On Insomnia

On Insomnia

(“I lie down, sleep, and wake up because the Lord helps me.” Psalm 3:5)

 

There was a time that sleep eluded me. Head on the pillow late
at night and there were locust raises buzzing through my head.
I tried to quiet them, prayed the Name, confessed my bowlful
of sinning, and hoped that was enough to unwind my untidy mind.
Or, nights when I fell asleep nicely, I might wake with a start when
the occupants of my dreams made sure to embarrass me. They
would call me out in front of everyone; they would mock me for
being less tidy than them. Early on it was my parents, the ones
I thought had raised me like love. But I constantly dreamed I had
done something entirely unforgiveable. I locked myself in my room
of that dream and woke up crying.
Sometimes I dreamed I was to lead worship at a large function,
using my keyboard, the instrument that draws forth praise from
my fingers. Five minutes before it was to start, I realized I have
zero music, and the singers have none either. I streak to my office
and look through the files. But they are no longer in alphabetical order
and my face is red with embarrassment. I grab what I can and the
singing is flat and lackluster. I had that dream more time than I
like to recite.

Anxiety haunted me. The hissing in my head never went away.
I carried it during the day with hunched shoulders and hope that
no one thought I was home, or in the office. Men were ready to
argue the least likely doctrines they had read from the latest writer
who claimed he knew it all. There were a handful of kind men,
but they had no power. No one ever asked them to be on the
board of directors or become an elder. Sometimes I think
people gaged them as weak in the faith. Some even tried
to force me to admit sins I never committed (although I had
sinned so much more).

It is no wonder that sleep eluded me. But then I took a huge
step back and outward. I retired and no longer stand in front of
people to try to convince them what God has said. Well, a couple
of times a year to small gatherings of people who know me.

It is the relief of the ages that sleep is now my therapy. I no
longer expect to be woken in the night and driven to the couch
to kneel with my face in the cushions acting like a first-class penitent.
Last night I slept from 11 until 8. My daily headache still ate through
my silent barriers. But I walk, I take an hour, and I see children who say
hi to me first;
I see dogs who want to meet me and lick my face.
I see a family of deer deciding if there is enough to eat in this
new small development. I see a friend drive by who smiles
and waves at me. My bucket is slowly filling for the day
and that leads me to whisper praying and quiet reading.

And I slide into bed, my wife beside me, our dog
between us, and fall asleep with no anxiety leftover
from the days when it felt for sure that my head had been
vised and then told it was all my fault. I repented fairly well,
not enough for some people, but that is for another day.
I just know the nights no longer frighten me, and the mornings
greet me with moments of contemplation. I can say I awake
because the Lord helps me.

Nearer than Forever

Nearer than Forever

(“Jesus told them, ‘Truly, I tell all of you emphatically, before there was an Abraham, I AM!’” John 8:58)

Nearer than forever, closer than eternal,
behind the distance beyond creation,
surrounding every moment of time and engulfing
every shard of energy and silence of matter
You Are.
I find you in each leaf of grass,
I feel you in the cool morning breeze,
I miss you when my mind wanders, I
sometimes wonder how You can be
All Things.
Do my thoughts mean anything;
Do my fingers fidget on the shelves of nothing?
Does my brain lie dormant like sleep like a listless
boat on a windless lake? Do I know
Any Thing?
Do I own anything; do I owe past due rent?
Does the light outside my window come from
the same flame that ignited the sun eons ago?
Will I learn that every single breath breathes because
Of You.

But I am numb sometimes even with you so near.
I am short-sighted though you have always been
located in each quantum wave and particle.
If you inhabit all of space and time, the I bow before all
You Are.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

(“Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of heavenly forces, will be with you just as you have said.” Amos 5:14)

You keep moving the target, you keep changing the rules,
you declare some things illegal and others gifts of gold.
When you based your opinion on third-hand
professional gossip you got lost in the crystalline darkness.
While you laugh I cry that you
have held the truth at arm’s length. And you mock
the prophets who speak showers of rain,
not your disdain for what you cannot understand.

