Like Picnics in the Shade

Like Picnics in the Shade

(“How beautiful is the person who comes over the mountains to bring good news, who announces peace and brings good news, who announces salvation and says to Jerusalem, ‘Your God is King.’” Isaiah 52:7)

The bridge spanned the ford
beneath greening skies.

The feet were beautiful along
the bluing banks.

The sky was descending along the
redding horizon.

The announcement of freedom was a prism full
of promise. Was a leap across the river.
Was a well-timed emancipation. Was a
well of water upon our parched tongues.

We had been disconnected. We were dejected
most days, sunny or haze. We knew the way
home
but the roads were well-guarded.

We started the inward journey as soon as we
understood that
no one could harm us on this way of open meadows.
No one could boast of conquering us like dust.
We were learning that trust looked a lot like
siestas in the sun.

We rejoiced like cranberry sky, strawberry wine,
and honeydew. We held our voices higher than
we had in epochs of time. We heard the message
and sang the words like an anthem of deliverance.
We spoke like we had know for years that we
were no longer captives, though we felt, sooner than
later
that we were imprisoned outside the fault lines
of mediocrity. We heard the news announced like liberty
unrestricted. And we shared it like picnics in the shade.

I Looked for Your Letter

I Looked for Your Letter

(“How beautiful is the person who comes over the mountains to bring good news, who announces peace and brings good news, who announces salvation and says to Jerusalem, ‘Your God is King.’” Isaiah 52:7)

I’ve looked for your letter for decades now.
From one box number to the next I hoped to see the
familiar script that spoke of your beautiful but nervous hands,
the signature you always reserved for me.
I check my mailbox every day,
I no longer need to go to the post office.
And still it remains empty, except for coupons and
special deals on technical advances I wish I could afford.

I was never a pacer; I sit and brood.
The more I brood the greater the pull of gravity.

I would read your words over and over,
I would run my fingers along the strokes on the page.
I would memorize the reflections,
I would set my heartbeat to their cadence.

But I have been amiss and have not written either.
Mine would be Times New Roman for my fingers
form letters like a ten-year old. I once tried to
speak in ways that welcomed you in. But now, after
so much time has passed,
after all my fears have been exposed,
after all my crimes have been deposed,
I just don’t know if I want to go out in the open.

But I wait to hear, and suppose I never will,
your invitation. It grows fainter and fainter.

Tomorrow I will check the mail again. Perhaps
a letter will land mistakenly in my hands. Or,
if not,
I will write one myself. I will hear the words
come slowly over the hill, the antidote to
silence,
the answer, unrepeatable as
g-d’s own name.

See Without Trying

 

See Without Trying

(“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of a messenger who proclaims peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God rules!’” Isaiah 52:7)

There were motives that we all thought were plain to see,
plans that stood upon pillars driven deep into bedrock.
There were methods we thought were acceptable to all,
frameworks that were familiar like facets on a diamond.

How could we have missed it,
how could we be mistaken about
something we were so sure of,
something about which there was no doubt?

And yet the time came for hand-me-downs to be
tossed aside
as the manufactured doctrines they were.
And the day blazed with sounds like the sun
that warmed the necks of everyone.

And the invisible was what we had missed,
we insisted everyone salute the flag
we ran up our own poles. While it flapped in the wind
we became deaf to the silence that is heard by everyone.

Executions are not cause for applause,
battlefield victories are not the inspiration for
the new song
that sings of level roads and ditches filled with
the new rain
that beautifies the desert and makes the olive branches
bloom.

How can we rest until everyone is at rest?
How can we assume that we are the ones
chosen to author the world? Better than this,
and better yet,
let our feet find the warm earth again,
the beach at setting sun,
and the long reach of unarmed proclamations.
And let us see without trying
that our morning is slumber for
half the points upon the eternal circle;
the eternal journey, one tiny tittle of time.

Capella

Capella

(“How beautiful you are and how pleasant, my love, with such delights!” Song of Songs 7:6)

The eyes that see only love are never blind,
and never void of beauty. Only love,
only delight,
only the spinning of rainbows in spite
of the clothing clotted with mud.

The universe is a bridal procession
with the beloved awash in blush, embarrassed
at the attention, but drawn to the One
who sees her more fully, beneath the skin,
beneath the face of age,
beneath the trauma that pencils a smile on the face
that ached with pain,
and found joy again. The beloved
no longer shrinks or scuffs; she dances, while
everyone watches, and He just stares,
captured by one look of her eyes.

