Invitations in the Mail

Invitations in the Mail

(“For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said: ‘I will live and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.’” 2 Corinthians 6:16b)

Did you truly need an explanation about grace
and how it crosses the divides between shame and power?
Did you truly think your hardness was acceptable,
that your curses were blessings, and your judgment the very
throne of God?

How did we ever arrive at a time when people with no sense of God
told us everything
God hated about us? Did you turn your Sunday School lessons into
declarations of division? Did you think that Christ would not notice
your atom bombs and jack-booted roundups of people
who are more like you than you can imagine?

I’ve been waiting for a turn of phrase,
for a moment of grace,
for a day of mercy,
for a year of humanity that finally celebrates
every color of the rainbow and every hue we cannot see.
I’ve been watching and all I hear are enthusiastic salutes
that send us deeper into sorrow and loathing.

If God wants to be our God, then why are we expecting him
to stamp his insignia on our basest instincts. Do you want
God
to be your God
and never give a moment’s fuck to what it means when he
asks us to rethink everything we’ve been poisoning the world with?

This is my deposition: I have never wanted a single person excluded
from the fellowship, the fraternity, the family that laughs at the
feet that keep walking toward home. There are invitations still
coming in the mail.

Like Cannons of Rain

Like Cannons of Rain

(“We are the temple of the living God, you see, just as God said: ‘I will live among them and walk about with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.’” 2 Corinthians 6:16b)

If I told you tomorrow I’d be gone
would you save the day, would you hide it away
with your keepsakes?
But You may as well try
to store the sun ‘round midnight.
If I heard my ears would soon be closed,
would I memorize the way the songs make me feel?
Would I heal
outside
where the lightning scores the skies,
where the electricity conducts itself like cannons
of rain?
If I told you I’d never set foot in this place again,
would you remember my name? Would you etch
it on the front door? Would you sound it out like
phonics?
But you may as well try to name the gods,
pin down the angels,
catch the waterfalls midstream.

If I felt the warm no more, caught the smoke
of campfires on the ridges beyond the river
and then turned to go home,
would you come look for me? Would you
insist our way of life could exist on the
warmest beach
or coldest church bench?
If my fingers played notes hidden between
the black and white keys,
would it be another reason to cry heresy?
But you may as well try to keep the
hummingbirds away from
the climbing jasmine.

You might as well try to keep me from
exploring sanctuaries of light with gray
pronouncements today.

Today I will lay me down in peace. Today
I will cram my mind with unimagined things,
and laugh that we could be so certain about
which compass points are holier,
at which destinations the gods dwell.

Once you mark it on a map the mystery
dissipates and hardens like grime. Once
you build your monument
the sighs become yawns and we turn our
mattresses over so satisfied that we simply
cannot be wrong.

If I told you I don’t know how I feel about
precise measurements, would you still claim me
as a worshiper waiting alone?

Darkly Sparkling

Darkly Sparkling

(“Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16)

The world is darkly sparkling,
mystery and delight.
Your soul is dancing starkly,
filled with holy light.
The day breaks like crinoline,
sometimes like silk.
The day rests upon the hillside,
sometimes milky and unseen.
The world is faintly breathing,
a baby at rest.
Your soul is pleasing saintly,
royally dressed.
The day grows like reunion,
sometimes like solace.
The day rests upon the ancients,
sometimes afire and unchanged.

The Spirit finds
every breath another reason
to unveil the connection of all things.
Every morning aglow,
every evening bestowing rest
like magic strands woven from
soul to soul,
friend to friend,
this world and the next,
the context full of original blessing.

The world is riverly streaming.

I am Owned

I am Owned

(“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19)

Companion of all I am, my questions and vague answers,
my soft lawn and burning sand; sojourn here where dancers
sometimes brighten the day, and; where blisters enhance the limpI’ve carried from the first day I insisted on allowing You to stay.

You are stubborn, pulling me like magnetic migrants to rubble and storms;
You are gentle, showing me the tears that fall for urbans and farms;
You are stronger, still I must follow, you do not drive or strike me;
You are fiery, breaking the ice jams, burning my first plans and my psyche

Until I own that I am owned. I browse no longer, the window shopping is over,
I am overtaken by love, pulled by black hole wind that insists I fly without trying,
learning the sky and earth, moon and sun, soul and neighbor, all deserve the
best behavior

From a mere visitor upon the Holy One’s Sacred tour.