You Wept With Us

You Wept With Us

(“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” John 11:33)

“It’s not time,” they said, “to change the way we see things.”
“It’s not time to answer the questions that plague us like parasites.”
They were right, of course. The answers whirled around the
early evening shadows that were longer than that exposed the
insane preoccupation with ignoring the obvious.
Death is death, there is no other way to explain it.
Underneath each breath, surrounding each tear like a
trapeze artist flying high, unspoken groans gave vent to
inexpressible holes left inside each heart that ever lost
the unimaginable. Now that hole in our heart weighed us down
like an iron anchor hitched to the ground.

I’m sorry we expected you so early. I apologize for pursuing
you. Our tears had not let up for the four days since he
fainted casually dead. We sat with him in his sickness but
we never imagined he would live us without a concrete goodbye.
It’s not time,” they said, “to change our awkward lives.”
It's not time to ask why we always lost the questions with
holes in our pockets.
The day began with sighs and groans and you showed up and
wept with us. You wept with us.
The pangs we felt like swords in our chest were pangs he
took upon himself. He mirrored our grief,
he reflected our heartache, he took our sorrow as his own.

We followed him to the grave as we craved his company.
The sun was setting and we wondered where his weeping
would carry us. We watched in anticipation as the tomb was
opened and his words; brief as a summer shower, invited life
to walk out of the grave like the earth giving birth.

I Wear Them Like a Chain

I Wear Them Like a Chain

“([God], look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker.” Job 14:6)

Sometimes you are heavier than glaciers,
and I breathe the moraines left inside me by
the previous ice age. Look away from me until my
heart warms slowly like spring wildflowers along the highway.

You are too present for me, though all I feel are electrical charges
in my brain
sustained from the first second a decade ago until this moment
weeping over the work I’ve forsaken,
the relationships I could not keep,
the mastery over my life that was just a servant to
the chemicals in my brain. Please ease the distance between
us.

I cannot work when you have confined me to unwieldy thoughts
and pain so accurate it stabs me on the spot I’ve made famous
by hiding my fontanels from birth until late autumn. But any
soft spot will do to expose me as a pretender, a joker,
a clown, an actor, a jester, and a swimmer nearly drowned by
exhaustion. Step away just a bit, please, and give me room to think.

Quite prosaically let me say, my anxiety is sky high today.
Every thought is judged, and I have no defense.
Every hypocrisy is seen, and I cannot restart the dance.
Every mutation is obvious, and I cannot modify my genes.
Every tear is tedious, and I cannot explain why my hands quiver,
my thoughts spit from every pore in my head, and I rarely look
anyone in the eye. My life is measured in decades now,
and the charges against
me have piled up for so long I wear them like a chain, and I know
everyone hears me coming.

So, please stay away today, I need some space. Wanting to please you
just brings more disgrace into the veins you created to carry oxygen
to my veins.

So please, I would rather say, (please, do not stay away.)

God-With-Us

(a little late in the season, but I've been mega-busy!)

God-With-Us

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name ‘Immanuel’; which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us.’” Matthew 1:23

Have you ever awoken from one of the dreams that seems so real that it influences your mood for a good part of the day? You may not even remember all the details, but the mood, the emotions stick with you. It is not that you simply remember feeling sad or happy, you still are sad or happy. Perhaps you actually dreamt about someone you knew, and somehow you have the same feelings toward the person once you are awake that you had in the dream. Having dreamed you have upset a loved one, you wonder what you have done to make them angry. And you keep telling yourself, “Self, it was only a dream.”

This is How

This is How

(“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 1:18)

I don’t know how the angel felt, or if angels can feel at all;
to announce it, to unroll the scroll of the new and holy meeting
God would have with the waiting world. Though nearly every mother
dreamed
her baby boy, her firstborn, would be the one, the foretold Son

The Lord promised would bruise the serpent’s heel.

Though *YHWH promised, the prophets had announced in clearness
and shade, the coming and anointed One, the expectations ebbed and swayed
as days delivered less vital force and more simple hand-to-mouth tedium,
when God is acknowledge but seldom sought or begged.

Though *YHWH spoke, and the Word so rhythmic and poetic, was
passed down in every sacrifice sent to desolation, and every feast meant
for celebration. Perhaps the rythmns of life had rocked the holy longings
to sleep. Perhaps the beloved napped away the moment when *YHWH
sent the explosive message to two who loved, and pledged, and softly waited
their joyous wedding day and consummation.

Oh *YHWH, how uncommon are your plans. We stumble in circles at the
turns you manufacture and the dead ends where angels wrestle us,
rupture our hips and call it a blessing.

But we do not plan the journey, the journey plans us. And you sent,
perhaps a cold April,
your brightest announcement through an angel’s whisper
to a teenage miss who only knew to say “yes” when angels come
calling.

  

*Not to be enunciated when read aloud. Leave a pause.

Inner Comfort

“Now let Your unfailing love be my comfort, in keeping with Your promise to Your servant.” Psalm 119:76

It is so easy to buy into the myth of self-reliance. Perhaps it helps to think back upon the day of our birth. You know, the moment in time when we decided to emerge on this planet. We had enough of those dark days surrounded by murky liquid all alone. So, without any help from the outside, we made our appearance. Within a few quick breaths we hit the floor, started walking, and began our first full-time job within the week.