Everything Universal

Everything Universal

(“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” Revelation 7:9)

The tickets were free and the air was clear.
The arena was packed and I knew very few who were there.
But I showed up because of the invitation;
I drove to the top of the hill to get a better view of
where we were going.
I saw lawyers and doctors,
servers and chefs,
crutches and joggers,
every kind of human I believed.

I made my way down quickly not wanting to miss a minute.
The road was crowded, the line was slow, but no one was
impatient as we waited our turn. I noticed an old friend,
one I did not expect to see at such a raucous and holy moment.
He looked the same and spoke the same,
and I remembered his name the moment he waved at me.
Neither one of us expected to see each other here.
It had been 30 years since we played tennis together
on the weekends.

We parked near each other and walked to the entrance together.
I felt as if her was escorting me. But neither of us had any idea
about what we would hear and see. Myriads filled up around us,
circling the round rainbow throne.

We looked at each other before the singing began. This was the
most indiscrete moment we had ever lived. Millions, and maybe
billions outside the doors were all dancing like the world had
just begun. So many languages but we sang the same song.

We spent the time like we were levitating from the ground.
Gravity gave up its heavy bonds. 

And the Lamb. And the Throne. And our joy. And the Home
we learned we could call our own. Not a single wall,
not a impenetrable barrier kept any of us away. Our
tongues rehearsing native songs that we all understood.
Voices creating a new song from the old. Everything that was
universal
felt local that day.

A Patch of Sky

A Patch of Sky

(“…so that you may know that the earth belongs to the Lord.” Exodus 9:29b)

I looked up at the patch of sky above me;
I looked out at the swatch of green before me.
I saw clouds pulled across the blue with kite strings;
I saw myself imbedded in a shadow box of early afternoon breezes.
Sometimes it goes without saying that certain stories need to be told.
Sun or rain,
the words can be heard in whispered portraits of the day.
A doe crossed the road just beyond the cemetery
and disappeared into the stand of trees and brush.
She didn’t know I saw her. She sauntered like it
all belonged to her.
I walked toe to heel hoping to get closer to the
next one that crossed my path.
The air was thicker today, and I heard the
blackbirds say there were still hours to stay
in the middle of the afternoon.

An Open Window

An Open Window

(“But you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Romans 14:10)

My soul was an open window but you
persisted in pounding on the door.
You talked like you knew everything I’ve owned,
you thought I was hiding from you.
Once you saw the wounds but named them
inadequacies. There were shortages to be
sure, but not because I ignored them.
My soul was drafty until I found
the touch
of healing in the person who looked deeply
and refused to walk away.

The scars are still warm from the fever they felt,
and grew hotter the more exposed to the fiery gaze
that read them like tea leaves cursing my weak efforts
to escape,
the constant stare that sought to make me more aware
of the sighs heaped upon the weakest places in me.

I’ll keep a warm corner ready for you,
I’ll light a fire and put on the coffee.
I’ll set a place for you even though you gave
so little space for me.
And if you feel exposed, I will only pass you
the cream and sugar, put another log on the fire,
and ask if you would like to stay just a little longer
into the early evening of the day.

I Looked for Your Letter

I Looked for Your Letter

(“How beautiful is the person who comes over the mountains to bring good news, who announces peace and brings good news, who announces salvation and says to Jerusalem, ‘Your God is King.’” Isaiah 52:7)

I’ve looked for your letter for decades now.
From one box number to the next I hoped to see the
familiar script that spoke of your beautiful but nervous hands,
the signature you always reserved for me.
I check my mailbox every day,
I no longer need to go to the post office.
And still it remains empty, except for coupons and
special deals on technical advances I wish I could afford.

I was never a pacer; I sit and brood.
The more I brood the greater the pull of gravity.

I would read your words over and over,
I would run my fingers along the strokes on the page.
I would memorize the reflections,
I would set my heartbeat to their cadence.

