The Fog was Ankle Deep

The Fog was Ankle Deep

(“Jesus said to Nathanael, ‘I can guarantee this truth: You will see the sky open and God’s angels going up and coming down to the Son of Man.’” John 1:51)

The fog was ankle deep as the sun
warmed the wet morning asphalt. It slunk like
snake tracks and spoke of something that wrapped
us all up like common denominators, like children returning
from exile. It hinted that we might all have wings if
we only inhabited the thin places where heaven seeps
through.

It makes us doubt our own significance as if the breath
was taken out of our lungs at the very thought that
there may be more than we imagined going on within us.
If the sun can coax land-locked clouds on the ground
why can we not linger while spirit breathes a presence
we had only guessed at until now. What if the very place
we stand
is also an anteroom to the throne? What if we are invited
to enter in like Spring coaxing the cherry tree blossoms?

I’ve stood here before, thinking I needed to knock down the door
and crawl on my hands and knees to prove my piety.
What if the throne is unoccupied? Or what if, instead, it
is filled with the author of nurture? What if every blade of
grass invites us to sing around prayers like maypoles
and mumble inaudible but well-intentioned alleluias?
What if our morning walk is just the start of
the very heartbeat we had been waiting to hear?

If I Had Not Fallen

If I Had Not Fallen

(“In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it—one from the house of David—one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.” Isaiah 16:5)

If I had not fallen, you may never have found me.
But here we are both lying on the ground.
I don’t have long to stay; I may leave tomorrow.
My hold on life’s meaning keeps slipping somewhere
out of mind.

But still, here on the ground, I can hide
beneath your shade if only, if only, you will
stay around.

These last days the numbers on the calendar blend
former loves and
never-to-be dreams I gave up on long ago.

Take a chance on me, but, with my track record
you will likely lose.

You could be my roaring fire on the days
when everything has
gone up in smoke.

We haven’t spoken about it, but I can see
the end of days from here. The horizon
is only steps away; I need to know you will stay far longer
than the first or second verse.

I do not fear the uncertain veil, only, the way
my kinship has thinned,
I wonder if I may take that final step alone.

If I had not fallen, you would not have found me here.
I could have flown above it all, solved it all like a
Rubik’s cube.

But if I had winged my way in an upward arc, soaring high
above it all,
all my failures would have looked like jewels in the
distant refractions of sun and light.

If I had not fallen, (and I sense you know how far was my
descent), I would not be content to behold the eyes of
another groundling like me.

I can see the last horizon from here, though the journey
may be longer than I expect. It took me days to get here,
with days standing in for years.
It took me years to stop looking for angels
and look instead in your eyes, earthling,
and find every reason to sing.

If I had not fallen, I could not have shared with you this song.

The Throne Among Us

 

The Throne Among Us

(“For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us. He shoulders responsibility and is called Wonderful Adviser, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

“Pass on by and don’t say a word,”
they reply when they repeat the lies of violence
and then turn with a smiley face on their sticker heart
they have pasted on their foreheads.

Why do you leave us waiting without wings?
Why do you see darkness when the light fills everything?
Why do you leave us to wonder
how you came to your conclusions?
Facts are facts, not your affection for sledgehammer delusions.

Oh, speak my Prince,
and move upon these streets of stone.

Oh, seek my friend,
the truth that will not bend to the seismic intentions
of words you attribute to angels
but smell of demonic design.

Oh, rain my Prince,
upon these barren lands where we paint our
rock gardens green because nothing ever grows.

Oh, listen friend,
to the streams that wake us,
the rain that soaks us,
the sun as it coaxes us to
open like roses in the face of love.

Let go your arrows, empty your quiver,
spend your words with liberal fascination
that the throne above is now the
throne among us
and it calls us
to speak more like
the Prince of Peace.

CrissCross

 

CrissCross

(“I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith.” Revelation 2:13a)

We hear the electromagnetic hum from the White House
to state houses,
from Supreme Courts to county fair judges,
from legislative lobbyists to the home-town blogger
and it all sounds so powerful.

You feel the static in the air, the murmur of a thousand
deals made on the back of a million people who thought
they had their say. Oh

by the way

Filthy rich preachers pray for the president.

All the while the rivers crisscross the country
lapping lazily at the banks
and no one notices how long they have been there.

Among the Noises

Among the Noises

“[God] first saved us and then called us to this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it.” 2 Timothy 1:9 [The Message])

Banish the velvet thrones, the lookout points above the rest,
Bulldoze the silver stands, the pulpits of pretense undressed;
And plant in their places, build common spaces,
quads and plazas, parks and picnics
where gifts are shared at sea level,
work is hands upon hands passing the plans
initialed before notions of my,
authored above contests of why.

Ears to the sky, eyes flying in reply to
the request sent pre-echo,
the orders cast, the Word applied,
the first are last, the down upside,
and few find their way, and pass the
narrow gate with their furniture too wide
to carry home.

Build me a legend and I’ll feed you hungry,
story upon story, we covet the sky,
Tell me your hero and I’ll know you roughly,
conquest upon success, we conspire to buy

Our way home.

But bought before us, and called last and first,
the Beginning of beginnings, the Author of earth
tracks us down, subtracts our precious,
counts our zeroes and calls us total when we
step down from our thrones and all other self-owns,
to find our voices among the noises of the redeemed.