When My Day Will Come

(“The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness. But He is patient with us, because He does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9)

 

anger and wrath of a warrior god will swipe away the remainder of the
uninitiated from the gravity of earth. They will be judged most righteously;
you expect them to be taken silently in the middle of the night.
You try to scare people into faith, but faith that warns of all-consuming
heat
simply will not last past the end of summer.

in the end times. Every storm is not judgement from an angry god.
Every traffic accident you survive but leaves someone else dead
is not worth your words telling everyone how God saved you.

eons to God.
We do not control time, we barley know how to respond to it.
If we clean our house faster, we have more time by the end of the day,
but what do we do next? And here I am, 71, and I can remember
a girlfriend from 50 years ago, and most of her phone number. I can
remember baptizing a friend in a duck pond and 5 am and can circle
back to that memory almost any time I want. But the future comes
more slowly and with less options as I age. Fondness and regret are
the twins of the past. The future moves me to weariness and anxiety.
But God, our patient God, dwells in every microsecond, all at the same time.
Even the dreams I have take me to a short workable future or to a past
where shit was given in place of truth.

and another one, looking out the window and wondering when my day will come.

The Heart Grasps the Sky

The Heart Grasps the Sky

(“Hear my prayer, O God; listen to my words!” Psalm 54:2)

I turned the corner without ever thinking I might meet
my neighbor on the walking path.
We exchanged cherry “hellos”
and traded a little silly talk.
I walked further, toward the cemetery,
and could not find the site where I thought they
laid someone to rest yesterday. I have so many
friends there,
resting there,
that I feel the weight of grief their loved ones feel.
Didn’t they pray for their child,
didn’t they cry out for their wife,
didn’t they name the names of the dying
to the Name of all names?

And didn’t God hear that
I need a friend stronger than death.
And didn’t God listen to
the tears that stained the faces of the beloved.
And didn’t we wish (another word for pray,
though you might disagree) that we could take
their place?

I’ve seen a hundred replacements,
I’ve called a thousand phone numbers,
I’ve listened for the knock on the door,
I’ve waited for a voice to explain it all.

Sandwiched between belief and doubt,
my prayers are not for human ears.
But I would welcome yours, silent as
the first spring night. The heart weeps,
the heart grasps the sky, the heart has
words
that paint a seaside where pain and
relief meet. The heart beats, ready to
write unspoken prayer.

Thinking About Dancing

Thinking About Dancing

(“Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.” Isaiah 35:6)

I’ve been thinking about dancing,
late evening to dark under the lights where
someone got married just an hour ago.
I’ve been thinking about music,
a couple of guitars and a beer, singing
what we used to write 50 years ago.
We invented everything back then.
We pretended life was different back then.

So many times, thirst showed up in ways
that only melodies could quench.
Friends showed up and brought laughter
like
disco.
The rhythm ran up and down our spines,
tickling us to find the floor with sunshine
underneath. We never were alone for long.
We never were left waiting while the rains
had their way with us.

(I should pause here and explain that
though the refrain sounds like joy uncontained,
it actually hides beneath layers of pain so noisy
they I rarely know how to keep time.)

But
you

Speak one word and everything comes back to mind.

You

Knock on my door with sage tea or cabernet sauvignon,
my choice,
and I look at your feet to see if

You might like to dance with me.

Sometimes Hidden

 

Sometimes Hidden

(“Weren’t our hearts glowing while he was with us on the road, and when he made the scriptures so plain to us?” Luke 24:32 [J.B. Phillips])

I was thinking about yesterday when
I spent the day on the couch,
my head in a vise,
the sun fully risen,
the questions aligned without reasons,
the town below alive,
the sleep and dreams between
the hammers that played my head like
steel drums. I would do things on a whim,
but all my big ideas are locked in
a makeshift cavern waiting for reunion.

I was walking around today when
I saw the clouds kiss the hills above the river
like lovers who only want some privacy.
Chilly for mid-July, I wore faded jeans instead
of my summer shorts. I still saw questions
buzzing like gnats. I still shivered (not from
cold, but from mastering the art of dreading
the day.)
Some insist I pray in this hollow,
others that I read more emotionless cookie
fortunes and staple them to my face.
Some simply erase me. Memories are as fickle
as clouds hugging hills and dancing away.

I started writing today and reflected on
fire.

Who is this sits with me in my brokenness?

One who breaks bread in a stranger’s house and
leaves without addressing a single query. One who,
like hills, like clouds, like sun, like quasars,
is sometimes hidden in the most ordinary
things.

Tethering Our Thoughts

“My friends, God has chosen you to be his holy people. So think about Jesus, the one we call our apostle and high priest!” Hebrews 3:1

I think about a lot of things. I have a mind that keeps spinning, chugging away like a perpetual motion machine. If my thoughts became visible, they would look like some Rube Goldberg creation. The first few motions of thought would seem sensible, but after a few moments the connection between the first and latest thought is lost.