Enfleshed

Enfleshed

(“For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him.” Colossians 2:9-10a)

I once thought you were so elusive that
I needed to deprive my body to find you.
I wished for hours filled with supernatural encounters
and only found silent noise. I heard so many stories
of weeks spent fasting to find epiphanic endings.
I only found
my hunger increasing opposite to my bold resolutions.

I collected invisible souvenirs; I deposited hours of
agony and fears. Why did I ever think you demanded
so much of me for so little return?
I ached for visions and enlightened dreaming, only to
wake from stops and starts that halted my sleeping.

Now I think I see you in every grain of sand;
I taste you in every sip of water. I remember you wore
skin just like I wear skin; your feet ached like mine do
at the end of a day.

I was afraid to be alone; the emptiness frightened me.
I bargained with begging chips and cried in ways so
hard to explain. I expected to hear voices in the dark,
and see angels singing with words I could understand.

I still hate loneliness, I still sting from too much solitary time.
But I am finding you wrapped around the scars that, if I
may say,
were entirely self-inflicted.

Embodied, you are. Human and fully. A habitation
wholly enfleshed. Sacred flesh and blood.

You were never obscure, were you? Though I thought you
demanded I catch up with you, you singled me out
and found me in the middle of my unanswered questions.
Filling me before I asked, embracing me though I thought
I was a myriad of miles away.

Rolled Up on the Couch

Rolled Up on the Couch

(“We were made like that man of earth, so we will also be made like that man of heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:49)

My feet are cold standing on the floor,
the thermostat is working, I just set it too low.
What I would give for a larger footprint
that kept me warmer while the rains plot patterns
in the mud.
I woke up early, two minutes I think, and I napped
for an hour waiting to write. My head aches,
the same as it has for 17 years and I wonder when
I will ever be able to jump for joy again.
I don’t mean to sound self-occupied or whiny,
I don’t mean to take all the attention.
But I’d rather be back in the middle of things
thinking I made a difference or two. Instead, I’m
holed up,
rolled up on the couch waiting for the echoes
to pass like yesterday’s thunder. I’m waiting to
play something experimental, keyboard configurations
of things so stable they are candidly spotted under
timed-sequences of tune. I want to cross over on
the bridge to another beginning, an angelic singing
of possibilities. I want to say it without feeling
damaged, but the past catches up with me, the future
pulls away and presently I am stuck inside a
cyclone of consequences that I’ve almost owned.
I’ve left most of my justifications on the side of the road.
One day I will not sink beneath the weight of pain,
I will rise above this gravity’s habits of resistance,
and simply be wrapped up like I once was before
I placed my feet on the floor wanting warmer mornings
and longer passages of joy.

Tides of Geese

Tides of Geese

(“But I, the Lord, will protect you, and you will not be handed over to the people you are afraid of.” Jeremiah 39:17)

I am afraid my tears have been misquoted,
my silence has been soaked in
new translations before the ink runs.
But no matter, I cannot interpret the
chaos that wanders in and out of me.

Because we do not comprehend the
quarter tones that descend from Tibetan hills
they pass like granite beyond our ears and into the
western fields where
flocks of geese land to lunch. We walk by
and do not notice the way they occupy the open space
as if they own it.

They were like the seafoam-on-sand that displaced
my toes,
then fills the depressions left behind.
I step toward them, they turn and move as one,
safely several feet from me, then, as I pass,
turn and take their positions again.
They are the tide, and I am the anti-moon.

Their feet and mine are glued to the same earth.
The heavy air coats us all, dew-like just outside of
the winter’s grasp.

When I said I was afraid, I did not mean I shiver.
But to explain my tears is like spinning tales of
Greek tragedy so dense you would yawn and look for
an exit from my meander. You would tip your hat,
take your leave, and wander to see if the geese have
yet mounted the winds.
And I am left with untold stories. I would strip them
bare,
though,
unwinding the embellishments and leaving nothing but
a storyline so familiar that the denouement is discerned from the
first staccato vowel.

Christ is all around me.
He is around you too.
I am not the middle.
And neither are you.

Christ is all around us,
In the tears, songs and dust.
We are not the ending.
The beginning is trust.

