The Best Way We Met Each Other

 The Best Way We Met Each Other

(“Lord, your name will be famous forever! Lord, people will remember you forever and ever.” Psalm 135:13)

Was there something so unruly it threatened to get lost in the mud
of high-sounding words that no one understood? We can tangle our
language in ways that they knots are impossible to tie. And then
no one knows the message, no one knows the time. We just throw
out proclamation sky high and miles wide and figure everyone would
understand
everything we have to say.

It’s not for a lack of good material. We have had a miracle or two
come our way. We passed the daunting chemistry test. We got the
promotion at work. We found parking places at Walmart twice in the
same week. If that’s not God watching out for us, I don’t know what else
it would be.

Is there a quieter pain, is there a memory that is more plain; are their
tender moments when we knew God showed up invisibly but perceptively?
Did a mother reconnect with her own family; did she find that words
had been distorted
and they all could speak differently now out of time? Did a lifelong friend
cry over his wife’s dangerous prognosis and find a distant friend who
reached out to fill his heart again. They had been inseparable, but time
and distance worked against it. When hardship that was beyond anyone’s
ability to change, was there a friend who, over the miles, offered a simple
hand and hope for better all in Jesus’ name?

I remember the dark day in my living room, at the bottom of every
uncertain turning of the earth and the quakes it was threating to bring.
Two men entered, and bowed before me, took of my shoes and humbly
took my feet into their hands, washing them of the grime of the day,
They were once Superintendent at the highest point in our religious district.
They had left the band and now played solo. They expressed sorrow over my
demise. I listened and cried.

The blues still subdued me, the rancor and pain still grew within me,
and friends gathered round, a redheaded fellow musician who loved all
the music I adored,(she turned me) a drummer who could hold time and also hold to opposing
thoughts in one head (he was to be commended for that), a single mom who
needed to know she was not failing her kids, and a widow who simply drank
her full supply of friendship around our dining room table every other week.

And we have not forgotten; we know the name. We will always remember;
we will not forsake the name. We will share cocktails, stories, songs and
poems. We will elevate the best way we met each other and the best way
our healings had begun.

How can we, how can we ever forget the way the sun shined on our
tentative gatherings, some of them around food lovingly prepared. We
were a haven for the hurting. We were a space for the unsure.
And we just tried to act like Christ to each other, as impossible as that
sounds.

We cried, we giggled, we dug in deep, we floated freely, we sang
and learned songs as full as a Christmas morning.

We cannot forget, we will always remember. We were grateful
that healing permeated everything we tried and every time we met.

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.

Her Name Was Not Hagar

Her Name Was Not Hagar

(I owe much of these thoughts to the excellent book by Karen Gonzalez, "The God Who Sees".)

https://www.amazon.com/God-Who-Sees-Immigrants-Journey/dp/151380412X

Hagar appears to us early in the 16th chapter of Genesis. She is a slave in Abraham's household, Sarah's "handmaiden". We know that Abraham means "father of many nations" and "Sarah" means "princess" or "noblewoman." Names are important. They identify us within families and culture.

So, how about Hagar? Would it surprise you that Hagar is most likely not a proper name at all? Probably coming to live with Abraham and Sarah during their time in Egypt, she becomes Sarah's servant. Her "name" means, roughly

"Foreign Thing". Variously it may also mean "dragged off" or "pressed into service."

We have no idea her given name; all we have is the label probably put upon her by Abraham and Sarah, identifying her position as "other".

Think how many labels we use to dehumanize others. "Immigrant", "Undocumented Worker", "Snowflake", "Reactionary", "Communist", (you can add to the list at your leisure.)

Hagar, or "The Foreign One" is given to Abraham by Sarah because Sarah has not borne any children. Even Hagar's body and offspring are not her own...let alone not having her own "name". After this Sarah and Hagar have a falling out, Sarah treats her harshly, and pregnant, Hagar runs away to the desert. The "Foreign One" becomes a refugee.

But here is the amazing part of the story. "Firsts" in the Scriptures can be important clues to valuable stories about God.

Guess what: Hagar is the first human in the Bible to give God a name! Yup. This "Foreign One" (btw, not even described as a foreign "woman", further dehumanizing her.)

