The Joy was Hiding

The Joy was Hiding

(“The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. May the good will of our Lord Jesus be with you!” Romans 16:20)

I would have written this early but my chest sometimes
feels like lead, keeping out the joyful rays and hiding the
love inside. The quiet interludes I hoped for created an abscess
that only echoed the sounds of unknowing.

So let me tell you this, if I can tell you anything you do not
already know,
I love you till the end of time little one,
I carry you close from last light until dawn.

I will confess that some of my days were eroded by
thoughts turned untrue by fear, the way a child first
climbs a stair. The joy was hiding and I am sorry.
But I extended my hand for you, my finger to catch
hold of you and you took to the stairs with a giggle.

I take everything so seriously. I took it all too hard.
I blamed myself and never felt the freedom to laugh like the rain.
I thought there had to be a chorus and refrain to
cut the darkness overnight. Now, as I’m writing this,
later and better,
I am ready to let giggles turn the tables on all my
cognitive biases that blamed everything on some
present darkness that held me tighter than my
knotted shoes.

I am writing this now, seriously engaging with joy,
and willing to laugh inappropriately if the situation calls
for it.
There are more devils expelled by laughter than ever those
with weeping tears.

With Joy Our Common Chord

With Joy Our Common Chord

(“Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation.” Romans 12:16)

If you inspect long enough, you’ll come across my worst
faults. They are not hidden, though I don’t wear them like
a banner day to day. Some people hide them, don’t they,
and burst into slowing hearts to declare they are only their
to fix the situation.

Others call before they visit and once they arrive, they
show their delight in our friendship, knowing every failure
On my platter. We don’t laugh; we have both been caught short.
We don’t laugh at our light sentences, we laugh because we
share the same humiliation we once thought other people deserved.

I am ready to ride. I am ready to walk downtown with sandwiches.
I am ready to befriend the homeless with nowhere to go.
I am ready to wait for the next boot to drop.
But until then, with joy our common chord,
we will invite the friendless, and take their loneliness
into our own being for an hour.

There is a student at the high school who is transitioning.
Some parents forgot to instruct the children in understanding and
empathy. Some parents attending meetings, pleading for
simple kindness toward them. It is everyone who knows everything
that keeps our world from the warmth of humble words
and wisdom’s love. I’d sit at table with you, spend the day with you,
and listen carefully to your heart, and hear your story like
it was always the first time I had heard it. If you wept,
so would I. If you laughed with joy, I would join you.

I’ll join the dawn with the same resolutions. Nothing controlling my
mind
except for the universal, uncompromising love of God. I will
find the sorrows and join them as long as I can.

We Keep an Eye Out

We Keep an Eye Out

"In every direction, in every conceivable merciful convergence,
the heart pounds like someone waiting for the alarm to go off,
whetting our appetite for the congregation, the happy twirling
like the spinning of a yarn.
Memory is the gift you get for living.
Dreams are the seeds you plant, saving the future
like a first grade concert in the park.

How many breaths scatter across the hills,
how many landslides shortly after noon?
Can we hear the forgotten refrain,
can we see the genesis of creation imbued
with atomic fondness for the divine?
We talk while our joy is unescapable,
our song is an opening along the horizon of
everything, including moonlight, sunshine,
and stars late in the deep night. We can
name a few, along with the planets too.
We thought the lyrics were only English
with a smattering of Spanish. We thought the
words were enough to get us through the day.

We count the background; we gaze toward the sky.
We watch the sanity of uncertainty land like a dove
upon the boughs of cherry trees adorned by
fruit this late in the summer. We cannot wait to
carry them full-handed into the pail we have
used for a decade now and offered at least half
to the children who live next door.
We share it, also, with the deer that amble
through the inhabited cedars shortly after the
sun goes down.

We keep an eye out for the next doe and maybe a fawn;
we keep ourselves busy awaiting the next whistle the
sparrows sing. They are sonnets that surround the day.

