The Prepared Abode

The Prepared Abode

(“The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” Psalm 145:9)

It’s not over yet, our journey has barely begun.
From packing it all up to fleeing like the sun.
We can follow the ways of the wind,
investigate every sound from burping frogs to
fizzing hummingbirds.
There have been craggy razors on the rocky edges
of the ascent we chose. There are pebbles in
our shoes as we start the way back downward.

Here I am to greet you at the other end of the road.
I’ve been waiting for the announcement that you
are just around the corner.
We both took the long way, didn’t we. We smelled
the dangers in the dust firsthand. We even contemplated
turning back more than once. The nuances of the path
sometimes took us by surprise.

It’s still not over, even after you arrive. We’ll recount
our stories
like vagabonds slogging through our messy investigations
into numerous dangers we dodged and the times we
fainted without cause. We thought we might have to
pay our dues on the overdrafts we wrote against the
skies of patience. But

We arrived finally and understood the haven of rest
that waited our winding trek over trust and uncertainty.
Between here and there we were rejected by
handfuls who has sworn their devotion. The misinterpreted
our detours that took the long way around
their biases and preoccupations.

It’s no over yet, our sojourn will continue I suppose,
walking the world like a drifter counting planets
in the midnight sky. From front to back we knew
we never lacked what pulled us on. We found our
home in the company we kept treading upon the
earth until we discovered the prepared abode.

A Pretty Good Day

A Pretty Good Day

(“Then he said, ‘I tell you the truth. You must change and become like little children. If you don’t do this, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” Matthew 18:3)

Splash is a sound that slaps the salty sidewalks on
summer afternoons. Children take the water seriously,
pointing the hose at the nearest victim. Giggles turn the
corners round the houses of everyone who has come out to see
the joy that fills the street.

They were mostly grandchildren dancing like fountains,
toddlers tasting the sunlight as they hugged the water
spraying over them. They had not learned

(Like so many adults do)

That it feels so much like earning the days that
are given for free. They invite us to misbehave for just
a triangle of time each day.

Children take what is offered, unabashed liberty.
They point the water hose at each other and the liquid
looks like diamonds bouncing off the sod.
The day turns late, the shadows grow long and parents
whistle for children to come home. One more slide down the
wetted grass, one more mouthful of water from the hose,
one more dousing of your crush, and one more towel to
dry everyone off

All in all, it was a pretty good day.
No of a certain age needs to be taught to play.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

(“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of heavenly forces, will be with you just as you have said.” Amos 5:14)

You keep moving the target, you keep changing the rules,
you declare some things illegal and others gifts of gold.
When you based your opinion on third-hand
professional gossip you got lost in the crystalline darkness.
While you laugh I cry that you
have held the truth at arm’s length. And you mock
the prophets who speak showers of rain,
not your disdain for what you cannot understand.

These moments are over like the fading rainbow,
and we do well to remember the colors once the
spectrum has gone from our perception. (Does it
get brighter
the longer we stare?)

So they hijacked 700 without due process,
they commandeered them across the skies
without a clue how many were wrong or right.
And then I hear your voice pronouncing judgment
on them all,
making them guilty, making them criminals,
making them subject to your cartoon caricatures
and two-dimensional portraits. You paint them
all the same.

Sanctuary. We hear the mission bells.
Sanctuary. We hear the widow’s tears.
Sanctuary. We wait the summer sun.
Sanctuary. We wait the promised sage.

Sanctuary, we hear their calls to hear their case,
a place safe enough for their stories to be
safely shared over soup and a bed protected from
the managers of messages who lengthen the shadows.
And we hear the babies gently cooing themselves to sleep.

I Will Come See You Soon

I Will Come See You Soon

(“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” Luke 4:18a)

Brother man, you really set it off when you landed in this town.
“Gospel” was your favorite word,
but people heard with ears so tired it sounded like babble.
“Good News” is what you proposed, echoing the First Igniter
who stood to declare the Story all creation had listened to hear.

You were known for your Harley and Big Bad Bob
your Excitable Boy. (He was named after Bob Marley.)
Four legs and Labrador energy,
he kissed everyone full on the lips while expecting a game
of catch
in the living room.
You bought a sidecar just for your trips through the hills
along
the Columbia river.

The poor were your heartache, the earth was your cause,
the outcasts, oh, let’s be frank, the gays that were kept
from wearing vestments. You walked in their parade. You
collected more canned food than pickups could haul.
You fed a hundred on Christmas, recruited our town’s best
chef. You joined me for Thanksgiving, sometimes just five
around a table.

Every word was like a roman candle, some called you irascible,
others saw only the flames of love. You shall always be
my favorite Lutheran,
and I your favorite lapsed Pentecostal. You called me your pastor,
but it was your friendship I treasured.

You and I, no longer standing behind pulpits, lived only a half mile
from each other. I would turn the corner, stroll past the view where
the river can be seen between the trees, then walk up your driveway,
inside your sliding glass door, and find you watching a classic movie
that you had watched a hundred times before. Oh Brother man, I
have a wife to keep me company. You have no one. Our visitors
are
zero. And I mourn the emptiness you bear.

So I don’t know
if it had to happen this way. But life started to leave
you weary, it leaked from every pore. Your heart, so
over-exposed,
had less than ten percent to give. You coded
four times
in ICU, Covid invaded your lungs and the man
who never canceled a service or appointment
now relied on a tiny cohort of friends. You would
breathe on your own
for the shortest of days.

They call it
comfort care,
and you are feeling no pain. Today the
chaplain
anointed you with oil, your friend standing by
while the nurse disconnected the last tunnel of
oxygen that pumped your lungs full.

Your body was beaten, but your body is tough.
I do not know how long, brother man, before
you expire; slowly, or all at once.

