Not Yet 10 in Nashville

Not Yet 10 in Nashville

(“All I want is to know Christ and the power of his rising from death. I want to share in Christ’s sufferings and become like him in his death.” Philippians 3:10)

Christ, far too many have taken lives with
your name on their lips. They say your name,
they invoke your power, they quote from a book where they find
a sword here and
a war here and
walls falling here and
sulfur consuming the cities on the plain.

Why do we forget, what the hell is wrong with our
broken memory,
that you told us we have no idea what spirit we are when
we want to rain fire upon our own enemies?

We give weapons that rip through flesh and incinerate
organs and aortas, and blame the crazy ones who pull the triggers.
I have to say, my Jesus, my brother,
the crazy are the ones who let anyone possess those guns
meant to tear a human to shreds.

Christ, they did the worst to you. Christ, they mocked and
cursed and sneered for you to leap from the nails and save yourself.
Meanwhile a legion of angels waited for your word. And you never
whispered
a single command.

Today three children, not yet 10, were obliterated by a shooter with
an AR-15 (three legislators sport them as tie clips and lapel pins)
and they pray for the parents and go home
to shoot another family photo armed with semi-automatic weapons
legal and celebrated,
worshiped and idolized,
over the lives of third graders who never saw it coming.

Christ, why do we never learn the cross? Jesus, why do we never trust
the way
of Peace
that surpasses every strategy conceived by
men who only hope for red to fill the streets when you
return again.

All
i
want

Is to know you.
more
so
much
more.

To know the power the gentleness wields,
to know the subversion that turns us away from
the killing fields,
the halls where bullets whine louder and louder
since the last time only weeks ago.

We are sick and broken. We are full of cowardly unspoken
love that
would save our babies, comfort their daddies and mommies,
and protect them like we say we protect
those that are yet unborn.

Christ, we do not know you.
Turn us. Teach us the power of
melting every weapon into crosses,
hoes and rakes for community gardens,
and let us never
study the weapons of war
again.

The Terminally Crazy One

The Terminally Crazy One

(...so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 1:12)

When black lives seem to matter less to
people dressed in their sunday best
than people of privilege driving by with
rifles in their racks and stacks of collectable angels,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When care bears are satanic, and purple teletubbies are gay,
when a president who prays and quotes the mountain verbatim
is called the anti-christ and his family monkeys
and his wife not a woman but a man,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When pledges of allegiance to an empire’s flag
are enforced from stadiums to sanctuaries,
when the national flag flies proudly from steeples
that declare Jesus is lord and soldiers are honored before
teachers and workers with the poor,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

Even my therapist asks about my church attendance
and wonders why it has fallen off
like a toddler too near the top of a ladder.
Seems like I’ve seen her forever (or a facsimile)
and she insists I’ve made very little progress.
She is right, I’ll admit; the forces that forced me to
make my first appointment have not decreased since
the first day I confessed until yesterday when I doubted.
Talk is cheap with the right insurance, and prayer is all
left to the bereft and poor. But the meds help me sleep,
though they do not repel the dreams where every attempt at
to exonerate my soul is unexempt from overnight sweats.

When leaders lie to cover their mistakes, not bishops,
but maybe a few. And others insist their lack of candor
was necessary for the saving of a soul,
when the screw was turned in the name of purity
and holiness was a name for those with the fewest
tvs and lps in their home,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When love is the flag we love (not a rebel rag or country’s
glorification)
when the least of these matter (the widow, the poor, the
black, the immigrant)
when sight is given to the blind (thus seeing Christ in
the crowds, the soft and loud)
when the lame are allowed to walk (thus marching in streets
for the beloved we have forgotten)
when freedom is the air each one breathes (thus untasting
the sour fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)

When the walls finally crumble, not from war our shouts,
not from trumpets or triumphs,
but from the sheer weight of grace that descends like rain
filling the oceans and rivers, the streams and inlets
with the knowledge of God, the mercy of Christ

Then

I may decide to join
the terminally crazy ones.

A Change of Opinion

A Change of Opinion

(“John the Baptist preached that all the people of Israel needed to repent of their sins and turn to God and be baptized.” Acts 13:24)

Some lives are not loud, denouncing every opposition.
Some lives refrain from mockery, shocking the elite believers.
Some lives are small voices in the choir.

Some shout at every opportunity, imitating prophets,
eating crickets, sucking molasses, and telling the masses
to buy up their solo releases while there is still time.

Some songs use subterfuge, laying their eggs in the middle of the night.
Some rhymes are evasive, several degrees from perfection.
Some poetry sojourns until the earth turns to face the sun.

Some rants pierce foreheads, destroying the minds they try to mend.
Some sermons shatter the cracks, demanding tears for proof of devotion.
Some arguments inflame canyons, making the rivers impassable.

