Love Your Neighbor

Love Your Neighbor

(“For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself.” 1 Corinthians 11:29)

With the grease of roast lamb running down your beard
and the newest wine filling your gut
you decided you wanted to tell me about Christ.
You pushed ahead so that nothing was left save
a few crusts of bread and the vinegar squeezed from some grapes.
You carried your gun tucked into the back of your belt;
I gave me sword away years ago.
You took the seat no one else took; you sat at the head
of every table you found.
You left the floor for the waiting poor, you left the door
open
so they could leave quickly. The cold night air stung
those sitting so close to the door ajar.

I heard there was a day (haven’t seen it yet)
I’ve heard there is a dream (haven’t held it yet)
I’ve heard of family (haven’t felt it yet)
I heard there was a meal (the richest served first).
I dared not raise my voice,
I shrunk even further behind the children you pushed
to the back of the line. I had been waiting to
enjoy a meal with humans just like me.
I had no double-breasted suit to wear,
I had few coins to cash in on my attendance,
I had few words to demonstrate I was part of the family,
I had left my voice behind the last time a church like yours
told me I was welcome

And then ignored my hopes,
teased my dreams,
and left me behind while you schmoozed with
the pastor and his wife.

I know my car has seen better days,
I know my jeans are torn,
I know my kids don’t always behave,
I know that Jesus told me to love my neighbor

And I’m trying. I only wish you would
love your neighbor
too.

The Girl from Ukraine

The Girl from Ukraine

(“He that eats and drinks carelessly is eating and drinking a judgment on himself, for he is blind to the presence of the Lord’s body.” 1 Corinthians 11:29 [J.B. Phillips])

The basements were bomb shelters,
the children cowered in corners,
the bombs sucked the oxygen from
the streets where lovers met for coffee
outside the restaurants.
And tyrants light candles to prove their orthodoxy.

The father and mother,
twin children a month old,
were taken from their tinies, leaving orphans
when a madman thought the dirt belonged to him.
And in the scratchy streets people lined up to take
the children home. Not for a night. Not for a month.
Not until children’s services showed up.
But for the length of family.

She had spent five years in Seattle, but was Ukraine
through and through.
She knew English, she knew her country,
she came back in the middle of cluster bombs and
concrete parking garages melting in the heat of
one man’s rage.
Her skin jumped off her body every time
another siren sounded. And all she wanted was
to have her loved ones around her. Her loved ones
had been canceled by the menace of demonic claims
to borders and nothing else.

Nothing ever changes, everything remains the same,
we are cursed to repeat the hubris that puts people in their place.
We do not know how to love the person close at hand
who believes Black Lives Matter, or transgenders deserve
life without snide remarks about bathrooms and penises.
We will not listen to the agonized voicings of Anthems
proclaiming equality and dignity.
We are smug and smokey when we name eunuchs devilish
dangers to God. We strangle the speech that only desires
to love our neighbor by wearing a mask that holds back the
virus that might infect their loved ones. We are ignoring

The body before us.
The body just like Jesus bore before us.
We are static when we should sing the chorus
that all God’s children’s got wings.

And the girl from Ukraine who knew the
Pacific Northwest,
only desires that, if we see the blue sky above us,
we should simply
cherish it.