A Pathway Home

A Pathway Home

(“His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1:23)

I think I am ready to go home or
at least meet someone for drinks. The streets
can be so lonely this far down the line.
I think it’s only a couple of miles from here,
I think we could be there by noon.
I’ve been to the wildlife refuge and only found
ducks and crows,
but it’s a good place to be alone.
But sometimes solitude is louder than
a baby grand piano in a starlit shed.
I can hammer the keys now,
I can freeze the melody between
octaves. I can miss my notes more easily
until everyone can tell I haven’t played well for
a while.
I think I am ready for some shalom now
or at least chant the words to pre-christian
tunes.
It is all so big now, so far beyond my reach;
it is daily decreed that my silence will increase
as the hours slowly turn toward afternoon.
And yet I still believe, below the surface,
above the moon,
within the moments, outside the fine-tuning
of string after sting, there is something larger than
the hole I carry within my chest.
There is something closer than the rain
that falls on my forehead and shapes my footprints.
There must be a star that sits above the sky;
there must be a vision that sees dreams like candor.
There must be a pathway home that takes me
past the homes where friends a half-century ago
we had coffee and talked about god and northern lights
and record collections and our favorite bands.

There must be a pathway home.

The World Swings Open

The World Swings Open

(“Jesus prayed, ‘Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.’” Luke 23:34 [The Message])

Awash with mercy, the world swings open, the
oceans laugh, the air is wider than long.
But the oceans moan sometimes
at the eyes that will not see. The breath is
too narrow
to glide on the afternoon air. The
same
spirit
that chained the novelist to
a forsaken desk between miscreants,
still insists the ending is reserved for
an elite few.
Who knew
that love would ever be defined by
those who never taste the new vintage
that spilled from a body so maligned?

That day. This afternoon. A century from now
when the moon is overhead. One second before
the big bang. Five minutes after the baby cried.
Thirty-five years since my mother died. The
thru-line
runs from pierced hands and feet
to my backyard,
to the desert heat,
weaving castles, incomplete confessions and
the mercy seat.

Oh Wounded Love, oh Child of divine habitations,
oh Human gunned down in the ghetto, shut down by
 emboldened halos,
oh Glory that fills more than all existence,

We rethink our mass differentials and
line up, tiny as we are, to light up
the old executioner’s road with

Tales of mercy that refuses to die.

I Never Did Like Roller Coasters

 I Never Did Like Roller Coasters

(“Most of all, have a true love for each other. Love covers many sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

I never did like roller coasters,
my fears mounted as the car clanked slowly to
the top while my heart raced faster than the last
loop whizzing through the electrified air. In fact,
I called out my eighth-grade girlfriend’s name as
if she were a deity ready to catch me. I was in Tulsa,
she was in L.A.

I never did like roller skates.
I could coast well enough, stopping was the scary
part for me. My knees scraped the concrete when I
put on the brakes. Never mind trying to skate backwards,
all my best friends could.

I never did like solo obedience.
The tight fit of the iron box pushed all the air
from my lungs.
Yet, I pretended well. No, I pretended sincerely.
I watched my friends sin easily. I watched others
wear their morality with courage. I could do neither.
But, when you are at the top of the roller coaster hill,
your options are limited.

There must have been someone who hugged me
when they saw my ashen face depart the coaster car.
There must have been someone who removed their skates
and held my hand to walk on the sidewalk downtown.
Could there be someone who saw both my
mask
and my
face
and still shared our mutual disgrace? There is not room
in the crowded box for another body,
but another soul might fit quite well.

My Body Hates Me

 

My Body Hates Me

(“Then Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters…and he moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob.” Genesis 36:6)

Tell me what it is you want me to choose; what is the payoff,
I am so confused.
It feels like a cartoon convention that might have
turned into a disaster if not for the intervention of bodies in the sun
making short work of a huge backyard chore left undone.
By the end of the day the brush pile had been chipped and sent
over the hill.

I should be grateful; more than I guessed helped with the
monumental task.
Instead I hated my life even more. My body
refuses to do what it should. The pain wraps my face
as I try to set a reasonable pace. The rented machinery
roars in my ears and I do not want to appear useless
as I take more breaks than anyone.

My body is no longer my friend. My body hates me.
Weekends once spent on the tennis court are
now spent in pain on the couch.

I feel guilty, I feel ashamed while this
ungodly pain
keeps me from seeing anything through.
I cannot work outdoors four hours with my friends,
and a single song takes me months to record.

Before the end of the day, I simply quit.
I went inside, drank cold water and tried to sleep.
I hate my body, useless on the couch. Who knows,
maybe I fake all this pain to get out of the hard stuff.
The depression creeps in like a fog thick as pudding.

