From Slave to Free

From Slave to Free

(“So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.” Philemon 1:17)

It matters like the dust from stars falling into themselves,
it matters like the dust that comes from those final implosions,
from those super Novas spraying elements of carbon, helium, and hydrogen
into open space.

Surrounded by uncountable machinations and
propelled by undeniable afterthoughts we should not
hesitate
to call each other partners in a world full of unexplainable
light.
We kept accounts and hoped our tempos would synch up
before the end of the day.

We sang the same songs when we were together, and now
apart
let us sing them again, listening for the straight beats and
the syncopation. I am sending you back the one who could
only talk out of tune until I taught him the hymns you and I
both knew intimately. He was glad to learn, the runaway child,
and anxious to know if he could sing them with you.

So we set the tempo and worked on the temperament;
he has been found to be quite useful to me.
Shall I send him back to you with the song, he has
the lyrics fully internalized but he does take some liberties
with the tune. He is freer than I am, I think, in this regard.
And perhaps freer than you expected. But he is overjoyed and
ready to pay back anything he owes you. And what he cannot
I will cover. Imagine with me, this miscreant, this fugitive,
returning to you with a heart full of the same delight you heard
from you at night. Laying on his bunk he ached to learn the
songs of the spirit he heard from your house.

Having them now in his innermost being, he longs to join the
chorus as a son to you. Receive him, if you will, as a member
of the chorale. You won’t be disappointed, his tone is rich,
his tempo heavenly, and his visage is changed from slave to free.

Wrapped Itself

Wrapped Itself

(“You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Luke 18:22b)

What has wrapped itself around me like a boa
squeezing the life from me? What have I wrapped my hands
around so tightly my knuckles have turned white from my
over-protection? What is it that, so shiny, captures my
gaze? What has cemented my feet into this tiny island of
wanting what is mine?

What have I missed with this hoarding habit of mine?
What has twisted my devotion like broken handlebars on
a brand-new bicycle? When did I decide to
keep it all to myself? When will I relax my
muscular grip on all that glitters and still is not golden?

I’ve always feared poverty; I’ve never owned very much.
But the way I save myself looks like a miser blowing the
dust off his last penny.
I have worn out the paths I thought would enlighten me;
I have fallen over the edge when no one was watching.

Who is this that is calling me; who is it knows my
name so well? Who wants to ease my clasp around
dollar bills or diamonds? I’ve always thought I might
lose it all too soon so do not give away as much as
I could.

I have a talent for pretending consecration, for
acting like a penitent face down on the carpeted floor.
I don’t mind giving as long as I have enough for
tomorrow’s good meal. I don’t mind giving so long as
I get what is mine before I sign the check.

So, here are my hands, as open as I can offer them.
Here is my heart, as supple as I know how. And
lately
I sit and wonder politely.

The Dust We Kick Up

The Dust We Kick Up

(“Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Luke 24:46)

Silence sits like a smiling seraph
watching the fog dispelled as the afternoon grows long.
We sprint like we have no time,
and hope the dust we kick up will settle by night.
All the while the divine movement,
a sun outpoured, an avant-garde line in an
unread poem,
invites us to linger. It entices us to wait until
winning is the last thing on our mind.

Despondent, though the breeze tried to revive our
deflation,
we still walked home. We still journeyed. We share our
fruit and fish with others on the road.

Who knew? The question never entered our minds. That
the story was not over. We still had miles to go. We still had
callouses from planting, bleary eyes from wanting it to
be easy. We knew the enemy well. We knew we followed
lamely. We knew something more than bedtime stories had
to be our benediction.

But we never counted on a universe that groaned with love like
a mother birthing a firstborn. We never counted on suffering to
be the picture i.d. of the power that moves through kingdoms and
ages, villages and sages, crosses and aching; we never counted on
god squeezing through such a dirty knothole to find us

On the other side.

Dust and Thirst

Dust and Thirst

(“Come down from your lofty place and sit in the dust.” Jeremiah 48:18a)

You sit in your dust and you laugh as if you drink all day from
a tap of crystal liquid; so cool your burning eyes assume all will be
healed under the flow of its spring.

You bivouacked  a place higher than your enemies,
you set up camp to display your long stature, your tall statues,
your walls which shine with whitewash sheen. In the desert you
can pretend all summer and nearly all autumn as well; the veneer is

smeared upon the stacked rubble walls. You stole the shimmer from
mica and polished bronze in angles to reflect the sun's long rays
for the fat portion of the day into the last few sightseers' approving view.

But the rains reveal you are austere; enough water to persuade your
pretty pebble to let loose of their sham of a veneer. You are done.

I stand in humanity's circle, showing off my latest braintrust just the same
as ancient Moab and Dibon, its royal city. Here's the thing, we who sing
our praises through the summer until the rains of revelation expose our
bling as nothing more than drug store trinkets, we will thirst in the dust
if we do it long enough.

Come down from your heights, you boaster of National rights;

Start the hike today, off the mountain; do not delay, your boast is only
brighter balloons filled with the same gas as the names you've claimed
are behind every conspiracy. You are the tyranny you decry.
Your hunger to be right is the heresy that prevents tomorrow's meal
from gracing a family so hungry their faces are smeared messy after
the feast.

Dust and Thirst

Dust and Thirst

(“Come down from your lofty place and sit in the dust.” Jeremiah 48:18a)

You sit in your dust and you laugh as if you drink all day from
a tap of crystal liquid; so cool your burning eyes assume all will be
healed under the flow of its spring.

You bivouacked a place higher than your enemies,
you set up camp to display your long stature, your tall statues,
your walls which shine with whitewash sheen. In the desert you
can pretend all summer and nearly all autumn as well; the veneer is

smeared upon the stacked rubble walls. You stole the shimmer from
mica and polished bronze in angles to reflect the sun's long rays
for the fat portion of the day into the last few sightseers' approving view.

But the rains reveal you are austere; enough water to persuade your
pretty pebble to let loose of their sham of a veneer. You are done.

I stand in humanity's circle, showing off my latest braintrust just the same
as ancient Moab and Dibon, its royal city. Here's the thing, we who sing
our praises through the summer until the rains of revelation expose our
bling as nothing more than drugs store trinkets, we will thirst in the dust
if we do it long enough.

Come down from your heights, you boaster of National rights;

Start the hike today, off the mountain; do not delay, your boast is only
brighter balloons filled with the same gas as the names you've claimed
are behind every conspiracy. You are the tyranny you decry.
Your hunger to be right is the heresy that prevents tomorrow's meal
from gracing a family so hungry their faces are smeared messy after
the feast.