Skipping a Beat

Skipping a Beat

(“For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed.” Acts 28:27a)

How long will we lock ourselves into
concrete cells,
midnight caverns,
armed boundaries where we shoot
on sight and ask no questions?
How long will we delight in
creating enemies,
launching missiles,
holding on to land that belongs
to no one? Why do we draw
butcher knife lines?
Why do we nail signs to the wall
that keep people out on the coldest
night of the winter?
Why do we aim at targets
only to practice
shedding blood on the property we
say we own?

The end will not come because
you are chosen;
the apocalypse is below your feet.
The second coming is the defeat of
death, of idiotic killing, of insanity
unleashed in the name of allegiance and
national anthems. The match you lit,
the tiny flame,
sets the wilderness on fire while you speak
of holy things. You utter sacred words like
they are your private language.

There are better prayers. Leave the
hell behind, the place you have consigned for
oh
so
many who never said an
unkind word about you.

Father forgive us, and we know this is dangerous,
just like we have forgiven those we believe have
never forgiven us.

Standing aside for just one day, maybe we
can pack every imagined target away. Maybe
we can invite the opponent to stay for the evening,
drink wine late into the night,
and let the cool spirit breezes flow like
music through our souls again.

We Had to Pause

We Had to Pause

(“The Lord God is my strength. He will give me feet like a deer and make me leap along the high hills.” Habakkuk 3:19)

The pace slowed as the day grew longer,
the sprints stole our breath. We were ivy
learning to climb. Taught to keep time by
the beat of rushing headlines we were worn
out from
chasing deadlines that killed our wonder.

We had to pause.
We took meals cooked by campfire,
we drank streams slowly as we dissolved into
the slower tempo of mountain hikes.
We had to waves as faces became clearer
becoming fascinated by freckles, hairlines, and
cheeks streaked with mud. We wanted to
memorize the eyes that saw us, record the way
they translated stillness into passion.

We had to hear.
And that meant dismantling stadiums full of
applause, raiding the meadows to steal a
song so unrehearsed we finally felt human.
We were the lucky ones who happened to cry
when stumbling on sounds, when doves whispered
and babies cooed.

When our breath slowed we could listen between
the beats of our heart. When our feet hurt we learned
to stop and tell stories before the next bend on the trail.

Did You Choose Your Suffering?

 

Did You Choose Your Suffering?

(“Even if he killed me, I’d keep on hoping. I’d defend my innocence to the very end.” Job 13:15 [The Message])

“Did you choose your suffering?”

He read the old fan letter again. The words seemed
a continent away. It was one envelope among many,
and the question haunted him for all its implications.

“Do you think you suffer more than others?”

And his cheeks grew red, his forehead hot at
the words that, worlds away, exploded from
the page like serpent’s teeth.

“Do you know your suffering offends me?”

His fingernails itched, he reached for
the medicine, the resin that filled the fissures in his skin.
He could not put the letter away.

“I’ve meant to tell you for a long time.”

His feet shook, the foundations crumbled at
the sentence he knew was to come. He had read it
far too often.

“Did you know I was healed from head to toe?”

His brain sent spears across his temple
while his face burned with a pain that never
healed. And he prayed.

Do you know me? Do you?
Do you hear me? Will you?
Put your head on my heart.
Put you hand on my hand.
Touch my lips with the first light of dawn.
Let me know, through word or warmth,
that there is more to you,
to me,
than what you think you see
through time-locked eyes.
Come be the size of me
when the questions loom larger
than proofs and theorems can answer.

“Did you, though? Did you choose your suffering?”

Perhaps I Will Hear a Voice

 

Perhaps I Will Hear a Voice

(“Then she stood behind Jesus’ feet, crying, and began to wet his feet with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” Luke 7:38)

I.

What no one knew is that I would
have stayed there all afternoon.
Perhaps they assumed I had grown weary
of mud on my feet; so very tired that I
had thrown everything away they though I believed.

II.

I heard your voice in a dream last night,
a voice I had not heard in forty years.
It sounded just the same as I remember,
only it was me-in-the-dream that heard the words
and not my waking ears. Still,
something was broken and
something healed
at careless sentences and curious
memories. There were fevers and living room corners,
my brother and the one high school class we shared;
was it world history?