But I have been amiss and have not written either.
Mine would be Times New Roman for my fingers
form letters like a ten-year old. I once tried to
speak in ways that welcomed you in. But now, after
so much time has passed,
after all my fears have been exposed,
after all my crimes have been deposed,
I just don’t know if I want to go out in the open.

But I wait to hear, and suppose I never will,
your invitation. It grows fainter and fainter.

Tomorrow I will check the mail again. Perhaps
a letter will land mistakenly in my hands. Or,
if not,
I will write one myself. I will hear the words
come slowly over the hill, the antidote to
silence,
the answer, unrepeatable as
g-d’s own name.

Nowhere Left to Go

 

Nowhere Left to Go

(“Jesus looked at his followers and said, ‘Great blessings belong to you who are poor. God’s kingdom belongs to you.’” Luke 6:20)

It takes only one gaze, one long and expansive glance
from the king of heaven, the lord of earth,
to bring the shadow people into their proper light.

He used to sleep underneath the bridge. Everyone knew it.
There are no secrets in a hamlet edged up against the river.
He had no car. Walked the bridge to the island where he
lived in a workshop his grandfather left him when he died.
It did not belong to him, but to his family far out of state.
The evicted him, he filled his crates, packed a leaky travel trailer
and pushed it to a storage area for safe keeping. Stretching tarps
across the roof and every corner the bungee cords groaned as
the winds ballooned the blue and camouflage waterproofing when
the winter storms blew fierce.

He could not live in it: storage only.

He cursed when he got angry. Ok, he cursed a lot. He had a motor
scooter he used to ride to town until it broke down. A bicycle replaced
it and worked just fine until the rims and gears wore out with rust.
Then his job fell through and could no longer pay cash only.
For the last two years he had fought to find a way out of the
shivering dark and lonely.

I gave him rides to the food banks when I could. We drove to
the storage lot, unlocked the flimsy trailer door and put the bags
in cupboards and counters, but mostly on the floor.

Nowhere to go when the rains came, I put him up in a storage shed
fifty feet from the door of the church. He found a corner between
manger scenes and lawn mowers and slept with his head on the
lower shelf with canning jars on either side. It was not easy. He was
not tidy. And it was only temporary we knew.

But some of the leaders blew their stack to think a vagrant, a
known drug user, (actually, they would say, it didn’t matter anyway)
and said insisted he had to be out by the end of the day.

Nowhere left to go, and with empty suggestions from the evictors,
he cursed at me, and cursed again. I had let him down, he had been
my friend.

And now, two years later I cannot find him, I do not know where he’s been.

I often wonder why my brothers would not receive someone that Jesus said
was a blessing.

I Do Not Believe in Mirrors

 

I Do Not Believe in Mirrors

(“And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Acts 6:15)

I do not believe there are mirrors in heaven,
and they do a disservice here on earth.
You can never see you the way I see you,
everything is reversed.
So angels walk among us brightly,
but, hidden behind the scripts written
by time and overactive minds,
the best of us believe the reflections
of glass
instead of the creation ex nihilo
spoken: our name pronounced out loud by
the One who is unpronounceable.

I do believe there are best friends in heaven,
the same as the ones who tell us of the sun they see
in our distorted faces.
You, my friend, have been starlight when night what black,
moonlight when the sky cracked with thunder,
sunlight when the rain locked me indoors and alone.
I have seen your face shine at the same time
you avoided mirrors and took down self-portraits on your wall.

I do not believe there are angels in heaven,
they are all here in service on earth.
You see them better than they see themselves,
they think they are bound to time and nations.
But they are a best friend, a beggar,
a grandmother aging, a mother giving birth,
an immigrant making masa; an unlocked door,
an open kitchen, a hug that never lets go,
a gaze that say, “I know, I know, I know.”

You, my friend, again, have been an angel,
mostly on the days you thought there was far too much
pain
for your face to shine. All I know,
but for my angels, I would not like my
reflection at all.