Secrets and Wishes

Secrets and Wishes

(“Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:2)

There always seemed too many barriers erected to
keep you from hearing my pain. Sometimes whispered<
sometimes gravely twisting my words, I had shouted like
a lost child threatened with the universe.
Sometimes I drenched the sofa midnight with the tears
poured out every excuse I ever gave for giving up
on the winding path too steep for my age.

I could point to the overnight fasting I tried one
New Year’s Eve locked inside a local church. I planned
to stay there till noon of the first year. I thought I
would break through, that God would show up and pat
me on the back and clothe me with something that finally
covered my instabilities. Instead, I called my girlfriend at 8 to
come and pick me up while I insisted we get some donuts.

I failed.

I thought.

After decades of clawing the dirt, of bawling at altars with
gray indoor/outdoor carpet, of repeating the same prayer over
and over
in the hopes I would be heard. There were decades I studied
the long prayers of an elder who implored God as long as a sermon.
I could not rule out that I simply could not pray. At least not like
long-winded partners who filled the room with time. I knew I did
not shine nearly as long as the power-players who pointed to miracles
someone else who told someone else had told them.

But once I was out of that cocoon, the echo chamber that jailed me,
glass house that only reflected
what other said within it; once I read the classics again and played
with my kids again,
something softly took me into its confidence.

It’s like when my grandson wants to tell me a secret and so
I put my face next to his with my ear by his mouth. He may mumble
something incoherent, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. He knows
I heard and that is good for the both of us.

God, do you truly bend down like that? Can I stop the crying fits
and the long-winded approaches to your throne? Oh wait, if you
bend your ear like that, you have left your loftiness far behind. Do you let
me whisper what I had been afraid to say in the middle of the moments in the
glass housed churches I occupied?

Can I talk and walk and, between verses of the songs I listen to, share a sentence
or two in your inclined ear? Can we hold court, but right here on the earth where
my feet trod, and the sheets I lay in when I have something more to say?

Maybe I will sometimes need to shout, but not to get your attention.
I may even throw a tantrum when the stars refuse to shine, but I’ll
end up whispering my secrets and wishes into your ear.

My Secrets Slip Out

 

My Secrets Slip Out

(“You will see heaven open. You will see God's angels going up and down to the Son of Man.” John 1:51b)

I confess there is a vacancy,
a place where love should be found,
but I find no one there.
I’m not cut out for crowds anymore,
I have no more tricks up my sleeve.
but sometimes my secrets slip out
and I fear the few who have stayed will
finally leave.

I confess there is a jealousy,
a place that feels so empty
because I want to be what
everybody else really needs.
I’m just not cut out for rules anymore,
I have no more tears left to shed.
But sometimes I pour out my heart
and delete it because
I fear the few who have stayed will
finally leave.

I confess what I have confessed before,
a place that should sing your name
because I am just that broken
and weary of trying to change.
I’m really not cut out for much anymore,
I have no more advice to give,
but sometimes I fake a few lines
with the hope of hearing a voice
that tells me
why you would never leave.

Applaud the Portfolios

Applaud the Portfolios

(“He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:53)

Didn’t we hear it when the poverty crept into
our modern towers, our suburban powers were all
in a fix
because no one served mixed drinks anymore.

Didn’t we avoid the side effects, the stress-sweat
that followed dripped on the broken sidewalks
in a fix
over derelict cars never running well.

Didn’t we follow the lead of every person before us?
Didn’t we drive beyond the camps foreshadowed by
our taste for sharper images and victoria’s secrets
left us little time to add another 15 minutes to the rest
of our plans.

But the thunder will reverse our fortunes and favors,
tsunamis will wash the cliff-dwellers away,
no one will laugh at the hoarded destruction or
applaud the fatty portfolio’s disintegration.

Why do we wait? Why? Do we? Wait a few moments
longer
at the grocery aisle,
check out the daughters and sons who
walk and run in tennis shoes; then, single-file
inspect the soles abbreviated by time,
the uppers ripped from the pages of hand-me-down novels
and consider:

How long will it take for me, for Your name’s sake,
to see the tears we thought were the lament of the poor
are instead

The grief of the One who creates all to be fed by mercy,
no matter their wages, their mobile stages; but simply their
shared humanity. 

My Quiet is White

My Quiet is White

(“The Lord your God is with you.  He is mighty enough to save you. He will take great delight in you.  The quietness of his love will calm you down.  He will sing with joy because of you.” Zephaniah 3:17)

I shout from the wilderness of the invisible illnesses; pain and
psychic refrains which repeat the black hole madness that it is only
air that keeps me alive. My pillow remains tearstained long after I
rise and feel the explosive tears like lava ready to flow hot again by noon.
Each one that falls asks, “Where are you?”

It was fine for a time, when friends were just a block away. Dale
in his garage, rebuilding his 66 VW bug engine, or riding up my driveway
on his Honda 450. There is no one closer than a day’s drive. And,
since You are all-knowing, I know you will answer, “and you were lonely
back then too, weren’t you?” That’s my argument, my pain, my agony,
and my plea: If you are mighty enough, why haven’t you saved me yet
from me?

I’ve told you about all this before, how many who once made my heart
bounce like a spring picnic with the few faces who never gave away
the accidentally spilled secrets and wine. I’ve told you before that,
among the dearest of them also were lying faces who lie from top
to bottom with lips that once kissed my cheek in welcome. I am
finished with friendship, unless, in Your delight in me, you
pour perfumed salve in the wounds, and bring back to my path
one or two with unlocked hearts who won’t try to crack my
own combination.

My quiet is my white noise. Sound annoys me. I would welcome
an unknown who simply opened my front door and wiped my tears
without a word,
than having to answer the pounding; doors are startling;
or the ringing; phones are disheartening.

If You will love me silently, then please silence me preemptively.

Now singing, that’s what I need. Let the other three or four begin,
and let me just join in when I’m ready. You know the music that
started like buggies over potholes; but we supposed it was better
to play,
than to keep our instruments locked within their cases. Sing,
like Fire and Rain, and the Hallelujah Chorus again.*

*If anyone who reads this feels the lonely shadow instead of the
lovely presence; now you know you are not the only one: friend?

No Secrets

“But in these final days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the material universe.” Hebrews 1:2

It is said that we all remember where we were when President Kennedy was shot. For the generation that followed his assassination, perhaps the same can be said about the day the New York Twin Towers fell, perhaps always to be known as “9/11”. I was in second grade when the news hit the country that the President had been shot in Dallas while riding in now infamous black Cadillac convertible. Strangely enough, what I remember most is that school was canceled for at least one day, maybe two, and I spent much of that day off coloring.