So many question my departure; so many minimize my pain.
I am sorry that I had to dig so deeply into the archaeology of
my dreams
to hear easy laughter from the wrong side of religion.
I have no idea where you have gone, but I can find others
without trying
who have dismissed the crying in my soul. And, as in
all dreams, you were not you,
you were me,
and met my ache with simplicity.

III.

What no one knew is that I could
stay here forever.
Though they cleverly reeled me in to
their angry godless Jesus,
I can only fall awake-asleep,
and weep,
and repent for salting his feet
with my tears.

And now my heresy grows
as I stay where I can never leave.
He has reduced me to essence only.
It is lonely here. Perhaps I will hear a voice
awake I recognize from down the years
tomorrow or today. I still break,
I still heal,
I still have stories I am not allowed
to tell.

But I have stayed in the place where
my stories are safe, my proofs are optional,
and the voice I hear is spoken in things
more solid than

Dreams

or

Doctrines.

Shoes on the Beach

 

Shoes on the Beach

(“The Captain of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take your shoes off your feet. For the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:15)

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no ones hears you coming on the cold winter sand.
You can watch the waves, foamy stars; you can stand
for days before time reminds you of the friends
who once watched with you.

There are no duties on the beach
and no one makes you take up arms against enemies.
You can breathe the mist, salty wine; you can leave
the future as you memorize the driftwood at your feet.
Smooth, white, gray and light; you wonder its origin
and family tree.

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no one cares about sand or mud-caked toes. As
the world turns the sun toward down humanity thins
as the horizon is crowned. Perhaps the unknown few
will warm the chill, earthy flames; perhaps they will
let the sea touch their ankles, the fire touch their hearts
and slowly discern the holy love circulated without.

Within.

Our Feet Were Sore

Our Feet Were Sore

(“They camped at the Lord's command, and they set out at the Lord's command." Numbers 9:23a)

We heard voices like people playing with faces
in the sand.
We were precise in our aims and missed the landscapes
where electricity was untamed. We knew what we knew,
and ignored what was created outside our myopic view.

We loved to camp on the traces of history,
we drew our lineage to boats from the east. We were
manifestly destined for this
with our gunpowder and bibles;
we determined who was savage by
the primitive campfires they lit.

We were poor, but not poor enough.
We were sure, like heads, not tails,
on our coins. We inscribed our mottos
in latin.

We looked for God and found him at the
end of our weapons. We won, we thought,
when we would not see what we not-knew.

Then we blamed it on infidels, we pulled our wagons tight;
the circle was broken, though, when what hemmed us in
kept out the light, the love of another whose horses
were wilder than the mannerly company we kept.

We saw the smoke descend like a cloud and vowed we
would destroy it again, this darkness we thought was a
stranglehold on everything our DNA screamed must be.
We heard the fire rise from the camp like lighthouse bells
that toll safe harbor and toothy waves. We tried to
quench it,
wrench it from the coast
where its beacon invited the scraps of clippers and sailors
we wanted to keep out.

Cloud and fire, when will we follow so closely
that our own desires are swallowed by the flaming cloud
of love divine,
and call, yes, announce, proclaim it all a dance of love
in dark and light. Our feet were sore from conquest anyway.

Only Sleeping

Only Sleeping

(“Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping in faith…” Romans 4:18a)

He had crossed the country too many times to do it again,
his feet were tired, his head was framed by every new start he
made by faith.

He traveled north when he was young to finally learn to
sell skis,
pray a little,
preach a little,
and wonder at the slow-motion snow that hung in the trees.

And, traveling south only six months in, He traded in denim and
polyester mid 70s; alone and waiting for his bride. She waited for him
while he tried to pick up electromagnetic signals from God. They wed
and fled their reception to catch Carol Burnett. He never loved anyone more,
nor deserved anyone less.

A year later, figuring God knew his language, he convinced his bride that
east was the direction
of faith this time. Oklahoma, where women never wear pants to church,
and mixed bathing is forbidden. Girls first, then boys, would take their turns
at the church camp swimming holes. He traded in suits and silk, but soon,
without deserving the position or the place, he pastored teens all the time,
and built a place where kids never wore out their welcome and
toilet paper dotted the trees.
But he had to leave. Exposed by darkness, he left the practice,
and traveled west once again.

