Announcing the Dawn

Announcing the Dawn

(“This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5)

Shades of pale blue christened the opening sky;
there were songbirds waiting for the dawn to begin.
The were ready on their branches, attentive at the stations
to usher in the first rays of sun.

While we wait to awake from a dreamless night there
are hearts beating the overnight timing. Can you repeat
the stories we have memorized as children.
Would you repeat them like nursery rhymes?

Are we listening for the Spirit to usher us to the
middle aisle. Are we ready to finally admit how
empty we have begun. Are we waiting for the
fullness that will make us complete? All I know
is feeling full at the table is better than the pronouncements
of patent lawyers telling how it is supposed to be.

I’ve got the evidence in my hand;
I’ve got the witness within my breathing.
I am away now and the Spirit, already dwelling
within like a dove in a box; I understand now
the nearness that is closer than the implications
of dust.

Someone sent me a postcard engraved with gold
and love and it arrived just in time to show me
how fulness feels, how the dove coos,
how hope, fragile and strong, would never
be without breath, without life,
without the opening song of the robin
announcing the dawn.

The Unnaming of Things

The Unnaming of Things

(“Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.” Psalm 131:3)

After all this time,
before the moment I thought to design
a new philosophy of mind,
in the center of the bridge between
chorus and verse
I was surprised that you were nothing like
what I expected.

Certain I had it all defined,
I became bi-lingual and spoke fluently
in words so concrete they were always
bilateral
or
at least
black and white.

The rains came after my skin had been
baked by unknown suns,
the questions hung like laundry on the line
and had to be taken in for protection.

How could I restrict you to breezes I
had named? How could I presume to understand
your geography? I have learned
(such a presumptive phrase)
to love the anonymous blades of grass
and the rivers that ran before they could
be pronounced.

After all this time,
(before I listened for a mouthpiece)
I can swim for days without hearing a word.
My breath isolates me, and I must come up for air
sooner that when I was younger.
Glide. Stroke. Kick. Breathe.
And the clothes I once wore, now soaked in
river whorls midstream

Baptize me again to know far less than I knew
before.

Loneliness Begins

 Loneliness Begins

(“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain.” Hebrews 6:19)

Loneliness begins like bees in your head
while you long for one friendly word
to mute their buzzing. The longer the day,
the more the noise, and the sickness grows to
an ache that weighs

Like lead in your chest. You would fall over with
the sickness, faint front first, if not for the last time
you broke your nose that way. A phone call would
be the alchemy that turned the weight around. And then,
into the night the illness fills
your legs’ hollowed

Bones. And now standing has locked the door behind itself.
The couch does not speak, but it knows your form. You beg
for sleep, and when you waken, you beg for sleep again,

Except your dreams leave you feeling you’ll never please those
half a dozen friends that haunt you nights. And then you
beg in postcards, texts, emails and anonymous social posts,
for one who used to hear your words
and sing them back to you

To return and heal this sickness before the bees’ stings
remind you that you caught your loneliness

From failing far too often.

Today I wait for one, maybe two, who know me
in, out, through, trash, and unholy scan
and simply want to keep me company, dry
my tears,
and remind me they have anchored me (sickened
by the sea) and that
I sometimes was less than lonesome,
and often more than dead.

The Sun Does Not Lie

The Sun Does Not Lie

(“This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5)

It was a winter day when the sun finally broke through;
the birds were skipping, the shadows were crisp,
the neighbors walked to their mailboxes,
and one heart still felt alone.

The sun does not lie, and you are more graceful than
the years that have whispered in your ear. Mornings like these
midwinter
reveal the love behind it all.

We take it piecemeal, don’t we? Every failure,
every uncharted word, every night we wasted
annoyed that we drank too much. We add them up
like jigsaw pieces from a thousand puzzles. We cannot
find the edge. We stay in the middle of uncertainty,
convinced we deserve the voice that scolds us
for not finishing well.

But the sun does not lie, and here you are, more precious
than anyone has told you. It takes breaths, lots of breaths,
and boldness to let it penetrate the years of darkening aches.
The shadows have mocked you while the light (stars, moon,
mars, sun, reflecting notes from the songs you have forgotten)
while
the
light
bids you to play.

