That We Would Stay

That We Would Stay

(“He told them, ‘My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’” Matthew 26:38)

Sadness makes me slumber and pain makes me crazy;
and I could not choose which one I would lose when you
told us you were grieving far greater than we understood.
Perhaps it was the wine with dinner,
perhaps it was the dinner itself;
Or maybe it was the evening fog climbing the mount to
the garden where we had come.

All we wanted was clarity and all we had were pronouncements
we never quite understood. But we could hear it in your voice
that sounded vacant and your eyes red with pleading.
We had spent time with you before, just the three of us and
you,
but tonight was different and the air was heavy with discontent.

I promised to do anything for you my future and present Lord,
but though my spirit willed it, my will was drowsy and heavy
with the construction of a home on what felt like sinking sand.
We wished we were angels and could wing our flight above
the garden to watch out for the coming gloom.

Crushed with grief you said. To the point of death you said.
And we barely heard or understood. It felt like the nets of
safety
were badly torn and every evil was about to fill the massive
holes
that kept classless horror at bay. And all you asked us was to pray.
All you asked was that we would stay.

Before my Memory

Before my Memory

(“Let my whole being bless the Lord and never forget all his good deeds:” Psalm 103:2)

Renew my remembrance, let your righteous deeds shine
through the clouds. Tap me on the shoulder and I’ll
turn around to see the face that has called me child from
before my memory, from before your kindness entered my dreams
and flooded my mornings with sunny reminders of love.
I must confess,
I remember less your benefits than I feel yellow jackets
bumping across my brain renaming every panic I ever
felt from yes and no. There was a day when everything felt
like dancing. And the next day I fell exhausted onto the floor.

If I could put my finger on it, if I could wrap my brain around it,
if I could memorize the words that set me free and included
every possibility of wholeness, If I could refrain from the
ennui that settles like fog before the sun burns it away.

My soul has felt weightless only to fall to earth again
smashed against the gorges by gravity. Time set me up
like an unconscious answer to questions that were never asked.

Why can’t I say I’m just not feeling it without
guilt flooding the spaces around me? Where are the words
I pledged to you just moments ago?
Something strums my heartstrings and threatens to send
vibrations deeper inside the thoughts that belong to you.

But you have melted my anxiety before, turned my cavern days
into fields of grain. It still seems out of balance, it still feels untrue,
to spout words of expectancy when my heart is colored so blue.
I’ll live through these days with my imperfections on display;
I’ll look for you behind every shadow and skip the cliches.
I’ll listen long enough for clouds to scatter and to help me remember
the moments you’ve met me unexpectedly.

The Soul Goes Slowly

The Soul Goes Slowly

(“Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32)

The ego races to every spotlight to show off
its jeweled watches it won in the last skirmish.
The soul goes slowly, walking through the rain,
feeling the widow’s pain, taking it all in and standing
in the quiet of a Dream imagined before the world began.

The ego is a laser, burning off every resistance until
they are hollow, deaf and dumb.
The soul opens fully, hearing the stories of days
when nothing happened and knowing there was
substance in even those silent hours.

The empire land grabs sovereign entities, claiming
them and spilling blood. It will pay any cost for its victory.
The dream invites the newly arrived to enjoy a
slow summer day,
and puts burgers on the grill. The dream cannot imagine
a world without warm bonfires and warmer conversations.

The empire occupies the highest hill, overseeing its
next conquest. It is ready to alienate anyone who thinks
the world is not centered on their pronouncements.
The dream looks for the next person sleeping on the street
and gives them food, gives them hope, gives them room
to become. And so the dream is unseen. The dream is
not boisterous. It is subversive.

The dream is a gift,
empire is a theft.

Decorate my Soul

Decorate my Soul

(“Cedar paneling completely covered the stone walls throughout the Temple, and the paneling was decorated with carvings of gourds and open flowers.” 1 Kings 6:8)

Let the scent of cedar permeate the air,
let its incense waft from here to there.
Let my soul be decorated, fragrant and serene,
like the way the temple explained the
the place where mortal and eternal meet,
where love is commonplace,
where peace is waiting for the chants to begin.