Joy Unaware

Joy Unaware

(“Because they were wondering and questioning in the midst of their happiness, he said to them, ‘Do you have anything to eat?’” Luke 24:41)

We couldn’t believe our eyes though we looked
closer than the center of the target. We thought we were
seeing ghosts. We cried with tears in our eyes,
we cried with joy overwhelmed by surprise.
We thought we were looking into the sun,
we thought our eyes were blinded by the sight
of the center of the universe. We were castoff to the
edges of the earth. We were on the precipice between
laughter and accidents. Descending the stairs of sorrow
we were astonished at the brightness of the way. We
finished the interview and waited for the doors to open
when we saw the face that was as alive as a window full
of reflections. And that is all we thought we saw. But
we knew by the countenance that shined through, we
had walked with him through the waters and the blue
solitary skies. He had stilled the storms we thought nearly
swallowed us whole. We had watched him die.
Did I mention that joy overtook our sight? Did it
occur to us that things we never dreamed of might
swoop in and catch us unaware? We would share our
meal with him, we would watch him join us and,
corporeally speaking, our joy would slowly transform
into trust.

Today I Will Chase Joy

Today I Will Chase Joy

(“Christ made us free. Stay that way. Do not get chained all over again in the Law and its kind of religious worship.” Galatians 5:1)

Do you want to be a part of the gathering
drinking beer, shouting across the room with
questions about what else is happening this afternoon?

Do you want to share in the secrets they reveal
once the tavern is full? Do you still want to
laugh like you did nearly every day of the year?

How we turn. How we display our faces which
are not our faces at all. How we decide to
de-occupy the places that once
opened us so wide the tears flowed on tap
and we didn’t mind.

We used to believe that God was the center of it all.
Then we decided there were places the divine
would never stoop to go, so we stayed away;
that became our newest goal.

But today I will chase joy. Today I will laugh
and spill my secrets. Today I will still be shy
(like we think god is shy), and put sticky notes
on my friends to remind me who will laugh with me.

There are people who drop the holy spirit right on
top of you
when they turn to you and smile.
And they didn’t mean to. It just exploded
on their face
and suddenly you are thunderstruck.

Yes, I’ll join any gathering that sounds like
children breaking pinatas at a birthday party.

When Joy is Ancient Like Rain

When Joy is Ancient Like Rain

(“Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!” Psalm 95:2)

Run in for cover,
that’s how my soul feels on days like these,
find somewhere to hide. Not that
I am in danger; I find my heart craving
impossible meals and solo excursions with
a gypsy mind.

There were two friends on the road,
one danced with his classmates and one
sipped wine whenever it was offered.
They had met up after 50 years,
they thought they might recognize the
old poppy fields. They thought they might taste
the teenage pizza they shared, a large
hot Italian sausage. They played pong
while they waited.

There were dark wooden tables there.
There were girls who recognized us.
There was a boy who looked like me
who thought he knew, finally, for once,
how the world worked and how God handed
out prizes to the penitent.
He cried in his room a lot over
cravings and old coffee cups underneath his bed.

This man, me-who-writes,
would give up a quarter cup of convenience
for a pinch of ad-libbed laughter in a
favorite restaurant.

I could sing of your insanity forever,
the ways you schemed, the poems you dreamed,
and the ways you viewed the world, they way
you practiced each scene like it was the first day
of a trip through the winding roads of the East Bay Hills.

Today, though the rain speaks every name I’ve
learned along the way,
I will listen for their songs. The joy feels like sadness,
the gladness sounds like monks chanting. The silence
looks like a doorway to sojourn and paisley afternoons.

I Could Not Fight the Fog Today

 I Could Not Fight the Fog Today

(“Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Peace be with you.” They came up to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.” Matthew 28:9)

I could not fight the fog today,
I could not squeeze anything out of the morning.
I could not see the clock today,
I could not tease another moment of sleeping.
The fog did not lift,
the air did not open,
the clock whacked at my misunderstanding,
the sleep would not hold me in its arms.

I weary walking down the road hoping to meet
a man or woman
to see through my façade,
to feel the days that tread on my heart,
to see the escapes that are closed to me,
the open doors that are locked from the inside,
and the stone that has been rolled over the opening
of all I once was.

What I once was
was less of me
than who I am now.
And still the showers of blue rain
drown joy. Alone there is little joy.

I’ve believed in the resurrection nearly my entire life,
painted eggs were always figures for the one who
sprang from the tomb and hung around for awhile to
greet the women who saw him first, and all the others
who hid (like I hide) and unlocked their doors from
the inside.

So I wait for a knock on the door, and a greeting from one
I have longed for.
I wait to hear the footsteps in the garden that bring life closer
to me.
I cannot exhale the fog. I cannot whitewash these blues.
I cannot invent a hundred invisible friends to remove this
granite lonesome from inside of me.
I walk by a cemetery nearly every day and
all the graves are undisturbed.