How Deep the Kisses Go

 

How Deep the Kisses Go

(“If I go to the east, God is not there. And if I go to the west, I do not see him there.” Job 23:8)

I could add that I’ve looked up and down to see how deep the kisses go.
It is a long way down, north and south, to insist the address can be found
that got rumpled, unsuited for public view.
Yet here I am
answering the phone again
(and who shall I say is calling this time?)

The voice I am looking for shines with sweat,
the voice I am looking for is too soon for regret,
the voice I am looking for is too old to forget,
and still I find every time I turn to hear,
the clouds muffle its silence again,
(and yet, I have not given up the listening.)

Have you ever found yourself exploring holes and ditches
and then climbed down the sides of a six-foot pit
to discover the dirt slid like gravy and
the walls were too gravity to crawl out the same way
you jumped in? I would not call that a sin,
but you probably yelled the name of
a friend or two to
throw you a rope. Maybe no one came
until well after dinner time.

I could add that I have fallen also,
a child-man scraping his knees,
a curious boy climbing over piles of
cardboard boxes in the garage. I could
make a hideout for days against the walls
and behind my cardboard castle. But I
hid there in bare feet and soon the concrete floor
shot its icy cold through me. I would have walked down
the street on warmer sidewalks but my parents had
asked for an All Points Bulletin for a barefoot boy
on the run.

I could add that, though from hideouts or august asphalt,
it still is a long way down. Maybe what I’ve found is
the kisses surround us deeper than we can ever hope
to mine.

Something Private

 

Something Private

(“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:38)

I want to write something so private that no one will know
it is me;
then I could write effortlessly and
my hope might rise
that you have discovered honey and
bread in me.

I have been untethered, distant from home,
unconnected to earth or sky,
rain or sea,
and the clouds pass far too quickly
for me.

I have no more meetings to attend,
no schedules to keep,
only the blue light from river to my eye,
and trees gone silent because the heat
choked their upraised feathers now
drooping like midafternoon on a workday.

Still there is something satin within
like an azure banner in the wind.
I wish to be transported to sit at
the kitchen table
with departed friends or standing
at the bar
missing half the conversation because
the dj loves funk and plays it loud.

You would not hear me complain.
His hands spin the discs while
his head bounces like David Byrne.
We all are surrounded, we are sympathetic
strings
on a human music machine. We are
streams
where glances are more private
than whispers. We are teeming with life,
top to bottom. There is always water
in the middle of the ocean.

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.

You Must Know by Now

You Must Know by Now

(“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain.” Hebrews 6:19)

You must know by now that sometimes
I do not feel it.
I’ve heard stories and fables ever since
I believed
about angels and visions,
about heavenly transportations,
wheels within wheels.

But you must know by now that all that
moves me are kind eyes.
I’ve heard stories about hands around hearts
and I’ve even written letters apologizing for
my disease and how I passed it onto the
unsuspecting.
Still, neither by hand or mouth, I have hardly heard
a shared or whispered word that took into account
the way their nasty tone was like boxer’s blows
to my mind.

A smile would be magic, a hug the certain cure
for a faith as tattered as bell bottom jeans,
as fleeting as memories when the world was kinder,
(the best days were in my teens.)

I do not blame anyone, I suppose I have been the same.
I call someone my best friend and we talk every 20 years.
Still, all in all, cherubim and seraphim, the floods have washed
the structures I built my belief upon and sent them
Like flotsam to the sea.

And now, what do I do with the brief remains?
How do I listen to the refrains of grief that once sang
me happy home?
I pick up words here and there; a song by Carole King,
another by Keaggy, and more than I can count from
James Taylor. I find more holiness in concerts and
coffee with you, if you find the same with me.

My heart has been broken for some time. I smashed it
myself, it is true; but there were others who finished
the job. I rarely write without crying, so I wonder who
even tries to read my words anymore. I’m too old
to keep score. 

Whether I know it or not (and, as you have gathered,
I know very little), my anchor has hardly moved throughout
this chatter of life lived between AM radio signals.
My anchor still rests in the love that is hidden from most,
and, since both anchor and love are stronger than I,
I suppose I will remain unmoved yet in the last sliver
of my life. 

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.

