One Moment to Breathe Free

One Moment to Breathe Free

 

I know the rhythm of life you yearned for;
I know how you longed to hear the voice that
allowed you to begin again. Apart from
the notions of unity there was the constant motion
that pulled you apart from life as you chose it.

I know how you wish it all would evaporate;
I know how your brain runs backwards from night
until day. Every situation feels like an uncrossable ocean;
every moment like sand dunes void of life.

A single day goes by that allows you to breathe and
you think it is over, that the hours could be sunny
and alive. But it lasts only a moment until
the abusive memories enter like arrows
through your heart.

You wish there were hugs that lasted forever,
but you wince at the thought of the touch of a hand.
You wish you could speak the deepest part of you;
you wish you could be heard for all that you are worth.

Years of pain have eroded your joy. Laughter
feels so uncommon that you question anything that
makes you smile. Convinced you do not deserve
even the simplest pleasure,
you go about trying to please everyone else with
tongue-tied fervor. There came a point where
every thought was called an illness, every need
a mental weakness until you were convinced
you walked unworthy of the things you needed the most.

How can I listen better; how can I gently hold this
place where you can safely say what you have not
said in ages. You do not need to be appropriate with me;
you don’t have to guard your words or your wants.

I would stand beside you, hold you, give you all the
time you need
to open those scary thoughts that make you feel unloved.
I would kiss away the pain, embrace your quivering heart
and tell you, until you can repeat it from memory,
that you deserve love, you deserve affection, you
deserve the gentle touch that only wants to
bring a smile or dry the tears you sometimes hide
so no one will know.

I feel your days go by; I know your fluttering
memories. I would give you a sky clear of clouds
and full of love. I would remind you the
moment you forget that
you deserve it all.
You deserve it all.
And the color of love might just fill your
face again. Here now,
let me kiss away the doubts and warm
you like a summer day even though
midwinter stays. I would give you anything,
I would offer you everything to give you
just one moment to breathe free and hopeful.
You deserve it all.
You deserve it all.

Small Things

 Small Things

(“If you receive this child in my name,” he said, “you receive me. And anyone who receives me, receives the one who sent me. Whoever is the least among you—that’s the one who is great.” Luke 9:48)

They started well, like an evening stroll through the forest,
like a dog greeting its owner, like a baby laughing out loud
for the very first time. But things expanded, they got bigger,
they demanded more attention shown to the leaders who started
out lying on cushions and now were seated on thrones.

It all got away from us; we got caught up in the hype that
everything we prayed for would make everything bigger than
we could ever imagine. And for a while, it worked. For a while
we convinced ourselves that the more obedience we demanded
the less bitter the future would be. We put our faces down to make
sure we toed the line and never stopped asking questions of the unaligned
who were a beat too slow when we sang our decorated hymns they
should have known.

We could have waited for them to learn the tunes,
to hum them unworded to start. We could have slowed it
all down but we had more people pounding down the doors
to get their next fix of what we advertised week to week.
We promised new songs given by the spirit,
we promised good health while they waited in line.
They crowded in to hear us pontificate about the triggers
that forced us to send them out against immediate enemies.
We grew, oh how we grew, like a creeping vine in midsummer.

We forgot all about the toddlers sleeping on Sunday.
We let the baby stay awake and left her at home.
We shushed the children who giggled too often,
we muted the questions the preteens asked too precisely.

We missed the wide-eyed fascination with canticles of faith.
We forgot how tiny voices could stay in our minds long after
the sermons drifted away.

We called for dedication, but left discernment aside.
We relied on lofty pronouncements when the truth was among
pint-sized.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the treasure we find in
cast aside converts who attempted to backslide. We doomed them
like the choking black of a moonless night.

But their story is truer. Their words full of life.
Their questions childlike, and their laughter
more holy than a dozen hallelujah shouted
full-throat by everyone in the balcony.

No Time for Questions

 

No Time for Questions

(“So Mary and Martha sent someone to tell Jesus, ‘Lord, your dear friend Lazarus is sick.’” John 11:3)

I read the letter halfway to home,
and finished it arriving in the driveway. There were
requests I could not fulfill,
anxiety I could not quell. But I knew love,
the old love,
the complete love that befriends nearly everyone
with a heart wide open like the North Dakota plains.

How many friends did you have, how many did you
cover with blankets of warm summer evening comfort?

Even now there are loved ones whose breath is shortened
by the unwelcome infections of dis/ease. Even now,
at the end of the letter, are the pleas for presence
and the possibility of miracles. Anything can happen,
any time the pressure can ease around the bed of the
frail and beloved friend.

Even now the street lights beckon, leading me home.
Even then the questions spun like uncertain diagnoses
and breakfast bringing up the last part of the morning.
No one ate that day, no one could. Everyone cried,
everyone revived their hope that this would not be the ending.

