Buying Lunch & Jelly Beans

“By everything I did, I showed how you should work to help everyone who is weak. Remember that our Lord Jesus said, ’More blessings come from giving than from receiving.’” Acts 20:35

When I was first on my own, I shared an apartment with two other guys. Dave, Brad and I were all fairly new believers in Jesus, all of us coming to faith within the previous two years or so. We lived in Spokane, WA, and all worked in a strip mall in the north part of town. Dave sold shoes, I sold ski equipment, and, honestly I’ve forgotten what Brad sold.

No Deposit, No Return

“And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine bursts the skins, the wine is spilt and the skins are ruined. No, new wine must go into new wineskins.” Mark 2:22

It makes sense I suppose, but I have become more nostalgic as I grow older. I cannot imagine a three-year-old reminiscing over the “good old days” when he was two. But, we do collect a body of loves and memories that grows greater with time. In junior high we may long for those days in grade school where we didn’t have to change classes. But, by the time we are well into adulthood we have a garage full of people and experiences tied to our heart.

All in my Head

All in my Head

(“…if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sins…” Leviticus 26:41b [The Message])

I meant to lose time, grow wings, fly high,
paint the sky of which the eagles sing
without the least pressure to rhyme their verses.

I meant to smile big, stand straight, hug true,
erase the blues and pain we blamed on fate
and finally trim the wick the exact quarter inch
which I was taught (more than once) would prevent
the candle’s tell-tale smoke.

I turn at every straightaway, look back and wonder what
is taking so long. The wings have not sprouted, the words are
pedantic, the help I promised is grim, and pain an excuse
that keeps me locked inside my own prison.

I miss every possible turn, the choices that might burn away
the rust and mould clinging to the slow-foot creep I call
my journey.

I can admit every misstep, I have, I will; I am willful
as all; why, when I desire wings, then, does the dust
not fly like a rooster tail when I leg the runway,
slight headwind and a clearday,
the tower giving me the ok,
but I never leave the ground; my old feet are leaden,
my heart saddened, and my tears over sins come unbidden
once I think forgiveness has healed me from the fall.

I will not forget Love, I promise. It rings like yesterday’s bells.
I will not cancel Faith, I refuse. It hides like the oyster’s pearls.

I must tell you the truth, the hope I keep dreaming,
the silence that still awakens me, has shaken me
so sleep is no solace, and day a harsh sentence.

It is all in my head, I know. That is what I dread.
Still, if I could grow wings…once more…
I would fly this time even though
I knew not what the flying was for.

Imagine Authors

Imagine Authors

(“They marveled at His teaching; for He taught them as an authority and not as the scribes.” Mark 1:22)

Permeating visible sky, filling crumble ground,
engaging brains like rain does waiting lawns,
truth speaks constantly; lecture and learner
share the same words like a breakfast bagel
cut down the middle.

Thunder floods some, rivers rumble around
boulders that amplify the whitespray
crash and dancing
like granite-sped delivery,
another well-spoken mystery that leaves
a forgotten file from the case history
of the world.

Imagine speaking leaves, budpoints just before bloom,
prologues to spring; laughing everything into color
overnight after rain. Imagine authors of motion,
planets wandering to get the next best view of the sun
and reporting their findings in a best-selling novel
in first hand omniscient prose.

Geometry numbed me, physics bored me,
Calculus ignored my stunned stop-motion
and went ahead anyway.

Truth spoke, and though duly noted,
no one volunteered to hand in the homework.

Pay Attention to Me!

“Answer me, Lord! You are kind and good. Pay attention to me! You are truly merciful.” Psalm 69:16

The only reason I feel comfortable to pray so directly as “Answer me,” is because I know God is kind and good. This is not the “Answer me” of a parent to a child who is withholding information. It is not the demand of a judge to a seated witness, nor is it the repetition of an unheeded request. This is the boldness of acceptance.

Never too Late

Never Too Late

(“Then Joseph put the body in his own tomb that had been cut into solid rock and had never been used. He rolled a big stone against the entrance to the tomb and went away.” Matthew 27:60)

That was it. It was over. Everything was finished. Isn’t that what Jesus whispered from the cross, one last throaty groan: “It is finished!” Joseph of Arimathea wished he could have done more. His family tomb was nearby, which was a good thing. There were only three hours from the time Jesus died until the start of the Sabbath.

Light Like Wind

Light Like Wind

(“Some of them dismissed him (Paul) with sarcasm: ‘What an airhead!’ But others, listening to him go on about Jesus and the resurrection, were intrigued: ‘That’s a new slant on the gods. Tell us more.’” Acts 17:18b [The Message])

Poetry connects the dots from wishes to
heaven; the delicious passion that embraces
the hopes that few speak out loud for fear of
the intellectual’s scoff or the artist’s sarcasm.

Poetry switches the darkness taught by
reason and tilted culture; sending light like wind
that lifts our curious notebooks out the window and
leaves only frames behind, a way to rebuild our rhymes
with opened eyes; after our arguments unwind, torn
and scattered, new mulch upon the gardens.

Poetry passes as doctrine and massive mentality,
or eases under the baby’s naptime nursery,
and still names, before the revealing, the hope
that unspoken foes will not confess this side
of cursory lines of free versing.

There was no dress rehearsal, no quick change reversal
in case the stones would not budge as angels nudged it open
for a better look at the hints that misty prophecy left
like modern poetry.

Poetry embraces the phrases that pierce the First Morning
of the New Week’s fierce waking alarm. Death was empty
and the corpse missing. Ancient poets and current angels
created stanzas of Never Fear and Eyes unBlind.

Poetry pointed out truth’s anointed, led dead
upon the stone and wrapped, and bled, and alone. The
Laureate unleashed the Final Word that met no decay
but, to us akin, bloomed unpruned, the final Epic unforced,

Was the New Begin.