Angels Can Appear

Angels Can Appear

(“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2)

Something seared my heart so severely it had
shut down. It caused me to never think twice about
closing the door. I’ve stopped the bleeding but
the pain remains. My heart is cramped and crammed with
uneasy expectations of strangers sojourning with me.

I listen to the same songs and watch the same channels on TV.
I’m enclosed in the circles of my routines. To ask me to share that
with anyone is to ask me uncomfortably. It’s hard to believe
that I once housed teenagers and grandmas with open arms.

I never cared about the consequences so long ago,
I rarely worried it would intrude upon my blessed habits
or peer inside my measured habitual humanity. I was too
spiritual for all of that.

I have always been broken but only shared it with a chosen few.
I have spoken of grace like it was pure medicine
and wondered about how many angels watched while I
unlocked the doors.

This time it’s harder. I thought I would receive a warm
commendation for taking the difficult road to peace.
I’ve locked my doors from the inside; I’ve canceled
my reservations in the hope that I could continue on my own.

I reserve the right to see angels show up like
the rising sun after the rain. I would watch for wings upon
the backs of those I welcomed to my home. My arid soul
longed for an apologetic that made the houseguest become
a messenger from forever and more.

Though I had grown used to my solitude I grudgingly agreed
to an attitude that disturbed my silence behind the closed windows
that suited me fine. I’ll roll the dice this time
once again
and consider the notion that angels can appear like
someone needing a home.

I’d Like to Buy a Thousand Angels

I’d Like to Buy a Thousand Angels

(“God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:4)

Your retail price for a thousand angels ($1000 dollars check or cash)
is far more than I can afford. Incidentally I already know of nearly
a thousand
that surround me day and night.
Some have faces I recognize, some have names I have forgotten,
some are invisible, some as small as butterflies.

Why do you take the money that belongs to individuals,
why do you charge for blessings that are free?
Incidentally, I have wondered how my cash increases my
angelic horde, how they surround me, just based on your word?

I’ve walked in the rain enough times to know
that the range of angelic protection each day does not include
a promise to stay dry. It’s not their fault,
I need the rain to wash away doubts and inhibitions.

You promise an enemy to my enemies,
and I gasp that you call it gospel. You have
drastically raveled up the beautiful story,
the one that gives enemies our love.

The story is plain, the position insanely more pleasant
than prying dollar bills from an old man’s hands.
I’ll keep my angels, thank you, and move my offerings
to someone who refuses to make insane promises,
to someone who has no idea I gave them anything.
I’ll keep my angels, I’ve known them too long now
to start new incidents and replacements for those who
have hung around long enough to put up with my
doubts, suspicions and desires to visit the donut shop.

So, here I stand, with messengers who have walked
with me through swamps and deserts, through inhibitions and
oppositions. But never did I ask them to become an enemy even
to my most ardent foe.

Peace and its Possibilities

Peace and its Possibilities

(“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14)

The fog disguised the trees as giants,
and made the ashen roof seem like snow.
The horn blew from the river below to
warn the ships and wake the captains.
We did not plan on rising this early.

But the fog lifted as the angels came down,
the stars blinked fire escapes and the moon
directed it beams below.

To be clear, I had never seen an angel.
Never felt an invisible presence so near to me,
speaking so clear to me,
singing with words that drove the fear from me.

To be honest, I have never met a king.
Never stood and bowed before him beneath his marbled throne.
There was a gulf between his pretentious palace
and my pallet beneath the stars.
Working in the fields, we all heard what the angels spoke,
a king born like a pauper, a ruler starting life in the livestock’s
feeding trough.

We told stories once the sun had set, started the fires to keep us warm,
walked among the sheep, feeding and watering them, and watched
as they dozed to sleep.

There was a second of silence. We took one breath in unison and then
the skies exploded; the air crystalized the praises that echoed
across the plain. Angels upon angels, wings stirring the sky and
we heard the words from outside of us and inside of us, we were
one with the song and the singers.

Could this peace free us from tyranny; could it release us from
bondage? Could it build something better than enslavement,
unfetter us from legions of oppression?

We had no choice, given the choreography in the skies,
to seek out this baby king and ponder everything the angels had told us.

We saw him, bundled tightly, his mother lifting him to her breast and
we thought he was unremarkable. And we thought we could be wrong.
And we sought to understand it, and we hoped to believe it for as
long as we could.
And we went back to our flocks scratching our heads but still
humming the song the angels sang about peace and its possibilities
because of this infant king.