These moments are over like the fading rainbow,
and we do well to remember the colors once the
spectrum has gone from our perception. (Does it
get brighter
the longer we stare?)

So they hijacked 700 without due process,
they commandeered them across the skies
without a clue how many were wrong or right.
And then I hear your voice pronouncing judgment
on them all,
making them guilty, making them criminals,
making them subject to your cartoon caricatures
and two-dimensional portraits. You paint them
all the same.

Sanctuary. We hear the mission bells.
Sanctuary. We hear the widow’s tears.
Sanctuary. We wait the summer sun.
Sanctuary. We wait the promised sage.

Sanctuary, we hear their calls to hear their case,
a place safe enough for their stories to be
safely shared over soup and a bed protected from
the managers of messages who lengthen the shadows.
And we hear the babies gently cooing themselves to sleep.

Like The Friend Who Slows Down

 Like The Friend Who Slows Down

(“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26)

I sleep because it is the
only escape
from the relentless hammer-on-anvil
in my head.

I crave attention,
not like a toddler or
narcissist,
but like a neighbor who longs for
the voice of a friend that extends
beyond words. A touch on the back
of the hand
would be enough.

My tears are the mud puddles left by
torrents of rain,
my breath is the only sound my body knows.
I did not avoid you because I disliked you;
I’m stuck in this corral of pain.

If you know me, you’ve seen me
change my mind
over and over again. Topics become
clearer, doctrines murkier, and people the
center of truth I’ve desired.
But my heart, or its orientation,
is unchanged. My spirit has always wanted
a home. A log cabin with a fireplace
and chili on the stove.

My spirit has always wanted to
let you stay rent-free. To hear your children
play in the background. To hear the
mustang you drove, or the
honda 450 we rode into the coastal hills
summers ago.
To hear from someone who knows,
like the friend who slows down
every time they see you.

Today my tears are more like
blood lost
through the ache of waiting and
living too far behind me. I do
not
want to live in this now where
the pain is a broken record that
sucks my attention from

Every tender love I’ve known.
Even your own, dear friend,
sweet son, loving daughter,
and,
Christ, (how I hate to admit it)
feels cold and I wish this long
winter of spikes and icicles would end
in the agnostic revelry of Spring.

Restore my heart that is weary, for
the waiting has me writing pain
where the beauty once began.

Mud in His Hair

Mud in His Hair

("Learn to do right. See that justice is done—help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.” Isaiah 1:17)

You preferred he sleep with mud in his hair.
You preferred outrage at a man who slept in the shed
because the pastor thought it was better than shivering in the rain.

You stretch walls to the sky to keep out infestations,
slick-dirt children and mothers with desperate and
hollow eyes. You call poverty an invasion,
refugees criminals and serial adulterers saints.
You kiss your flags in pagan idolatry and expect an
Amen
at the end of your national anthem.

You expect a throne, a crown, barbed wire and cages;
you bow before liars, stand inspired before hitmen with tongues
like asps. You never tire of banquets to honor
the alternative facts
you've chosen to spoon feed to
your progeny; tiny birds unfeathered in nested bubbles.

Toss a roll of paper towel
to the man with mud in his hair.
Give him an orange on your way to
Starbucks. Deny him a night without rain and
complain that the pastor
let him sleep on the concrete again.

Maintain your buildings, guard your doors,
and you can transfer all the blame to every
sluggard who sleeps in the rain.

Before Fitful Sleep

Before Fitful Sleep

(“Even the one who has strength of heart like the heart of a lion will be afraid.” 2 Samuel 17:10a)

It was the last thing I thought before fitful sleep,
the last wheelbarrow that kept cycling from load to load,
and my breathing followed the pace, my heart left little space
for calmer dreams to prevail. I knew I was certain to fail;
all I thought had been accomplished over ten or fifteen years
was upended as the gunfire encroached from every direction.

I liked my pillows flat as tortillas once,
for years in fact, since I was a kid I slid my hand beneath
the cold pillowcase and listened to the pulse thumping in my head.
But now I need them fluffy. I cannot pinpoint the date or the year,
but I think it started when I discovered thin pillows were
fragile defenses against the armaments of recycling thoughts.