A messenger from God appears and encourages her to return to Sarah, telling her that she also will bear many children. The messenger tells her to name the child in her womb Ishmael, that is, "God hears".

Stop. Right. There!

She certainly felt devalued and UNheard by both Sarah and Abraham. But her child Ishmael will forever remind her that God has truly "heard" her. What an impact that must have made. Certainly, given her "label", she must have felt isolated, unwelcome, and separated within the Abrahamic household.

But God would have NONE of that! She was "seen" by the God who is not limited by cultural and religious biases. And so, she gives God the first name recorded in the Book of Genesis:

"El Roi (the God who sees)" (Genesis 13). She continues, "Have I really seen the God who sees me?"

The story should inform us about how "seen" we all are. It should also move us to stop using dehumanizing labels. Learn a person's name. Learn their background. Hear their stories.

I'm sure you wore certain labels at one time or another. Meditate on how that felt. And consider the God who

Sees you personally. And begin to "see" others...not with labels, but with names that point to their worth and humanity.

All He Wanted Was to Know His Name

All He Wanted Was to Know His Name

(“That’s why the spring was called, ‘The Well of the Living One who Looks after Me.’” Genesis 16:14a)

He side-stepped into town; didn’t want his face to be seen.
He stepped over every crack, carried dried bread in his pockets.
He was from another country, he rarely heard his own language.
His face was crusted like a coal miner’s map. He never liked
being watched. He would step into the shadows. He never liked
being asked where he was from, or how he got to where he was.
Every road was different, every meal the same. All he wanted was
silence.
All he wanted was to know his name.
He watched for movement behind the trees, limbs that moved against
the breeze. He listened for snapping twigs, for whispers, for a
stray dog’s bark, or perhaps the sun and shadow colliding just ahead.
No one knew him. No one ever did. He moved through time,
past tilting billboards, around rail stations abandoned like scarecrows
in the desert.
He read every cloud. He rehearsed every line of the day. He memorized
all he had forgotten from the day before.
Suspended in the space between nearly and always,
he rarely stopped. The future was inevitable. Dust devils
were the only messengers of god he knew.

Then his luck ran out. His tank was empty. His feet curled in on themselves,
his brain sought the solace of shade and croaking frogs beside a
farmer’s duck pond. He let his guard down. He let the spare breath
he had
form words he feared. He saw the eyes that saw him. He saw the feet
moving gently along the bank. He heard the voice, light and translucent,
that only said (he shivered)

I see you.

It was a child’s voice. They were darting eyes that saw everything. They
came from the sky and the dandelions at the same time, these eyes that
belonged to everyone. And he let his breath go to

Fill the void he had left behind him.

My Broken Casements

My Broken Casements

When electricity burns through you nerves like
the hum of a dozen engines,
and your head is encased in wasted dreams
you would rather not remember,
days shake you like a rug and heap more reasons
to close your eyes than stay awake watching
for something meaningful to happen.

I cannot confess enough; my confessions are meaningless.
And yet there are more sins I’ve committed than sins I’ve
admitted. The numbers do not matter. My broken casements
would still let in the cold though I was young and innocent.

I barely have to look past my window to know
that life is better than I perceive it. And yet
tears are my food,
heartache is my refreshment,
boredom is my religion, and
loneliness the name I call nearly everything.

I rarely create. My mind watches the calendar for
the next date that I’ll miss, or sit silent among people
I know, unloading my defenses privately at home.

I would board a train to yesterday if I knew when it
departed. I would post my arrival to be sure someone
would show up for me with my heart in hand.

Today I’ll blame the pain, tomorrow the people who
promised to refrain from warfare. Next week I’ll accuse
the loosened nuts and bolts for not keeping me together.
Everything is out of joint; everything is knotted tightly.
I’d tell you all my stories, but I know it would not end well.

So, I hide myself within myself. I confide only in the rain.
Inside this jar of clay I see only through the cracks
inches away. Outside I might look in. Outside I might
laugh that a silly man can find so little joy in an hour
of neighbors and celebration.

But the electricity still runs, sending my mind a thousand
times around the same stories that never did end well.