You Hear Love Deeper

You Hear Love Deeper

(“One of Satan's angels was sent to make me suffer terribly, so that I would not feel too proud.” 2 Corinthians 12:7b)

I know you’ve tumbled over the stones that line the
swirling stream; I know the rain fell harder than hailstones.
I know how fast the scar tissue grows
to cover the pain, to make everything numb again.

I know your eyes see more than you say.
I know you hear love deeper than most.
I know your legs ache from standing so
no one will know
how weary it all has become.
I know your arms that tremble at a touch that
should feel like love.

I know the things you do not show.
I have bruises too. I feel the tears you hold
back, but they must go somewhere dear.
Drop them on the ground on your walk and
let the birds be silent in holy hush as they
perch in the trees beside you. Let the breeze whisper
the name of the flowers. It is not that you have forgotten them,
it's the wounds that have erased them.

I would name every day after you,
I would write it out plain. I would listen to
your small talk until
you knew it was safe to unload all the talk
you never share with anyone.

I see more than you think I see. I do not mean
I understand anything. It is just that your story
lies just below the surface where I’ve buried my
story too. But yours is one of innocence, mine one
of foolishness.

Your gentleness hits me hard. Your hesitations
only give me more time to fill the spaces between
you, me, the world, and the divine. I would blow
soap bubbles in the air between us
with our names written inside each one.

The Audacity!

 The Audacity!

(“God…set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace.” Galatians 1:15b)

The audacity!
The angels, the pagans, the sand dunes, the sea
all laughed like a house full of comedy. He came
into town,
his Harley roaring,
his passion soaring,
his vision storing every idea he had planned
from the midlands to the coast. He hit the ground
running
and collected food, mostly cans.
And fed 100 or more on Christmas two years
in a row.
He did all he could, for all he could,
and never locked the windows or the doors.
He had fought in the most unpopular of wars
and knew he would never leave anyone outside in the cold
again.
Agent orange had just begun to tax his holy obsession.
He would ration his health for all the saints he had yet to meet.

Houses crumble over time. But they crash in a moment.
Pain works its way slowly, but pours over the threshold meant
to keep it from escaping. He was never idle, but
he knew how to rest. But how to rehitch his body and mind
to the original epiphany; he found he was losing his breath.

With dreams bigger than self-esteem, he embraced the pastoral
scenes
along a wide lazy river. I cannot say that another poison
entered his system,
but agent orange was volatile and could have mixed with
local politics
to burn through the hope that surrounded his heart.

Eventually the two by fours rot after the years, eventually the roof leaks
from dew as much as rain. Eventually the abandoned self,
once up for any noisy gathering,
cannot abide more than a friend at a time.

Sometimes life crashes so hard on someone, even one called
from birth,
that the mental,
the physical,
the emotional pain
cannot be contained.

We would do well to audaciously
dress the undeserved wounds.

There Should Be Angels

There Should Be Angels

(“Why shall not the ministration of the Spirit be much more glorious?” 2 Corinthians 3:8)

If you would, God,
could we make a deal, God,
to switch out my brain for another?
There is less shine here
than I thought there would be here,
the days are no different, one cloud after another.
Nostalgia does me little good,
the ones who knew me well are dead,
and the one who live speak of light even after
the sun goes down. Me, I weep
and wish the chemicals that keep me lonely
would catalyze into a new solution.

We can predict the tides and decide
where the salmon will run.
We can predict the weather and decide
how the clouds will sound.
But these moods are feral and unbroken.

The weather is so thick here that you can
grab a cloud with your hands and put
it in your pocket.
My moods are thick like molasses.
The clouds will evaporate, my pockets will
still be dry.
But my moods stick to everything I touch.

Another friend lies sick with congestion
thick around his heart. More than brothers,
he is cranky the way I wish I could be. Between
crashes on his hawg and attacks on his heart,
his body is no longer his friend. So I will be his
pastor,
the shepherd to my pastor-friend. And wish I could

Make a deal, God,
to switch out his life for another. To see the
joy of the man who took me as his brother
a decade ago. To elicit laughter from his
agony and anger. There is less shine for
this holy one
when there should be angels sitting at his door.