We pulled up next to the house, we heard the crying
over the lumbering engine. We cried too, how could we refuse;
there were tears from the front door to the kitchen and turning sharply
to the dimmed room halfway down the hall.

We opened the door, and we knew the sickness together.
We left extra late and arrived slightly early. We sat with
the illness speaking between us. It was certain that death
had filled the room and smirched our hopes. Taking his hand
we implored mightily, joined our voices with the others crying
for your vitality. But your breath faded, slow, one or two
lungfuls left. Your heart listened until the final groggy beat.

Where was he, the miracle worker? How did I get there before
he arrived? What would come of tomorrow with our friend
all but dead? What faith could we borrow once he was entombed?
His sisters had sat with him the whole long day. And now they
exhaled a breath they had held for nearly four days long. The
tomb was ready. The time was now. And I offered to wrap him
in strips of linen for the friends to carry him to the grave.

We cried because he could have been saved. We had seen the
chosen
one
cure even worse maladies and late. Why wasn’t he here,
why did he delay. We had no time for questions. It was time
to lay him on the bier and try to sleep the night away.

Just When Everyone Else Is Walking Away

Just When Everyone Else Is Walking Away

(“But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” Luke 22:69)

Empires are threatened by authority that wields its power
like dying. Rulers rage at the gentle grace that sits upon
the face of those who have learned, at the sharp side of the spear,
that military parades are the antichrist in a world desperately needing peace.

The Son of Man, the human one, the person no one understands,
will always be the one brought before courts with made-up charges
from the cream of the crop.

The accusations fly and Satan laughs and dances: That man told us
to stop paying taxes.
That man is misleading so many people of our nation.
That man says we shouldn’t give anything to Caesar.
That man says he is a king!

The empire implodes. The purveyors of propriety pull their hair,
the strong men grab their whips to teach a lesson or two that the
Teacher
needs to learn.

They thought to sit him down and shut him up,
they encouraged every false claimer to speak up,
they needed charges, false ones, accusations grown of
discontent and jealousy. They needed to rid the nation of
this threat to their good way of life. Follow this man and our
whole reason for existence could be ruined. Mute him;
forever.

You will never see the power of the divine until you
contemplate the splintery stake upon which Jesus sat.
You will never understand the dream of God until you
study the way the Son of Man ruled from a cross meant for
shame: humiliation: death: In those moments you may receive
illumination that God’s power is not like human kings who
write out executive orders to rid the land of more uneasy people
of color.

God’s throne is not golden, it is not gilded in precious jewels,
it is not at the end of a royal carpet with warriors holding up
the corners. God’s throne is among the jesters who know how
shame can bring rain that washes all the dust away. They are the
ones who started to tell the truth when kings thought they must be gods.

No one ever knew, and many still do not, that God is no king, but is
a servant. That the Son of Man is not a destroyer, but a giver. And
it is time to know kingly edicts can only come from crosses of pain
that remind us that we have been forgiven again and again. And the
Son cries, “Father forgive, for they have no idea what they are doing.”
And the jesters dance just when everyone else is walking away.

Love Songs for Everyone

Love Songs for Everyone

(“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33)

Demonizing immigrants is not doing anything
for the kingdom of God.
Vilifying gays does not accomplish God’s dream
for the world.
Letting the poor in,
but insisting they sit where they cannot be seen,
is from a kingdom of this world, a kingdom headed by
a Satan who only wants to discredit God’s grace.
Letting the mentally challenged have a place,
but insisting they better never become ushers,
misses everything that God has ever dreamed.

Seek the dream, the one where every tribe, nation,
language, and ethnic group, every sexuality, every
bisected economy of the poor, rich or medial are one;
seek the kingdom, where God is happy that
uncommon odors cannot deny a teenager a place
in the celebration of grace. Open wide the gates,
and do not lock them again. Throw open the windows
and let the unbridled joy seep into the neighborhood.
Let it waft into kitchen windows of those who
wondered why they were never invited. Let it whisk
around the room like Thanksgiving pie baked hours
before its partaking. Let the words learn holy silence.
Let the words learn that tongues do not need to wag.
Let the words learn the happy sound when someone finds
their way to our group who knows nothing of our niceties.

Open your arms wide, learn their faces, repeat their names,
invite them for lunch, sit with their children, play their games,
roll the tonka trucks for the littles to roll back. Tell the adults
there is no qualification for our little group. Some of us
are not sure what we think about God these days. Some of us
are undeterred and couldn’t be moved from faith by the worst
calamity possible. Some are CEOs, some are dishwashers,
some are behind on their rent, some own their homes outright.
But together we are a dream come true, a dream formulated
in eternity past, in the heart of God. A dream that sees the kingdom
full of every possible extraction and opinion.