But I am changed at the first hint of a smile.

For Once

(“I was eyes for the blind person. I was feet for the lame person.” Job 29:15)

You took the lives that were broken eggshells,
the eyes that had not slept in weeks,
and rocked them like a lullaby, and sang them
like a hymn.

You took the ears assaulted by spears and arrows,
and listened to the sparrows for them,
heard the promises of lovers and
danced for them to the tune of children’s laughter.

You took their feet, shrunken with time,
and walked the forest among the pines for them,
marched in the parade and plunged your toes in the mud
for them. You massaged the scales and the brittle nails
that displayed their age too soon.

You took their soul, fragile as a soap bubble in the wind,
and flew it like a kite for them,
despite the unpolite words of those
who do not understand how love can take
the saddest of them. You took their soul,
crumbling like desert clods,
and rained for them in tears that,
(let no one know) for once
were not their own.

Caught by the Breeze

Caught by the Breeze

(“But Ittai said to the king, ‘As the Lord lives, and as my lord the king lives, your servant will be where my lord the king may be, in death or in life.’” 2 Samuel 15:21) 

I.

It was a muggy morning; trash day in the suburbs.
The dogs had been out scrounging hamburger wrappers and
pizza boxes. And the wind blew.

A plastic lid from a large soda was caught by the breeze. Separated,
and turned on its side, the wind pushed it like a wheel down the asphalt
for a block and another. Twice and more it nearly fumbled in the moments
when the breeze was catching its breath. But just as it looked like the lid
would takes its rest within the gutter alone,
a gentle puff started it rolling again.

I watched this airy motion, the lid, the breeze and silent neighborhood trees
as witnesses to the same. Animated by atmosphere alone, the circle of plastic
crossed the street and barely crawled up a concrete driveway a quarter mile
from where it began.

Then, as if the universe had planned it, the solitary lid lay down on the
grass in front of the driveway’s home. And the fan of air blew elsewhere.

I’d rather been moved by the Spirit than coerced by a strong man.

II.

Come walk with me again, friend, life is shorter now than when we began.
Let the Spirit bring you to me again. We have less days to talk about the
ways of compassion, healing, love and revealing the light we both share
in common with all.

In these days of pain the light barely affects the chain of events that memory
brings like a waiter with the same burger I’ve eaten every Friday for years.

But sounds, the sounds jangle. The sounds are worse than toll bells, shakier
than cannon balls, fiercer than jet decibels on the ground. They shake my
nerves until the synapse explode in flame.

But your silence is like a hammer on the anvil of my mind. Your absence has
inverted solitude so I do not know which I should choose: the shock of a
shout across the room, or the weight of silence across the years.

There is more compassion left than holes in our clothes. More forgiveness and
amends,
than sand in our pockets.

So, return my call, answer my letter, let me know that you are better and
we will observe together what
the power of compassion can do.

Matter

Matter

(“Tie them on your hands and wear them on your foreheads to help you remember my teachings.” Deuteronomy 6:8)

We need no further instruction, we are full, we are satisfied;
We do not need the signs along the boulevard, and please do not
bring them to my neighborhood.
My Life Matters: that’s all you need to know.

My Life Matters, but has never been mistaken for a felon.
My Life Matters, and I can trace my relatives back to tobacco and cotton farms,

bogs and peats before crossing in hope, the Great Blue.
My portage was paid, my travel discretionary.
My Life Matters: where would you be without me?

Your Life Matters? Of course, but only as it relates to me.
Your Life Matters: And your relatives crossed the same Tossing Sea, though
I grant you against their will. But the climate was better, and jobs awaited you
once you brought the right price at auction.
Your Life Matters: but I just don’t see why you are making such a fuss.
Weren’t you freed? Aren’t you living the Dream? I know the school
where you live sits like an abandoned air force base; sand in the bubblers,
weeds between the crumbling pavement cracks.

Black Lives Matter, and after letting time rush between our feet, the
river we never catch,
and after letting reason have sway over the reflexes that make our mouth
into a muttering mass of artillery rounds, we pause

And honor your suffering without cause.

We will only say All Lives Matter when we put, at the head of our line,
those forced to the back and beyond empathy’s reach. Until then

I (cannot speak for “we” now) will honor the Meaning of every
sorrow, every grief, every cloud that should not have perched above
the barrel of a gun too quickly squeezed by an officer of the Peace.

I will honor the Uniforms who embrace the best wisdom, who
sit at the feet of the inner city father long enough to hear,
who let themselves weep at another neighbor’s pain,
who, along with their tears, look humbly in the eyes
of a black man’s grief, and lead the amen, the rhythm
of brotherhood alive again, and can repeat the humble refrain,
the quiet unison above the foolish chatter;
“I understand now, and with you say, without doubt,
without deceit..

Black

Lives

Matter