Talisman

Talisman

(“When the Lord made a promise to Israel, he commanded, ‘Never worship other gods, bow down to them, serve them, or sacrifice to them.’” 2 Kings 17:35)

I’ve got a stone in my pocket and a coin in my shoe;
I’ve carried the tune, I’ve scratched the surface.
My knuckles are white from hanging on tight to
ever belief I thought would fill in the holes
I dug with lyrics and melodies borrowed from time.

Sleight of hand is no trick in my world;
a handkerchief here, the ace of spades up my sleeve.
I’m holding on tight to all I believe,
though all I believe is coffee and mud.

I’ve fallen flat, I’ve paved the road;
I’ve shouted at demons, I’ve dreamed of angels.
I’m as at fault as the asphalt on August afternoons.

I’ve taken notes on everything she wrote;
jotted down my thoughts when the mighty spoke,
and still my journals are crammed with scrawls.
Was it Adam or Eve? Who made us fall?

I’ve crawled when the waterfalls called,
I’ve knelt all night on New Year’s eve,
baptized thrice (I took first prize),
and I’ve sung every verse to Amazing Grace
twice upon the primary pew.

In my hand I hold every toy truck, every guitar string I’ve plucked,
every glissando, every falsetto, and the earnest failures
like feathers and tar.

I was certain each episode. I bowed deeply and
believed the stories the ancients foretold. I
am
not
a post-modern
poet or critic,

I’ve just walked too far to be taken in again by
manufacturers’ warranties.

So I’ve emptied my pockets, taken off my shoes,
rolled up my sleeves, exposed the blues I was not
supposed to sing.

I still sing the songs and play in the sand, but my idols are
banished. Certainty vanished the moment

The clouds gave way and Love Divine was all my
Hope and Sway.

Found My Hope

Found My Hope

(“What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.” Hebrews 11:1)

I found my hope in better things than bathing my brain
in acid poured from angry yet unredeemed. I discover
larger breaths of love that blanket the earth; sunshine and rain,
righteous, unrighteous, colonized and desert. While we cling to
our angry gods,
our tyrants who teach us
that every brain is shriveled dust except
the brain that sees the world like us;

The Father of All, with hope that pours from an endless store,
begins with more than our short-term fuse, and refuses to drag
His feet
over nuance. While the religious battle evolution and
“secular science” and “doctors without Jesus” He extends
His grace with a grasp so great it can only be missed

By those who have been blinded by their own idols
and

Those who believe they have believed the perfect faith
because they have hated the lefties, harangued the righties,
and learn that telling half-truths gets people’s attention
so much quicker than the mud-and-air we mostly know.

Lay down your taunts, they shatter faith.
Refuse to insult; the menu of the King never included
demotion or demeaning. Faith and Love are first cousins;
You cannot spit and kiss with the same lips.

I found my hope in kindness; the smell of dewy alfalfa
on an Indian Summer day. I found my assurance in compassion,
the fragrance of morning glories that follow the Sun.

Don’t tell me of everything you’ve rejected. A grocery storeprovides, on the little town’s corner, victuals to all, familiar

and foreign. But tack it “secular” and a certain segment will
bar the door, complain to the papers, boycott the soup aisle,
and puff up their chests with more hot air than an Death Valley.

I have discovered my hope in waiting for mercy,
and dropping my messy crumbles that harmed the hurting.
I found my promise in crossing the canyons that separate
with anyone who needs to opposite wall.

Beyond the Grid

Beyond the Grid

(“Give praise to God. He has accepted my prayer. He has not held back his love from me.” Psalm 66:20)

Across the boulevard, sidewalk to sidewalk,
 the asphalt grid divides the green patches;
like half-open eyelids the exhaustive haze mixes
mankind and sunny days. Our ways of walking timed
just so;
at the push of a button we are told to “stop” or to
“go”. “Walk”, “Don’t Walk”, verdant, yellow, and ruby;
the city is full of desert riverbeds holding the
metallic current within its banks.

Beyond the grid with x and y lattice,
five miles out of town, maybe eight or nine,
the lattice work is overhead, the lines crisscrossing
an open sky. Hills rise steeply and roll their carpet out
into meadows and playrooms for picnics and fawns. Freedom
invites
(without button punctuation) constant exploration,
following streams and crossing logs just because
there are more rooms of mossy walls just up the
opposite bank.

Our faces change from grid to lattice. We cross
the avenues hurriedly, avoiding touch or glances.