I’ve been poor, I’ve been broke, I’ve been okay, I’ve been saved.
I’ve been well-off, not really rich. I’ve been waiting to be a part
of something like this.
There are no greater riches than the grace we find hidden
in the lives we once had bidden adieu to. Isn’t it time to
hear their stories, affirm their humanity, celebrate the divine
that dwells in them as certainly as we think it does in us?
Isn’t it time that our worship is simply full of
love songs for everyone.

You Don’t Know How to Dance?

 You Don’t Know How to Dance?

(“Everyone was rejoicing and making sacrifices to God in their great joy.” Nehemiah 12:43b)

You’ve told me you don’t know how to dance,
but I don’t believe you. We were all meant to
move along this planet with undetected rhythms
that rhyme with our heart.

I know the songs bubble like champagne
when you think of your children in the sun
and your mother, the central one,
and your father, departed too soon and too long.

I know the songs are sad sometimes,
I’ve heard you sing them, and I have cried too.
I know the songs are silent as clouds,
soothing as breezes touching the trees,
and punctuated with laughter when kittens
upend the day, or a daughter makes it play
with the box the mail came in.

You’ve told me you don’t know how to dance,
and I still don’t believe you. The earth and sky
have taken a chance on you today
and are waiting for your face, shining like the sun,
to find a private space where maybe the frogs keep time
and robins fill the air with melodies between the
garden and the pond.

I know the songs are choking sometimes, the pain
sticks in our throats sometimes. And that’s when,
with your permission,
I’ll chime in and finish the lines that you cannot.
And then, gaining our composure (or not)
We’ll sing that last refrain together (there is no other
audience that the spirit wind)
and let the holy mixture of laughter and tears
create a space where we forget our troubles
for just a moment. And know, in the next pang of trouble,
we can go there again.

Holy Mosaic

Holy Mosaic

(“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:4)

Everyone wore the same standard-issue smiles,
the aisles were filled with processed cheeses and
pressed meats of the day. The truth is, though no one
knew it,
we all wanted it that way.

There were always a few more fascinated with
ethnic groceries. There were always some who
came simply for the stories.
Why not sit on the wooden steps eating a
bahn mi
and listening to the prayer call from the mosque
only a few blocks away. There were a few
who knew they could hear the lilt of the Spirit;
still and slightly reverberating in dialects they
could not recall.

Everyone reacted to the suggestion that
the Spirit transcends religion. Everyone favored
style over substance. Some wanted soups,
others mosaics. Some wanted melting pots,
others orchestras. The Spirit

Blew in from all corners. She inhabited
the air in restaurants and alleys. She filled
soon and later with breath that
brightened eyes and rainbowed kitchens.
She always showed up.

There were always a few who did the dishes
inspired. Laughter and splashing just happened
to be the language they had agreed upon. The
Spirit danced gleefully.

It Never Felt Like Leaving

 

It Never Felt Like Leaving

(“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms on account of My name, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29)

It never felt I had left a thing. Perhaps it was how
lovers leave to follow pink cloud dreams that cushion the
harshest gravel path.

Oh, I gave up a few things: movies, wine, bread for the poor,
children’s birthday parties and overnight escapes with my wife.
Staying put felt like the biggest part of leaving to me.

I walked away from double Christmases with my mother
and kindly worded letters to my dad. I turned my back on
any false thing,
any thing but the true religion.

But on a day that took two decades to rise to noonday brilliance,
I walked away to the desert (with plenty of overnight time with
my wife who turned directions with me in a dizzying display of grace).

Winter can numb the senses like no other season,
but shines in its shortened days upon a soul so tired
it begs to find new stories outside the wooden cathedrals.
Bundled in parkas and embracing the Grand Canyon, we knew
something
about snow, about strata, about time and about Abba’s house;
his footstool and his throne.

This time I owned it, the departing without knowing. This time we
roamed and a little knowledge turned us around toward home.
I will not lie to you, not now, about how I scratched the floorboards,
tore the bedsheets, roared at the heavens, and cursed the silence when
I wanted poetry and letters, prophecy and better words than
“You’ll do just fine.” I was not fine.

I know some see my journey and wring their hands. Others, without
due consideration, dismissed my plans (although, dismissing nothing
leaves us where we began.) I never departed the Lover that first
romanced me. But his words and his houses, his princes and lords
were mute and puzzled with the discord roaring from a fearful, damaged and
defenseless heart.

That two-score day was my exodus. As I left, I met the dearest of
the Ages
in the daily labyrinth of cement suburbs where children laugh,
or the wilderness where butterflies kissed bluebonnets to take my
tears away.

Like Job, I questioned everything, and some friends suspected me of
(well, heresy). And now I write, not hearing everything. But the
turtle doves are the jazz in the background and my song has
abandoned warfare and sings
the Prince of Peace for which I would abandon everything.