Nor Bathed, Nor Washed

Nor Bathed, Nor Washed

(“This is the first and most important commandment.” Matthew 22:38)

Wetness never surrendered our sins, nor bathed, nor washed
them.
A chanted prayer or babbled tongue never broke the ceiling,
revealed the spoken faces or reassigned the thirsty graces
to the needy-not-us.
A whirling grandchild is not the Spirit’s toy,
divine words are not playthings to conjure a win
or a raise,
hide my sin or drop the haze upon my exposure.
The best for me and the slight for you,
the blessing upon my brow while it must be the cursed
who cannot pay the rent or
who have tsunamis sent to wake the dead. I love
my religion, my old songs, sawdust and drum kits
all within the hearing of the hungry who do not
know how to clean their houses or their children,
who swipe their paper-thin soles upon the newly-laid
carpet. (Will you sit here, closer to the door, and maybe
we won’t have to replace quite as much flooring.)

I’m the worst, I’ve just rehearsed my compassion.

Loving up and loving down, embracing light, enwrapping sound,
carousels of words, morsels of moments we hope will please
the deity we’ve become.

Oh holy and glory, all truth and only All who leaves
no space vacant in Your Fullness; who leaves no heart
empty in Your With-ness; let my witness be, my reality
the
elite thrones torn down and shattered, replaced
by
a simple and slightly tattered shirt from the back
of my closet
that I wear when I visit my
closest friends.

Burned Out

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest.” Mark 11:28 (The Message)

It takes brutal honesty to admit that our faith may be the very thing that is wearing us out. We may feel we are promised “heaven on earth” but experience little of it here or we believe heaven awaits us when we die and we have to trudge through until then. So, in one method we look for those few and far between experiences that others share with us where glory comes down and fills their soul. Or, in the other, we dutifully carry on, bucking against the tide until finally arriving “home.”

Etch the Diagnosis

Etch the Diagnosis

(“Calling His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over depraved spirits to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every malady.” Matthew 10:1)

Compassion learned is compassion returned to its source;
the beautiful eyes that gaze on ugly days and interpret them
as gems still dirt and grime. Where evil lurks,
healing wins the day. Where darkness hides the leper’s sores,
daylight shows pain not shame to well-learned disciples
who no longer gasp at trapped souls,
no longer gag at vague memories of atrocities inflicted by
them on
us.

Evil still is evil long upon the gray apparitions,
But healing wins the loving back in spectrum’s fullest range:
from infra-red to ultra-violet, sins and violence are sickness
ravaging immunity.

Come once to the Heart which spoke Love upon nothing,
See once the eyes that envisioned dewy strolls with mankind,
hear today the voice that spoke a planet and baby-smell,
Touch the Hands that molded the clay, Lips that breathed the spirit,
and Feet that walked with open wounds in our unsanitary sanity.

Oh religion, die upon your insistences! Oh prejudices disguised as
righteous renditions; meet Him for a day, go to Him in a way
that molts the skin of shammery. We are crust left on the counter
too long.

We will come and sit at Your feet, Physician of our certainties,
and, throwing away our notebooks and pens, let You etch
the diagnosis and healing upon our hearts instead.