Verbs Like Green

Verbs Like Green

(“But as for you, return to your God, hold fast to mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.” Hosea 12:6)

What if there was a new name for everything;
not verbs like
green or
running. And have you caught your limit yet?

What if hills were lions’ manes, the clouds fastened to
nursery rhymes?
What if Saturn’s rings were alligator dreams, the stars
tethered to geothermal springs?

What if no one was king, what if you were circular?
What if fences were holes in our theories? What if
space/time was clearly a one-way street?
What if the universe is on virtual repeat,
the daylight a single page in a book?
What if everything shook loose until
random was sequential, rational was inclusive,
geology was playful and
immigrants ruled the world?

I won’t say love should be defined,
I won’t say wine should be refined,
I won’t author definitions,
I won’t offer explanations.

I won’t be I. I won’t. I want to
be we. I want. We.

What if we are stick figures drawn
by a kindergarten class.
What if every notion was our last, every
first a cats-eye marble left by
debaters who decided

There could be a new name for

Nearly

Everything.

Woke/Provocation

 Woke/Provocation

(“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24)

Buzzing between sleep and the dawn,
someone took it upon themselves to
unshake me from my late dreams.
Chilled with ice, the water hit my face
and every nerve was alert.
I had not forgotten to set my alarm for the day
and had no pressing issues ahead of me.
Provoked and awake, my made-up world
unwound like the mist above a lake.
It did not occur to me that I could not
be late on this particular day.

So,
I awoke.

Woke,
what a word for the mornings, what a seeing of things
as they are and not as I wish or remember.

Woke,
what a spiritual state of things
that turns ingrained mediocrity to love
that is like the sky,
embracing everything.

Woke,
what a personal way to see my neighbor
who is ignored for some abhorrent doctrine of
hell
and
sin
and
inside knowledge.

Woke,
what a lovely word that the enemy
has obfuscated with deadly
flumes of smoke.

I saw my twelve-year-old friend Amy on
my walk today and her big black dog
raced to greet me.
I reached out my hand and
petted his solid ribcage. “Hey,
Samson!”

I do not think Amy heard,
but she shouted,
“Hercules,
come here.”
And my memory, provoked,
awoke
to the name that defines him.

Call Them By Name

 

Call Them by Name

(“I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.” John 12:24)

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the corners that never see
the breath of morning breezes.
It is easy to say I will not reject the shadows,
I will not gasp at the unexposed stories
locked away in a steamer trunk too heavy to bear.

If you have lost the key, I will help you find it;
I will turn it gently in the lock and avert my gaze
as you tilt the lid slowly, as the light lowly beams
across the musty contents.

They are everything you have stowed away,
the hopes, the loves, the dreams, the clouds,
the kites you would launch in an opening sky.
But hidden they have become an ache of sorrow,
lead weights upon your opening soul.

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the dreams you have packed away.
I have stored my own shadows, wept over my unspoken
passions, and grieved the love I never gave and the love
I have lost.

I will listen, though you whisper haltingly,
though you stammer for words to, this time,
give life to the dreams that were nearly a casket below
the earth.
Tell them to me low enough and only I will hear.
Tell them to me slowly, birth never comes quickly or
easily. But I will be your doula never leaving your side
until, born anew,
the full light shines on all you thought was dead or
shame. Now they are christened: “Beloved”.

Call them by name.

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.

See Us More Clearly

See Us More Clearly

"For the sake of your name, don’t despise us. Don’t dishonor your glorious throne. Remember your promise to us; don’t break it." Jeremiah 14:21)

Please see us more clearly than we see

ourselves,

here we bring our votives and underlying motives

wondering why our turns of left and right and our

circles of up and down

leave us just as grounded as before.

We would fly if we could, (some pretend that we do),

we would beat back the momentum of our own

dishonesty, except our own family tell us

all we believe is true.

Please see the red in our eyes, (anger or crying,

sometimes a mere disguise). We give no excuses,

though we choose to sometimes blame it on the way

we have been created. (Me, not you. The yous abuse

every freedom they are given. The theys are tireless and

wicked without reason.) But we confess, and confess, and

confess, and it sounds like all the rest who cannot find a

place to admit, we vote for ugly then never regret what we get.

