Our Long Journey

Our Long Journey

(“Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?” Luke 18:7a)

It felt like we had stood in line
for more than the circumference of time.
The asphalt melted our feet,
the tears evaporated in the heat,
the rush of muddy water, the river, the boundary
between journey and sojourn,
was our salvation, or our final destination.
We cried out for days to heads of state
whose ears were tickled by impoverished views of
unwashed throngs who left footprints behind them
a thousand miles long.

We immersed ourselves in suffering, we did not choose it.
We crossed horizons, we crawled when the canyons fell
below us. The songs caught up to us; we moved slowly enough
to carry them in our chests like anthems and amens,
the beginning and end of our petitions for
a hearing before we reached the border line.

There were rainbows hiking with us, the colors proud
as we took them into our fold. There were eunuchs and
pagans,
priests and variations of supplication. There were the
silent. There were the opalescent. There were the angry,
the defeated, the determined, the babies, the children,
the ancestors and all the rest. We all were seeking
a place among
the rising tide we were promised by the ancient
declarations,
the independent proclamations,
the handbills dropped from the sky that promised
a rebirth of unity.

It felt like we had stood in line
far longer than the foundations of nations
that fancied themselves beacons upon hills.
It felt like we would be waiting until a greater
Justice
would be our Advocate. We waited, and knew,
if only micro-dots per day, soon or late, we would know
slowly
our long journey was no longer wandering. Our long
journey
was stumbling upon the
New
Creation.

Mosaics Missing Stones

Mosaics Missing Stones

(“He gives justice to people who are oppressed, He gives bread to people who are starving! The Lord: who frees prisoners.” Psalm 146:7)

I left half expecting to hear from
you (all); I traveled the distance from autumn
to winter.
I settled, and left my forwarding address.
I found the emptiness too much to bear.
I walked the half a block to the mailbox
every day after noon,
and only found four color fliers and requests
for my contribution to health insurance and
candidates in stride.
I was not oppressed, but depression grabbed me like
a cavern of anti-gravity. I hoped to find a few who
would float with me
once they viewed my broken tether hanging in the sky.
I would stare at the addresses, the digits, and the trinkets
that were friends (siblings) and would not leave my room
for
hours at a time. Out of sight/out of mind/but no one left
this heart of mine. I remember your losses and your tears.
I remember buying lunch and sitting silent by hospital beds.
Now that I was aimless,
I only hoped for the arrows of kindness to land close enough
for me to see the name and address of adoption. The ink
on the certificate melted in the rain.

I returned half expecting to hear from
you (some); I traveled the distance from summer to
the Columbia mid-pandemic, mid-continent,
while the heat scratched my eyelids dry.
Plenty to eat, plenty of time, plenty of stereo sounds
to remind me of loves just inside the next room,
of loves that left too soon, and loves that, though
gathered often before
could not find their way to my door.
Returning, though, I discovered, (like mosaics missing
stones), I was not alone. I was not the only one.
No longer weightless, I sank into the mud
and wished I had, with all my grass and green,
with all my song, not have stayed unseen.
Today I did not arise until well

Into the afternoon.

The Fog Invading Their Bones

 The Fog Invading Their Bones

(“I know the Lord will get justice for the poor and will defend the needy in court.” Psalm 140:12)

Today the clouds covered the dripping hills,
the trees half naked after the leaves have fallen,
the air had the first shiver of the season in it,
and the horizon was gray.

And I am warm. I look out my front window and
see my neighbor’s dog prancing like it is
new year’s eve.
The geese veered across the sky in their familiar
flight pattern toward the south.
Wrens hide in blackberry bushes,
Swallows send their young into the air.
And I am warm, fed, clothed and
have my favorite playlist for company.

How was I to know the first rains could reach
neighbors just a mile from me,
How was I to know they had no cover,
felt the cold, left their bodies aching with
the fog invading their bones?

I thought that sad face was angry with me,
I thought that ragged clothing was just fashion,
I thought that family on the corner was only on vacation,
I thought the homeless like sleeping on concrete.
I thought they had chosen, and having chosen,
should be politely escorted to an invisible part of town.

