What did You Expect?

“When John’s disciples left to report, Jesus started talking to the crowd about John. ‘What did you expect when you went out to see him in the wild? A weekend camper? Hardly? What then? A sheik in silk pajamas? Not in the wilderness, not by a long shot.’” Matthew 11:7,8

Why is it we treat ministry as if it should be a quality performance living up to the participant’s expectations? Our worship “services” are structured so as to make most pastors, worship leaders and other ministry feel like they will be reviewed next day in the Christian press?

Of Afflictions and Deliverance

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but out of them all the Lord delivers him.” Psalm 34:19

It is obvious that the righteous go through troubles. They are no more immune from tribulation that anyone else. Indeed, the righteous may actually endure greater affliction than others. Besides the normal vicissitudes of life, there are inner and outer troubles unique to the righteous.

I just +

I just +

(“Don’t make treaties with the people there, or you will soon find yourselves worshiping their gods and taking part in their sacrificial meals.” Exodus 34:15)

We remain adolescents with hormones racing,
lust-struck by promises of magic-poof on the stage
of our abracadabras.

Let a $ wink at me and I pursue it hotly,
when the *s are brightest, my thinking becomes dull,
I ask no ? about the truth, see no sleight-of-hand suggestions,
I just +  to the gallery = to my searing imagination.

Worst of all I put my pinups on my altar-wall,
bibles and Buddha and Trump and Bikini-ed
await my worship. I’ve received the invitations
and sent the RSVPs, my signature guaranteeing
my devoted attendance.

Pimped out to the sham-hungry, I am glutted
banquet to banquet.
Shorthand allurance has detoured past my best senses
so I devour every fragrant idol; enticement shrouded
by religious dialect.

I make no decisions, just follow the mental secretions
that baffle faith seeking merely truth, not crushes.
We have made a teen idol of the Universe Designer
and
a personal prom-date of the Eternal Lover,
then choose to marry (how fickle and airy)
the one who makes our blood run hot

And leave behind the One whose Blood ran full
before we had a single desire to call our own.

Friended by God

Our Lord, you are the friend of your worshipers, and you make an agreement with all of us. Psalm 24:14

I told my family today I have a goal clearly in sight: 1000 friends on Facebook. I currently have 960. And, as nice as it is to have so many acquaintances sitting on my desktop while I do paperwork, I also think social networking has caused us to lose something in terms of real friendships.

Etch the Diagnosis

Etch the Diagnosis

(“Calling His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over depraved spirits to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every malady.” Matthew 10:1)

Compassion learned is compassion returned to its source;
the beautiful eyes that gaze on ugly days and interpret them
as gems still dirt and grime. Where evil lurks,
healing wins the day. Where darkness hides the leper’s sores,
daylight shows pain not shame to well-learned disciples
who no longer gasp at trapped souls,
no longer gag at vague memories of atrocities inflicted by
them on
us.

Evil still is evil long upon the gray apparitions,
But healing wins the loving back in spectrum’s fullest range:
from infra-red to ultra-violet, sins and violence are sickness
ravaging immunity.

Come once to the Heart which spoke Love upon nothing,
See once the eyes that envisioned dewy strolls with mankind,
hear today the voice that spoke a planet and baby-smell,
Touch the Hands that molded the clay, Lips that breathed the spirit,
and Feet that walked with open wounds in our unsanitary sanity.

Oh religion, die upon your insistences! Oh prejudices disguised as
righteous renditions; meet Him for a day, go to Him in a way
that molts the skin of shammery. We are crust left on the counter
too long.

We will come and sit at Your feet, Physician of our certainties,
and, throwing away our notebooks and pens, let You etch
the diagnosis and healing upon our hearts instead.

Leftovers

“Anything from the ordination ram or from the bread that is left over until morning you are to burn up. Don’t eat it; it’s holy.” Exodus 29:34 (The Message)

Sacrifices accompanied the ordination of Aaron and his sons as High Priest among the Israelites. This sacrifice of a ram was eaten by the Priest during the ordination ceremony. Whatever was left over was to be destroyed by fire; both the meat and the bread.

Going to Drown

Going to Drown

(“So the disciples went over to him and woke him up. They said, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’” Matthew 18:25)

I don’t want to fight the squall all alone,
or wake to find I feel I must beat the storm back down.
I heard Your words, memorized others, know the stories well,
recite them to the waters that roll, pitch and swell
reminding my only that the angry foamy is
under divine control.

Whether You are awake or alert, the floods spill
and I cry for You to still what I cannot endure.
You did it for them, a cork on the rage,
a bobber on the roar. While I sleep waiting to wake
without the pressure pounding my eardrums blind.

Must faith always be without sight, trust without
audibles massaging the bellow until I reach the distant shore?

Is my faith so miniscule it cannot move the simple dirtpile
upon my brink? Is my trust such a hallucination that to see is
never to touch?

I hold the tears violently within, cannot bail fast enough
and I give in
to the tirades cascading from memory to now; the flood undammed
and the tidal wave bulldozing hopes in the sun.

I am such a whiner, I know. Everyone else, I know,
has troubles more than mine. And so I am caught between
a storm untouched by the divine
and my own refractory mind unresponsive to
love’s comfort said.

I would step across time, or boundaries, or memories if I could,
to revisit more golden days my mind says were stiller than now.

Because my companions, once bailing left and right, clever
and center, are beyond my reach. Perhaps once they read
the labels I’ve acquired, they would walk arm’s distance
unbailing my daydream during the siren screech of the wail.

That is one thing I know, You have not bail or jumped ship,
but I would, please Dear Sir, for You to stop the waves

Now

Whether climate’s stew
or my broken mind’s vast
imagination.