To Be Seen in Public

 

To Be Seen in Public

(“May the Master of Peace himself give you the gift of getting along with each other at all times, in all ways. May the Master be truly among you!” 2 Thessalonians 3:16)

 

Veils of asbestos keep us apart in the way that words
remain unheard. All we remember is the last conflict and
how we had been proven right. The judges consulted briefly
and crowned us correct. We stopped talking after that; after
one win
we did not want the chance that we might miss the boat.
So beside the cry of the doves cooing, I hear no more arguments
from you.

It is an uneasy peace where no one talks and everyone thinks
there is nothing wrong. I doubt the Prince of peace ever imagined
we would hang a blanket between us to unsolve any future conflict.
There was a time when we walked together through a torrent of rain
and we shared the one umbrella we had. We were still soaked, but
only strategically.

But we forgot the words somewhere along the way. We left and
went our own path after the rain. We ran into each other downtown,
just a block from a mega million-dollar church. We greeted each other,
the obligatory hug, and shared updates since the storm. Then
we walked away again.

I heard you had lost your beloved, the one of your dreams, the one who
clung to you in every challenge of conscience. You were both in
a scrappy sort of love. There was no perfect picture way to describe it.
But love had battled hard and it hit you deep and sharp when she
lost the last battle of life.

I reached through the blanket that separated us, I tried to find your heart.
I spoke words of sorrow, wrote odes of remembrance, but there
was no sound from your side, no response to the offer of consolation.
It is an uneasy peace the relies on silence. It begs the questions
we never asked.

I am still here, and you are still there. Who knows how much
longer we have. Let us walk to the coffee shop around 2,
let ourselves be seen in public, and recount the ways we had
walked together so often we knew the route by heart. And
if the silence is because of me, I will beg your forgiveness. And
If it is due to you, all I offer are my hands outstretched to
the same friend I knew those many years ago. Our
lattes were hot, so we took them outside and walked along
the river. And there, the blanket was blown away by a
swift breeze that caught us by surprise.

And They Thought He Was Lost

And They Thought He Was Lost

(“You blind leaders, you take a small bug out of your cup but you swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:24)

Rounding the final lap
he wanted to
stop
and
sit down. He had already
won 101 and
102 meant little to him now.

He sat until the final runners
lapped him, then
stood up,
looked around,
and walked quietly off the track.

He picked up his phone,
called a friend and
walked the mile to meet them
at the coffee shop. They
sipped their lattes and
spent an hour with few
words needed.

He walked home and lit
a big stogie although
another friend once told him
she would prefer he take up
nude sunbathing than
smoking cigars.

Making Up for Lost Time

Making Up for Lost Time

(“They make strict rules and try to force people to obey them. But they themselves will not try to follow any of those rules.” Matthew 23:4)

You make so many assertions that
they pile up like
sand dunes
leaving us to shovel our way out to
the light of day.
You stand atop the mounds like
triumphant kings
guarding against insurrections while
you coerce new converts to
“stand over there”
while you drown them in sand
all over again.

You leave them tied up in knots
while you string them along.
You patter on like geniuses about
angels and pins, sacrifices and sins,
while you dine behind passwords and
gated walls.

You hide it from them until the
weight benumbs them, and they think
god must enjoy a creation that is too
heavy to bear.

Between the poverty of your insinuations
and the wealth of encyclopedic rules you insist
they memorize, not flip through,
there is a completely unreasonable world
where

Weights are lifted,
sight-lines are shifted,
sand is sifted to build better beaches
where play is allowed
day in, day out
by the unruly spirit

That God has breathed into the world.

Take my hand, we will dance until the
we fall down laughing and crying,
making up for lost time spent
learning the steps from an instruction book.

They Are Not Lost

 

They Are Not Lost

(“He did not do many powerful works there because they did not put their trust in Him.” Matthew 13:58)

They are not lost, we have not hidden them;
they are mostly found unbidden within our perceptions.
And so the sun rises, and so the clouds spread their quilt
across the sky.
And so the trail narrows, and so the half-souls have
tried to understand the switchbacks you’ve taken
to arrive outside their bubbled cities and towns.

