An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

(“All day long I stretched out my hands to a people who disobey and oppose me.” Romans 10:21b)

There are things I used to see only
from the corner of my eye. There was dancing
on the next street over,
there were puppies at the construction site.
There was handwriting I refused to read,
there were songs I set aside.

I never locked my doors, but I built my
walls high to
support the roof, to protect my head from
anything falling un-alphabetically.
I had categories for principles, labels so
the contents would not surprise me. I knew the
names by the languages I heard.

With my door closed tight, I lost sight of
the way the soul shines outside my structured steeples.
(Did I tell you I built my walls? That is not true.
I moved into domiciles manufactured well before
I moved in.)
I was never a carpenter. I occupied land and
closed the door.

It did not take a hurricane. I’m not sure, but it
happened as the earth shifted below the floorboards.
Overnight, over time, over my head, leaning over,
my walls fell and met the wet ground, all four sides
around.

And I saw.

The dancing was an invitation to play.
The puppies were prophetic, the handwriting
poetic. The songs were
nursery rhymes and soap bubbles I had locked outside.

I had lived in a house of mirrors, seeing only the images that
glanced back to me.
I rebuilt a house, a home of windows.

Today was the last day in my well-paneled home.

A Day to Play the Blues

 A Day to Play the Blues

(“And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning, and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.” Job 30:31)

It’s a day to wear a long black coat that covers you full and low,
from your knees to your feet. It’s a day to pretend to walk the dog
and leave home with just the leash.
It’s a day to hide your tears from the many who would never understand.
The sun has little to do with it, high and bright,
or
hidden and cloud. Wanting to see a friend take to new heights,
but they tremble, glued to the ground. And the sounds of music
they hear, the soothing chords,
are merely morse code for liberation.
It's a day to shake like exhaustion, to feel the cold you hoped had
finally melted in your soul.
It's a day to hide your pain, you’ve carried it too long anyway.
(Or so friends and experts say.)
Wanting to share coffee with a friend, but they demure,
certain and unsure like the first flickers from wet logs in
a campfire.
It's a day where sitting silent would be good, if there was someone
to sit with.
It’s a day where sitting alone feels more like abandoned.
The sky has not answered back and neither have the distress signals
flared toward the sun early in the day.
It's a day to play the blues, but you need two. No,
you do.
It’s a day when the ghosts of those who have walked away
refuse to leave your heart, your shoulders, your brain, your tears,
every muscle fiber, and you would be rid of them if the replacement was not expensive.
If it would help to spend it on yourself, you would gladly shop all afternoon.
But this is a day to walk incognito in the world and hope that someone
recognizes you tomorrow.

The Sun Does Not Lie

The Sun Does Not Lie

(“This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5)

It was a winter day when the sun finally broke through;
the birds were skipping, the shadows were crisp,
the neighbors walked to their mailboxes,
and one heart still felt alone.

The sun does not lie, and you are more graceful than
the years that have whispered in your ear. Mornings like these
midwinter
reveal the love behind it all.

We take it piecemeal, don’t we? Every failure,
every uncharted word, every night we wasted
annoyed that we drank too much. We add them up
like jigsaw pieces from a thousand puzzles. We cannot
find the edge. We stay in the middle of uncertainty,
convinced we deserve the voice that scolds us
for not finishing well.

But the sun does not lie, and here you are, more precious
than anyone has told you. It takes breaths, lots of breaths,
and boldness to let it penetrate the years of darkening aches.
The shadows have mocked you while the light (stars, moon,
mars, sun, reflecting notes from the songs you have forgotten)
while
the
light
bids you to play.

I Have not Departed the Faith

 

I Have not Departed the Faith

(“Truly I tell you,” he said, “unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3)

I have not departed the faith;
the faith has departed me.
Once I was a fool and did not mind,
learned love this time, that time, all others love
excelling.

Eventually though I learned the ropes and pinned my
every hope
on ladders I thought were strung to the sky; a
rapture of sorts,
but disconnected from affection or creaturely objections
to environments where mud was excluded.
(Believe me, a little dirt never hurt anyone.)

And so I called this globe earthly and fleshly,
saw the human race erased from dignity and
mortally injured. The fences kept my senses
always suspect and my inclinations always setting
like the moon a hangnail away from nothing new.

