The Host's Request

"The Host’s Request"

(“First, I get this report on your divisiveness, competing with and criticizing each other. I’m reluctant to believe it, but there it is.” 1 Corinthians 11:18 [The Message])

Why do you fight over the plate when the dessert tray is full,
Why do you arrive so late and push yourself past the front
without a word, your hands moving quicker than the
usual welcome when invited to someone’s home.

There are so many vying for the head of the line,
so many trying to use their rank while others wait to dine
at the Master’s table spread first to last, pinnacle to basement
so the banquet outlasts the sojourners showing up without
RSVPs.

The word gets out, a word wrapped in yesterday’s bacon,
that the crowd of Christ has let another soufflé fall in the oven
while they argued every jot and tattle. They bring their calendars
to match the dates for Christ’s return, being sure to stock their cellars
with canned goods, crossing off the dates until they know within
a week they will be pulled higher like kitestrings performing a
full reversal.

Facedowns and finger-points occupy each free square
upon the well-worn bare wood floor. They know that they know
their favorite sayings. They must reduce their opponents to
nonsensical phrases. They stuff their faces. They turn grace
into doctrinal mazes and sing the praises of know-it-alls who
can tell you exactly how many will show up to the banquet
and how long they will be allowed to stay.

Dissertations and dialogue decay into dissensions; cleverly
disguised as the host’s best intentions. Some are swayed,
others paid to believe. Some set up shop to sell the
controversy copywrit to keep it all legal.

Some, a meek minority, feel no desire to tackle those who
cut in line. They will wait, they have been here before
(though once, a great while ago, they actually wrestled a few to the floor).
But they will wait, having been here before,
knowing the plates are never empty within the doors of
GraceHouse.

The host only requests their attention.

One Song

"One Song"

(“No matter where I am, your teachings fill me with songs.” Psalm 118:54)

Advice weaves in and out of consciousness, word and words
looping like barn swallows, swooping upon the pages we would
write our next memoir. The syllables from well meaning acquaintances,
the sentences from lastly friends, are all meant to ease the layers
of questions tangled about our legs, blankets in midsleep.

I would rest longer, or next time fight through the pain,
I need more fellowship, friends around my grimace,
I should take time off, work longer, seek solitude,
find new voices to tell me how to find the final fork
before I see home from the last lonely hill.

With every meeting I miss I kiss peace goodbye
because I know I should have attended, and those attending
know it better than I.

With every day I put my words into the blender
adding hints and spices hopefully hidden in the puree,
I wish I would come up with just one original recipe,
or at least ingredients in a different order from the cookbooks’
command.

One song has remained the same, I recognize it when I can
hear nothing else. It is like the birds before dawn who know
spring is awake well before snow has receded. It is the newborn
whose cries create smiles, the lullaby sung by a toddler to her doll,
or the kitten whining for her brother-dog let outside without her.

I would let past-tense go if I knew present-tense would pay the bills.
I cannot guarantee applause or tears; the song never plays the same way twice.
I can hear it just around the riverbend, but today I can get no closer than
the whispers heard between the words in my suggestion box; or above

The lull that comes between easterly blusters.

Rolling Rocks

“…They drank from the spiritual rock that went with them; and that rock was Christ himself.” 1 Corinthians 10:4

While the Israelites wandered in the desert, God provided water for them that sprang supernaturally from a rock. God told Moses to strike the rock with his rod, and when he did, water gushed out. A later time God told Moses to merely speak to the rock and water would come out. Moses, acting presumptuously, struck the rock just has he had done before. In God’s kindness He still allowed the water to proceed from the rock, but He disciplined Moses by disallowing him from entering the Promised Land.

Who is the Clown Now?

Who is the Clown Now?

Anyone has enough air to blow a balloon
until it bursts.
Let the voice be heard, afterward, that
apologizes the destruction of a child’s cheap toy.

I have observed, perhaps you have too, that those with the greatest air,
who have destroyed the most balloons,
have no apologies left of their breath
and yet
still monopolize the conversation over
who left the latex colored bits busted across the floor.

A Better Language

A Better Language

Nothing more than sharks circling blood,
the brood of a dozen move as one upon
the perceived threat (yet less hurtful than
a thundercloud to a seal).

They could not hide their contempt for
the species they surrounded, and reeking
of testosterone, flexed their ignorance
in their attempt to drive the intrusion
to the ocean’s bottom.

Their nostrils flared, spit and grease,
their noses broken in previous altercations.
Referees sometimes get it wrong and fists are left
to make an impact on the foul unrighted.

Animals incite without a moment’s thought;
hormones calling the shots.
Men, on the other hand, find a moment
for amends, post-aggressive for the
names sprayed with saliva (without excusing it
as a simple shot across the bow.)

Find a place to tear each other’s rights away,
fight the night in an alley, choose up sides
among the sharks, and stick your chins
into each others’ chests.

But don’t take down the suspected foul
on the pickup field, city-league soccer,
when the offender is twice your age,
half-a-century, to your mid-twenties.
It takes courage, meat in the mouth,
blood in the teeth, to swarm around that
middle-aged man, for such a sorry foul as his.
It takes strength, and focus, and such a command
of the language
to call teenage girls names, with your chins stuck out
and your nostrils ablaze. Your toddlers watched your rage.

But do not expect, for a moment, or a school year’s term,
anyone to back down whose prodigies are treated like
cheap-cut-glass on the shelves. Their lowest stutterers
speak a better language than you.

The Price

“God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.” 1 Corinthians 6:20

One ancient rite of marriage included the bride and groom paying a price for each other. Being a ceremony, it was not about the sum of money, but about what it represented. In fact, the common amount was referred to as an eight of a farthing. Since a farthing is equivalent to a quarter-penny, that equals a measly 1/32 of a penny. But, having been paid, it said that the bride and groom had bought each other, and therefore belonged to each other.

Bless the Lord...always

“Bless the Lord, all His works in all places of His dominion! Bless the Lord, O my soul!” Psalm 103:22

An attitude of praise implies two things. First, and most obvious, that God, as God, is greater than we are and deserves our devotion. The second is not as apparent, but I believe just as powerful. Praise unites all living human beings on one level of kinship. We are all part of God’s dominion, none neither greater nor lower.