Sometimes they talked too much and I called them needy,
sometimes they slurred their words and I knew they deserved
far less than if they spoke clearly,
sometimes they fucked and shitted and bitched and bastarded
and I insisted they exchange their language for a piece of bread.
Sometimes I feel I was bad luck to those who were angry
only
because
they wanted to be human.

I think the Spirit is drawn to the huddled families
with snow drifting through the corners in their federal housing,
I think the Spirit seeks the shacks where friends left the
many to fend for themselves,
I think the Spirit warms the unprotected and
warns the unseeing whose privilege has kept them
from the cold.

I am Not the Joker

I am Not the Joker

(“The Lord does what is fair. He brings justice to all who have been hurt by others.” Psalm 103:6)

Someone told me today that I am not alone,
and I believe her words, and I know her heart,
and I know there is embrace and warm breath
on my face. But like so many, she is miles and hours
and days and time away.

I would stay in the kitchen or sink into the couch
of only a handful I’ve known who find me, who have seen me
without my costumed face and were unafraid of
the lesions on my soul and skin.

I am not the joker, never been one,
I take my humor in doses.
I might be the jester; in the long run
I make up lines for the masses.

Once I was the first to arrive, not always the last to leave,
but I rarely left early. Find me in a corner with one or two
who take every laugh seriously and turn every truth into
a limerick. I once played password with a couple and
my wife
until early in the morning, 4:30 or 5. Our boys were babies
and slept until we woke them with donuts bought at 5:45.
We shared wine and meals and
stories about grieving our parents’ deaths. That was
35 years ago, and now I am, having traveled a different branch
of the same river,
lost to them. And I cannot find the way to unlock the logic
that cast me out of their grace.

And then again, my faults have left me covered with mud.
I paid better attention to my hygiene then. Now, with
a beard less trimmed, I believe my faults plus my faith that
frolics in a different stream,
have left them wondering where I’ve ended up and
where I began.

But others tell me, again and again, that they feel the same
hurt,
they know the same
pain,
and would do everything they could to find me in the drifts,
where others simply gave up the search.

On days like these the rain is too stealthy for me.

We Sanitized the Whole Place

 

We Sanitized the Whole Place

(“Uphold justice and righteousness. Deliver from their oppressor those who have been robbed. Don’t mistreat or do violence to the alien, the orphan, or the widow, or shed the blood of innocent people in this place.” Jeremiah 22:3)

We sanitized the whole place before you came,
scrubbed the pews,
resewed the red-white-and-blue,
and made certain the aisles were clear of the
gum the children bring in on their shoes.

We never knew exactly how you wanted us to keep up the place,
dark wood, ancient tongues, plenty of parking, words projected on the wall.
We never completely understood how to control the masses,
the untrained, the languages, the odors and the hoodies,
the certain and the rookies.

Believe me, we made sure the alcoholics found their place,
the dealers too, and the genders that would not keep their
assigned designations. We know what to do with
alcohol and drugs and sex.

But, I hate to confess this, we never mentioned the immigrants
(only to tell those Vietnamese hairdressers they ought to learn
our language).
We stopped for the homeless like we stopped on Route 66
for a handful of curios and sticks of jerky. We pulled away
quickly before they identified us and asked for a ride.
(We would be glad to bring them for church if only that had
a street address.)

Where would you have us hide our halo? We keep it shiny
to make the world know we are wholly different than
the domestic violence we watch on tv. God bless America
and leave the rest of the losers out of it,
John 3:16 notwithstanding, the world is our world
and we will love it as we desire.

We do hand out candy at Christmas,
deliver turkeys on Thanksgiving eve.
But to bleed for a user who lost his keys
and locked himself out of his car during our November feast;
that is an interruption, that is going too far. (Here,
have some mashed potatoes please.)

And one last thing, our carpets are stained from
coffee we allowed in the sanctuary. Would it be okay,
Would you mind very much, if we spent a few thousand dollars
to clean it up? (We might even hire an undocumented or two,
if we can convince them they would be happier worshiping
up the road somewhere.)

Excuse me please, but I need to watch my favorite evangelist
tell me I could be a millionaire and that Jesus was the richest
guy to walk the face of the earth. I’ll have coffee with someone
at McDonald’s and do my penance just before lunch.

Why Has Your Love?

 

Why Has Your Love?

