It’s My Turn to Pay

It’s My Turn to Pay

(“Defend weak people and orphans. Protect the rights of the oppressed and the poor.” Psalm 82:3)

Once the day began with thought it would be better
to stop ignoring the troubles of our neighbors up the road.
We should have surrendered long ago and
stood with them in the rain while they waited in line
for untimely help. We covered them in
random songs we learned along the way.

I’ll meet you for breakfast; I’ll drive by and
pick you up by 8. It’s on me, by the way. It’s
my turn
to pay. I’ve heard what people say about your
downward turn of luck and then they walk away
like they are best buddies with God. They spew
undeserved cantons of excuses on the ground.

We hoped to persuade the unequal ground that
your pain deserved protection and your lack deserved
more than a presumptive hearing.
We surely would serve you something more substantial
than the soup we poured into casual tureens. Maybe we
could stand outside in antiseptic sunshine and convince
the onlookers of your full humanity. We would squarely
with you as we ascended the pyramids of eminence.
We would write the epitome of verses that covered the
curses that excused puffed-up rhetoric that left you living
behind the ghost town facades.

We left our assumptions behind this time. We warmed
up your coffee, we shared our hashbrowns, we picked up the
bill
and left a hefty tip for the server who called you by name.

Carpet Swatches and Paint Chips

Carpet Swatches and Paint Chips

(“You must turn away from evil and do good; you must strive for peace with all your heart.” 1 Peter 3:11)

I heard the thunder in the late afternoon which is
unusual
for us in the Pacific Northwest. It just rains but
rarely sends lightning across the sky.

I guess I wouldn’t argue with someone whose
experience is different than mine. Not worth it of course.

I heard the arguments that went late after the
board
meeting about a net result of nothing. It is just a
few minds thinking they know it best and the best must
be implemented soon and perfect.

Evil approaches to darken the beauty that comes out
of the light.
Evil tries to erase the artistic soul full of words,
or colors, or shapes, or falling waters. We spend
so little time
letting even a single petal from a rose make our
breathing hurried in awe and reverence.

We would rather have our way pushed through like
a bulldozer building a dollhouse. We decide that
carpet samples
and color swatches
are chosen by majority vote. Which is what happened,
because a quorum had showed up. But one of those
who stayed home
kicked over the five-gallon pails of pain on the unvarnished
floor the next. A tantrum over a shade too soon.

We could not call for a new meeting; the walls were half-painted
before he
decided to throw his weight around. Peace was
interrupted like
an improvised explosive device. Invisible shrapnel
struck everyone gathered and nothing was ever quite
the same.

It seemed insane for a scrimmage to balloon for such
a simple tune. But we agreed, after piercing words had
already met their marks, to wait for the moon to cover
the night
and the sun
to dry the mud and then
we would look at the paint on the walls again.

With empty paint cans strewn across the long floor,
we saw the walls and their adobe pigment in a brand new
light.
Even the naysayers, heads hanging down, agreed the hue
was perfect and said nothing else.

We prayed the dissolution would not linger. But
sometimes you cannot head off the storm. Sometimes
evil breaks down the artistic impulse and insists
an exact pigment exists, a perfect reflection of hue and
light.

But some phone calls just never did sit right.

We Refused to Turn

We Refused to Turn

(“These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.” Daniel 3:23)

You erected an idol to yourself,
you demanded worship at the statue of your
insanity. We could not comply, we could not
bow
like it was some worship song flowing up
from creamy faces to the sun. You
sent the worst after us,
to subdue us,
to confuse us.
But we refused to turn our faces to
the effigy built in your image.

You sent the worst to arrest us,
door to door you knocked with your
covered faces, asking questions we had
no obligation to answer. We politely,
but plainly told you to fuck off.
Your brutish hands clutched the door
and we smelled the acrid tear gas you
had punched into crowds that were countering
your evil directives.

In short, burn us in your furnaces of fury
if you will but the short and full of it is
simple:
We
will
not
bow.

Singe the edges if you will.
We will sing our songs of sanity
to your appropriated helmets of state-sponsored
status. We will move with resolve
to introduce the truth. If you arrest us
we will stand. If you apprehend us, we will
still speak. If you sentence us, we will steadily
place our purpose where it belongs. We will
avert our eyes from your monstrous image and
turn to the invisible God who is truth and truth
and truth.