Soundwaves are full of time and faith. Amplitude and frequency
sometimes surround a heart so ungraciously that not much matters
except tuning in to the jazz station that makes you dance, or the blues that
makes you cry. I didn’t know why hope was so divided from faith.

Yet the faith rose above the muck, and still in the Golden State,
he traded in music and youth; an assistant to a Shepherd, and a
frightened young man with a mystic’s heart. Love would dart
in and out
even when his faith was too heavy to float. He always hoped faith
would ease and erase the secret longings that lashed his thoughts
to little but fear.

He honed his craft; Christmas, Easter and Midsummer Mania. Teens and grandmas
were his closest friends. Only in an unguarded moment would he express
his inhibitions about policy, polity, severity and faith. He hardly admitted
he rarely lived up to his own expectations or hope for relief. But
the electromagnetic call drew him Northeast this time. 

Why would anyone
follow God (or any other being) to the frigid plains of North Dakota? But there,
among the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara he found his home. He danced
every round dance,
nearly danced the jingle dress,
and prayed as Little Shell started his favorite Pow Wow of the year.
He adopted moms and sisters, brothers made him their brother. He golfed with
Musky and could never match his tan. Days were filled with joy; books lined
his schedule from first to last. Nights called him urgently; an overdose, a spirit,
a break-in. An infant’s
death. He should have stayed longer. He should have made it his home.
Whether he mistook the signals or God had other plans; he moved on
with Fort Berthold a living memorial in his heart.

Though North Dakota filled two decades, his feet slipped on the ice
more than once.
And two churches later, a hundred families later, a circle of confusion and
ferocious love swept him away like the outer winds of a hurricane. Never
had he loved a state, felt his place, felt at home, or laid cornerstones
like the way North Dakota named him among their own.

But the wires get crossed, and we trip over the cables on the pavement. West
invited us back, and into its grand Pacific North we landed on the banks of the
Columbia. From the church’s steps the seals were heard, barking for more scraps
from the fishermen. Children danced, children asked if there was potluck,
children sang inappropriate tunes, children brought the poor seeker’s heart back
to life again.

Where are you, faith, when the world explodes inside our head? Was it the long journey,
the constant tripping, the stumbling downstairs or the frightening stares of people I knew
must know what I knew about me? Or was God just done with me? Or was God at all?
A dozen years we loved a river village, over a decade the pain invaded and broke into
my brain like a hundred icy spikes on some days, and like a molten helmet of lead
on others. Never a day without fear. Never a day without my ears ringing and the
tv shouting, the dog barking and the board meetings slowing to a crawl. I could
not bear the slightest intrusion of sound, but I longed for effusive offers from
friends who heard, who knew, who learned and might bring me a coffee or
a cake or a hug or a teddy bear or a kiss on the forehead or a whole hour unspoken
and
unearned.

But the pain won.

And now we have traveled Southeast again. Texas, dry and long. A year without
a purpose. A year without a friend. A year without someone to make it right again.
Hope against hope sounds more like a handball hitting the wall. A year of walking
circles, a year of waking in pain, a year of begging for someone to hear me, truly hear me
again.

And for all I know (because I do not know, and have no idea), faith may show up when you’re
dreaming in your sleep,
or it may seep through the walls you thought were your prison,
or it may be one simple human who has no idea
what a smile can mean.

So, if you see me lying on the street devoid of faith as you know it,
still and unmoving, my mouth and face covered by the rain,
please do not worry, please do not disturb me,
and understand:
I’m only sleeping.

This Is Not About Me

This Is Not About Me

(“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3)

I promise you, that if my tears were perfume,
the world would smell like roses in the Sahara,
in Siberia, the inner city and the vacant lots.

But they are just salt.

But this is not about me. Pardon me,

But you have seemed a ghost, a zephyr;
like air; no. Hydrogen.

Everywhere (apparently) but so diffuse
you refuse to be held.

I am a sentient being, and sensitive to touch.
You are more famous, yet further than I can reach.

Many have left you for less than this,
and I sweat and shiver filled with longing,
tissue and regret.

