Loving Protection

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you. I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn’t let me.” Luke 13:34

Was there ever a more poignant cry? Jesus love for the city of Jerusalem is transparent, from the twice repeated name, to the expressed desire to protect them as a mother hen does her chicks. Jesus’ affection for Jerusalem is all the more moving, considering He acknowledges up front that they have killed the prophets and messengers God had sent them.

I Should Be Done

I Should be Done

I should be done by now,
over the unrelenting flow by now,
of days on end punctuated by tears in the morning
when no one watches,
and pain the same from first to last.

Will you remember me if someone mentions my name?
I know I shouldn’t ask, but would you meet me at the door
so I won’t stumble to the floor walking in?
I know you’re tired of pitying me,
You think I like this pantheistic game that sees
eyes evaluating every breath not drawn from the well
of a new repertoire of song.

I’m really not dressed to go to lunch,
the cinders from the last fire are still on my hands.
I’m really not ready to try to retrofit
a friendship I invested in with new window panes.

I thought you might be the one and only in
the long flat past halfway between then and there,
the only wayside station for miles upon miles of days.

It matters less than it used to, but it still matters mostly
more than the pep talks I try to use to fall asleep.
Morning brings the reminder of harsh winds whining
my blame for every blizzard on the prairie.

I want the couch again, the hidden language friend
who prescribes zero, reminds little, rewinds nullified…

Never mind, I am merely depressed to the core and
shouldn’t cry anymore over separations, reparations,
mistakes and antiquated relics that couldn’t help but
point me out publicly while trying to enjoy a meal.

I’ve tried the pills, and I slept a little better;
I’ve tried the prayer, over and over, and no echo.

And the God who I know loves me more;

I am weary as war.

Did You Hear?

Did You Hear?

(“I will treat them with kindness, even though they are wicked. I will forget their sins.” Hebrews 8:12)

Did you hear the sound like invitation
coming over the mountains, no imagination
could conjure its message, could synthesize its bliss;
layers of laughter mix with the tears,
when we hear music like this.

Enchanted and earthy, the song makes us pale
at first blush. Our knuckles are white, our heart
forgets the beat, while we await the refrain that
we hope will resolve complete the hopes we’ve carried
inside our regrets.

Pulling up to the courthouse, nervous about the verdict,
I can’t complete a sentence without wanting to admit
each crime I’ve committed, each failure I forgot.
Paying my quarter to park a bit longer
I climb the steps where my past meets me the last
workday of the week.

Unsupervised, I walk up the steps on my own,
holding the banister I am an amateur at self-defense.
Still the usher (I thought I would have to open the
door on my own) looks me in the eye (He must know the verdict,
he heard my fate). Still the usher

Looks me in the eye and
swings open the door behind my back when

The song comes gushing out like a Mohave Desert
flash-flood. Where is the judge, the bailiff, the jury,

My peers?

I thought I was alone in my crimes, and banished to
having to stare down every accuser along the way. But
the song melted the shame, dissolved every claim to
innocence and ever mounted defense to judge me

(joyous adjudication), a freer man that I had become.

True or False

“(Jesus is) there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.” Hebrews 7:25

It astounds me how many words like “always” and “everyone” are used about God’s gift to us in Christ. When taking true or false tests, most of us have learned to mark “exclusive” statements with false most of the time. “It rains every day during fall in Washington,” might, at first seem to be true. The later in the fall that we wait for a patch of sun, the more convinced we are that the statement is definitely correct. Of course, if we looked at the weather charts, we would discover that it doesn’t rain “every” day; there are actually a few days without precipitation, despite the webbed feet we have sprouted.

Battle Ping Pong

“Now Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.” 1 Kings 3:3

There are times that changing things up causes no problems. In fact, it can sometimes enliven something that has become boring or humdrum. The summer after my High School graduation my best friend Dale and I played ping pong almost daily in my family’s recreation room.

Toss Away

Toss Away

(“But alas for you Pharisees, because you tithe the mind and the rue and every vegetable, while disregarding the justice and the love of God. These things you should practice without omitting the other.” Luke 11:42)

I’m not ashamed to say I’ve watched you change the way
you use your intelligence to ferret out the truth. Predilections aside,
it’s the predictions that make me wonder why no one takes you to task.

Like a sci-fi novel gone bad, we’ve suspended our disbelief so far
there is no resemblance at all, your world to this one, no mirror to the moon,
no twin for the sun. Only baloney that tastes like rhetoric and
and dust devils that look like a daydreamer’s wish of the opponent’s
final demolition.

But there is an elixir sweet, that distills every law and prophet down
to palpable drink for the ready; a panacea of pain for the smug.

There might be a chill in the wind next summer, I’ll grant that
stones might roll across the sand;
But on the other hand, the sun may smile as it did summer last,
and the conspiracies we hear, the ones only the whisperers
conceive, may fail to appear. Unborn, they die the death which
no one trumpets who predicted them last year.

There is a recipe ready for the masses, pleasant consent to order:
a seasoning that hits the palate and awakes lingering hope for
something more comfortable than institutional fare. The recipe may
look the same
as our memories of home, but
the taste, the suggestion that the food is less about perfection
than relishing the hands like mothers who made it

Helps us toss away our apocalypse prophecy to
enjoy the spread meant to feed the world hungry
for more

Than another conspiracy that makes God out to be
a spice-counting pinchpenny.

Last Time I Spoke

Last Time I Spoke

(“The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior!” 2 Samuel 22:47)

Like I was saying the last time I spoke, I’ve changed a lot in 40 years,
do you remember when, and then again, I’m not sure my memories are true.
I sometimes wonder if my recollections are just an image salad
dressed up to suit my mood.

I swear I still care whether people read my poetry. But when I empty myself
on the paper, hurt by words of narcissists, as a rule, I do not mean you,
and would prefer you do not think so. Irony is, please, that the pleasantries
I’ve written for those who heal me well, seldom read my words at all.

So, do you remember me? Can you recall? My hair is shorter and
my head aches pillow to pillow. I’m weary, silent too often, and wish
one or two
would apologize for their misreadings.

Nonetheless, I yet am blessed, I will say it above the sad cloud globing my heart,
for having known you, a few, and many years later, gladder still.

Would you recognize my voice, my name, my theater, my limp, my lame;
would you see what I paint, my morning, my grief, my hope, my belief;
would you credit my faith that weeps more than laughs, that wishes,
grinding teeth privately, joy dance more often, and less before
catastrophe.

I should have ended that strophe with a ? but chose to leave the
.
intact?

Living, though You do not breathe my air,
will You take my tears, reinforce them with phone messages
from the few I do not fear? My search continues, river views or
backward glances, for the happy few I knew unenhanced by
this poly-marathon.

Rock unmoved, I moved too often, at Your bidding I believed,
except the times when rhymes failed mortally, and the dessert
swallowed me mid-family.

Savior, was I born again the way they say? Nearly 40 years ago
You knocked aloud and, apart from the crowd, I nodded assent,
and now below the clouds I need the happy hours I first knew,
a friend, a band, songs and branches, to accompany me
until headaches and heartaches cease this unwelcome dis-ease.