The Dancing of the Restored

The Dancing of the Restored

(“Healthy people don’t need a doctor. It is the sick who need a doctor. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners.” Mark 2:17b) 

You have diminished the rooms of the righteous,
and there is no more space for perfection. Then
we will learn the loneliness of the soul that keeps us
from looking others in the eye. We look up,
make a tiny connection, then gaze at the ground from
of fear of being found out. What would they see behind
our imperfect eyes. 

  Remember when our wounds were our trophies,
when the only way to the light was through the hole in our soul?
Remember the meals we have shared where people watch
through the teeny cracks in the doors? Remember how our
hearts were full as our eyes beheld the rays of light that
passed through the windows in the gray wall interior?
Remember the food abundant,
the wine pouring like springs from the stone? 

We never recovered until we knew the diagnosis
included our inattention to detail and our desire to
stand front and center
with applause coming from all around the room. 

We were not shamed into this. It was only as long
as we felt we deserved the top of the mountain
and we never admitted our disease. Once we knew
how the valley held the answers we thought only
belonged to the heights we started our hike to
the lower places where the granite meets the
meadows. 

We discovered the dancing of the restored,
the joy of sinners whose hearts, redeemed and whole,
have learned to celebrate even when the sun has disappeared
behind the mountain peaks.

Once Creased with Pain

 Once Creased with Pain

(“As for Me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to Myself.” John 12:32)

The day was wearily moving slowly,
eerily suggesting more than we could see.
But I had awoke too early to shatter any records
or remember any dreams that directed me gravely
toward an old headstone of a friend who once
was as enigmatic as the first few moments of
the silent breeze the cleanse my mind after resting
longer than I needed to, I was happy to recall her
smile after all. Now it’s locked in my memory the
same way her husband locked me into his own.
It was good to hear her babies lived with joy
mixed with tears, gratefulness mixed with questions,
sorrow mixed with a readiness to embrace something
more eternal than exterior views of emperors dancing
on their thrones.

We are all just jesters, aren’t we, trying to find our way home?
We are fools for fools’ sake, animals sniffing around the edges of
eternity.
It was good to hear words that let sorrow settle in like
a corporeal fog, something we could touch in the distance.
It all brings back to mind the days we sat around propane fires
watching the meat boil and the people waiting together,
giving away blankets and quilts, and saying the things we
would carry for longer than we knew.

We have learned to forgive ourselves of the behaviors we
learned to save us from the trauma we could not name.
We thought it was simply a sinful self that kept us addicted
to ways we soften the pain. But now somehow,
the crucified one has taken all the damage onto a splintery
tree, made that torturous cross his throne by which he
calls us to tell him the harm we could not name until we knew,
he felt it too.

How are we daily drawn by the magnetism of unreserved love.?
How do we imagine a place that soothes every reason we have to
push to the front of a line that will take the same time for us all.?
Ending at the entrance, all together now, we see the relief on faces
that once were creased by pain.

There Were Children Dancing

There Were Children Dancing

(“So God will choose the one to whom he decides to show mercy; his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.” Romans 9:16)

I listened to the laughter coming from the next room;
there were children dancing to a whirling tune
I did not know and could not repeat. They circled
each other and leaped up and down. It was on a
stormy day with winds roaring from the east; foothills
to the coast, and the rain splattered the windows like
tiny balloons thrown by fairies.
It was rarely this easy. But today their feet moved
together, their giggles were not disruptive, and their
words were improvised along with their song.

There was something vital in that moment, there was

untitled poetry at play. It came from within them,
it came from without. It came from planets above,
it came from the earth below. It crept in through the doorway,
it circled room after room until, soon enough,
the laughter gave way to lavender exhaustion.

Not a breath was wasted, every movement was intentional,
every word was invented, not a syllable fell pasted to the floor.
They floated like dandelions, they tossed themselves like
pillows in the air. They sounded like cherubs, they looked like
an hour in a day without care. They slipped in their favorite
colors and poked around the edges of prayer.

No one planned it, no one invited the parties;
it was all the children knew to do with their spare time,
it was everything they had waited for since morning had dawned.
And all the adults learned laughter halfway through the dance.
Next time maybe they would lead it, maybe they would leave it
all to chance.

Thinking About Dancing

Thinking About Dancing

(“Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” Isaiah 35:6)

I’ve been thinking about dancing,
late evening to dark under the lights where
someone got married just an hour ago.
I’ve been thinking about music,
a couple of guitars and a beer, singing
what we used to write 50 years ago.
We invented everything back then.
We pretended life was different back then.