But they are just water.

But this is not about me. Forgive me,

But I’ve emptied the wells of my eyes on a thousand
carpeted altars,
unloaded my life on your shoulders and
unfolded every ridge in my brain like
the San Andreas Fault.

I feel your cross daily laid across my back,
I choke on the dank cavern of the tomb,
But the rising, the morning, the third day
evades me, and I seem to loop:
day 1
day 2.

But this is not about me. Revive me,

But I have never prayed hard enough,
obeyed long enough,
or, so it seems, cried well enough
to hear what No Greater Love would say.

Though I cannot find you,
you have confined me to time and space.
Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.

Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.

Crumbs Become

Crumbs Become

(“The two then explained to them what had happened on the road, and how they had recognized the Lord when he broke the bread.” Luke 24:35)

The crust shines amber, simple, steaming, sensual;
the bread once grains, once wheat, once seeds, once wheat again,
awaits the gathered few who have talked the whole road trip long.

The conversations are doubt and wonder,
and long pauses where only the breeze spoke and
opened their hearts.

Sometimes traveling is holy, sometimes it is pilgrimage,
sometimes it is communion, and sometimes it starts as
grief and ends with astonishment. And other times it is
merely the morning commute.

But, recognize it or not, the spaces between us are occupied
by the God who suffers and lives among us. Walking beside
us, stopping between us, days after we thought he was gone
for good.

For our good he suffers, for our hope he slays the monster of death
by his own forbidden way; dying to win. Within the tectonic plates
below our feet and the pulsars exploding above us, outside our perceptions
but closer than the pores on our faces, earth is tied to heaven
in the breaking of the bread.

The day ends slowly, dusk is golden, acquaintances become friends
and extend the invitation to share a meal before separating.
Then the stranger takes the bread like the host of the house,
the weight of dough kneaded by daily labor rests in his hands.
The sun, the earth, the seed, the grain, the ox, the millstone,
the fire and the baker have all conspired to meet at this small table;
an altar in the world.

Breaking it; the aroma fills the room. All is bread once the bread is broken;
salivating, the mouth prepares for ordinary provision.
Blessing it; the necessary response of earth-dwellers who
depend upon heaven.

And in the breaking, the blessing, benediction; in the simple meal
on the earth so full of soil and mud,
we see Christ, our eyes are opened, and crumbs become a
cathedral for those who have seen.

A Little Dusting and Pruning

A Little Dusting and Pruning

(“You know that the day after tomorrow is the day of the Passover Feast. On that day the Son of Man will be given to his enemies to be crucified.” Matthew 26:2)

If the earth had stopped turning, or something even stranger,
we would have noticed it more than the posthole dug
on a Friday morning
awaiting the mixed sounds of mobs and mourning.

Like a thread wound round the earth, a thousand times and more,
the inner coils of an electric motor, the strands have surrounded the
inner core. And so, seas and continents are touched by the cruelest hoax
man thought he had ever devised.

The surefire method to rid the world of madman prophets is to
kill their sorry message with the breaking of their bones and heart.
And, so many succumbed to angry passion, some drank their own poison,
and followers fell at their feet, then drifted, then disappeared like rain clouds
that threatened a month of monsoons.

But, the One, the Son of Man was put down the same way by enemies
who grew religion alongside their houseplants in the windows.
A little water, a little dusting and pruning the dead growth just before
company comes; a faith well-suited for entitled classes who need a way
to keep the masses abated.

But truth is longer than potting soil, heaven deeper than pop-song worship.
And so, before the event upon the next dark Friday, perhaps a child would
kick a clod unknowingly
into the posthole made ready for a dead trunk of a tree
to root for a day while its fruit hung, and slowly dropped in agony.

Few call it victory, all know its name; Calvary, a skull-place is where
hate and sin were defaced by death. For, when He breathed His last,
gave up the spirit and said, “Father, into Your hands
I commit my Spirit”, he carried, in all his ugly scars,
every wound of the world to healing. Yet, unregarded by many,

There are still those who, supposing control is better than conversion,
tend their houseplant daily, keep up appearances, and sway the masses
to war. The Prince of Peace still is weeping.

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.