Then yesterday I was wondering where all the lonely people go
when I refuse to see them in their fully grown human glow. Then yesterday
the light broke in and shattered the mirror I had been primping in.
I looked again and saw the cracks and splinters that had hindered
my access to the truth.

I thought I might be pulled into the uncrafted classrooms
that taught
nothing but invented stories about the minds behind the
eyes of the people I never wanted to see. But yesterday I
sat down in the back of the room and heard languages I
did not understand.

But the cadence was familiar. The emphasis on the third syllable
of a sentence or the rising of a voice after a question. My pilgrimage
had led me here so I decided to stay. They gave me a name tag
for my shirt and I wrote as plainly as I could. I learned these were
all graduates from a school just down the road from the
block I grew up on. Now I heard their voices and they sounded
like my neighbor’s kids playing giddily in the yard. I had to admit
I missed the playfulness and changed my lenses to see

Everyone who was different from me. And I joined them,
learned their language, and sat in their circle learning the
inclusive invitations of the spirit’s voice.

Enfleshed

Enfleshed

(“For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him.” Colossians 2:9-10a)

I once thought you were so elusive that
I needed to deprive my body to find you.
I wished for hours filled with supernatural encounters
and only found silent noise. I heard so many stories
of weeks spent fasting to find epiphanic endings.
I only found
my hunger increasing opposite to my bold resolutions.

I collected invisible souvenirs; I deposited hours of
agony and fears. Why did I ever think you demanded
so much of me for so little return?
I ached for visions and enlightened dreaming, only to
wake from stops and starts that halted my sleeping.

Now I think I see you in every grain of sand;
I taste you in every sip of water. I remember you wore
skin just like I wear skin; your feet ached like mine do
at the end of a day.

I was afraid to be alone; the emptiness frightened me.
I bargained with begging chips and cried in ways so
hard to explain. I expected to hear voices in the dark,
and see angels singing with words I could understand.

I still hate loneliness, I still sting from too much solitary time.
But I am finding you wrapped around the scars that, if I
may say,
were entirely self-inflicted.

Embodied, you are. Human and fully. A habitation
wholly enfleshed. Sacred flesh and blood.

You were never obscure, were you? Though I thought you
demanded I catch up with you, you singled me out
and found me in the middle of my unanswered questions.
Filling me before I asked, embracing me though I thought
I was a myriad of miles away.

A Cup Poured Out

A Cup Poured Out

(“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me—nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Luke 22:42)

It looked like the wounding of a heart,
a cup poured out of grief and passion.
Are we your children that you could
hold us so tightly it hurt?

What would I say to you
watching your pain strewn across the
garden floor? How could I intrude
on a moment of intimacy and separation?
But how could any of us leave you deserted;
how could we be so close and you be so alone?

Every moment in time converged in fervent questions;
each self a smaller self than the one we had spent a lifetime
mastering?
You took the world’s weight upon your shoulders;
you loved us better than a brother. Yet we grew weary
and left you dangling with our desecrated punctuation.

We failed. We floundered. We sounded like worn-out children
thinking we understood it all. We thought we could capture
a place beside you on the heights.

And how did we overhear such a prayer that set us
to dozing? Still we slept uneasy while you emptied
your dignity to grab hold of nurture and boldness.
But you let loose of anything but love. You induced
a painful delivery. For who? For us?

We had come dressed like we were going to a party
while you donned the servant’s garments and
sweat like blood hit the ground. And then we woke
from our slumber to find them taking you away. And

We panicked.

We were outnumbered and outmaneuvered,
leaving the imprints of your pain still wed on the ground.
We could not wait for angels; we could not measure
the weakness that transforms human foibles and
finally found us afraid for our lives.

How could we ignore such a cry from
a friend who asked only that we stay awake?

Empty but Filled

Empty but Filled

(“I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.” Philippians 4:12)

I am empty but being filled,
I am full but not slowing down.
I am flowing but not reckless.
I am thankful and that sits sweet upon my
tongue
like chocolate and mint in the afternoon.

There is a presence that inhabits it all,
a weight that does not burden,
a strong power that lays across my shoulders
like a yoke shared in joy.

Cancel my subscription to constant pleas
for more. I will dine in the dark, or I will
feast in the light, but I will be fed, nevertheless.

Disquiet my constant apprehensions, invade my
anxious silence. Fill it, oh Holy One who comes to recover
what was stolen, to redeem that which waits to be seen.
Take my shadows out of the caverns I’ve carved and
turn me around to face the light, to feel the warm and
nearness of the pleasant rays upon my body.

I have been without,
I have been within,
I have stolen moments,
I have them back again.
I picture the perfect from my
uncertain soul. But I find,
loose or windy, that the words of peace
can settle into the crevices between my shadowy self,
and bring me to him alit and gracious for all I lack,
for all I discover, for all I’m given, for all I return.

Just two hours before dawn on a late winter night
I felt the gravity quilt
enwrap me slowly.

I have learned, for now, that empty and full are
only words,
and that the Only One can inhabit it all.

We Are Here Now

We Are Here Now

(“But whatever things were assets to me, these I now consider a loss for the sake of the Messiah.” Philippians 3:7)

I never imagined that all my work might
go up in flames.
I never dreamed that it might be the beginning
of a renewed carelessness. I had not planned on
such an early exit. I had not pictured a retirement
so soon.
I never planned on setting aside the fire which
I thought had been my all.

I think more carefully now about what comes my way.
I consider anxious thoughts and wonder why they still
can find their way to my fingers, to my gut, to my freezing
stop-motion when I am in a crowd.

Nonetheless, I am setting aside the false I that I’ve know
so long.
I haunted me and I drug me across the dirty fields.
I left me shortly satisfied only to thirst again.
I festered like self-righteousness while we rode home
in the back of the deacon’s Cadillac.

We are we now. Christ is not out of my grasp,
He is not at the tipping point of the last day of my fast.
He is within, revealing my true self in beauty I
never anticipated. Don’t mistake me; I still want I
more often than we would like. We are each other now,
fully like ocean tides and sand. Like salt dissolve in
water, we are more we than I ever thought.

Sometimes it’s the Company

Sometimes it’s the Company

Sometimes it’s the company you keep,
and sometimes it’s the weather beyond degree;
but mostly it’s the patterns in your brain engraved
over volumes of time. Like well-worn paths on
the way to a winter’s garden we reimagine
our backgrounds unintentionally.

I’ve visited the alcoves in the museums;
I’ve torn open old pages in the magazines
and I remember every imagination that never
found its wings. The hunt for daylight continues
around every tree that has lost its leaves.
I’ve lost my breath waiting for answers
to every aching circle I’ve prayed.

I have so few troubles, and I don’t mean to complain,
but sometimes not all is what it seems to be.
I feel like I’m mourning for a sliver of devotion
to the rules and gods I postdated. I feel like
its storming a silent squall inside my mind.
I lose my train of thought; I’ve lost touch with
certainty. My mind is not empty; it’s my thoughts
that have blocked mere enjoyment further out
of reach.

The dullness is harsher than the depression,
it reveals nothing but emptiness within.
Once I encounter the divine crossing my path
I stop to let it by and it fills me instead, even though
It still feels like emptiness inside.

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.