Adorn my soul with roses, let the magnolias invite
new looks when I sit among familiar people
on benches outside the bakery.
Beautify me with grace, grace me with beauty,
let the awe of the sunset be imbedded within,
let the surprise of the new moon brighten the mood.
Spruce up the inner me, spot shine the heart of me.

There is a temple, there are billions, that hold Spirit within.
There are trumpets, there are pavilions where dancers go
to celebrate love that is love no matter what the dark night says.
After a while we will air it out and
begin all over again.
After a while we will play the simple tunes on an Irish whistle,
with a simple guitar played by the high priests of the holy place
found within,
found within,
found within,
Father and
Son and
Holy Ghost.

Let the beauty shout louder, let it whisper lower, let it
permeate the question marks we start with each day.
Let it teem with the motions that God makes in the middle
of all that is ordinary and common. Fill this earthen vessel,
this crock of clay,
with everything that brightens the day, with everything that
opens the night with quiet song.
Saturate me.

My Soul is Wrinkled

My Soul is Wrinkled

 

My soul is wrinkled,
it is dislodged from the space where
it once felt like a home on the edge of fire.
My soul is shrinking,
it has lost weight. It is buoyant and
leaves its moorings when I am not looking.
My soul is tingling,
it is super-charged and overheating.
The songs that used to feed it now
send it cringing to a neutral corner.
My soul is marooned,
it is waiting for the rescue to arrive
but the sun has blinded, how unkind,
and the waves have erased the laughter of
the pardoned.
My soul is narrowed,
a tiny flow between the cross-stich gullies
fully wanting the summer rain, the kind that
falls on miniature and massive, the kind that
no one predicted.
My soul is swallowed,
it is reversing the recipe that once made it
palpable. Now it is culpable for every heresy
councils have denounced for centuries.

My soul is ageless,
it once was captive but
now is captivated by
a world so fully stained that
every sunset is as viscous as an oil slick,
every breeze plays in a different key than
the day before.
My soul is effervescent,
my soul does not fit within the
bottled expectations of factory-made songs
meant to make you put your hands up,
meant to make you wave them,
meant to make you clap them,
meant to make you stand up.
My soul know what is needs now,
my soul knows it very well.
My soul is wrinkled with time which
is just fine with me. My soul has
enwrapped me with a handmade name and
will speak it to me in a whisper when
reversals attempt to revoke it again.

Nothing Came to Mind

Nothing Came to Mind

(“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Matthew 26:38)

Who are we in the darkened garden when
the greens are black and gray? Do we know the way
to the secret place, here well outside of the day?

Where are we when the sun has gone down and
the last hymn sung? Do we remember
the tunes in dusky doldrums when unknown footsteps
break the spell?

I could have been someone,
but so could have anyone.

Wouldn’t you rather find a place atop a hill
to peer past all the dust kicked up by power plays
and statements sealed with “scout’s honor”? We both
know it is true,
that half a promise is no promise at all.

How can the weight be so heavy when gravity is so weak,
how can tears flow when, for all we know, we had it all
figured out?

I would be baptized again if it would change anything,
but something tells me more ritual is not required.

How can our eyes be so heavy? The wine? The meal?
The daily grind that brought us here? The sudden quiet of
a garden; olive and loam? If there is a silent power that
moves the universe, we should have rehearsed our part,
we should have stayed awake, we should have lasted longer
into the third verse.

I should have said something,
but nothing came to mind.

I Would be Your Shade Tree

I Would be Your Shade Tree

(“Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me.” Psalm 116:7)

You won’t chastise me for my complaint, will you?
Do I come across as needy?
Sometimes I am. I’ve also been accused of impiety.
The steel fingers have poked my mind
for nearly a decade and a half,
I do not mind my occasional breakdowns.
I would attend your crying fit; I’ve seen the playgrounds
where skinned knees and pointed fingers meet.

