Did You Sanitize Your Sword?

 

Did You Sanitize Your Sword?

(“Then Jesus said to him, 'Put your sword back into its place, for all those who take the sword will die by the sword.’” Matthew 26:52)

Did you sanitize your sword this morning,
freshly sharpen it on the grinding wheel?
Did you study the better ways to draw blood
and go in for the kill?
Did you point your tongue at someone’s heart today,
target the spot already bleeding?
Did you rehearse your words to stick like barbs
hidden away in your opponent’s story?

“I would never” is
ever the thing I would.
“I would not deny” is the setup for
fresh self-protection.

Someone sectioned off the lies that
let me pull the trigger and claim it was
still well-holstered. Ever since an emperor took the
Cross
into battle
we edit peace and name them missiles,
we hate the lamb and
bare the teeth of the lion.

Legions of angels could subdue
every weapon formed against you,
so why polish your handgun
when the Lord of all the earth is
cruciform?

Unrelenting love, persistent songs of protest
for the
weaker ones seem so frail to some. But
not to the one who bids us sheath our swords
and walk with the suffering instead.
The collateral damage is not just in our heads
but on the dusty streets where bombs hit their targets
and stick like barbs in the occupants of dirt
and land and history and memory.

The rhetoric and armaments have stored enough
violence. When will we sing “peace on earth,
goodwill toward men” and mean it first and again?

Barely Awake

 

Barely Awake

(“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.’” Matthew 26:52)

 

In our dreams we move faster than light,
and barely awake we sludge so slowly we dare not move
from right to maybe so. What miracles of fear
and cold sweat escort you 500 miles and 30 years ago
waking cements our ego within its four walls?

And so we draw swords because evil men are demonic,
though we’ve never seen a devil bleed before.
And so we label them Jezebel and Satanic, cast our unholy spells
we call prayers
while love looks on, divesting us of its name.

Did you see the sweat like blood,
did you hear the cry of perfect love,
did you consider the cup he drank,
did you consider staying awake?

Those with heavy eyes wield the swords,
those with light in their soul heal the slain.

The most profound product of this world

Is

Tears.

Pale Dots on an Inky Sky

Pale Dots on an Inky Sky

(“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'” Galatians 4:6)

I did not pick up this sword on my own,
it was placed there, in my arms, by those (though planning no harm)
who designed their plan of war and placed me in position.

Let me rephrase that: perhaps I did raise the sword, but it
was not for the enemy they chose. They recited my duty,
verse by verse, and expected a fiery spectacle with their
enemies dying at my feet.

Please do not blame them; it is the only warfare they know.
Please do not mistake me as one of their own. I belong,
it is true,
to the same one they name. And, without comment about
whose tent they inhabit, I have found the Name warmer
than the fires of Big Guns ordered by General or Admiral.

I wield it wisely, or I do not wield it at all. I have heard
the call, once so far away I wished to hush the breeze to hear it.
Like a pale dot on the inky sky, barely perceptible, yet I knew,
up close it would fill my purview many worlds over. I have
heard
the call. Within this time. And it obscures every design and order
I thought I was under. Stronger, fiercer, the volcano's exclamation;
and yet: Softer, familiar, the dove's invitation.

One was the broken fissure, having blown its top,
the other is volcano fire, the power no one can stop.
One was human mapping the divine,
the other, the Father fully safe, never benign.

My hand grips the sword, my heart gripped by my Father's words,
and I swing, oh so very rarely, only to free the prisoners, cutting
through their chains,
denouncing all names but the One Name who is Abba to
all who will believe.