My honesty has never bothered God (that’s my guess)
it’s all the rest that worry me. Laser advice pierces my forehead,
prayer promises are sent on autographed cards. I do not blame them,
they hold on to the same uncertainties.

Here today, there are no supernatural greetings on the road; just
asphalt, rain, fog, and a clouded mind.

Drenched in Rain and Wine

Drenched in Rain and Wine

(“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again. In his joy, he goes away and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44)

My thoughts are drenched in rain and wine
while the sun and shade play in shadows and shine.
Everything is, and if everything was, then I could say
all is well
on a day when frowns are immodest.
Faces from every town,
voices from every conversation,
the store that sold 50 kinds of hamburgers,
the coffee shop that served espressos 50
years ago,
the tiny toes of my first-born son, and the fear of
getting it all wrong.
The playful pranks of my second born, and watching
him grow full wit.
The dance that began upon the birth of our unplanned
and only
daughter, and wondering how I stumbled upon such joy.
The wife I met when she was only a child,
and the child that still resides inside her. I only hope
I have not, in my pain, in my dark demeanor, in my
trespasses and sins
stolen even a single laugh that was lavishly rationed
upon her.

I do not know. I have no artistry in this. I stumble.
I mean,
I stumbled into all of this. While snow-and-dust
sandpapered the prairies; while gales-and-gusts whip
up the mighty river; while songs are sung (the ones
in melancholy minor keys, my delight) I tilt my head
to wonder how I ended, given so much pain falling,
and stained recalling of misconvenience;
I wonder how I found this treasure and why
its simple contents are indexed in my heart;
my bucket list of joy.

Deviations of Joy

 Deviations of Joy

(“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” Joel 2:13b)

There is no roar like the roar
of those who think they have found
the very same ground
underscored by prophets before.
They will press the heads of dissenters
beneath the topsoil to the clay
and have them confess away every
stray inch of declination from the mean.
The averages were thought out long in advance
and the guardrails attached, the blinders worn like
eye-patches, and the wailing over sins of those not yet
in the arc of the square.
They prophesy hardpan while the
Spirit is breath and wind.

There is no sigh like the sigh
of those who, true and unloud,
sing the very same song
scored by the son of god alone.
They will peek their heads behind the clouds,
above the forested hillsides
and heave their panic away, their pain
inches from coordinates left by men.
The welling and weeping were released in sand
and sky, the sails swollen with wind, eye to eye,
turning by starlit notions, navigating through the slight
deviations of joy.
They prophesy feasting while the
lines form, spiral and more.

Violets of Joy

 
Violets of Joy

(“And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.” Mark 5:15)

Once accustomed to the madness that fights
mongrels in the cemetery,
we pass the fences without fear,
walk by at night. It is customary
to tell the children there is no haunting there.
Just an old man with drool in his beard and
toes shaped like rocks from scraping against
the headstones.

But watch the violets of joy emerge from
deep within the healed soul,
hear the voice once screeching like iron
now
quieted as a weaned child
and we have no answer

But to fear what we do not know.

Let the day come easy now,
let the morning open like drops of sunlight,
let the streams whisper background calm.
Let the neighbors stop in wonder
and offer ears to hear the new song
sung from an old man’s throat that
makes the blue jays gather. The melody is
childlike,
the lyric repeatable. Free is a word
that even the townspeople

Need to learn.

Capella

Capella

(“How beautiful you are and how pleasant, my love, with such delights!” Song of Songs 7:6)

The eyes that see only love are never blind,
and never void of beauty. Only love,
only delight,
only the spinning of rainbows in spite
of the clothing clotted with mud.

The universe is a bridal procession
with the beloved awash in blush, embarrassed
at the attention, but drawn to the One
who sees her more fully, beneath the skin,
beneath the face of age,
beneath the trauma that pencils a smile on the face
that ached with pain,
and found joy again. The beloved
no longer shrinks or scuffs; she dances, while
everyone watches, and He just stares,
captured by one look of her eyes.

She is not the caricature, nothing like the satire,
she is not a newsprint cartoon.
She is fragile like paper, strong like ink.
She is romanced when others think she
is not worth the dowry that pays any price
to see love, to see delight, to see the palette’s spectrum
mixed and glowing like the Sun, like Capella;
she is many, she is one, she is arrayed in silence.

Selah.

They are one.