I would take you to the river,
I would become your constant shade tree,
I would be the silence in your agony,
I would bring you wine mixed with my own tears,
a long pour sparing nothing.
I would bring you my eyes which have seen the same
pain and brittle dehydrating while others play flag
football
in the sun.

You won’t run away from me for my sadness, will you?
Do I come across as morose?
Often I am. I’ve been accused of undiagnosed illnesses
unmindful of the offered cures.
Purely because I know how the light filters through
pulled curtains
when the late summer sun taunts a day’s immobility,
I wait in the darkness with you, sit in the sadness
and view your soul as more lovely than my own.

I would sing the song we wrote,
I would relive the times we walked on slippery hills
just after the first rain.
I would bring the bread you baked while you pieced
together the insanity of darkness again.
I would bring you my hands which have held other
hands
just as curled as your own.
I would let my pain be the beginning of two souls
finding rest simply from
being seen.

I Never Did Like Roller Coasters

 I Never Did Like Roller Coasters

(“Most of all, have a true love for each other. Love covers many sins.” 1 Peter 4:8)

I never did like roller coasters,
my fears mounted as the car clanked slowly to
the top while my heart raced faster than the last
loop whizzing through the electrified air. In fact,
I called out my eighth-grade girlfriend’s name as
if she were a deity ready to catch me. I was in Tulsa,
she was in L.A.

I never did like roller skates.
I could coast well enough, stopping was the scary
part for me. My knees scraped the concrete when I
put on the brakes. Never mind trying to skate backwards,
all my best friends could.

I never did like solo obedience.
The tight fit of the iron box pushed all the air
from my lungs.
Yet, I pretended well. No, I pretended sincerely.
I watched my friends sin easily. I watched others
wear their morality with courage. I could do neither.
But, when you are at the top of the roller coaster hill,
your options are limited.

There must have been someone who hugged me
when they saw my ashen face depart the coaster car.
There must have been someone who removed their skates
and held my hand to walk on the sidewalk downtown.
Could there be someone who saw both my
mask
and my
face
and still shared our mutual disgrace? There is not room
in the crowded box for another body,
but another soul might fit quite well.

When My Soul Aches No More

 

When My Soul Aches No More

(“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.” Proverbs 10:11)

My plan was to sit beside you underneath the
umbrella to take in the salty fog and firewood air.
Trouble is, my chest is full of arrows and
my heart is caked with mud.
These days frighten me; our manufactured heroes
turn too easily on their own.
I meant to look up your number, call you on the phone,
but I thought better of it. The voices in my head keep
explaining
the pain of every conversation I hoped would loop us
back to easy friends. Instead

I walk in the rain and talk to strangers,
cover my wounds,
bleed beneath the skin that covers
a soul that aches more than my bones.
I wait
for an apology at least as loud
as the disrespect. I believe I will be waiting
for a while.

Your certainty met my mystery head on.
I’m sorry I cannot cut and dry
my mind so precisely.

Another day fades while your face sits
well within the gaze
of my preoccupied last act on this
theater-in-the-round.

Here is what I want to remind you,
I have always loved you and imperfectly,
like bitter pecans or a faded rose, like wet ashes
in the fireplace or an unruly dog. And
I would
enjoy another burger or cabernet
before the final day when my soul
aches no more.

They Nearly Stole the Show

 

They Nearly Stole the Show

(“All the people saw this and began to complain, ‘Look at the kind of man Jesus stays with. Zacchaeus is a sinner!’” Luke 19:7)

You stole their money, they stole your soul;
they knew what they heard,
they understood the whispers;
they decided you were impure,
they knew where you lived and
what you hid.

They were sharpened peaks of brass,
their words fell like granite upon
the infamous. They circled their best
epithets in red (Sinner, sinner, oh
sinner man). They hauled the dust
from the outskirts of town to dump
on the heads of derelicts who should
know better. They nearly stole the show.