The Breeze Can Turn

The Breeze Can Turn

(“There are those who are last now who will be first in the future. And there are those who are first now who will be last in the future.” Luke 13:30)

The breeze can turn the day around,
it can move flags and leaves to their own devices.
The earth turns and the winds swirl
and we try to predict it all with instruments of sound.
The sand hill that you built your life upon,
no matter how high up the cliffs,
will not stand when the winds of time shift.
There are fewer days than when we started,
fewer moments to freely pursue the dreams of
salvation. You’ve fattened yourself like
a calf for the slaughter and do not realize
the days are racing forward.

Step down before
it is too late,
stand on the loaming ground before you fall
from the top of your precipice. Carry your
proclamations under your coat,
turn your speech around,
you’ve got more to confess than the
limits you’ve put on yourself. Failing
to flourish, you just pretend your boxes
are filled with more money than you can count.
Go look again,
the mice have eaten half of it. The rest are
necessary to pay your debt to humanity.

Poverty might look good on you. Poverty might
turn your words around. I’d befriend you
if you spoke honestly. I’d share a meal with you
if you lay down your presumptive power and
eat slowly the supper made by humble hands
born across the border.
The breeze can turn the day around,
if only you will listen to the wind and let
the Spirit fill your vacancy with the
cries of the walkers only wanting a chance
to work in the sun.

Turn To Me with Your Constant Love

Turn To Me with Your Constant Love

(“Because your love is constant, hear me, O Lord; show your mercy, and preserve my life!” Psalm 119:149)

You might be surprised to hear me telling
all my truth. You might think less of me,
you might look with disgust,
as I let flow the maladjustments that have followed me
from my youth.
I tell half with honesty, half with hope.
I write with symbols, I read with stops where I should
continue until the entire story is told.
Addicts never love brutal honesty;
the best of us don’t want to hurt those we love;
the rest of us quake at our reputation being more of a
government announcement that the check is in the mail.
For now, perhaps until evening, my eyes are undry,
there is a tremor in my hands, my voice chokes, and
I maintain constant vigilance that makes me feel like everything
I’ve said and done was just a cruel hoax.

I do two loads of laundry a week, and some of my jeans
are now torn at the seams. I could wear them to do yard work,
if I did yard work,
but I have nothing to wear to do the hard work of winning back
the man I thought I could become too many decades ago.

It would be easy if, just writing carelessly now, each transgression
was forgotten forever. But we are not made that way, are we?
The memory circuits stay active, the trauma rarely expressed.
I should have sought professional help, I should have gone
to the wilderness with one ear or two who would hear my
truth in its entirety. That is no one’s fault. I make no excuses.
But words I read creep beyond the fences I’ve built to keep
me from seeing the judgement in the eyes of someone who might
become my enemy. I’ve lived, every epoch of my life,
with this systemic aberration. There is no one to blame
but myself. And I know that loathing is the last thing my
lonely soul needs.

I’m looking for the one friend who I can spend afternoons with
telling my ancient stories and truth. Someone I have not hurt so far,
someone, some day with hooks in their soul just like mine.

Turn to me with your constant love,
let me confess the failings that still come
fast-mailed from the past. I have lost the trust
I once had. I am tired of being a hermit, tired of recusing
myself like a hobbit in a cave. Meet me for drinks
and we’ll see how the conversation goes.

Turn Table

 

Turn Table

(“My house will be called a house of prayer–but you have made it a brigands’ lair!” Matthew 21:13)

 

We sell our soul, we sell our vote,
we sell our best words and call them hope.
Besides, no one was home when we knocked on the door
that one time six months ago, and now I’ve lost your address
and don’t want to disturb you with a call.

We build our churches, we erect our halls,
we sell rummage and erect our stalls
outside shopping malls in the best part of town.
And when the day is over, we luxuriate in showers
hoping to wipe away every bit of clown paint from our
roles of a lifetime. Most times we’re mistaken, most times
we want another turn down the slide on hot summer days.

Many times, we choose our teams and wonder why
the boys with uncut hair and the
girls with coffee stained jeans
never ask to be in our game.
And when someone cries loud enough, hard enough,
high enough to weep for acceptance…

But that rarely happens since we’ve already forgotten them.
And who wants to be rejected twice? Save your money for
a second piece of pie. No one wants to be forgotten a third time.

How angry can Jesus be? No, really. We awake on Sundays
and crowd into the back of the hall with others who agree with us
on almost
everything. How angry can he be? Every Christmas we find toys
for the poor little girls and boys. Every Thanksgiving we find enough
turkeys to feed a dozen for free. For two months of twelve we
give away to a few and shelve the rest for new classrooms on the
eastern hall.

Some days, when you remember the aching few, do it in a month
that requires nothing of you. Bits and bytes that fly through the sky
are counterfeit coins landing sideways. We need eye to eye. We
need a friend to walk up the driveway.