(“Learn to do good. Seek justice. Arrest oppressors. Defend orphans. Plead the case of widows.” Isaiah 1:17)

Why has your love become tethered to
abusive egos? Why has your love become grounded
after it flew so high? Why has your
love insisted
blood will be spilled when Jesus returns?
Why has your love
resisted
the tears that were once cried for you?

Why have you not dried tears that now crease the face
of the lonely one who is
living as a shadow?
Why has your love expired
like winter leaves mulched to black?
Did you disable our friendship,
did you discover it melted in the first
spring thaw?
Did you pledge allegiance to the next
despot who promised your prayers would be answered
if you only kept out the riff raff like me?

And still I know my complaint is full of
privilege and faint echoes of hoarded measures
against ruin. And still I know my fainting heart
has never beat on its own. And still the phone remains
silent.

Why is your chair empty? Why are your sleeves still
rolled down?
Why can’t you hear the silence
between each beat of my heart?
Why have you left me alone?

Binding the Wounds

Binding the Wounds

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.’” Zechariah 7:9, 10a

Jackie Robinson, the player who broke baseball’s color barrier, endured a difficult rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fans hurled racial slurs and mailed death threats, opposing pitchers threw beanballs, and even some of his own teammates started a petition against him.

One man who stood by him was shortstop Pee Wee Reese. At one game, fans sitting close to the field abused Robinson mercilessly, and it looked as if he might be near the breaking point. At that moment, Reese walked across the field to where Robinson was playing, and put his arm around his teammate’s shoulders. The crowd fell silent.

Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese showed the courage to stand for what was right, even when the majority opposed them. Similarly, Zechariah encouraged the Israelites to pursue true justice, even when many were practicing hypocrisy and self-centeredness.

We have witnessed much suffering across the world in the past several months. Hurricanes have ripped across Texas, Florida and the Caribbean. Over 350 people have lost their lives in Mexico’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake. In South Asia typhoons and flooding have taken 1,200 lives and forced millions from their homes. And now, just in the past week at least 59 were killed and more than 500 injured by a mass shooter in Las Vegas.

It is easy to feel overloaded with the scope of suffering we encounter. But if there is one thing every follower of Jesus is called to do, it is to continue showing God’s mercy and compassion as much as we can. If anything, disaster and grief can awaken greater depths of empathy within us for those who suffer.

True justice not only reacts in sympathy toward victims, but also acts to prevent future harm. We must open our hearts to the cries of those who endure not only the catastrophe of natural disaster, but to those who endure the continuing trials of poverty and injustice. Just as Pee Wee Reese stood up for Jackie Robinson we need to risk standing for those who are forgotten, misunderstood, and unfairly judged.

When we consider that God in Christ entered the world as a human, becoming a servant to us and suffering violent death at our own hands, our minds can hardly fathom the depths of His love. We did the worst possible thing to the Father of Love; we killed God! And what did Jesus do while hanging upon that instrument of death and violence? He said, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

That should leave no doubt in our minds about God’s heart toward humanity. Like the Good Samaritan, we are not called to tell people “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you hadn’t traveled that road.” Instead, exercising “true justice”, we meet the need and go beyond the boundaries of race, religion, poverty or any other human constructs and simply bind the wounds of those who suffer.

My roots are in the South. Though our family moved to Southern California when I was in second grade, I was born in Texas and spent nearly every holiday with grandparents in Tulsa, Okla. After Patti and I were married we moved to Oklahoma to be near my dad. That “southern courtesy” still runs through my veins.

Grandmas call you “hon” and people say, “Well, bless your heart” in response to just about anything. (Sometimes meaning the exact opposite of “bless your heart”, though.)

God is calling for something more than courtesy. The prophet Zechariah reveals the heart of God as he calls the people to more than surface level kindness, but to action rooted in heartfelt affection… “let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

That’s the real key, isn’t it? What we say and do is always a product of our inner self. Take some time and reflect God’s actions of compassion as revealed in the Cross. Consider how He sacrificed for us in the middle of all our muck and dysfunction and let His faithful love energize your own.

Speak

Speak

(“Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.”  Proverbs 28:31)

The silent store their aches and stains while
the babble hoards gold and shallow paintings
of their pretense of justice; write books, sign books,
speak at banquets, repeat themselves and are talked about

In every self-respecting conversation in and out of tradition foyers
and emerging porches.

