The Appropriate Fashion

The Appropriate Fashion

(“What good is there in your saying to them, ‘God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!’—if you don't give them the necessities of life?” James 2:1
6)

If only you would wear the appropriate fashions,
if only you had proof of your labor,
we might hear what you are saying,
we might ride that wave with you.
But first impressions have caught us in the undertow.

Here is some macaroni and cheese from our potluck,
oh, and an old shirt used as a rag I found in the storage closet.
We have five acres and three thousand square feet but,
not a single place to lay your head, not a single place
for a temporary home.

We must be responsible. What if you steal everything.
And God know, if our insurance caught wind,
we would pay through the nose to treat you well.
We don’t know your background, but we are pretty sure,
from the way you smell, you’ve been smoking that weed again.
You can’t fool us,
we are not children.

I must hurry back upstairs, the worship team is starting to play.
There is a seat near the back I think, right behind the sound booth.
(All he wants to hear is something that sounds like truth.)
All we want to give are tickets to heaven,
all we donate goes into the plate to keep the lights on and
inflate the pastor’s pocket. (Although all he wants is to help
people like you.)

“People like me? What do you mean? I did not schedule this visit.
Someone told me I would be welcomed today.”

Yes, but you need to leave the same time everyone else is dismissed.
We have a long list of ways our charity has been enlisted once a
month
on the third Wednesday of the month.

Stay warm until, and here is some cornbread to take wherever
you lay your head. We’re sorry, but we simply have no accommodations

Here.

She Dressed Her Soul Well

 

She Dressed Her Soul Well

(“Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.” 1 Samuel 2:19)

Habits are the vestments of the soul. Every holiday
we knew
a card would show up in our mailbox,
a day before Thanksgiving,
a week before Christmas.
Birthdays and anniversaries
a card would arrive with the address inscribed
by an unshaking and elegant hand.
Always signed in love and always sent in
a colored envelope to suit the occasion.
Even when we moved a thousand miles away,
there in a borrowed mailbox we picked up cards
from a saint who had practiced the artful habit.

I do not know how many thought of us in our exile,
perhaps dozens, perhaps every day, perhaps with tears,
perhaps hoping to say they wish they had done more.

But one, with a habit nurtured with 80 years of life
sent us air for our lungs,
hope and steady friendship
sealed in simple paper.

How long had she sent friends and pastors,
nieces and nephews,
children now adults,
the hope that someone still remembered,
the smile at seeing the same signature
of someone who adopted armfuls and never
forgot them
through deserts of Decembers?

She has dressed her soul well
though she would never think
a mere pen, paper and calendar
could ever make a fashion statement
noticed by anyone.

Fashion

Fashion

(“On the hems of the robe they worked pomegranate designs of blue, purple, scarlet and fine twined linen.” Exodus 29:24)

Imagine my fashion stitched with sunshine,
catching each ray like a reflection of a full moon’s eye,
shadows form faces, dunes scribble delicious etchings
on the fabric alive with only summer’s smile.

Imagine the harvest-wear, a sort of off-the-rack
repertoire of salad and fruit. Style plucked fresh
from the vines and trees, spun and weaved
like fragrance within each strand.

Imagine the dress that must be reaped to please,
the shirt gleaned daily, attired like
Sunday on the back of a newly pressed day.

Imagine the taste required to offer a collection
of new-mint and plum-fresh scent
that said more than bells clanging metal to metal.

What if what we wore were the products of
the flower’s last petal, and the fruit’s final
full and ripe day upon the vine.

In Fashion

“See, I come like a thief. Blessed is the alert one who takes care of his clothes so he need not go around naked and people see his shame.” Revelation 16:15

One of my recurring dreams as a youngster was going to school and realizing I was still in my pajamas. Sometimes I was even naked in the dreams. I hear it’s a fairly common theme, dreaming of the embarrassment of showing up somewhere either with the wrong clothing, or none at all.