What does an invitation mean? A
loaf of bread and shared wine? A
table set for two where
the Son of Man
pierces you with eyes wilder than
eagles, sharper than a roman sword.
But you stay, you are untamed by
the laugh you hear for the first time;
the laugh of joy. You are unrestrained
by the tears that you know he sheds
for your own.

The gates have opened, you have jumped the fence,
the air is sparkling, the birds sing in present tense,
the way is unfolded, the road a homeward path,
the sun is indiscreet, the winds sweeter than honey.

Emptying your darkness into such beneficent light
unbuttoned the gathering days as you shared the
harvest of grace.

She Dressed Her Soul Well

 

She Dressed Her Soul Well

(“Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.” 1 Samuel 2:19)

Habits are the vestments of the soul. Every holiday
we knew
a card would show up in our mailbox,
a day before Thanksgiving,
a week before Christmas.
Birthdays and anniversaries
a card would arrive with the address inscribed
by an unshaking and elegant hand.
Always signed in love and always sent in
a colored envelope to suit the occasion.
Even when we moved a thousand miles away,
there in a borrowed mailbox we picked up cards
from a saint who had practiced the artful habit.

I do not know how many thought of us in our exile,
perhaps dozens, perhaps every day, perhaps with tears,
perhaps hoping to say they wish they had done more.

But one, with a habit nurtured with 80 years of life
sent us air for our lungs,
hope and steady friendship
sealed in simple paper.

How long had she sent friends and pastors,
nieces and nephews,
children now adults,
the hope that someone still remembered,
the smile at seeing the same signature
of someone who adopted armfuls and never
forgot them
through deserts of Decembers?

She has dressed her soul well
though she would never think
a mere pen, paper and calendar
could ever make a fashion statement
noticed by anyone.

Turn Table

 

Turn Table

(“My house will be called a house of prayer–but you have made it a brigands’ lair!” Matthew 21:13)

 

We sell our soul, we sell our vote,
we sell our best words and call them hope.
Besides, no one was home when we knocked on the door
that one time six months ago, and now I’ve lost your address
and don’t want to disturb you with a call.

We build our churches, we erect our halls,
we sell rummage and erect our stalls
outside shopping malls in the best part of town.
And when the day is over, we luxuriate in showers
hoping to wipe away every bit of clown paint from our
roles of a lifetime. Most times we’re mistaken, most times
we want another turn down the slide on hot summer days.

Many times, we choose our teams and wonder why
the boys with uncut hair and the
girls with coffee stained jeans
never ask to be in our game.
And when someone cries loud enough, hard enough,
high enough to weep for acceptance…

But that rarely happens since we’ve already forgotten them.
And who wants to be rejected twice? Save your money for
a second piece of pie. No one wants to be forgotten a third time.

How angry can Jesus be? No, really. We awake on Sundays
and crowd into the back of the hall with others who agree with us
on almost
everything. How angry can he be? Every Christmas we find toys
for the poor little girls and boys. Every Thanksgiving we find enough
turkeys to feed a dozen for free. For two months of twelve we
give away to a few and shelve the rest for new classrooms on the
eastern hall.

Some days, when you remember the aching few, do it in a month
that requires nothing of you. Bits and bytes that fly through the sky
are counterfeit coins landing sideways. We need eye to eye. We
need a friend to walk up the driveway.

Embrace My Soul

Embrace My Soul

(“For those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.” Hebrews 4:10)

It is true,
the trailer won’t unload itself,
the house will not build itself.
But what if the soul grows in one
single embrace?

I get it,
the dishes won’t wash themselves,
my room will not clean itself.
But what if love is the effortless act
Of simple dying?

I cannot work,
my body won’t allow it.
I can barely write the words on the page.
Not that my fingers are stiff or crooked,
my mind has been seared by pain like a desert
and words like arrows telling me I just need more
jesus.

