But It Is Nearly Winter Here

But It Is Nearly Winter Here

(“The blind men said to Jesus, ‘Lord, we want our eyes opened!’” Matthew 20:33)

The full array is spread before us every day,
before our feet and after our ears,
we are webbed like atoms,
we are circled like planets,
we are sun and we are shade,
we are remade with each breath.
New molecules that have existed from the
beginning of time.

Not all see who say, not all look who pronounce the
name of God as only heard in their own vernacular.
When the light bleeds through the narrow cavern openings
will you greet it like chilled chardonnay on a summer’s afternoon?

But it is nearly winter here, the tree limbs are roots above ground.
The snow flies rarely and stays only days. The hummingbirds,
now that it is mid-December,
should be migrating away in their charms so high that they
are unseen as they traverse the landmarks underneath flatiron
clouds.

I think hummingbirds do not flock. I think they are duets or
trios. They are playful cousins who show up every day; one
shows the others
where the nectar is and they stay the afternoon for rose hip tea.

But it is nearly winter here, and one ruby-headed friend still
hums outside my window. He knows where to find the feeder,
just above my eyesight as I watch the sky. He knows when it rains
to stand atop the sugar-water dispenser under the eaves to dry
his wings for a while.
But he has not packed for a southward journey, perhaps he will
stay through Christmas. I wonder if he knows that I delight
to see his lightning wings even in the shorter light late Autumn.

I asked for open eyes once. That was decades and lifetimes ago.
But I saw what I was trained to see, the rifle scope was well-aimed.
Enemies flew through the air; sinners, heretics, new age sages and
sugar-coated snowflakes. Dark was magnified until my eyes could
not stand the full light of day.

I asked for open eyes once again. And I awoke. And I saw the
silent attraction that pulls all things to itself; and pulls itself to
all things. And I wondered why anyone would want to
unravel the eternal tapestry of things.

And They Thought He Was Lost

And They Thought He Was Lost

(“You blind leaders, you take a small bug out of your cup but you swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:24)

Rounding the final lap
he wanted to
stop
and
sit down. He had already
won 101 and
102 meant little to him now.

He sat until the final runners
lapped him, then
stood up,
looked around,
and walked quietly off the track.

He picked up his phone,
called a friend and
walked the mile to meet them
at the coffee shop. They
sipped their lattes and
spent an hour with few
words needed.

He walked home and lit
a big stogie although
another friend once told him
she would prefer he take up
nude sunbathing than
smoking cigars.

For Once

(“I was eyes for the blind person. I was feet for the lame person.” Job 29:15)

You took the lives that were broken eggshells,
the eyes that had not slept in weeks,
and rocked them like a lullaby, and sang them
like a hymn.

You took the ears assaulted by spears and arrows,
and listened to the sparrows for them,
heard the promises of lovers and
danced for them to the tune of children’s laughter.

You took their feet, shrunken with time,
and walked the forest among the pines for them,
marched in the parade and plunged your toes in the mud
for them. You massaged the scales and the brittle nails
that displayed their age too soon.

You took their soul, fragile as a soap bubble in the wind,
and flew it like a kite for them,
despite the unpolite words of those
who do not understand how love can take
the saddest of them. You took their soul,
crumbling like desert clods,
and rained for them in tears that,
(let no one know) for once
were not their own.

Utter Nonsense

Utter Nonsense

(“The Jewish leaders still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents.” John 9:18)

Believe me, every day I search for the opening,
the escape from mangled dreaming into the open sun,
the disinfected fabric of a t-shirt on the line.

I ache in the morning, pain and reaching,
I am muddled until noon, (is there a letter in the mail?)
I limp into the afternoon and evening cannot come too soon.

I hope there is a knock at the door, a friend, a smile, or
more honestly,
a payment for the time I’ve spent, failing more than trying,
looking into lost eyes and seeing the life inside.

Trust me, every night I sleep and hope
the dreams will be ladders of heaven
instead of escalators into the past.
My filing system is busted, my friends who I trusted
appear bringing letters of approval, and sometimes
alphabets of fear. I can no longer find the notes for
public readings, music for psalms and singing.
I’m late for every meeting and it shows when I bring
suggestions no one understands. Do I speak in tongues?
Have I lost my mind? Is my age that telling? Did I leave
my thesaurus behind?

Who knew that a vacuum could be so dense;
empty be so full of such utter nonsense?

So, I gaze into the blank, the blackness, staring at the door,
wondering if anyone visits the lonesome anymore. Here’s
my
unspoken blindness. Now shine on my day like
kids walking home after school.

Blind Spots

Blind Spots

(“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” Luke 3:4-5)

Way back in 1973 I was in my first major car crash. Only 18, I was driving home from my job at a pharmacy in Lafayette, Ca, to Concord. I was on the freeway and approached the split that veering left would take me home or to the right, take me further south. In those days I drove a blue Volkswagen van with tie-dye curtains. I had not merged into the left lane soon enough.

