Overtures of Invitation

Overtures of Invitation

(“I have had a change of heart. All my tender compassions are aroused.” Hosea 11:8b)

Have we measured yet how volatile love can be?
Have we discovered mercy behind the messy proclamations?
And yet,
noisy as a storm, we must listen to know the moment’s sound
is hidden within the fiery thunder we shiver under.
Yet we find ourselves favored in the midst of our
own discontent. The heat of your love melts all our
resistance. The light you awaken in us remains long
after we have turned away. If only we would carry
it closer than our hourly burdens of certainty.

We forget, so intimately joined to our previous suppositions,
so scathed by our attempts to escape. Sometimes I just need
to stop walking and discover the passage of time that keeps me
bonded when I feel unequal and unglued. I heard your
passions are stirred toward the worst we have done.
I saw you in the morning and found out loud that you
waited within me and invited me as a beloved apprentice.
We learn to practice what we have seen; we read the
music on the pages and sing the ballads of the secrets
made known that we thought could never be decoded.

We still feel the electricity in our nerves, the anxiety
that buzzes so loudly we miss the quiet overtures
of invitation, the understated pleasure of the divine.
But today we can RSVP to the joy strung up like
helium ballons. We can mark our calendars with
this day that we were reminded the world revolves
around the heart of Christ. We will not mince our
words, but dance like those who just got our
invites in the mail.

An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

(“All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who disobey and oppose me.” Romans 10:21b)

There are things I used to see only
from the corner of my eye. There was dancing
on the next street over,
there were puppies at the construction site.
There was handwriting I refused to read,
there were songs I set aside.

I never locked my doors, but I built my
walls high to
support the roof, to protect my head from
anything falling un-alphabetically.
I had categories for principles, labels so
the contents would not surprise me. I knew the
names by the languages I heard.

With my door closed tight, I lost sight of
the way the soul shines outside my structured steeples.
(Did I tell you I built my walls? That is not true.
I moved into domiciles manufactured well before
I moved in.)
I was never a carpenter. I occupied land and
closed the door.

It did not take a hurricane. I’m not sure, but it
happened as the earth shifted below the floorboards.
Overnight, over time, over my head, leaning over,
my walls fell and met the wet ground, all four sides
around.

And I saw.

The dancing was an invitation to play.
The puppies were prophetic, the handwriting
poetic. The songs were
nursery rhymes and soap bubbles I had locked outside.

I had lived in a house of mirrors, seeing only the images that
glanced back to me.
I rebuilt a house, a home of windows.

Today was the last day in my well-paneled home.

Sometimes a Note

 Sometimes a Note

(“Provide her with anything she may need, because she has provided help to many people, including me.” Romans 16:2b)

Sometimes it was a note on the windshield
one winter day that froze the ink and paper to the glass.
Sometimes it was the merest glance,
or a song shared with lyrics you both had memorized.
Sometimes it was silence when pain
shouted too loudly to overcome. 

I ache when I see others
who brag about their latest silkscreen
shirt:
“Let’s Go Brandon”
thinly coded to mean
“Fuck You Biden”,
and then teaches littles about the Bible
on weekday nights. 

No one recorded the phone calls
or archived the memos
but each word was an invitation to
relax and create space
for gnarled feet limping from the journey.
Sometimes it was dinner,
sometimes beer and wine,
sometimes a movie,
but always time, always
time. 

I ache when I hear others
who silence the voices
(and thus the heartache)
of the traumatized who cannot enter
the buildings of american worship because
the triggers are everywhere. You learn
who you can tell your stories to. 

Some homes were heated with wood,
some were trailers dangerously cold,
some were nomads, others sojourned longer.
They entered the friendships like doors to a cathedral
and breathed the air so ancient that you knew the origin
of every word. No one took anything for granted,
but most gave more than they had.

Valley of Decision

Valley of Decision

(“There are many people in the Valley of Decision. The Lord’s day of judging is near in the Valley of Decision.” Joel 3:14)

Where did you wander that you could still speak the language so well,
and still seem such a foreigner?
Your textbook grammar puts me to shame,
but you have sharpened your commas like fishhooks,
your exclamation points are spears,
and your question marks are inquisitors white hot lamps;
desiring a cowered adversary shivering in the corner.

You have no use for definitions or rational new.

You still wear your hair the same, and announce your allegiances loudly,
but time has uncovered a naked sore. You unclothe carefully,
never answering the invitation to
read new books about the same love. Unless the
jots and tittles
are on the very same pages
you’ve memorized into stone,
you consider it anathema, a demon’s tool,
and wave goodbye to anyone who reads the beauty
meant to rise above the inked letters (oh the Spirit, the Spirit,
the Spirit of the law), and jerk their chain abruptly with offers to
pray. To pray for an “old friend” who now is Satan’s eye.

I have known more men than I thought possible
(who claim the most beautiful Name)
who pray against brothers
and prey upon others
who love the same Name of Jesus
and drive the blade deeply once you’ve judged them

No longer family, but a friend of the devil.

I no longer recognize you, though you speak the same language,
and the blood runs cold where the angry wound forces hot blood
and the face ashen. Where, O Father, and why, did the precious
Name
become a blade to rip tender lives in two?

Open Invitation

Open Invitation

(“He said to them, 'I have really looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you. I wanted to do this before I suffer.'” Luke 22:15)

I saw you outside the door. You approached it slowly, like you
were uncertain of the address. You looked up at the wall and
down upon your downloaded map and seemed assured this
was the right place.

I saw you outside the door. Your body swayed in toward the light,
then back toward the olive groves while your feet stayed planted secure.
The aromas were familiar, Passover since you were a toddler; roast lamb and
garlic, parsley, eggs and wine to remind you the God with a Name will have
no slaves.

I saw you outside the door. You made a wide arc toward the dark
between two closely planted olive trees. You could lean your back against one,
your feet against the other, and squint to your right, the door that beckoned:

inviting light and something so serious that the usual menu was incomplete.

I saw you between the trees. I whispered and early spring bore my breath
toward your face, “Come in with me, the Master asks us to celebrate tonight.”

You cast your eyes to the ground, and slowly, tracing my face, I know you
recognize me, and I am sure it is true.

“Yes, I was on my way in, friend. And, like you, I feel I have no right to enter.
You know my lusts, don't you?” A pause/selah. “I have also lied, you've heard.”
Another pause and selah. “You know how well I spoke and how poorly I acted,
I can see it in your eyes.” l o n g e r pause - - - s e l a h. And now the breath
you could see was ice inside of me. I shook over every betrayal known and yet
undiscovered.

“Yes, I know you know who I am. And I have been worse than you know. But,
I am here for Him, because of my sin. I am here to drink the wine I must drink,
or else die in my grief. I am here to drink the cup of bitterness,
the cup of my forgiveness.”

I touched your elbow, barely. Departure left you open to steady yourself or push
me away, stealthily leaving the open invitation. But, like a diesel in winter, you
warmed to the light framed by the door waiting open on the Eastern Wall for perhaps

only two or one more.

We sat, remember? I mentioned that, though I knew the forgiveness deeply, I still had not control
over the shivers every time I remembered how untrue I had been.

I hoped that you, new and without a history of deceit, could be clean and never shake except for
joy and laughter. And so it was, your mouth broad, your teeth wide and gleaming at
mercy's dance.

We have met there, each year since, begging the Savior would suffer no more
than He already had for us. We have watched, each year since, for others
who, shiver or static, still cannot quite make their way
through the door.