Please Take the Lead

Please Take the Lead

(“We must keep our eyes on Jesus…” Hebrews 12:2)

Please take the lead,
my steps have lost the time
and I cannot find the cadence again.

These days (no, most of my days, most of my

Years)

My first moment is pathetic,
then becomes septic,
while the tears take time to build
and shed later in the day.

Please take the lead,
I do not follow well anymore.
I am silent the whole day through,
not out of some imposed vow,
but because there is no one to talk to.
I cannot find the radiance again.

I’ve been told you inhabit everything,
so you would think I could see you
no matter which way I look.
That’s a fine thought. But my heart
is still a stone that crumbles too easily.

I am weak, everything about me deteriorates
in my depression and mistakes.
But I used to think I was good. Now I am
no longer sure.

I talk a good game,
but honestly, again and again,
I stub my toe, or worse,
run head-on into an unsuspecting passerby.
One more person I should explain myself to.

I’ll tell you the truth now, I did not want to write today.
It is dark at noon. The air is heavy as untuned pianos
masquerading as sandy beaches. And I know that
image makes no sense,
but neither does this burden I can never lay down,
that haunts me forever,
that drowns every sound of a simple chorus of joy
away.

I would curl around anyone who didn’t care
about my shame. I would talk endlessly.
(no I would not. my talk has been my undoing)

Please take the lead, I cannot see beyond this fog.
I’m tired. I’m alone. I’m foolish. I’m a failure.
I make a mess of the best summer days and
cry on all the rest.

These fears, these anxieties, are only paper-thin.
And just beyond them is where beauty begins.

(yes, I wrote that earlier today. but I am still stitched,
and taped, and stapled, and wrapped in butcher paper
someone left on the shelf.)

I Just Have to Tell You

I Just Have to Tell You

(“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come…and save you.’” Isaiah 35:3-4

I hate to admit but my eyes are blood-red this morning,
blood-red since yesterday, closed and shut throughout the night.
I though we both received the same orders; the ones I received decades
ago, the same you’ve heard from the mouth of the Lord:

“Go into the world..”

But, here is where my eyes break down, where my stomach lodges
clear up into my throat,
where my fingers shake from mistaken interpretations as
more and more act like dragons
and spit fire at the world they think has begun its
persecution.

“Go into all the world…”

But we gossip about the “family on welfare” where,
parked just in front of the sagging garage,
was a fancy car, a new car, a car sans scratches, and
one that matches your best desire for one too.
And you step into church, with the first sentence ringing:
“I drove by Linda’s place. Ha…she gets food stamps while there
is a fancy car in her driveway!” And our dragon saliva lights the
next best gossips to say the same. Worship did not happen that day,
I think Jesus ran away to comfort the object of these good peoples’ scorn.

“Go into all the world and preach…”

Hey, we pay a pastor to do that. And, boy can he tell a story. I mean,
he has our ear every week. (And they go home never taking their
booster thoughts of truth.) We pay a pastor well, until, he meddles
in politics, or sex, or money. And we would report him the moment
he mentioned the Democrats’ solutions. We don’t walk out, we just
leave our post and send letters of excuses, because I want to leave worship
like a massage, and without bruises.

“Go into all the world and preach the Good News…”

That’s the Ten Commandments, isn’t it? Oh it is so sad that they won’t
let us
post the 10 on every state house lawn, or every
telephone pole alone I-5. We used to be such a godly nation. (Decimating
Native Americans, Enslaving African tribes, Denying Votes to fellow females,
and rounding up every Japanese inside chicken-wire ghettos. Not to mention
lynchings and mobs and bombs targeted with hateful precision.)
We used to be such a Christian Nation.

“Go into all the world and preach the Good News to every creature…”

But you better take a gun with you, or mace, or pepper spray, and don’t
stay too long in the neighborhoods marked by poverty and starvation.
“Here’s a per diem, you can buy all the food you want at McDonald's or
Arby’s. Spend your money wisely, and you will come out ahead.”
They watch us, well, they see us well. And, at least we went on
this mission trip
when the others stayed home without precedent.

By the way, did you notice that one house. Oh it was decrepit. Shutters
hanging askew. Wood siding cracked, splintered and eaten a foot above the
foundation wall. Broken windows and forgotten screens, roof shingles
looked like a melting cake frosting. And then, (don’t mention this to
anyone else)

But, did you notice, that a Cadillac pulled up, maybe two years old,
and shiny, oh it was shiny. It gleamed golden in the sun. Those seats
were leather, I know they were. I just have to tell you. It makes me
mad, people like this, using my taxes to get themselves ahead.

…and preach the Good News…

I’m sorry, God, we didn’t get to it today.

A Door in Front

A Door in Front

(“I know that you have a little power; you have followed my teaching and have been faithful to me. I have opened a door in front of you, which no one can close.” Revelation 3:8)

As the quicksand pulls upon your waking and
the ache of another day plainly drains your greater strength
before starting out the door;
once more
you remember the days limber and pliant
when a change in plans was as good
as
a change of scenery on the nth day of rain.

But the pain has laid down pathways,
dog trails in the backyard, from doghouse to
neighbor fence to
food dish and
back again;
her needs are habit and predictable.

So the pain has kept you within its leashed radius,
a few blocks perhaps, a few miles on the better days,
and few visits with friends, no dinner dates (even
laughter wears you down faster than shotgun rounds
piercing the fog in autumn). From the bed to
the couch to
the office and
back again;
your strength has all been borrowed before
you’ve had time to devise more elegant plans.

Believe me, I know the dark silence and how it
screams loudly. I’ve worn the guilty collar that
won’t let you off the hook. So much more you could
do,
so little done before another round of uneasy sleep
and treading the careless circle again.

But friend, there is another standard, an embrace
more certain that first place or captain of frontrunners
who win the race hands down question from any short-sighted
eye in the stands. There is another standard,
another measure of the love you feel has leaked and spilled
and ignited and frightened its capacity away. There is
the open door,
the wonder of One who does not care you cannot stay
for more than an hour. He will make up the rest of
the day
you long to complete. There is One Standard,
who endured and knows the tears you’ve hidden.
Hears the anguish unbidden, and exchanges them
(it is more than true) for prayer and answers more
than when, healthy as a bear, you thought you would
set the pace longer, much longer, than you have.

The open door is Father and He enters your pain,
your disdain of the half-life you feel has devalued your soul.
You, my sufferer and friend, are whole even while
you lay unmovable in shallow breaths and sacred pleas.

Some Days are Heavier

Some Days are Heavier

(“When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.” 2 Corinthians 11:29)

Some days are heavier, the gravity pushes down like a cloud
full of gravel; while just a step and a half over the children twirl
like cottonwood dancing on the breeze. There is little to be said
about geography, myopathy; it is simply the weather that pushed
you around and left an opening in its soul full of dandelions and
dragonflies,
while you drag your disguise under the hailstones you nope no one notices.

But I see. Or at least discern the evidence. A lovely white porch
with
elder limbs for shade and the next day spitballs from the sky
shredded the lanai. Leaves were pureed, paint was splayed with
chips of white and green the jigsaw pieces of an infinite puzzle
or remains. You remembered why you nearly decided it
was a bad idea to put the glass table outside.

Some had insurance. Some had luck. Some discerned the future.
But you, you must have been on the receiving end of judgment
for hail so large to hover so long over a target so precise as
the white porch where people imagined (mostly the uninvited)
your adolescent raucous.

We sat outside on spotted plastic, shared a sigh and a drink,
and though the air was still heavy as iron, the hand of a friend
was better
than the doctrines of neighbors about
the hand of god.