I hated tomfoolery and simplicity, though I secretly
longed for play. All was serious those days, so many, many
days, that ringing roses served no purpose because
all fall down eventually.

Presidents would save us; legislation would drive the
grayness from our land. But one win led to another,
and before we could love to clown again,
we invented machinery that ate away every bit
of humanity of any who opposed.

I should have rewritten that. We were the opposition,
and proud of the fact. We stacked our accomplishments high
upon the vaulted ceilings of faulted preachings
and wore red caps to prove we had Made it All
Great again.

I have not departed the faith;
the faith has departed me.
And now I will live a fool again,
walk down the street with Christmas lights
strung from my head to my toes
and a tiny chihuahua who has let
this grandpa fall in love with childhood again.

And the Children Play

(photo credit: Mercy Aiken)

And the Children Play

(“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 [The Message])

Entering the avenue where the unlikely children play--
a brother on a bike, a little sister right behind--
and there are paintings on the back of the facades,
dripping down the necks of the alleys
detailing recent history and partisan rallies.

And the children still play underneath the signs
of times adults ignore. What, indeed, are we fighting for?
When Palestine suffers, so do their neighbors.
When Africans suffer, so do the children in highrise daycare.

Unidentified artists paint the meaning for us so we do not
have to walk through the galleries; stop; wonder; deeper;
and never let the children out to play.

They painted caves in France; dark; damp; edgy; older;
and the children played in the prehistory.

They doodled walls in Bethlehem; bright; breath; deadly; newer;
And the children tagged their playmates unwalled.

They spray-canned stucco in Minneapolis; memos from a week ago;
african and indian, spanish and norwegian, stayed where the flowers lay
upon the asphalt dark as skin. And the children stood hugging
the knees of adults who they hoped knew better than they.

And my next door neighbor turned three today; she; bashful; blonde;
skipping;
and she plays in the backyard pool just before the party begins.

Her chalk drawings smile from the cement driveway as she catches
hugs from anyone who will toss one her way.

We Shall Play Again

We Shall Play Again

(“The peace of God is much greater than the human mind can understand. This peace will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7)

For Laurie

There is a swirling of conversation that can connect
two people more closely than
another one thousand miles closer.
And still, in the whirlwind of the mind,
there are only spoken words, inflections heard
and occasional nuggets of gold in the bottom of the pan.

If I write that I am going to write stream-of-consciousness,
do you still understand and have I accomplished my mission?
There was a time I did not care, and it did not scare me either,
to combine images of spaceships and a pretty girl’s hair. Now,
though I’m not all that proper,
still I want people to go “hmm” before they go “ohh.”

Sometimes one talk takes the place of a dozen therapy sessions,
(do you know how hard it is to find a therapist you can trust?)
I must confess, that’s why I see a therapist and not a priest.
I want to talk about myself, not our thoughts about God,
or your thoughts about how I’m doing with God. (How would you
know, child of clay and sand, sparks and spit?)
But my unconscious knows something I had yet to admit:
“I don’t believe in God anymore.”

I knew you wouldn’t shrink, which expanded my words.
The background was gray and green, a shadow scene with
my body stuck between standing and tottering. And then I said,
to everyone who was listening: “I don’t believe in God anymore.”
Oh, did I tell you it was a dream?

But that is why I called you, to bring you into a space that
stunned me; a waking gasp at “anymore.” And everyone heard
every word, every firm statement of final disbelief.

I was not relieved.

I once thought words, phrases and questions were sent by
strong concentration, fasting and sweating prayer. I also knew
they could come from nowhere.
So, days later, my disbelief haunted the days and I read a book,
(perhaps on civil rights in the 60s, perhaps a bio of Socrates)
and an arrow pierced my mind right behind the word “anymore.”

“What if now, God believes in me?”

II.

The crazy trumpets broke the night like the saxophones laughing;
but it was never the song, it was how I heard it.

So I take up the mandolin again, fingers swollen from aging,
and release the expectations of virtuosity. Sometimes it’s better
just to play.

Remember how I said the piano is my soulmate? Remember how
I said I did not have to think? The place for peace is the place that
belief has recused itself from me. An opening, not a void, for
the quiet voice that never said much to me. And now doubt,
(that devilish and scattered word) has become the very earth in which
a new trust has begun.

We shall play again, fiddle, guitar or melodion.