She is not the caricature, nothing like the satire,
she is not a newsprint cartoon.
She is fragile like paper, strong like ink.
She is romanced when others think she
is not worth the dowry that pays any price
to see love, to see delight, to see the palette’s spectrum
mixed and glowing like the Sun, like Capella;
she is many, she is one, she is arrayed in silence.

Selah.

They are one.

Monks and Beautiful Gates

Monks and Beautiful Gates

So the lame man paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Acts 3:5

Our dreams can often be a rich reservoir of insight into the needs of our soul and how to care for it. I am not talking about interpreting dreams and applying symbolism to everything within them. But there can be general themes that seep up while we sleep that we may be unaware of in our waking hours. Also, as we all know, some dreams are simply a result of too much pepperoni pizza the night before.

I recently had quite a complex dream that stayed with me for days. I want to share it here, then move to the story of the lame man who was healed at the temple.

I was on a tour bus, though it was designed more like one for mass transit. It had one seat near the front behind the driver that was perpendicular to the other seats. I rode in that seat alone with the rest of the passengers filling the seats on either side of the center aisle.

At first, I was not aware of our destination, but as we crossed a long narrow bridge, I became aware that we were entering the city of Munich in Germany. I have never been to Munich, or the European continent for that matter, but in the dream, I understood where we were going. The bus was filled with 60 to 70 passengers.

The bus pulled into a parking area about 1 pm. The itinerary included about six hours of exploring the city with our guide. Though it was early afternoon, there was very little light. The whole landscape was dusky and dark, muting the colors, washing the scene in grays and a dull green.

Within moments of exiting the tour bus the group walked to a downtown area of Munich. The buildings where old stone on narrow streets. Almost immediately I found myself separated from the group. I could not find them anywhere. I looked about anxiously. I feared I would miss the sites and my ride home. It did not occur to me in the dream that I knew where the bus was parked.

Then I thought I saw our group in a restaurant. I opened the door quickly to a barely lit establishment with dark brown paneled walls. Several 80s style video games were in an alcove to the right of the entrance; a small arcade. As I stepped into the restaurant proper, I saw only three or four tables and about as many people. They were putting away the chair and tables. I was deeply disappointed; I had not found my group and had missed a meal.

I wandered through the town looking for the others when I came upon a park with a small lake. I remember walking near the lake, in a hollow, ambling around its shore, still wondering at the darkness in the middle of the afternoon. At one point I turned away from the lake, looked up from the small basin, and saw a group of figures on a hill.

They were shadowy because it was dark, but I was certain they were my group. Perhaps 100 to 200 yards away, they appeared as silhouettes at the hill’s crest. Happy I had found them; I began to walk up the hill toward the group. But, as I walked, I got no nearer. It was as if I was either walking in place or they were fading backwards away from me. It was not as if their limbs were moving, I just never covered any distance. No matter how much effort I expended the distance between us stayed the same.

I don’t know if I ever got home, because that was the last scene in the dream. It really stayed with me throughout the next day. It was strange that I would dream about Munich, and the whole feeling of being lost and separated from others permeated every scene. I thought I would look up the derivation of the word “Munich”.

The name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning “by the monks.” Monks of the Benedictine order ran a monastery that was later to become the Old Town of Munich.

Then the general theme of the dream began to show itself to me. I was on a trip to a place founded on Christian spiritual practice. It was literally “by the monks.” I was on a journey, perhaps a pilgrimage, to find a deeper place of devotion. But, upon arriving I was separated from my group. The whole atmosphere was dark and foreboding. And, every time I did find my group places were closing down, or I could not get close to them. The city of “professional” Christians would not have me. I felt isolated and alone in the very place I was searching for something to nourish my soul.

For me, that theme was not surprising. Most of my life, even after following Christ in 1972, I have felt like I did not quite belong to any group. Maybe I’m too independent. Maybe my soul is fed in different ways that some of the established religious expressions I’ve been associated with. Maybe the acceptance I’ve sought isn’t actually that important for the nourishment of my soul.

What does this have to do with Acts chapter 3 where a lame man is healed in the front of the temple? Let’s review quickly. Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the grave several weeks before. The Holy Spirit and been poured out on the day of Pentecost, forty days after His resurrection and over 3,000 people were added to those who followed Christ.