If just once they would sit in a chair next to me,
if just once they would share a bottle of wine,
if just once they would keep their mouths shut,
if just once they gave no advice this time.
Do I live too far away,
does my countenance frighten you?
All I know, I was just a stamp away and no one
ever wrote to me.

Are my tears too heavy for you to lug around,
do you fear my doubts will somehow undo you?
Are my words now too concrete for you to swallow,
do you pray for me while I cry invisibly?

I never stopped working and maybe I should.
My body will allow it no longer.
I no longer work, hear no voice on the phone,
no tone that enwraps my soul. “I love you” rings
more true than
“you need more jesus”
or “I will pray for you.”

Do you see my words, how artless they’ve become?
When I write in the middle of the pain
how can I ignore the silence I never heard from
Just one visitor, one victim of my hard labor,
or (maybe this is too crazy) one person who spent
a whole day imagining how a body like mine
could still house a healthy soul. 

I want to point to Jesus,
the suffering he took, the dying he imbibed,
I want to think of him with eyes that enliven
my hope again. But is it too much to ask,
too much to explain, that I wish his followers
bring him by when they came?

The Extinction of Flattery

The Extinction of Flattery

(“Many plans are in the human heart, but the advice of the Lord will endure.” Proverbs 19:21)

There is more flint in our hearts than we know,
and I admit my own stony intrusions.
Encrusted upon our purest plans
are every whim and whisper we have impolitely shouted
or secretly hidden under muddy fields in fear.

You proclaimed what would come to pass,
told the man he would win election,
You proclaimed it was God’s command,
God’s purpose, God’s eternal plan.
But the election came and went, as all do,
and the fellow you uttered you confidence over,
fell far flat of your prophecy.
You told him, didn’t you?
You emboldened him, didn’t you?
But, you were wrong, weren’t you?

There is more me in my ministry than I like to admit,
more desire for notice, more smiles from past beneficiaries
who received such benefit that we knew it must be god (with
my name in parenthesis, but still spoken, please.)

But you proclaimed a yes that became a no. You
loved the center, you loved the words you thought were
fool proof;
but we are the fools, the fragile, the clowns who fall over
our shoes.
So, when yes was no, did you go to the fellow and confess
that you somehow got it wrong? That you spoke too soon?
That your ego was a big as the rest of ours, and it ballooned at
just the wrong moment?

Doors sometimes close without another window opening.
Mountains sometimes remain after long seasons of praying.
Miles separate the wish from fulfillment and trials dam the river
we swore would flow forever.

But there is a long road, sometimes solitary, most times narrow,
that edges us toward the extinction of flattery. There is a road,
a royal one,
that follows the wadis through the barren and red striations
of rock and sand laid down ages ago.

Today a door closed. No one proclaimed it, no one laid hands
on me
at all.

But the road still calls (though today I can venture only this scrawl)
and I’ll claim correctness less often with some help I hope,
lay my soul down in peace.

All & Every

All & Every

(“The Lord God says, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the One who is and was and is coming. I am the All-Powerful.’” Revelation 1:8)

Take this heart invisibly, the One created-not-born,
and unbreak the fissures, or fill them presently
with the passion unending.

At every point on every line,
every line on every plane,
every plane on every facet interface with me.

Higher than my suspect prayers,
deeper than my conceived potions,
sweeter than my anger disguised as righteous,
kinder than the hidden thoughts behind flashing eyes;

Be to me everything I cannot be,
within each molecule, the air between elements,
the charged plasma between electrons darting around
the center of each atom,
be all in me, all for me, all me and only me.

And delete me as well as I delete my digital words
with calloused fingers on the keyboard. Delete the
me that uses me as a portrait of best things when
the rest of things are undone.

All, my solid footing. Every, my absent nothing.
And as darkly as I see through the glass smudged with
strong-minded sludge, be my light behind the shadow
and the joy for the window of my soul.