We Put Out the Coffee

We Put Out the Coffee

(“Let’s not become discouraged in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not become weary. Galatians 6:9)

The evening came wavering like a
toddling baby boy. We knew it was pending
and kept working anyway.
We saw how the moon grew as it rose from
behind the bare winter branches of a walnut tree.
We had been serving the survivors the
food they deserved.
We had been playing with their children
on the die-cut lawn and listened to their
laughter while the pizzas warmed in the
double ovens. We put out coffee,
we poured the lemonade,
we unstacked the dishes for the families
who stayed. We had counted on half as many,
we had planned to be home before nightfall.
But these were our friends, though many we had never met.
These were our family, though this was the first time we knew their names.

We understood each other,
they knew we would stay as long as the food held out.
We knew we could sit with the silence,
or we could sing as the meal began.
We washed dishes and then we put them out again
for the next friends in line and for the next ones after them.
We sweat as the ovens heated,
we laughed as the children raised their Styrofoam cups
like goblets making a toast.
It was always “cheers”; it was always just a moment’s
wink of a day.
Though we worked well into the evening, we only felt
the time was a fraction of what we had to give.
We knew the play, the conversation, the coffee,
the elastic answers to powdered questions; we knew
there was more to do and we would meet again,
we would meet again, like tonight.

We
memorized the conversations and
learned the vocabulary everyone needed.
We invited the foreign language to share our
chat around tables of perspiration, around
lampposts of contentment.
We learned more than we knew,
we listened happily and silent,
we gave food and attention to assuage
the starving. And we went home, weary and
grateful someone had invited us to work
that was rewarded with new names written
on our tongues.

Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

Coffee, Apologies, and Shalom

(“Rest once more, my soul, for the Lord has vindicated you.” Psalm 116:7)

Pressed inside the corner, kneeling beneath the latch,
his heart ran faster than his frightened thoughts.
He was all alone and that is what he feared;
no one’s eyes for reassurance, no one’s ears to hear his pain.
He did not live on an island, but if felt that way.
He inhaled the foggy air and felt the drizzling mist
slowly wetting his t-shirt and jeans.
He would not need to change them, the air would
dry them on his lengthy stroll. He was walking,
cross-country,
home.

But even there the solitary day cinched his throat,
made his chest feel heavy, his feet weighted with lead.
Do you know how long it takes for
scars to heal while you sit alone waiting for the
ideas to form. He fancied himself an artist,
a sculptor of words. But the pages, always emptied,
demanded he scrape the edges of his soul with a
spatula to find just enough words to share it halfway with you.

Let’s go find him, I’m sure he is home.
Let’s bring him coffee, apologies and shalom.
Let’s sing his words back to him, let’s play
the music his soul absorbs.
Let’s get out his old records, I think he’ll
like the swing bands or some funk.
Let’s let ourselves in before he invites us,
let’s leave only after the last song is played.

He sat in the corner, his favorite recliner,
and slowly allowed the light to coax his verses.
He had always feared unannounced visits,
and was stuck for words. But this time he
was ready,
and he could not put his finger on why;
but this time he was open,
and he laughed in dotted lines across the room.
He laughed because ancient times are not nearly as old
as he assumed.

If You Decide to Dig in My Earth

If You Decide to Dig in My Earth

(“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17)

If you decide to dig in my earth I
hope you find something
worth your time. I know where the bones are buried.

My daughter prayed that her hamster would live
one night on New Year’s Eve. I don’t remember the little
rodent’s name, but when we looked the next morning
he was dead. I never could explain why Power
and Love
could not keep him alive.

I don’t blame you for wondering how
certain flowers grow in the soil of my heart.
I see the all of it, you only see the part.
I have piled layer upon layer to hide what
I hoped would never be seen. I figured I would wait
until I was
80
to dig to the bottom again.

We buried the hamster in the back yard between
bulbs for tulips and daffodils. The ground, nearly frozen,
broke beneath our trowel. We laid him in his grave,
hoped the earth would welcome him. We bought her
another hamster weeks later. He escaped one day,
never to be found and maybe still haunts the house
running around the rafters 20 years hence.

If you want to know what is unseen in me,
I am ready for you to ask. If you want to hold me
hostage to my past,
I don’t mind. There is truth in all of it.

Spring warmed the bed where yellow and red
popped from the earth toward the warming sun.
And my daughter wanted to exhume the tiny body
planted a season ago. The same trowel that prepared
his final place
poked beneath his grave. Unearthed, the plastic
sandwich bag which was his coffin
contained only tiny bones, a skull as small as
popcorn. Her curious eyes and curious hands
silently greeted the remains.

It is no lie that my garden hides relics
I wish you did not know. But I will reveal them if,
after seeing their whiteness and death,
you stay for coffee and see me the same
as you have from the first.

Call Me with Coffee

 Call Me with Coffee

(“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12)

Today light was handed me through a clouded sky,
and so my confidence lies partly awakened
and partly shaken;
life is like that.