So many times, thirst showed up in ways
that only melodies could quench.
Friends showed up and brought laughter
like
disco.
The rhythm ran up and down our spines,
tickling us to find the floor with sunshine
underneath. We never were alone for long.
We never were left waiting while the rains
had their way with us.

(I should pause here and explain that
though the refrain sounds like joy uncontained,
it actually hides beneath layers of pain so noisy
they I rarely know how to keep time.)

But
you

Speak one word and everything comes back to mind.

You

Knock on my door with sage tea or cabernet sauvignon,
my choice,
and I look at your feet to see if

You might like to dance with me.

Of Two Kingdoms

Of Two Kingdoms

(“God has freed us from the power of darkness, and he brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Colossians 1:13)

And we dance at dark, choosing partners we barely know;
and we dance at dark, chasing music we barely see.
And we make up words to songs we’ve never learned;
and we dance at dark and scurry away at dawn.

Come the light of day faces we knew in the shadows
have disappeared. Once the music ends, we hear our own
words again,
and search the riverbanks for forgotten conversations we
thought we enjoyed
dancing at dark.

We do not destroy because we are wicked; we are sinners, sick
and gray. We harm the very ones who would hold us, but we
deny we lost anything along the way. We explode with invectives,
we spit shrapnel and curse each other with body parts. The beauty
of reproduction is a schoolyard cuss-word. We cannot stand
the intimacy so turn it on its head

Wait for the next moonless night to grab the fastfood imitation.

One time

Let the night pass slowly, like genuine maple syrup on
the biggest stack of pancakes; butter dribbling in rivulets
and the breakfast aroma filling the house. Let the night
pass quietly, like a midnight meadow when the stars’
glimmers are the only sounds.

Let the morning rise warmly, like summer days
and crepe myrtles. Let the full light dawn and
without a single word, crass or creative, do one simple thing:

Stare at a face, any face, fully lit; let the light and shadow
dance across each beauty mark and each imperfection. Stay!
Do not turn away. Memorize the face and be memorized;
and think about a kingdom filled with light unafraid of
the dark.

Stronger than She Feels

Stronger than She Feels
(for my daughter Sarah)

(“Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear.     I am your God. I will make you strong, as I protect you with my arm and give you victories.” Isaiah 41:10)

Surely the way opens for you like
the drapes framing the first light of sun for you;
surely the heart you possess
has been given to Him who knows you best.

You fly above and see the sorrow below,
you walk beside the youngest up the steeps of light,
you stay with them to celebrate the plateau upon
the most sun-rich day.

They are dancers in your eyes, only years alive and
so full of daddy questions and mommy mottos,
and you sweep them up, one or dozens,
in one swoop of your arms (the once tiny arms I
watched in ballerina poses). They are your
bouquets, roses and daffodils and countless
dandelions
(what would a children’s garden be without the
butter-yellow weed we blow to across the sky with
wishes sent and seeds to grow in the neighbor’s backyard).

Your feet have always danced, and they will be planted
tomorrow; though your questions outweigh your confidence,
the Destiny, the open-book story with the pop-up pictures
is just beginning its out-loud read.

Every giggle, every baby’s babble; each skydive from the clouds,
each studied arrival at a brand new address; all attest
the beauty, the brave, the spiritual, the grace of a woman
whose God is making her

Stronger than she feels.

Daylight Comes Shining

Daylight Comes Shining

(“Jesus turned on Peter and said, ‘Get away from me, you Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are thinking merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s.’” Matthew 16:23)

It is true; my posture often discloses the poses
I take to motivate you to see what I so guardedly hide
inside.
I hope to be clearer come the morning,
with new sun shining through invisibility, not glass.
I desire the fresh air bathing tomorrow, not past.
I tip my hat to the next step I take with better vision,
the next portrait unmistakably unretouched, no airbrush,
only bad haircuts, crooked ties, unbuttoned sleeves, and
colored t’s with bob dylan or the cookie monster postered
up front.

Teach me to dance, easier, Jesus. You alone leave me unlonely;
Your love only has cured my unlovely. I never did like any photo
(black and white and waited for development, or digital and tossed
in digital packets across the wifi world), except for one: I was caught
by surprise,
my granddaughter in my arms, her face full of chocolate and my eyes,
full of messy joy.

When Your suffering is over, Lover of my soul, teach me fully,
(I fear the request) what it means to suffer and die with you,
too. Perhaps I will not cringe the unhinged photos that make me believe
all can see
each impurity and the next unearned wrinkle.

You are all the whole, and I am the cog with broken teeth
I always wished had been straightened. You are the only,
I should know your Daylight comes shining and my heart
leaps like summer’s first day after the best sleep of the year.