Please send your grace just now, and open our hearts to receive it.

We have lived so long as if we are right, we have forgotten how to admit

a journey filled with center-vision that refuses to see the

abused, the crying, the unwell, the dying,

the never-church, the basement pray-er, the mudcake poems

fascinated with grubs and ants and slugs. Earth is too dirty

to allow on the carpet between our pews.

Please send your Spirit; this time we will not refuse her friends

that always accompany her presence. She brings lilies of the day,

but dandelions too. She shares the scent of love that fills every room

and edits every ungodly no-love forward from Youtube or

presidential campaigns. She brings pain, she brings hope,

she brings tears, she brings old jokes we used to tell.

Please send her and we will never pretend

again,

that it was our singing, or our shouting, or our goodness
that brought her here within.

Words We Cannot Place

Words We Cannot Place

(“All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.” Romans 10:13)

I wonder what colors a child would see in the grass
if she has never learned the word “green.” I wonder what
name he calls god who has never heard
the word “hell.”

I wonder how we carve such narrow paths
when navigation is wide upon the sea. I wonder
how we tattoo people we never knew with “alien” or
“illegal” when they have children who
wonder about grass and moons and stars and god
and unicorns and pinatas and cakes and candles
and freeze tag and ice cream too.

I wonder about those who receive lavish gifts
and simply pre-sign postcards for the poor.
I wonder about the gospel that sounds like
venom and preaching that looks like war.

I wonder what color a child would see in the milking bucket
if he had never learned the word “white.” I wonder what
name she calls god who has never heard
the word “death.”

If you must, tag my forehead with grace;
If we will, bring everyone to the dancefloor;
the tall girl with braces, the boy with thick glasses,
the boy in the corner hiding, the girl in the bathroom freezing,
the group outside smoking, the class president and
her entourage, the late arrivals from shanties and mirages.
Invite them all, their call is clear, though foreign;

they appear and then are departed before they
ever get a taste of the unnamable grace

That bathes the universe with words we know by heart,
words we cannot place, words wholly apart from memory,
but seen in the face of Love that will not let the tiniest atom
escape the resurrection of the New Name by which
every family on earth is traced.

I Replaced Myself

I Replaced Myself

(“He knew what all people are like. He did not need anyone to tell him about any person, because he knew what was in a person's heart.” John 1:25”)

Tell me who I am, now, recite my name and my place;
The days are no longer kind, the nights bring no relief,
I stumble over my feet and my words,
I repeat the twice, and they still sound foreign; mere bookmarks
for things I once treasured in my mind.

The world is far too large now, I’ll never be now, the
places I’ve never been.
I replaced myself with another more times than
anyone should. And now, towards the end,
when I want to befriend myself, I am short
on the few who knew I was harmless.
I am less than I ever was, when I hoped to be
a mentor of a few.

I am old and still apologizing
for not fitting in. I’m a jigsaw piece without
a puzzle,
a horizon blocked by the downtown mall.

In this corner pain repeats its chorus and verse,
tied to a silent hill, tangled without a player
to hear the songs I wish I wrote; miles from lonely,
and desolate between here and there.

Tell me who I am, replace me where my joy resides,
take me to success again; when the spoke well of me again.
I am the loneliest man I know, and the only one in this
foamy corner. My heart is a frozen knot, my tears the
thaw of the thoughts I once considered true. My mind
is lost now; cast off now.

I’ve practiced forgetting, I’ve erased the names and places;
but they invade with a vengeance the peace I hoped to make.
I’ve displayed forgiveness, I’ve buried people and words;
but they are live each morning and I die by degree.

Change me, make me madly in love my final days.
Move me, place me closer to the souls I know like mine.
Take me, (and I mean home), I am tired and there are no more

Successes left for me.

Knowing God Well

“Those who know your name trust you, O Lord, because you have never deserted those who seek your help.” Psalm 9:10

“I can’t believe George did such a thing. Was he able to afford the money he gave to that family in need? He isn’t wealthy; probably barely in the lowest reaches of middle class. I hope he is cautious and is taking care of himself.”