Egos are like that.
A flash in the night, a comet out of gas,
a star you saw yesterday hides behind
a hundred moons.

I’ve given up my toys, but not my play.
I’ve given up my chums, but not my friends.
I’ve given up my pretensions, but not my dreams.
I’ve given up the timeouts, but not my curiosity.

Today was wet like yellow raincoats,
and so my letters melt slowly on the pavement,
partly faded.
Memories are like that.

Today is like that.
A wish for the past, a vision that did not last,
a story, a song, a friend beyond arm’s reach
and a hundred years long.

I’ve given up award shows, but not my creations.
I’ve given up tattling, but not truth-telling.
I’ve given up flattery, but not greeting cards.
I’ve given up standing in line, but not patience.

Today could be like that.
I have not disappeared at all. I live within
the chemical flashes of your brain. But your
voice is hidden from me,
and your warmth escaped like the first frost of autumn.
Some fences are like that.

I would have kept you in my field of vision,
I would have revised my strategy until you knew
there were no reasons for walls or silence
or u-turns of offense. Only friends who, like the
molecules of water,
sometimes are drunk from cups and
sometimes empty into the sea.
Today is like that; today, if you think it,
call me with coffee on your mind.

Coffee, Alone

Coffee, Alone

(“It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth.” Mark 4:31)

Slept well, woke up at 8,
Ate some toast, went back to bed,
got up at 11, and now I have 3 less hours of
pain
today.

So full of things I cannot control,
my head is a gyroscope of spinning memories.
So full of aches I want to forget,
my head is a guinea pig of constant experiments.

Will a walk clear it? Will the sun steer the aches another direction?
Will the birds wash it with their songs; occasional butterflies land
close enough to distract me long enough? But my days
are faceless,
and my faith lifts only my heels for
the next step on the sidewalk.

I go to coffee, alone, the pain still my silent companion,
and hope the barrister recognizes my face from a month ago.
But she is a college student, the shop is full of customers,
and I’m a new old man in line for a latte.

I eavesdrop on two students at the next table to
pretend I’ve had a conversation. But I pick up only words
that sound like other words which I wish were the words
I understood.

Slept well, woke up like paste,
rolled over, hands on my head,
checked the clock at 12,
and wasted one more morning
escaping the pain.

Each day my world shrinks,
12 hours to 10,
50 pages to muttering,
5 friends to waving at strangers
as they drive by.

Can this seed still be planted, and live,
and grow, and thrive? And be recognized as
fully alive even in the corner of a forgotten garden?

Insert Your Name

Insert Your Name

(“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.” Colossians 3:1)

I no longer go hunting (daylight or dark) for instant remedies,
medicinal teas, flights of fancy or transactions of applause.
My hope is no longer in live oaks that decay, or additional deciduous
fallen and blocking the way. They will eventually crumble away.

I haven’t altered my consciousness in who knows how long,
though I have collected my thoughts and attempted to keep them
dry on the days I cry over one more phone call cut short,
email unanswered, leaving lasting words (the very last words)
ricocheting off the walls leaving indelible patterns and
interior redecoration.

I would tell him, I’m sure, love is secure, the ear arcane.
I would hug her, I would, if she found me with her eyes again.

I have fewer days around friends’ tables,
less hours at coffee and patter,
pain has robbed my easy informality
and turned a dollar of time into mere pennies.

Please believe, and insert your name within the margins of this writing.
What I have missed I would giftwrap and pass on to you.
From my storehouse of hiking trails and lunches at
Denny’s with a high school buddy, I would share every
hour with you that made each breath a treasure. I would
grab your hand (you feel the warm grasp already) and
interlock it with the friendship you think has crumbled
across the trail. You started the walk in the summer morning,
sun on your back, abreast on the hike, and always got home later
than you ever intended.

Let me grab your hand (you can feel the freedom already) and
place it so you face friend and the day, eye to eye, tear to tear,
and let the aroma of heaven erase the last words you spoke and
begin a brand new conversation.

I hunt no longer, dreams are less frequent,
but longings are deeper for the glimpse my soul has seen.

Of Coffee and God's Kingdom

“For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Ephesians 5:5

When we spend all of our time trying to decide who is “in” and who is “out” of heaven, we run a giant risk of interpreting everything in Scripture in that way. So, we turn this passage into a dividing line between who is “saved” and who is not. What if there is the “kingdom of God” means something different than a guaranteed ticket to heaven?

Coffee Together

Then the king's personal servants said: Your Majesty, a search must be made to find you some beautiful young women. Esther 2:2

“Then let the young woman who please you most take Vashti’s place as queen.” King Xerxes liked these suggestions and he followed them. Esther 2:4

“When the king ordered the search for beautiful women, many were taken to the king’s palace in Susa, and Esther was one of them.” Esther 2:8

In about 45 minutes I will meet with a number of people from my church for coffee. I have no idea how many, and am not really concerned with the number that show up. As I fell asleep Saturday night I was thinking about ways to increase real openness among ourselves as well as ways to let God’s word take a deeper place in our lives.