One Honest Foot

 

One Honest Foot

(“For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over out of envy.” Mark 15:10)

If you would put one honest foot inside my door
I would talk to you all afternoon.
If you would take one open gaze upon my face
We could break bread together; commune.

But your questions are traps, your inquiries snares
for the innocent. You shout for God and Country
and steal grain from the worker ants building the
gardens you claim as your own.

If you would see the crucified three sown on the hill
I would ask you why you washed your hands.
If you could confess the longest darkness at noon
we could find a way to sit in the shade and fill our rooms

With stories he told that you never understood,
with tattered lives walking the floors ankle and barefoot,
with flax now mended, candles now sending
their light after the smoke was nearly extinguished.

How long will your jealousy last, how long your disguises?
How many lives have you changed, what is your legacy?
The Crucified One dies while you despise his glory
(the seeds that fail do not make it into your top 10 list
of opulence or piety.)
Prepare your next podcast, get your presentation ready,
refute the truth that dying lives and humility make the
tulips rise. Call for contributions; we don’t want to see you
without a bird’s nest or fox’s den. We don’t want to see you
without a pillow for your head.

But, if with honest feet you come to seek
a quiet way to become the humanity
you were born to be,
then let’s embrace, and by the grace of sun and
moon and darkness and light
remind each other of the terrible day when
the greatest king laid down his life
for every jealous and envious judge who swore
he knew the difference between royalty and a
friend of whores.

But royalty he is, and was, and ever shall be,
though we still, locked within this chamber of echoes,
expect the nuclear option when
He chose the mud to grow His kingdom whole.

More Than a Minute Ago

More Than a Minute Ago

(“Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22)

I hope you will let me be honest about the things that happened
to me
more than a minute ago.
“Everything happens for a reason,” I’ve been told,
and then watched as the horned owl rolled on down the road.
“God will never give you more than you can handle,” they have said,
and listened as their voices faded into locked conference rooms
to discuss my fate.

If you stayed more than a second
you might have seen
the callouses on my shoulder from carrying every piece of granite
know-it-alls threw on my back before
I entered the queue for the next scheduled ride on
the roller-coaster.

If it happens for a reason, you would be so wrong to intervene,
I might never learn the lesson that loneliness and suffering bring.
If I can handle it (whether you can or not) you would be dead wrong
to lift an ounce from my back. But you’ll pray for me or sing me a song
next Sunday while I dry-heave like a fetus behind the hanging suits and shirts
on the floor in the closet that smells like must.

There is nothing reasonable in leaving me in the rain,
there is nothing preordained in laying hands on me again
before you go to brunch with those who can afford it.

I’m not saying you hoarded your blessings. You just thought
Jesus was enough
and forgot
that Jesus
uses hands and feet like yours.

>So I keep rolling, I keep casting, I keep throwing, I keep lasting 
for more days than even I expected.
I keep piling, occasionally smiling, I keep hiking, I keep asking
for a God who knows how

To make me weightless, to help me regress to less than I know.
And helps me take the boulders piled on me; a God who leans in to me, 
and, Lamb and Lion carries them for me.

A Single Honest Sentence

A Single Honest Sentence

(“And he said to me: ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” Zechariah 4:6)

The rooms were dusty July, places where camp-meetings echoed past the hills.
The children came, like summers do, sent for a week to seek
for God and friends and girls and boys. Children,
with minds so plastic even the heat could change their opinions.

Preteens with whirling energy that turned the forest into a cross-country race,
and the basketball court into dodge ball. Debates flared on the putt-putt course
over water hazards left there by the rain. The oldest got to hit their balls again.

Mornings were slow. Lunch was just the fuel stop for an afternoon of
crab races, water balloon bazookas with multi-colored projectiles threatening
from every direction. The lucky ones were drenched early and sent back to their
cabins to change. The grass grew best where weeks of water bombs watered the field.

Preteen boys who insisted they did not sweat were handed deodorant sticks for free.
Puberty stinks and adults cannot forget old sweat and new bacteria.

But nighttime was the purpose, the focus, the target. After supper, near 6:30,
300 children crowded into the wooden tabernacle without air conditioning,
without insulation. An ancient shell with rafters swooping to the sky the color
of dried fences on the farm.

Rock music was piped in, the children shuffled from one row to the next.
Counselors sought vainly for the one camper missing from their group.
Each night was planned for maximum effect, to bring decisions.

Decision.

And some decided; to be nicer at home, to not talk back, to do their homework
more often: all summed up in giving their life to Christ. And sincere as children
are, they bought the line (which is just fine) and many trace the joy, the grace,
to one of these times.

The final night was full of expectation. It was Holy Ghost night. If you are
pentecostal, you say it all as one word: “holyghost”.

It is true the Spirit of the Living God will dwell in us, will speak to us, will entreat us
too. But the Spirit rarely bowls us over or transforms a boy who has 15 people
shouting in his ear.

I was there and loved the sweet aroma of children discovering God’s Spirit
like butterflies finding nectar. But the perfume was mixed with the latest
spirit-will-make-you-do-it fads.

And 30 years later I have to explain to some who felt defrauded, deceived and
prodded, that I’m sorry. I was a product of the times. Today I know the Spirit
so differently. And so today I quietly listen to a child speak, and know

There is more power in a single honest sentence from a twelve-year-old
than all the shouting in temples and tabernacles around the world.

Between If and Then

Between If and Then

(“A woman came to Jesus with a special sealed jar of very expensive perfume. She poured the perfume on his head while he was at the table.” Matthew 26:7)

Can I be honest?
I’ve reached the end of my vial. The contents were not costly,
(more ordinary than rare), but I’ve emptied them now, and somehow,
feel quite unsatisfied.

How do you feel?

I thought
if
I poured out all I could
then
You would appreciate the effort, though
not up to the standards
of your usual saints.

So here I am now, in the weightlessness between the
if
and
then,
still looking for Your face, still listening for Your song,
still wanting to be pleased with Your pleasure in me.

Do we need this ritual throughout my lifetime? I
believe,
I think,
that Your pleasure arises in simple being and presence.

But my brain (that unwieldy part of my body) sends weeping
over apparent acts unnoticed. And now it upbraids me for
wanting notice at all.

I would pour out more, but I’m dry as the desert in winter,
weary as the old man I’ve become,
and yet have more miles to traverse than treasures stored
heaven or earth.

I’ve failed more than the woman who perfumed your feet,
and failed after faith, after baptism, after profession, after vows
and bows before myriad altars.

I would create more, but the words are these words,
nonsense without incense, assumptions without perfume.

Is it unholy and sacrilege to say; if there is any way,
would You pour from Your vial (the smallest spray of mist)
to let me know this time between times
contains as much grace as the moments I could barrel my way
and unload kegs of devotion, or know Your voice so present that,
between breath and breath,
if and then,
I would still weep for better reasons;
mercy at banquets and love in lepers’ homes where
extravagance is misunderstood.