I Do Not Believe in Mirrors

 

I Do Not Believe in Mirrors

(“And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Acts 6:15)

I do not believe there are mirrors in heaven,
and they do a disservice here on earth.
You can never see you the way I see you,
everything is reversed.
So angels walk among us brightly,
but, hidden behind the scripts written
by time and overactive minds,
the best of us believe the reflections
of glass
instead of the creation ex nihilo
spoken: our name pronounced out loud by
the One who is unpronounceable.

I do believe there are best friends in heaven,
the same as the ones who tell us of the sun they see
in our distorted faces.
You, my friend, have been starlight when night what black,
moonlight when the sky cracked with thunder,
sunlight when the rain locked me indoors and alone.
I have seen your face shine at the same time
you avoided mirrors and took down self-portraits on your wall.

I do not believe there are angels in heaven,
they are all here in service on earth.
You see them better than they see themselves,
they think they are bound to time and nations.
But they are a best friend, a beggar,
a grandmother aging, a mother giving birth,
an immigrant making masa; an unlocked door,
an open kitchen, a hug that never lets go,
a gaze that say, “I know, I know, I know.”

You, my friend, again, have been an angel,
mostly on the days you thought there was far too much
pain
for your face to shine. All I know,
but for my angels, I would not like my
reflection at all.

On His Way

"On His Way"

Genesis 32:1 says, "Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him." Poor guy. He had been employed by Laban, his father-in-law, for twenty years. During his first year, he fell in love with Laban's daughter Rachel. Laban says Jacob can marry Rachel if he works for him another seven years. So Jacob does. He shows up on time, does his work, even going beyond what Jacob desired, and finally, seven years later, It is time to marry his beloved.

The Easy Speed

The Easy Speed

(May “the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.” Genesis 48:16a)

Sitting behind me sometimes,
watching my tears off track sometimes,
speaking the time and the day and the place and the way
in divine intersection; all coordinates meeting at the same spot,
sometimes.

Without berating my sometime fright,
“fear not”, the first words, first light, late night,
so whether my shiver began at their appearance or
was a chronic response to the disappearance of one more
cornerstone,

The strong words were safety and so large their echo
invited the grand canyon depth to meet K2 heights,
all at the easy speed that sends every heavenly declaration,
constellation and alpine, perfectly to its purpose.

No doddle, no off ramps for souvenir bracelets,
no quick milkshakes at the famous café,
no half-day excursion to climb a darkened mound
of volcanic debris.

Angelic messengers, for all I know, laugh the best
at their messages’ delivery.

So, sometimes, after sitting behind me,
and sometimes, after speaking time and tears,
I have envisioned the leaving, side by side,
a holy pair, nodding at a job well done,
and sometimes, joking about humor
I dare not hope to understand.

Though envisioned, instead, I’ve have looked,
I have sped to the spot they spoke, surrounded
by floors and ceilings and walls; not windows or doors,
and have found only the air barely ruffled where once they
spoke to me.

And, for a sky-time second, I think I may, almost;
I think I see, nearly, I think I am, mostly; in on the joke.

Strike Your Pose

Strike Your Pose

(“For Adonai takes delight in his people, he crowns the humble with salvation.” Psalm 149:4)

Strike your pose and remember the angels who
will never let your feet be tangled. Oh humble,
the Eternal views the movements of joy.

Circle with hair flying, arms flailing, verdant blurs with
borders of blue. What began this transcendent dance
higher than angels’ sight within heaven’s range?

No translation is needed, memory informs the cues,
as the glory unrestrained replaces the
years of treeless skies.

We know what harm yesterday feared, what subtractions
our nearsighted ways nearly adopted for truth. Loss
was our cardboard cabin exposed to the leading edge of every storm.

When did the day begin to bright upon the pathway
to our weathered door? When did light hide no more,
the beams of morning painting the beams, ceiling to floor?

I remember the steps from younger days, the swings and lifts,
the leaps and shuffles eight and over again. Partners painted
sunrises while rain melted against the metal studio roof.

We abandoned nothing, for we had not taken up the
burdens of age.
And now, in leaving them

The dance feels strange, awkward and full of risk; like the
first beat I tried to hear in three-quarter time.

Strike the pose, the lessons are free.

Peace and Goodwill

Peace and Goodwill

“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” Luke 2:14

It was the middle of the night; the sky was the purple black that appears once no remnants of the setting sun are left. It is dotted with starry points of light, and quiet. It was the time of night very few experience; either because they are sleeping, or are safe and warm within their homes. But, the few times we have lingered outside, far away from city lights and far past midnight, we understand the magical quiet and peace which that hour of darkness can possess.