Our smiles return in open meadows. Children run and
one becomes three becomes five becomes a game
of tag for an entire afternoon. We would just as soon
watch their wonder than fight for a window seat
for a quick bite
lunchtime across the street.

Hopes and concrete, prayers and bare feet,
we are full as we wish to be. But the questions that plague
our fast-track seem irrelevant washing the grass stains from
new jeans after a meadow afternoon.

Mercy of Music

Mercy of Music

(“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3)

The flat picking swirled carelessly once it started around the room,
just like Dylan, maybe Tom Petty, with careful lyrics, and EmmyLou harmonies,
my eyes were set free; the simple tears that release the deepest angst
just below the second layer of skin. Or maybe it is like Levon Helm’s
final whispered song, sounding like the old guitar and the gutted throat,
the kind you can cry, or dance, or touch fingertips to. The kind, if you
are alone,
you let play in a loop and lullaby your way
to sleep.

I’ve been so far from the music I made, kept it square within
the boxes I found in the attic played “Gnostic Serenade” and
partly understood. Early days I danced with laughter, dropping beats
and missing sevenths all over the floor. I was young. I was an apprentice.
And you don’t start over when the people are up and dancing/

I was foolish, Jesus, to think you preferred only monastery and
diligently metered music. Older ones who played their mandolins
like guns,
never missed a line or lyric. I did nearly break a whole in the floor,
keeping time at the piano with my left boot banging below.

If I haven’t learned this by now, that music is Your sweetest gift,
so full of mercy, so fragrant like lilacs in spring. Someday I shall
breath the Asian spice deeply and understand the scales, sometimes
more than 12 tone and between the beats (maybe in 9) the scuttle of
feet on gravel is the bridge that brings all of it home.

I don’t know.

But I’ll never waste another hour or minute, tossing away a world’s good song,
because time, because boredom, because fables built fences to keep our
senses pure and unaffected
by the mercy of music misunderstood.

Because You Say So

“When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.” Luke 5:6

Having no portable PA system, Jesus borrowed, unannounced, one of two fishing boats onshore. The fishermen were finished for the day, washing their nets from the debris of the day and laying them out for the next. The crowd was growing larger and it was difficult to be heard. So, boarding the small craft, Jesus put out for shore just a bit. Both the water and the rising terrain in front of Him, made for a perfect outdoor arena, acoustics akin to the Hollywood Bowl.

An Indifferent Start

An Indifferent Start

(“For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path.” Proverbs 6:23 [The Message])

He broke free without shattering; the first time,

after many times; trying times and crumbling before

he even began.

But this time he burst up the scene, without breaking,

and the same sun which shone upon every failure until then

Shone this time as well.

Trusting in the Shadow

Trusting in the Shadow

“But I keep praying to you, Lord, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation.” Psalm 69:13

A university student was seen with a large "K" printed on his T- shirt. When someone asked him what the "K" stood for, he said, "Confused." "But," the questioner replied, "you don't spell "confused" with a "K." The student answered, "You don't know how confused I am."

Very/Slowly

Very/Slowly

(“Don’t be afraid! Stand still, and see what the Lord will do to save you today.” Exodus 14:13)

I am writing this to be read

Very

Slowly.

I/Mean/It!/

Take every word a-part a syllable at a time,
do not waste one single letter, do not subtract the
smallest integer. Every cluck of the tongue matters,
every vowel breath baritone will not be repeated.
The consonants cutting off air will speak once; listen

Very

Snail-pace.

/Frame/It!/

Now Moses meant it when he said the fear was in their heads
and they need only stand and watch to see (the victory) when
(in the Red Sea) overbearing chariots drowned. Moses spoke
it, perhaps wrote it,
and bequeathed it  for us to sift the leftover junk and pain
we fear might smother us like Job.

Now, I am serious, take this word by bird, beat by cheap seats;
it will not be repeated.

Moses meant it when he said the fear; Job felt it when he
saw the declaration written upon his the ridges of his dried skin,
God was his enemy, God held the winning cards, God had trumped
every bit of righteousness Job had every painted or sung. The
(bottom rung) was squeezing the life out of the affair He adored,
the GodHead, still beyond worship’s reach, had now besieged
the days of grace, replacing them with salt-herbs, potsherds and
pain.