When you do, slide like the ocean breeze into
the slipstream as Christ leads you home. Please
wait for me, I will come see you soon.

War No More

 

War No More

(“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.” Luke 2:14)

 

You were alerted that the sun would rise early the next day,
yet you kept your eyes averted and knelt under shadowy rocks.
How could you miss the noise and thunder,
the voices lifted in wonder, the wings heating the embers
like bellows in fiery love.

And yet, concerted, you asked others to join in your
announcements of doom from stage to stage,
field to field, church to church, and age to age
until we all believed the story was as dark as you
preached it. We read the books, we watched the movies,
we believed the demons, we waited while you continued
unabated in your
end time and end earth talk
of bloody wars and civil conflicts
and reversing elections. God must love you
more than the rest of us to let you in on a thousand
foggy secrets.

You diverted the river of peace; you inverted the love
meant for worldwide jazz combos improvising on
perfection and light. You missed the diamonds
gifted to you in joy, you cast off curses with the
remnants of coal.

I reject your dust and ashes.

There are melodies only heaven can compose,
each solo a thread of the tapestry,
each voice a stone in an eternal mosaic.
But you can’t hear them, you’ve perverted them
into dirges that hang on one dirty note.

While God courts us, we flirt with machines of war.
With peace as the promise we keep drawing our swords
as if one more lopped-off ear would bring a golden age again.

Lay down your burdens, lay them down, down, down;
lay them down by the riverside to

Study war no more.

Tell Us How Good We Are

Tell Us How Good We Are

(“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." Luke 4:18-19)

Yes, please tell us how good we are, how deserving,
we've been observing your rules for decades now.
We've put down uprisings,
scolded the protestors;
Lord knows, we even prayed before we did.

Yes, please tell us about the new good news, how others refused,
but we who dust the pews in your house are you muses,
how we inspire your love and how you dote on us.
Look, we even brought the national flag into your house,
we sanctify, almost deify, the man in the big house who
most of us voted for.
(The others, finally, have walked out the door to some other
place they call church but which I'm sure you haven't frequented
in ages.)

Yes, we know your words are wonderful. They fill us with expectation.
We can't wait to tell more and more about this chosen generation,
this nation you saved, the country you chose above all others.

What? we have gone too far? Yes, it is true, some of our fathers
and mothers
crossed the invisible border. What? were they less blessed because
of it?

Yes, now I hear you questioning us, our standing, our unquestioned
place in prophecy? What? You do not feel welcome here where
the stars and stripes sit next to the communion table?

"I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Do you remember the famine,
when Elijah was sent only to Mexico? Do you remember the lepers
during Elisha's time, yet only a leper from Iran was healed?"

Yes, now we hear your message. We hear it clearly. Leave now,
out the door. We nearly believed you were the Christ, but
now we know you are an imposter, for you love those who we hate,
and have spoken the harder words to us.

Yes, leave if you please. You have disrupted my angry religion,
you try to replace it with universal acceptance, and our God would
never put up with it.

You may think this word is apropos,
You may wish to have it disposed,
all I know
God helps those
who
need His help the most.

To Try it All

To Try it All

(“Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you.” Colossians 3:13)

The tour would begin at the intersection of Second Street
and Alhambra road; two boys who had the wind knocked out of them
simply because school had begun. The asphalt simmered,
the crepe myrtles, the trees with a grandmother’s name, spurred us
on. We marched between the cyclone gates with every clue lost
to new boys finding a place sit, a group to surround our shyness away.

I was never sure who I was, or might be, though I had as many friends
as enemies. Bruce good at conversation, introverted, I think, borrowed
time for him to string words into sentences and punctuate them with the
tiny spaces. He hated his name, his first name, I mean; Marion, it was,
and I understood, though we all agreed, for evil or good, that Bruce was
not much better.

Deidre was good for hanging upside down. Her dad constructed the best
swing set in the neighborhood. She hardly used the seats; more often
she hooked her knees
over the cross-beams of the Capital A held the blue and white tubes together.
It seemed she would hang there half the afternoon, and punch me in the ribs
if I dismounted too soon. And she could throw a ball better than anyone but Don.

Don was good for walking home, and singing “Build Me Up, Buttercup” on the way.
Held back a year and big for his age, he was my protector when a bully
or a chum
sent me a private invitation for a meeting behind the temporaries after school.
Plus, MJ, his sister, was the prettiest girl I knew from third grade through
junior high school.

I still was not sure who I was, or would be. Would I gather notions, subtract
emotions, and arrive at a calculated equation, well-balanced and firm? Four years
of cramming every day full like a knapsack for a month long hike still left me
thrilled at wandering, spilling all my wondering in ink and hopeful encores
after finishing my set of hand-crafted songs.

I was so unsure, though, I stopped at every red light longer than I should. “Your
poetry
doesn’t rhyme, kid; your music barely has a tune, dude; and God needs you
more in the pulpit than on the stage, son.” I stopped my pursuit before it had
begun.

Now I’m old enough to say “No,” to the objections and “Yes” to the offers,
but have traveled so far from the connections my extension cord will not reach
from this tiny spot of paradise back to the places I should have rolled the dice
and given it all a whirl.

It’s not heartache, nor a spirit broken by age; it’s regret, and I’ll forgive myself yet
before the next song with too few rhymes is written from where I sit. I miss
every bus I missed, every song not sung, every role I dismissed and mostly
the courage to try it all.

A Revolution of Goodness

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21

I have loved watching the Olympics since I was a child. I enjoyed everything from boxing to kayaking in the Summer and slalom to figure skating in the Winter Games. Every participant is among the cream of the crop in their sport. Over 10,000 athletes participated in 2012 at London, proudly representing 204 nations.