Driving in the second lane from the right, I needed to make my way one more lane to the left. I glanced in my truck-style sideview mirrors, then my rearview mirror and once more to the left one. I saw no cars. I had already set my blinker and began to merge into the next lane.

Suddenly I heard the angry honk of a car almost immediately to my left. I quickly turned the steering wheel to the right, applied the brakes a bit, and went into an out of control fishtail. I was now beyond the median that began to separate the two freeways.

At around 50 mph my right tires hit the median, and though it was no more than six inches high at this point, my van flipped to its side and skid across two lanes of traffic stopping on the right-hand shoulder.

Inside the van I was scared to death, and the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. A coffee mug lost its attachment to gravity and cracked into my forehead. Pencils, papers and a couple of books were suspended around me for what couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Besides a scratch to my head, I was unhurt. I did call a friend to take me to the hospital and got to wear a lovely foam collar for a few weeks. Things could have been much worse. As the van skid across two lanes of traffic it was also leaking gasoline. The frame metal was sparking like the Fourth of July. I was extremely fortunate to escape a conflagration.

John the Baptist is telling people to “Prepare the way of the Lord.” He doesn’t specifically mention blind spots, but I think the image may be useful when we think about our own heart preparation.

He speaks of two things that should happen (among others): every valley should be filled, and every mountain should be made low. I think there may be blind spots associated with those who feel like their life is in the lowlands, and other blind spots for those who think they live on the mountain.

The valleys need to be “filled”. I think the valleys can refer to any disparaging thought about ourselves that keeps us from receiving the Lord’s best into our lives. Imagine someone who has constantly been told that they will never measure up, or they don’t have enough talent to pursue a dream. Or even worse, that God will punish them if the do not change. (So, they try with all their might to change, find they cannot, and determine they are outside of God’s blessing.)

I am reading a biography of the American First Ladies. Do you know that two of them lost children; one in a railroad accident where she saw a piece of metal take off the back of her beloved son’s head. For the rest of her life she believed God was punishing her because she had not been a good enough mother to that son!

She was a valley that needed to be “filled”. But imagine someone coming to her and saying, “I’ve lost a child too. You’ve just got to buck up, get on with your life. Stop complaining. I never complained.” Or, even worse, someone who has lost two children tells her the same thing. Think about it. Will these comments “fill” her valley? No, they dig it only deeper.

This person will now believe that, not only is God punishing her, but that she doesn’t even have the inner resolve to make life better. Those in the valley need to be filled, not given an earful. People are in valleys for may reasons. Mental illness can contribute to it, so can addiction, and of course, indulgent sin. But the answer for the one in the valley is filling.

Their blind spot is the inability to see God’s grace and mercy that are just up the road for them. If you are in a valley, please trust God wants to fill you with His grace. Examine the gospels and see how Jesus treated everyone who found themselves in the low places of life.

The other blind spot is just as prevalent and maybe harder to self-assess. When we are the mountain that needs to be made low, we usually feel like we are doing just fine in life. We may be a successful businessperson. A doctor with a burgeoning practice. A politician who is winning. We may even be and average man or woman, but we are pleased that we have kept all the rules that we think are important.

Nationalism is such a mountain. So is a strict reading of certain Bible passages that attempt to make other people submit to them. If it is “Israel first”, we have excluded 99 percent of the world’s population. If it is “America first”, the blind spot is just the same. And, when you are on the mountain, you have little empathy for anyone who, for whatever reason, is still down there in the valley slipping upon mountain trails.

Mountain people are the ones who lecture valley people about how to get out of the valley. Mountain people do not venture down, they wait for others through sheer effort, to make their way up the rugged slopes.

But that is not God’s solution. His solution, in preparing our way for the Lord, is that the mountain must come down! It’s as if He is saying, “If you won’t come down off your high righteous peak, then I’ll have to bring you and the mountain down to everyone else’s level.”

What is your blind spot today? Do you think you do not deserve anything from God? Well, you are wrong. You deserve love from the very One who created you. And you don’t earn it, you already have it because of God’s nature. That is why Jesus came; to show us the nature of Father God. Let Him fill up the low place, breathe again, and step into life.

Are you on the mountain? Have you lived surrounded by a Christian mindset for so long that you can no longer identify with people who struggle? Then hightail it off that mountain as quickly as you can! Sit with the mentally ill. Love the outcast. Welcome the immigrant and stranger.  Comfort the transsexual who struggles to know their way in life. Stop playing it safe.

Once valleys are lifted and mountains are torn down, that puts us all on the same level, doesn’t it? And guess what, that is exactly what God intended.