Long thoughts with no side streets, no turn-offs to a quieter avenue;
wrong thoughts with no return or redemption, a sorry state for weary mind;
strong thoughts with no silencers, so loud I’m sure my eyelids twitched morse code;
thoughts that did not belong to my quieter wishes. Rarely, sparely a
plainsong of space between breaths left enough calm
that I could sleep without feeling the hypocrite.

I’m older than the fitful nights, and stay up later because
once slumber greets waking I’m met with shaking pain that
has nailed my head dead-ended so I stumble before getting out
of bed.

None know my pain (oh, I must remind myself, and any reader,
I am no whiner, no self-repeater), my face sometimes shows the pain,
but mostly it has grown back to its original dimensions; a thin smile and
eyes slightly bowed. I admit my feet have slipped from the pedal,
and my life and my work coast hazily, and my life and my work
appear to lazily pull to a stop along the shoulder. And my life
and my work
have suffered from so many miles without attention
and a cracked head that has lost all compression.

And so you know, a bit narrow, or more obtuse,
the harrowing tale of a lion-heart that hid well
the dreams of night and the schemes of day;
and who hates excuses, and sings the blues by heart.

But my final stanza, (for the safety of my readers)
still glorifies the Lion who roars in Love-and-Truth,
and will, in fortune’s reversal, soon remove the thorn
that has beset my soul, while the small circle of friends
is found unbroken. 

Pulse in His Pillow

Pulse in His Pillow

(“If a person thinks he is religious, but does not keep his tongue from speaking bad things, he is fooling himself. His religion is worth nothing.” James 1:26)

The fog was pounding, morning throbbing,
no words were spoken, just the early grunt awoken
by the need to attend with friends with pain refraining
the hope he held for the morning.

Yet midnight ran slowly until 12:15,
12:15 made the rounds to 1 am. All he heard
was the pulse in his pillow; each heartbeat heard
scurried ahead to the next, insistent on keeping the
body unsynchronized. Sleep has its own patterns and
the body sometimes misses the closing elevator door
to transport it to basement quiet and calm.

The mind was full, always full, racing from old flames
to new hopes; from praying to claiming a post-hypnotic suggestion
of peace. Using his brain he slept in a meadow, alone and safe,
familiar and cocooned; but the thoughts followed him from
comfortable couch to warm earth bed. And the pillow pulsed
again, refrain, again, coda, refrain, verse and chorus, again.

The chemicals were responsible, it was clear. Four doses a day
kept the goblins away, though their darts were felt in the best hours.
Systems have faults, built by humans, and the system failed to
resume his prescription timely. Untidy cuts down the middle of
tabs, brought him to one-third his daily dose, for three days and
a half. He had no weapons to bring down the demons of chemistry.

He missed meetings; a beloved hour with two nearly newlyweds.
an evening at play with music and Word, and a morning to break
Friday’s fast with men, comrades he had learned to trust.

And feared, having missed doing his job, peace would be
jumbled and jigsawed, words defensive and short-story-first-person.

And, with every weapon unloaded, he goaded the best words (or
none), until chemistry found its proper homeostasis

Like Falling Asleep

Like Falling Asleep

(“The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.” Isaiah 32:17)

I heard someone say she fell in love with him like falling asleep:
slowly at first and then all of a sudden. This sleep has been my
waking,
and the silence of my dreams the making
of grains of sand tracked into the bed
by the dogs after their romp at the beach.

Yet the more I sleep the more dreary I become,
repeating weary mistakes I made before the face of one
who picked out each misdeed like cat hair on the carpet.

There was never peace as long as dander remained
on the surface or on the air. There never was quiet
as long as one word, deemed out of place, remained
in the apprentice’s vocabulary.

A rest remains. An assignment blinks--low focus,
high fidelity—upon the fog which remains on the
bogs of faint light’s later life.

A rest remains. Destiny framed by a loving call,
(not strict equipment code after all). Though first and much,
or last and minute, much waits the dreams of those who,
sleeping unoccupied by regret’s dark ride,
awake to begin,

Again.

