Love Surrounds

Love Surrounds

([“Love is not] rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. 1 Corinthians 13:5)

Take the time like it matters,
preserve it like messages from the mountains that
love lies waiting for the forgotten and the unseen.
They had flinched when the words cascaded toward them,
sharp accusations and suppositions and nothing an inch worth
of truth. The implications were clear though the cause was not.
They only felt good once they lowered him a peg or two.

But love lies waiting like a rescue hammock, it meets the
expectation of summer sunny afternoons. Though others gave it
stingily, one gave kindness first place and made room for others
whose hearts had been silenced by those who forgot they
did not know enough.

But love surrounds the wounds left behind by
judgment without cause. Love asks how the hurt began and
listens to the stories even over and over again
until all facets have been exposed to its light.

We thought we had caused their irritation, that we had
manufactured words in a smelter and fashioned them into
swords. But that was not our plan. We formed
platters to serve everyone. We kept hoping to
manufacture a moment in time where the blinders fell
off and we were comfortable to see each other as we are,
even if we had never seen that way before.

Some did and found the scars still healing. Some bound
them anew with bandages and care. We filled a bowl with
water and washed their hands while we waited for
the rest to arrive.

Our Unsavory Stories

Our Unsavory Stories

I suppose the starting point is to map out all of my stumbles.
That would be extraordinary, though, because so few who I know
have written about theirs. I am not suggesting that we all project
our failures like an image on the screen. It would take only a moment
after seeing it the first time, to never want to see it again.
Are our connections tangible? Is this why I rarely talk to
anyone throughout the day.
I’m not entirely embarrassed about my sins,
It's just that those who would bear the load with me have
moved on or, even worse;
died.
It's true, I can share half the conversation with my departed
ones
and not fear their responses. But my dearest touches of heart
are those I desire to authenticate my life with me.
I’d invite you to dinner, and I would be fine while we ate,
but what do we do with spidery conversations after the dessert
is pulled from the table?

I’d meet you for a drink, but that is ever more frightening.
How would we fill the hour while we waited for the barkeep
to pour our next beer? And besides, I don’t even know if
you like beer or not. I’d order for you but I’m sure I would
choose the wrong concoction, setting our meeting up for
failure from the start.

There are a few, though, along the way, for whom I’ve secretly
cracked open the door hoping to see a face who wants me
truly, no matter how disorderly my story might be.

I am not despondent about it today, I simply wonder how
many days it takes in our economy to repair the sandy foundations
of a life that meant well. We could go to the park and
chase frisbees I guess; sit in the sun disguised as friends.
That would give little time for the discomfort we feel in trying
to occupy the air with words we haven’t thought about in ages.

That’s not true; the words preoccupy my mind. I worry who
would accept them carte blanche from the first time we spoke?
After all,

And maybe I’m wrong.

But don’t we all have unsavory stories we’d prefer stay
hidden like an old photograph fading in the sun?

Hidden in Windowless Rooms

Hidden in Windowless Rooms

(“However, if it’s from God, you won’t be able to stop them. You may even discover that you’re fighting against God.” Acts 5:38)

Hidden in windowless rooms
awaiting our number to come up,
we feel the clouds close in on us,
we feel the breath of those who shoot
opinions
like dragons full of fire.

We were well-respected, weren’t we?
We’ve owned our stories and told the new one.
Have we threatened the few at the
peak of the pyramid
who send down their edicts like
gods on fire?

We carry no arms,
we do not stockpile caches of weapons.
We walk barefoot, our feet are calloused.
We walk barefoot, our hearts are tender.

Don’t misunderstand. Some of our stories got
the best of us. Some of our history divested us
of any hope to ascend the temple steps that
ripped our unshod feet. We knew how we looked
in the campfires of deceit.

But we are a band bound tight by our miscomprehensions,
we sing in our cells, we pray on the floor. We remember hymns
at midnight while
the rulers knock to find what we are praying for.

I offer my plate, complete with undercooked meat;
I offer my cup with dust napping on top.
The bread is still warm, the crust crisp from the
oven of stone.
The wine is simple. The dialogue drops tears,
one, two, or three,
onto the servings we share when we gather here.

We walk barefoot with our leftover loaves,
we invite more beggars like us to
share our discomfort with wrought-iron fences
and walk the fields where conversation is as
filling as the meals we remember.

Did You See the Way I Fell?

Did You See the Way I Fell?

(“Why do you notice the small piece of dust that is in your friend’s eye, but you don’t see the big piece of wood that is in your own eye?” Luke 6:41)

The pieces you see now I usually hid
before
the big bang that
started photons careening across my history.
Not that I’ll show it all,
or to everyone,
but I must admit I enjoy living with far
fewer fences.

Did you see the way I fell that day?
Did you see how I stumbled for more than a year?
Did you see the wobble in my orbit,
the onion peels in my opinion?
Did you suppose the dream you had
that cast me as a night-terror
was given you by a god who loves to
frighten shaking souls?
Did you see the way I cried?

I know you thought
you found trash in my back yard
months after I had moved away.
It should mean something to you that
I left it behind and
did not take it with me.

