Everywhere I See Him

     

Everywhere I See Him

(“But Paul claimed that Jesus is alive.” Acts 25:19b)

Everywhere I see him;
it once was not so. I could not see
the connections, the instruments were
untuned
and I could not discern the key.

But every cloud holds him now,
every raindrop transports me now
to beats and tones where the divine
is hidden. Up day. Out night. Up beat.
Sing light. Even the
blue notes
move me to cry tears along with him.

I followed, I know that you know,
but the world was divided, music and
spirit
collided
and footsteps were either dung or mud.

But now the world is one,
the most dangerous of places, beauty is seldom
found in the safest faces. The edge of the precipice,
and one foot more,
there I will explore the joy that steps outside of tombs
into gardens where doves sit on branches to greet the sun.

Could it rain any harder? Could my heart feel any dryer?
Yet the agony abates because
the demons I thought once feasted on my defeats
were birth pangs instead. Misery drove me to
break my knees on concrete floors setting a course for
all night prayers that lasted twenty minutes. I was
deflated.

I was not. I was embraced and did not feel it until
the day opened, the fog lifted, the noise drifted into
the dark lake swallowed whole. And I could hear the bells toll
from a half mile over the hill. I hear them still

In jazz and blues, in mother and child, in lemons and apples,
in novels and poetry, in elders and babies. I hear them even
in the voices just as frightened as I once was. But now,

I see him everywhere.

Let Mercy Rain

 

Let Mercy Rain

(“Do not allow mercy and truth to leave you. Fasten them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3:3)

Why shouldn’t we let mercy rain, soak the ground,
awake the grain, turn the curious heads around to
see the dewdrops left on the leaves of grass while
we slept?
A more precious ornament cannot be found
than the opalescent dance of light-strings that play
before our eyes. I am guilty of overlooking miniature
mercies.

Still others erase the common sense that keeps the
dogs of dogma at bay,
loudly announcing facts without existence,
and proudly display their resistance to simple kindnesses
that keep roses alive because the next-door neighbor
loves to view them out her afternoon window, reading
slowly in the autumn afternoon. Her tea steeps, she sips
with each page. She remembers younger days.

Granted, I have not tended my roses well. Spindly and
top heavy,
the last butter-yellow bud sits atop a sunward branch and
may not make it until winter. I will do better this year,
and prune them soon before the first snow flies.

Why shouldn’t we let kindness snow, cover the old,
awake the new baby’s eyes, turn the toddling boy around
to throw the first snowball at mom to make her laugh;
while she barely opens the car door with her eyes half-closed
from waking?

The Spaces Between the Letters

 The Spaces Between the Letters

(“For it was by God’s grace that he experienced death’s bitterness on behalf of everyone!” Hebrews 2:9b TPT)

How could I let them do all the thinking for me,
how could I take so long to use my mind again?
I pulled up to the first sign of life, the first certainty,
the elemental arguments that proved the doubters wrong;
and I parked there like a big rig overnight where
night can last a lifetime.
I left it in neutral, let the engine run,
let the heater keep me from the cold and frozen landscape
I thought I understood.
I left it in neutral because
I had let the ink speak for me,
think for me. The flat black and white
was cemented like a shrine; never mind it was
thousands of years before my time.

So, every time you sought me, every time
you needed help,
I searched the documents like dispensing prescriptions
and wrote them for your life.
“Don’t divorce” (though he hit you)
“Be in church” (though it caused you pain)
“Get a job” (there were none)
“Just abstain” (addiction bites)
“Pray some more” (mine was saccharine)
“Read this book” (parts made me cry)
“Bible study” (genealogies too)
“Plead the blood” (on my honor)
“Use the Name” (nothing stronger)
“Take more walks” (depression’s cure)
And I never told you that
the prescriptions I wrote
did nothing for me at all.

I know so much less now, yes, nearly agnostic.
I know the minus and the plus now, and how unforgiving
pen and paper become.
I know you better now, with my faith somewhat rarer;
I would learn the silence, I would learn the pauses,
I would memorize every tear on your face.
I would empty out my own doubts
(if you would receive them)
and simply walk beside you though
the world has gotten larger than either of us
imagined.
The spaces between the letters on the page,
scribbled on the yellow lines of my legal pad,
are greater than the sounds of the alphabet.
There is more air in the molecules,
more space in the universe,
more doubt in the certainty,
more quiet between hello and goodbye.

He tasted our pain. He let the bitterness that
brings us up short cover him like a veil.
I cannot explain it, but he wrapped himself in darkness,
and inhabited the spaces between our doubts and
our faith.
And still I am hollow, and still he dwells in
the echoes we wish would fade away.

Answers no longer satisfy me; I would be a traitor
to give them to you.
But, this open space where souls meet, and eyes,
is the only place I have felt alive.

Sometimes Being Hidden

Sometimes Being Hidden

(“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3)

I must be hidden because so many friends
cannot seem to find me.
I don’t blame them, I’m as dead as I am alive,
more dead if you look inside
and see the sticky black tarmac
where may takeoff seems to
never get off the ground.

I must be hidden, I cannot find my own self,
my true self,
my do it well self; my death knell self
has done all the heavy lifting.

I am hidden in the world but seen so well,
I am not yet invisible, still vulnerable.
I am on display the way they catalogue fingerprints
from suspects who try to hide in dens and alleys.

I trust my smokescreen, the dense debris of intellect and
good intentions; who would guess the rest?
I’m too easily discovered, my hiding place is indiscreet,
when I’m finally discovered the street only laughs
and the grandstands grow deadly silent.

I could be far too dead to change,
but alive enough to try.
Sometimes being hidden
feels like being lost.

Sad Language

Sad Language

(“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.” Psalm 139:23)

I should be playing in the light, the sunshine dancing on my cheeks.
I should be walking with a friend, the conversation arcing across the air.
I should be a joy-well, a love-all, and faith-full, yet

My tears increase, my heart is incomprehensible, speaking its own

Sad language.

My younger self cried as well, but spent at least the same time smiling.
We wrote songs on the fly, knew the tunes to music we had never heard,
spent hours on the tennis courts, afternoons at the pool, faced fears
(me with more tears than most), and were sure we knew Jesus well,
so well we changed political affiliations, church denominations, and
dropped out of theater class.

The warning signs have been there, one hairpin curve at a time. My mind,
more certain than ever of Christ my King, my Lord, my Shepherd, and
my Friend; my mind has left behind the costume I thought was required
attire. Wearing Jesus only, I feel naked.

Once full of words authorities defined, my mind cries like a baby for
its native language. My Japanese friend told me her parents never taught
her the language (“We are Americans now”, they said). Over 90 now,
she wishes she knew more than idiomatic American sentence strings.

I cry more often, without warning, for what I think I left behind. When
He says turn, follow, and leave your luggage behind, I am glad to empty
my pockets and start out on the road. My tears are shed, my heart has bled,

For so much I buried when the noisy voices (at church, at conference,
or simply in my head) insisted everything die and stay dead;

And now I’m crying because, Jesus, all grace, all light,
wanted me to arise instead.