And then the work is done. I face everyone. They know
I quit. Their eyes are on me, they care for me, but I feel
I must
plead guilty
for not holding up my end. I live as an invalid,
and I am not an invalid.

People are kind, some half my age,
spent half a day tackling a monstrous chore. My brain
knows more than my body will admit. I was blessed today,
but my tears rain on well into the evening; my ego took a hit. Yes,
I suppose that explains it.

So, help me make up my mind; is there a warm front to
dry my idiot tears? I am blessed, I am cursed; the worst
and the best
are ever at my doorstep. The pain has made my body
the enemy. But the friends, the family are
my remedy.

My Whole Body Buzzes

My Whole Body Buzzes

("And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation." Mark 16:15)

Today my whole body buzzes like a million tiny electrical bees
are coursing through every pore. Ready to cry at every sound,
ready to weep in alien silence. My brain sends signals that my
mind cannot control, less than whole, I have little to say.

But I do remember a voice, a thin voice, yet slightly wider than
a sparrow's, of a young girl struggling with her bike fallen to the ground.
She rode the sidewalk in front of me, a pink and purple helmet
protecting her preschool head.
She did not skin her knees, did not wince when she lost her balance.
She wrestled the contraption upright like she was grappling a goat,
and sat upon the seat just as I approached.

"Nice bike", said the old man walking for his health.
"Thanks," said the tiny voice scattering light like a prism.
The old man waved at the mother sunning across the street.

I continued my walk and seconds later, that thin-ray voice shot
sparkles through my thoughts, "I want to catch up with him."
Mom said something, it did not matter. I was a stranger, and my
sparrow-voiced child stayed behind.

And on days like this, when my skin crawls and my thoughts are
dark as shattered glass,
I remember I heard the good news from a Kingdom child

who simply wanted to ride her bike alongside an old man
who walks the same path in the suburbs each day, talking
to God
and hoping someone hears.

Added Dirt

Added Dirt

(“The whole body is joined together and connected by every joint and ligament, as every part effectively does its work and grows, building itself up in love.” Ephesians 4:16)

As time as added dirt beneath my feet the roots
weep more deeply for distant embrace.
Shadows of unaffected laughter, classrooms with morning light,
guitars in a circle and folk songs with unexpected trumpet runs;
all wait in afternoon sun for the reawakening of innocence.

Opinions run too high, anxiety has paid its price. The buds will bloom
without my constant pinching.

The satisfaction of morning roses and an eight-year-old neighbor
who wants a flower to give to give her mom, the boy on stage,
the man unafraid, the father mistaken and the elder still shaken
from the way the earth quakes; all speak in the sunlight
of connections frayed at the edges.

The dark clouds spin by and ego is overpriced. The sun will shine
without my backward flinching.

Come, arms and legs, eyes and ears, take me in and play again.
Come, classmate and peer, soulmate and handshake, hear me and sing again.
Our distances are paper-thin, our barriers self-erected. What have we rejected,

If not the best selves we once inhabited?

More Self-Help?

“It is the Spirit that gives life. The body is of no value for that. But the things I have told you are from the Spirit, so they give life.” John 6:63

There is no end to self-help aids. I can develop a muscled physique with one method, with another, I can eat like cave men. I can order books to enrich my marriage, to cure my neuroses, or have eye-popping sex. I can learn to talk to dogs, translate birdsongs to English, and create the most manicured garden in my neighborhood. Pay your subscription to Self-Help Magazine, read and take its articles seriously, and you will end up having the life you always dreamed of. You will have shapely calves, a full head of hair, close nearly every sale and buy houses for pennies on the dollar.

With this Gift

With this Gift

(“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, and you are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19)

What shall I do with this gift I think is all of life?
When limited by length, the ways my legs propel and
limited by vision I wish my eyes to excel both their clarity
and their understanding.

Shall I blame it for my faltering? A pain in mind and
rigid joints once fluid and quick, wit and flow, words and
dance. For I forget, within 30 seconds, the same word I scratched
the surface to find not a minute later. Reminded of the runs
through blocks and parks, under viaducts, ignoring the barks
of backyard dogs.

Shall I paint it frivolous? Shall I lament its crooked semblance
to a boy I once knew years ago? How shall I wear this skin,
the years growing thin and progressions of past folly?
Is it the gemstone within, created and compressed,
an image well-crafted of the Father’s Son? Or, spirit and
soul and skin; are they one? A wrapless package of
inspiration, movement and semblance that astounds
when asked the price?

“You have been bought with a price” and “You are not your own”

redeem this wickedly weak frame into a
sacred space for me to belong.

What shall I do with this gift, this body slogging through time?
My hands are not yet helpless, my legs to walk where light has yet shined,
my eyes are not dim and can see the image, where once they were blind,
of the Beloved’s face; prosaic and rhyme.