Some Kind of Joy

Some Kind of Joy

(“The Lord is my strength and my shield, in whom my heart trusts. I am helped, so my heart rejoices; with my song I praise him.” Psalm 28:7)

When did I start thinking that my entire live would be lived
above
ground?

There are a lot of people who have cared,
but not enough.

Along the way while trying my best
someone plowed under my confidence.

Much of my imagination was buried below
the horizon while
I slept for decades.

And now dreams wake me growling
at invasions and protestations
that hide in the light of day.

The darkness can instruct me,
send me, arouse me to listen
to the lower chambers of my heart.

Faces I have not seen in 40 years
greet me in love while nearer acquaintances
stay silent.

A lot of people have cared, but is it
enough?

It is not death I fear,
(it is closer than later)
but more life underground.

My songs have change, the lyrics
like water,
fit the forms of my life completely.

I am moving out from approval
to some kind of joy that fits my
doubts and jagged melancholy.

In this I rest, beneath the topsoil and
atop the buttes,
I shall be I

And I shall rejoice the One-that-Is
has planted me, shone on me,
coaxed me and nurtured me

In the quiet rhythms of life underground.

Counted Only

Counted Only

(“Only the person involved can know his own bitterness or joy—no one else can really share it.” Proverbs 14:10)

The bathtub sat clawfooted upon the ground
filled with rain water after the storms of hail and sun
crossed the sky like yellowed venetian blinds.

The man’s geography was no more than shed-sized that day,
moving across the weathered rug for a drink or modest lunch
and back to the lounge chair where the pain had remained,
an unwelcome houseguest,
erasing memories, extinguishing joy, and this day

With no one home

His words were zero and his tears

were

Counted only by God.

All & Every

All & Every

(“The Lord God says, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the One who is and was and is coming. I am the All-Powerful.’” Revelation 1:8)

Take this heart invisibly, the One created-not-born,
and unbreak the fissures, or fill them presently
with the passion unending.

At every point on every line,
every line on every plane,
every plane on every facet interface with me.

Higher than my suspect prayers,
deeper than my conceived potions,
sweeter than my anger disguised as righteous,
kinder than the hidden thoughts behind flashing eyes;

Be to me everything I cannot be,
within each molecule, the air between elements,
the charged plasma between electrons darting around
the center of each atom,
be all in me, all for me, all me and only me.

And delete me as well as I delete my digital words
with calloused fingers on the keyboard. Delete the
me that uses me as a portrait of best things when
the rest of things are undone.

All, my solid footing. Every, my absent nothing.
And as darkly as I see through the glass smudged with
strong-minded sludge, be my light behind the shadow
and the joy for the window of my soul.

Troubles Test our Faith

“My brothers and sisters, when you have many kinds of troubles, you should be full of joy, because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will give you patience.” James 1:2-3

I meet with a handful of teens each week at “Pop with Pastor”. We gather at a local restaurant, I pay for drinks, and we simply chat. It isn’t a Bible study or prayer group, simply an expression of my love for the students, and an opportunity to make myself available to them. Each week on Wednesday six to a dozen of us get together for about an hour.

The Same Song

The Same Song

(“There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” Luke 15:7)

The invitation was sent straight to the last address we knew,
the postage licked upon the upper right-hand corner and
the envelope sealed with hand-fashioned card inside.

How could you miss the dancing? We nearly had the police called
on us
for all the noise! We could not help the raucous shouting;
it was no time for doves cooing or kitties purring,
this was straight up Wild Goose honking, the Geadh-Glas
inciting the high-step celebration. One more lost one
found their vacant seat again.

You pulled up, but could find no place to park?
The Shepherd strode the high hills of the mansion rich,
the cul-de-sacs of well-heeled pretense,
the clackboard boxes six-per-block,
and the tumble down trailers unscreened windows and doors.

He called for years, the name of the loved one, never forgetting
the way it first sounded upon the tongue. He whispered softly
in crowds,
sprained His voice as He ripped echoes across voided canyons,
and every day, the same vigor as at the first, the same
heartbreak, the same desire to reverse the pathway which took
the lone lamb away from the rest of us all.

You would have stayed, but did not enjoy the music?
Did you forget already, the same song was sung, with
the same passion and abandon, the very second in time
you turned on a dime (not quite so far from home, but
just as absent); has the taste of the finest fare already
been erased from your tongue?