Peter and John are on their way to afternoon prayer at the temple. A man who is lame from birth had been carried and placed at the “Beautiful Gate” at the temple to beg for money each day. This was accepted practice. Those who were unable to work often begged alms in populated areas. In some ways, it was considered their “occupation” since there were so few ways they could earn a living.

When Peter and John arrive at the temple, he asks them for money. Notice that man is not in the temple, he is outside of it. No matter how much this lame man desired to worship in the temple, he was prohibited. It was not simply the organization of priests at the time who kept him out, it was the recorded words of Holy Scripture! No one with a “defect” was allowed within the temple precincts.

(Do you begin to see the tie-in to my dream?) He stares at Peter and John. To him, they are just two Jewish worshipers coming for afternoon prayer. When he asks them for money Peter and John look directly at him and say, “Look at us!” He perked up, met their eyes and expected money.

Peter says, “I don’t have any silver or gold, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, stand up and walk!” Peter takes him by the right hand, lifts him up and the man’s feet and ankles are made new again!

The man jumps and leaps. No money, but new legs! Now get ready for the next phrase in verse 8: “and he entered the temple courts with them” where he continued walking and leaping and praising God.

We must understand the reason for this story. Yes, a man is healed. But look a little closer. What did that man really want? He wanted to be accepted. He wanted access to God. He wanted to worship “with” not “alone”. But everything that Scripture seemed to say kept him on the outside. The religious professional were the enforcers of that Scripture. Everyone accepted that lame folks could not enter the temple. God said it, that was enough. Everything about the religious thought at the time put him outside of the inner circle of God’s love.

But Peter and John come along, who had no professional theologically training. Remember, just three years previous they had left a good fishing gig to follow a roaming teacher named Jesus. The lame man didn’t know anything about Peter and John. He knew the priests, Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes had the power to keep him out of the temple. But who had the power to make him no longer the “other”?

That is the point of this story. “Jesus Christ the Nazarene.” Paul expands on the idea by saying the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile were also torn down by Christ.

Do you understand, there are no longer “defects” that can keep you from God? Christ has destroyed every wall that divides. He has taken down the fences between “worthy” and “unworthy”. The first miracle after Pentecost is the great announcement that the Beautiful has come. We can come limping, wounded, bleeding, without a plea to our name; and we are no longer excluded. (My take on Scripture is that we were never excluded. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross doesn’t change God’s mind, it reveals His nature from all eternity.)

God in Christ has announced that your soul has a home. Though you may feel out of step with some of the organized religious movements around you, you do not have to feel out of step with God. What my soul was searching for in Munich it found in Christ alone.

Peter and John gave the lame man what the professional religious leaders could not. They gave the lame man, not what he asked for (money), nor what was his perceived need (new legs) but met his real need: access and acceptance by God.

Stolen Focus

Stolen Focus

(“And I know God has made everything beautiful for its time. God has also placed in our minds a sense of eternity.” Ecclesiastes 3:11a)

Meanwhile the rains let up for the moment when,
looking up,
the seagull stole the focus from the cliffs in the foreground.
A white brush-stroke across the opening sky, it rose while
gravity kept us all tied down.

Like a Golfer Shanking

Like a Golfer Shanking

(“May the Lord be with you, as he was with my father.” 1 Samuel 20:13b)

Noticing the way the wind came up so quickly and
watching how the clouds were gray bow ties coming in for the night
the only thought I had was how I could find some peace
from the friend of 30 years who because my house’s floor plan
was not exactly like his, moved me out of the neighborhood.

Watching the light seep in far too early in summer,
and noticing the little dog snuggled in the spot behind the bend in my knees,
the only scene I could watch was one more person who
received the invitation,
left the rsvp on the table,
and missed the party of a lifetime.

Christians, we are like my mother who only saw the pimples on my face,
and tried to pop them with the index fingers of both her hands! She wanted
a beautiful boy.

Noticing the way I watch the beautiful go by, turn my head,
follow their gait, and wish my suits fit so well, my arms so muscled,
and my nose less pointy. Noticing the way I glance at the blemished,
look back down at the pavement, miss eye contact completely,
like a golfer shanking his drive into the opposite fairway, and
wish I was more instinctive to

Befriend more the least of these, in whose eyes dwell
the Man so lovely, and the beatific Presence of the Lord.