The silent hide their bruises, the mute (abused for each question)
mark the days with passive phrases they have forgotten to repeat;
but know by heart the threats like a three-chord hook on the radio.
Stab them and they barely sigh.

The few words they finally say; with fever rising from throat to
cheeks to eyes to brow, are not to sway, somehow, the powerful.
The short sentences, unpretentious, are the flumes of steam from
a pressure cooker’s only solution for survival.

The righteous machine, maintained and oiled, digs for reasons
in the stomach of the hurting who have died already inside.
In holy metronome the go through the motions, assign
daily prayer potions and leave, two by two, for downtown
and brunch

To talk about themselves and why the silent
never ask to join them for lunch.

Do Good

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.” Isaiah 1:17

I usually have music playing in the background during my time in the office. Most often I listen to contemporary Christian music or instrumental hymns. Occasionally, just for a change of pace, I’ll put on some jazz, classic rock or blues. But most often it is Contemporary Christian.

Pocket Neighborhoods

Pocket Neighborhoods

(“Seek good and not evil—and live! You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.” Amos 5:14 [The Message])

Shall we sentence capital, thus ending our options,
if one innocent life can no longer speak?

We know the dead have no voice,
their pockets are empty,
their mouths without sound,
their eyes no longer seeking the justice
only the living can find.

Shall we put our hands in our pockets
fingering the gold coins we keep warm
against another cold snap? And what if the gold
is less precious than bread,
silver the less than the tin sardines are sold in?

We dreamed and built our houses better,
higher on the hill than we expected. The climb
was worth it, here out of touch from the grimy fingers
that pretend only to want lunch but haven’t eaten in a week.

We hire singers to soothe the conscience which occasionally
prompts backstage of our private performances. When we
run out, we pay double for musicians to make up tunes
just to keep the background noise right up front
drowning the script good parents taught about
give, share, kind and doubt about our certainties
of who deserves dessert and who should be left out.
And we sing loudest when the band strikes up
“Amazing Grace”.

We need a new neighborhood, perhaps where the condos
are built of cardboard; the timeshare pools the puddles after rain.
We need neighbors by name, by cousin, by cuisine we’ve
never tasted and now, pockets empty, are free to dine.

Toss Away

Toss Away

(“But alas for you Pharisees, because you tithe the mind and the rue and every vegetable, while disregarding the justice and the love of God. These things you should practice without omitting the other.” Luke 11:42)

I’m not ashamed to say I’ve watched you change the way
you use your intelligence to ferret out the truth. Predilections aside,
it’s the predictions that make me wonder why no one takes you to task.

Like a sci-fi novel gone bad, we’ve suspended our disbelief so far
there is no resemblance at all, your world to this one, no mirror to the moon,
no twin for the sun. Only baloney that tastes like rhetoric and
and dust devils that look like a daydreamer’s wish of the opponent’s
final demolition.

But there is an elixir sweet, that distills every law and prophet down
to palpable drink for the ready; a panacea of pain for the smug.

There might be a chill in the wind next summer, I’ll grant that
stones might roll across the sand;
But on the other hand, the sun may smile as it did summer last,
and the conspiracies we hear, the ones only the whisperers
conceive, may fail to appear. Unborn, they die the death which
no one trumpets who predicted them last year.

There is a recipe ready for the masses, pleasant consent to order:
a seasoning that hits the palate and awakes lingering hope for
something more comfortable than institutional fare. The recipe may
look the same
as our memories of home, but
the taste, the suggestion that the food is less about perfection
than relishing the hands like mothers who made it

Helps us toss away our apocalypse prophecy to
enjoy the spread meant to feed the world hungry
for more

Than another conspiracy that makes God out to be
a spice-counting pinchpenny.

God Will Repay

“Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he committed toward his father in murdering his seventy brothers.” Judges 9:56

Abimelech was an unsavory character who decided to take the throne by killing all but one of his 70 brothers. He wades through rivers of blood to accomplish his desire for power. The lone surviving brother Jotham, tries to warn the people that supporting Abimelech is a bad idea, but the people ignore him. They make him king and Abimelech reigns for three years.