There is time to return, however late. The dances begin
upon the hour, upon the minute, upon the moment
the front door opens for anyone who changed their mind,
deciding a party thrown by God leaves no time to
ponder the propriety of it all.

Stop Weeping

“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’” Luke 5:17

Two processions met on a Judean road one late afternoon. At the head of one was a weeping mother, grieved at the loss of her young son. Coming toward them was a great crowd following a traveling preacher and his disciples. The contrasts couldn’t have been more acute.

Outdoor Venues

Outdoor Venues

(“And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.” Deuteronomy 12:18b)

Well beyond the place where the vibrations fade,
having exerted all their energy from quivering guitar strings,
having placed each note prettily along the sunny concert day;
far beyond the posters and placards that announced the next
Concert in the Park
the melody had found the range of its existence and settled like
the last mist; a carpet rolled out for afternoon.

There, beyond, like old AM radios in the midnight desert,
the primary movement was children’s laughter forte,
mothers’ chatting mezzo piano with a staccato blue jay
taking the stage away with its percussion.

But, between changes on  slide, or lines for the swing,
the faraway concert, behind time, fell out of breath upon
the little park just long enough to catch the phrase,
while the title elusive flutters and fades into oblivion at the next
“Push me higher” from baby sister to
favorite auntie. Both would return home with
one of three measure of a pop tune stuck like

Sonoral super glue, only magnified by sleep. 

Sad Language

Sad Language

(“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.” Psalm 139:23)

I should be playing in the light, the sunshine dancing on my cheeks.
I should be walking with a friend, the conversation arcing across the air.
I should be a joy-well, a love-all, and faith-full, yet

My tears increase, my heart is incomprehensible, speaking its own

Sad language.

My younger self cried as well, but spent at least the same time smiling.
We wrote songs on the fly, knew the tunes to music we had never heard,
spent hours on the tennis courts, afternoons at the pool, faced fears
(me with more tears than most), and were sure we knew Jesus well,
so well we changed political affiliations, church denominations, and
dropped out of theater class.

The warning signs have been there, one hairpin curve at a time. My mind,
more certain than ever of Christ my King, my Lord, my Shepherd, and
my Friend; my mind has left behind the costume I thought was required
attire. Wearing Jesus only, I feel naked.

Once full of words authorities defined, my mind cries like a baby for
its native language. My Japanese friend told me her parents never taught
her the language (“We are Americans now”, they said). Over 90 now,
she wishes she knew more than idiomatic American sentence strings.

I cry more often, without warning, for what I think I left behind. When
He says turn, follow, and leave your luggage behind, I am glad to empty
my pockets and start out on the road. My tears are shed, my heart has bled,

For so much I buried when the noisy voices (at church, at conference,
or simply in my head) insisted everything die and stay dead;

And now I’m crying because, Jesus, all grace, all light,
wanted me to arise instead.

Precisely

Precisely

(“I am with you now, I will protect you everywhere you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done everything that I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15)

I had nearly forgotten the dreams that led me,
nearly forsaken the voice that called me,
for my loneliness speaks so loudly in the wilderness,
so cleanly, so distinctly, each syl / la / ble  pre /cise / ly
uttered.

The rain is white noise, good for sleeping, good for supporting
the crackle and syncopathy of dropped syllables letter; an even
better background to syncopate popcorn for a four minute b-side
while the rain drones on.

I need someone to strike the upbeat, catch me off guard, teach me
to jump when everyone else is landing. I need the summer rain that
makes dancing better joy than silent sunny afternoon.

I’ve checked, and just this morning a new gift was waiting on the
single empty space my desk offered. I had not prayed for something to
wake me,
nor to be moved from my dysthymia. My usual walk is slow and
painfully willing, quickly distilling the reading I must finish before
I can return with the door closed behind me and pray the pain will
give me room enough to sleep the afternoon away.

But on the open space, directly in front of my chair, a dolphin
pointed to the sky, handcarved and wrapped in silk. Her grandmother
died just a month ago, and among the keepsakes she found a treasure
she knew
her friend would adore. I love dolphins because they make me smile,
I smiled because my teenage friend left her grandmother’s dolphin,

And I am unworthy of such friendship; the one who overhears the
unheard whispers
as if they are conspiracies to burgle my joy. One more dolphin,
one more friend, and again I say, He has gone with me every way,
one down to another upbeat, and still teaches me the heavenly
tunes my fingers are still learning to play.