Sit With Me Awkwardly

Sit With Me Awkwardly

(“To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Job 6:14)

Your lectures were limitless as you gazed at my pain.
You consulted your books and diagnosed my improbable suffering.
You discussed it amongst yourselves and came to conclusions
no one could understand.
You never sat in my chair but just stood on the porch
launching your next catapult of guilt my way.
Did you ignore my tears
or just think them unmannered as hell?
Did you assume
I forgot heaven’s kiss and turned away far
longer that allowed? Or did you argue with your friends
assuming I had overstayed my grief? You could have spent
more time saying nothing and
I would have sat with you all day.

Who taught you about misery? Whose prayers did you
assume should have healed me? What cures did you offer
before listening to my list of hundreds I have tried?
What courses did you prescribe for me that you left
untested? Did you taste the bitter medicine yourself?
Did you ever cry for companionship while being schooled
like children?

Turn on some music to soothe this ache of mine.
Make it instrumental, make it maximum. Make it
wordless so the notes themselves fill in the spaces
between us. Or just hum a tune,
I don’t have to name it or recognize it.

Or just
sit silent
(awkward, isn’t it?) Just sit silent and let our
breathing synchronize to prove we are still living.

Can you find your way to bear my pain, to shoulder a
handful of the granite that weighs me down? I fear the
absence of God, but your presence and your words only
push God farther away. Will you learn the agony that
burns my brain and then silently be the Christ I need?
Sit with me awkwardly and let us never question the
power of flesh and blood mortality.

If I Sit There Silently

If I Sit There Silently

(“We do not know how to pray or what we should pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays to God for us with sounds that cannot be put into words.” Romans 8:26b)

What’s it to you if I sit there silently
while someone wails at the back of the room?
What difference does it make if my songs are wordless,
and I play in a minor key?
I used to think it was spiritual,
now I think it’s just mischief,
to stay one minute longer in prayer
than the ones who sweat for an hour.
What’s it to you if I’d rather hear
the air sing like wind than
repeat another verse of a brand new hymn
that begs for attention, that grovels like sand?

Once the noise dictated my definitions,
once the clock measured my piety.
Now the silence I always welcomed
welcomes me. I’ll sit with you in this
loneliness; I’ll picture that face that crafted
yours and
count every reflection a prayer,
every tear holy,
every laugh a prophecy,
and every raindrop the beginning
of a sacred dance.

What’s it to you if my notes are
indecipherable?
What’s it to me if I don’t remember
pronouncements well?
What difference does it make if I
still limp after a thousand voices have
declared me healed? What difference does it
make if
I’d rather be invited to a meal?

Once the miracles distracted me,
once I had to see ice burn and flame.
Now the morning fog welcomes me to
capture the name that has
been perfect in me day one until
the final benediction.

Sit With Me a While

 

Sit With Me a While

(“For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, and He has filled the hungry soul with what is good.” Psalm 107:9)

Come sit with me a while,
I need an old friend with a new smile,
a soul who whispers deep when
the darkness creeps up on me.
I need a single scion of joy grafted
to my sighing roots.

I’d trade my troubles for an hour
sitting on a bench by the river
with an old friend who thinks I might
be crazy
but doesn’t care how murky I’ve become,
who only knows that once in a while
forest fires from faraway places can
smoke out the brightest longing for day.

I’ve cried to the God who
I’ve cried to
sooner, bluer, truer and slower,
and fasted days trying to replace the
unwieldy shivering that ran from heart
to brain
to feet
to deeds;
still I felt like dying after one falling star
of insight crash-landed in the atmosphere.

I just need someone here,
a hand I recognize,
a voice with suspended disbelief
to quiver like my own. I would have
arrived here quicker
but I staged my faith with memorized lines
waiting for the next cue to mark my entrance.

Now, no stage, no script, no audience, no
performance-ready music to wow anyone but
myself. And I am my harshest critic.

Come sit with me awhile,
I am thirsty for God but
the only spiritual experience I ever had
was joy with humans who remember that
laughing and crying
are tongues of fire that
can ignite a friendship deeper
than preaching or praying
all night.

Come sit with me a while;
and by

A while

I mean, as long as I need. Please,
do not leave until both our cups are
empty
and both our cups are filled.