Listen to my eyes roll slowly now. Moses meant it, Job spent
his pain divided/between love’s praise and the dazed questions
when God refuses to play fair.

Though Moses saw the chariots sink, Job’s tears splattered
the same pages; and I am left thinking

We all need to

Take it so/much/slower.

May Have Forgotten

May Have Forgotten

(“Jesus said to them, ‘Why do you cowards have so little faith?’ Then he got up, gave an order to the wind and the sea, and the sea became very calm.” Matthew 8:26)

How can I explain why I fainted,
How can I tell you the pain and the distance
between faith and sorrow?

I no longer fear the waves, the rock cracking,
mud sliding, faces colliding with my next opinion.
I fear nothing, and by nothing I mean I fear the vacuum,
the void, the silence, the melodies destroyed by
the startled sound of crashing pans and pots. The
tunes take too long to pencil down. I need a rest,
a nap, I need to sleep, to grapple alone with the
hole so confined I barely turn with the moving sun.

How can I complain about the explanation;
trials come to strengthen resolve and power
me through the next temptation? Should I,
muscle bound by now, deserve at least a
reprieve from tears or groaning? And, if by grace you say it comes to me, then send the relief without my asking.

I might, reflexively admit, I’d rather fight at the front again
than be on this island of trauma. The friends who walk with me
do not call, they know the vibrations through the phone still
disturb the pulsing nerves that refuse synthesis or organic
prescription.

I hope, I have not forgotten Your name;
I pray, I do little else as the pressure encircles,
a vise radically squeezing the final virtue from out of me.

I dare think, I can never believe it though, that
You
may have forgotten mine. I pray, do not call me
coward,
when I rise to meet the enemy who stays awake all night long only to meet me for another round once the morning opens my eyes.

Dan and Dawn

Dan and Dawn

(true story, only the names have been changed to protect, well, I don't know what I'm protecting. But, they have been changed!)

They are Dan and Dawn. I am certain those with such simple names,
staccato and alliterative, are meant to live without parting,
to marry without a moment’s thought of ever living alone again.
Dan and Dawn are a single name, a three-syllable name without need
of a surname. Five years ago on a dry Pacific Northwest Day we
sat outside with family and friends and laughed the day the

50^th mile of their long journey and short sojourn among us all.

They do not live alone. Families like theirs never live alone.
At the right time, during the right season, when the need is great,
or the celebration is near, their house becomes the Group Home full
of ginger. A red-haired daughter with three red-haired daughters,
all the happy progeny of Dan and Dawn. Along with a son in California
their thoughts are central hope and, like every parent ever born,
central hesitation over every step each beloved takes.

Theirs is prodigal house; no questions asked when comfort is needed.
There is a Samaritan home; bandages and ointment come before any
question or conversation. And, will you take coffee? It is freshly brewed.
And, will you have a cookie? We wish Bob would gain some weight,
but he hardly eats any. And, will you return next week? (They do
not speak…but, “please hold his hand and pray, the pain, the pain,
the mere motion of touch. His head is a searing orb of vise-like
pain.

They are Dan and Dawn. They cry. They do not share the reason
with every visit or inquisition; but have loved so many, so many
wish to trouble would be the shortest season; wish the long spice
of peace they remember would return to dry the eyes of
the finest grapes ever found upon the finest vines in the vineyard.

They are Dan and Dawn; and I am their son, though only six years
have passed since I have known them. We share pain, his and mine,
though I am certain he suffers more deeply, with agony more severe..
But I will hear and tell of Dan and Dawn, the soft heart and hard life,
the meek hope and the prayer that grapples where no one hears until
creature and Creator have come to terms.

They are Dan and Dawn, moved more slowly than they desire,
Father, let time keep them here, and take them home, to know
the love of Christ, here, there, us, not-pain and ever-dried eyes
by the finger of the Love who taught them so well.

Multiplication: It's What God Does

“Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted.” John 6:11

I have seen the same miracle replicated over and over nearly every day. Oh, it may not be 5,000 people fed with a single fish sandwich, but God’s world is full of turning the tiny into the tremendous. Six years ago a friend bought eight fruit trees for us to plant on our property. Last year we got our first crop of apricots, and this year the plums burst out from their blossoms.