My Excuse

My Excuse

(“When He came to the disciples, He found them fast asleep and said to Peter, ‘So you were not able to watch with Me for a single hour?’” Matthew 26:40)

Sunshine shone on the therapy I missed;
I was racing to catch another glimpse of the lazy seal
who followed me as far along the riverbank as possible.
This time it wasn’t fantasy, I swear it; though it was someone else’s
experience
and not my own.

The sun had come out after days hiding behind the rain,
and I needed to explain the reasons I missed
the dialogue hour that insurance won’t cover,
but was ordered by forces beyond my control.
They had my phone number, knew where I lived,
but only called to poke me sharper about my need
to talk with you at all.

So, when someone showed the video of a seal following
their walk, I knew it would suffice, and would only spice
a hair or two to make it about me.

As to your other question, about my frequent naps,
all I can say (I can’t think of a better way) is sleep comes upon me
like an invitation from a grade school friend to a birthday party
at Disneyland. You may not understand this, but these days
sleep is my leap backwards before pain, shame and ego’s
frame on the wall that faded before I was ready.

Asleep, I cannot hear the solitary walls that waking squeeze my ears;
Asleep, I still do not see the wrong turns that have dumped me here,
Asleep, I can smell the sweet, walk the street in bare summer feet,
Asleep, I can dance, I can smile, I can hug, live, speak and love without fear.

So, as to your question, I once loved to pray until pain (who knows
how many kinds) deducted the time I had to do most anything at all.
I will not beg or excuse, my spirit still is willing, flesh still deathly weak;
and I thought clearer, loved better…

I cannot recall, the pain and trauma, plus offstage drama,
have nearly erased the places where words fit their proper slots.
I hope my syllables, stops and spots, match the meter of my
heart’s beat
to Your own.

Memory Deceves

Memory Deceives

(“Everything seemed to go his way. But then the strength and success went to his head. Arrogant and proud, he fell.” 2 Chronicles 26:16a [The Message])

Deep within fascinating sleep between
interruptions of volcanic dreams there are footsteps
that like to scheme slight radicals for the slumberer’s benefit.

Taking night as if they owned it between their arms,
directing the stars as if they were marionette strings,
the rearrange the joy the single soul found
and turn it around into grief over laughing.

One sleep and the singing is gone,
one week and severance is complete,
a month and memory deceives every
reasonable smile.

Deep within well-meaning the waters have neither
sun nor manifest reflection, only muscled redemption
rock slimy.

Taking the morning as countless as always,
hoping it will speak without devices but plainly
like sun on the sand or rain throughout the forest,
joy may have been stolen by

Someone stalking the night possessed of intentions to
turn the town, squeeze the heart, scrub the sin
and win it all with a parade naming

The new Great Awakening. The label
written in the dark, now illegible to the sleeper
who only hoped to keep the joy just one
song longer.

I Long to Hear

I Long to Hear

Sleep I do not fear, acquainted with its tow that
sucks me below consciousness. Sleep is the safest place
I’ve found, night or day, no matter the sounds around my
ears. Only my back can wake me sure with its electrical slice.

I miss the day, I miss the hours, I miss the walks, I miss the
daffodils peeking from warmspring dirt more faithful than
my recent attentions to duty.

I do not want to write another dirge, and would be happy
to interpret birdsongs as salutes to the sun; dogbarks as
percussive dances with the windchimes. Dots like rain,
underline the day; green like clover, sings the refrain;
sapphire skies complete the chorus,
but my days remain porous, holding each circuit within
spongy combs. Everything new has been done
and nothing wakes me to see what no one
has seen before.

One occasion in a million, and I talk to a friend,
still 18 in my faulty memory, when neither has seen
our sagging faces for 30 years or more. I do not recognize
even my own.

My dog still would romp, and I simply shuffle, leaving
shavings from my sneakers in wandering lines upon the asphalt path.

I cry, rarely tears, I used them up a year ago; but still
I cry, fairly often, between dozing and praying that
sleep would leave. But having been shoved out the door,
sleep leaves pain in its wake, and I want to go to
sleep once more where pain cannot reach me;
where trust and dreams speak
the language I long to hear upon awaking.