I admit my perceptions are colored by
an opaque woodenness. I confess I’ve thought
I might be death unlivable. But that was only based
upon
the words I heard from towering trees
whose roots were dry where they poked through
the hillsides. My roots were nearly lifeless too.

I’ve met vagabonds, I’ve met fancy dancers,
I’ve met wise men who eschewed answers,
I’ve met storage sheds locked up so tight
that they were all but empty inside.
I’ve met children of the forest, I’ve met mothers of the desert,
I’ve met drooping eyes that shined like starlight
and knew something they would not share.

I learned to welcome from those who welcomed me.
I learned to throw the garbage out
that I thought had stuck to me.

There are those whose eyes have wept for
their own pain,
and invite you like good medicine
to share the campfire where old stories
are only stories

After all.

You Must Know by Now

You Must Know by Now

(“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain.” Hebrews 6:19)

You must know by now that sometimes
I do not feel it.
I’ve heard stories and fables ever since
I believed
about angels and visions,
about heavenly transportations,
wheels within wheels.

But you must know by now that all that
moves me are kind eyes.
I’ve heard stories about hands around hearts
and I’ve even written letters apologizing for
my disease and how I passed it onto the
unsuspecting.
Still, neither by hand or mouth, I have hardly heard
a shared or whispered word that took into account
the way their nasty tone was like boxer’s blows
to my mind.

A smile would be magic, a hug the certain cure
for a faith as tattered as bell bottom jeans,
as fleeting as memories when the world was kinder,
(the best days were in my teens.)

I do not blame anyone, I suppose I have been the same.
I call someone my best friend and we talk every 20 years.
Still, all in all, cherubim and seraphim, the floods have washed
the structures I built my belief upon and sent them
Like flotsam to the sea.

And now, what do I do with the brief remains?
How do I listen to the refrains of grief that once sang
me happy home?
I pick up words here and there; a song by Carole King,
another by Keaggy, and more than I can count from
James Taylor. I find more holiness in concerts and
coffee with you, if you find the same with me.

My heart has been broken for some time. I smashed it
myself, it is true; but there were others who finished
the job. I rarely write without crying, so I wonder who
even tries to read my words anymore. I’m too old
to keep score. 

Whether I know it or not (and, as you have gathered,
I know very little), my anchor has hardly moved throughout
this chatter of life lived between AM radio signals.
My anchor still rests in the love that is hidden from most,
and, since both anchor and love are stronger than I,
I suppose I will remain unmoved yet in the last sliver
of my life. 

With Canopies Keeping

With Canopies Keeping

(“If then your body is full of light, with no part of it dark, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its gleam.” Luke 11:36)

And in the forest with canopies keeping the furled smoke
of a hundred distant campfires just above our heads,
the gray shadows and crackling soot divided the
aspen boulevards and made addresses hard to locate
nearing the last light of day.

There was no fear, no threat, all was contained except

the misguided insistence that kept many from finding
the ring of friends sharing stories and passing songs late.

The smoke stayed well past sunset, and the whole forest was

the same tuxedo black of the shadows just hours before.
But in that heaviness of night forest air is the sweet breath
of pine scent and summer smoke. And though late among
the upright stands the night itself seems to reign, the
evidences of life are magnified; a crackling twig or
a hoot owl’s call are french horn and percussion close by.

And in the darkening night that might turn another away,

the campfires, like lighthouses among the woods, catch
the wanderers’ eyes and lead them by human voice and
eventual affection.

Every circle with friends and new ones warming, is not
simply an invention, but evidence of redemption; a fire
and a song with a final arc of friendship to wanderers
in the night.

Where Stories Meet

Where Stories Meet

(“Because you are now part of God’s family, He sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts; and the Spirit calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’” Galatians 4:6)

I never mind dividing a slice and sharing
the findings around a table of good friends.
We meander and multiply, start stories from the middle
and watch them fly, landing in beginning of someone
else’s tale.

You, we have talked so often, I have categorized your stories;
from grandparents to college shenanigans, young dreams,
younger ambitions, and late revisions of a life ratcheting down
in slow motion.

You tell them so well that, labyrinths winding through time
and recollection, that same tale is garnished depending
on the season. Steak and strawberries in May,
sweet potatoes in October.

What puzzles we are, with histories that ebb,
tides that reveal more at sun and less for rain;
the beginnings, the ends, the outlines the same,
but the telling lets minutes seem like a montage
of 15 passing days.

You, I hope we talk more often, have a hidden pond,
an inner dialogue God knows alone. I know. I
sense the same mystery in me. We are not as free
as we believe, yet are more abundant than we
conceive
on a slow Monday morning.

That hidden place, like the maze through a cavern,
so deep we think it dark, and yet, the most brilliant
of all our human cause and effects.  Sub-original effects
notwithstanding, and all the retail branding we hope will
demand a higher value on today’s market;

That quiet space is what makes
your history so attractive to me,
my story so striking to you,
as if we’ve heard what we have never heard

And dined at the same table from conscious until now.