Do you see mercy in every ray of light, and the dance of grace
in the dust it brightens? Does the thunder and lightning
remind you of magnetic love that still is writing the
sacred sonnets, the divine poetry of the sky?

No longer beg, no longer moan, no longer be ashamed
of the sadness you’ve postponed because tears have run dry.
There are melodies inspired only by you,
there are lyrics with your name behind every puzzling line,
there are trees where you sat as a child,
there are bluejays to remind you of foothill
excursions to play in the snow.

There is something that lurks behind today’s silence,
there is a mother’s son that cries when you cannot,
there is a spirit that fills the void and the density,
there is a parent that fashions it all.

There is only the miraculous,
or there is not.

Sometimes Being Hidden

Sometimes Being Hidden

(“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3)

I must be hidden because so many friends
cannot seem to find me.
I don’t blame them, I’m as dead as I am alive,
more dead if you look inside
and see the sticky black tarmac
where may takeoff seems to
never get off the ground.

I must be hidden, I cannot find my own self,
my true self,
my do it well self; my death knell self
has done all the heavy lifting.

I am hidden in the world but seen so well,
I am not yet invisible, still vulnerable.
I am on display the way they catalogue fingerprints
from suspects who try to hide in dens and alleys.

I trust my smokescreen, the dense debris of intellect and
good intentions; who would guess the rest?
I’m too easily discovered, my hiding place is indiscreet,
when I’m finally discovered the street only laughs
and the grandstands grow deadly silent.

I could be far too dead to change,
but alive enough to try.
Sometimes being hidden
feels like being lost.

It's Easy to Get Lost

It’s Easy to Get Lost

(“Christ says ‘Yes’ to all of God’s promises. That’s why we have Christ to say ‘Amen’ for us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20)

It’s easy to get lost when you let your mind wander
where the forest obscures the horizon. The jazz station
plays with time signatures all day long.

You might start at the entrance, a graveled parking lot
with a semi-cab at one end and an suv at the other;
one of their radios is gurgling the blues.
It might make you wonder why the middle of the day
is denser than the beginning.

You follow the arcing trail, a wide white sidewalk
with bemudded bicycle tracks left over from yesterday
afternoon. All too soon the earth is wet as you
merge with the trees, bluebonnets and sparrows.

You take a breath, reminding yourself you missed half
the view; your mind had narrowed, enclosed all the
thoughts from the previous year as they bounded about
your brain
like clothing in the washing machine. Like
tennis shoes in the dryer.

Mindful of the static that buzzed across your consciousness,
you choose the mud and rocks instead, the sky graying
overhead,
and a lone butterfly gliding toward
the sunflower garden that has not bloomed yet
this season. (It was likely an angel, you felt the
magic of its wings.)

A mere quarter-hour in and you’ve lost the beginning,
which you don’t mind,
you’ve been here before; will visit again. There
are some days that even a best friend would
be an intrusion.

Another five minutes and you’ve lost the ending.

You know where the pond is, but you have lost your bearings;
halfway around it and you would be nearing the beginning.
But overclouded by trees the trail is foggy green, winding through
cones and around the cacti hidden like silver
deep in the grass.

The sun is out, but it is obscure. The wind is light, and will not
expire until the moon and stars drip dew upon the meadow again.
You had nowhere to go, and with no thoughts in your mind
you unwind the clock that clanked away each minute you wasted.

You had thought for nearly all your life that places like this
were perfect for prayer. But duty always beckoned before you
set one foot upon the sod.

This time you’re lost and exactly where you are supposed to be.

But God Knows

But God Knows

“But He knows the way that I take. When He has tried me, I will come out as gold.” Job 23:11

I hate losing things, especially something valuable or irreplaceable. I have carried a picture of my wife in my wallet for over 40 years. It is her senior picture. The edges are well-worn, but the beauty in that photo never fades. Several years ago we made a road trip from North Dakota to New York State to visit our son and daughter-in-law who were attending university at Binghamton. Within a day of arriving I could not find my wallet anywhere. I won’t go into details, but we scoured the car, our clothes and everywhere we could think, and found nothing.