Every Crossroad

Every Crossroad

(“No, the message isn't far away at all. In fact, it's really near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart so that you can obey it.” Deuteronomy 31:6)

Every crossroad, I choose home;
every ballot I cast is for familiar abode.
Family or not, friends or foe, all I long for,
all ever sought is the address I remember,
the phone number still stenciled, a prefix of
letter, not numbers; every memory, I consider
home.

Thank you, cabin in the foothills,
chili simmering in the iron pot, hot to the touch,
just above the fireplace embers. Thank you, recipe
only mom and a first-class chef remembered.
(We found it handwritten in the basement the day
after she died.)

Nearly each smile, home is over my shoulder;
and true the same of tears, when I heard the shouting matches
muffled near bedtime. There were no fingers upon the wall
to interpret their meaning; mom and dad have taken them silent
to their graves.

Every sad day, I need home;
every joyful is a young sister and younger cousin
who rode upon my shoulders. I never said no,
the big brother and oldest, I was proud to provide
a higher vantage for a wide-eyed view of the parade.

Every wish is a wish for home;
each breath and every stutter
I only wonder why the houses I lived in
are shacks and lean-tos now in a world
more dangerous than family within
the walls and windows always warmer than winter
outside.

The people are leaving, walking away,
who populated home-days and nighttime respite.
Why are my memories, my paintings finished long ago,
so appealing, and unreachable
than today’s sofa that, I hope,

My children remember as home.

Every new day, I view home;
thank you, blessed sojourn that,
though my yesterday is dream and rotted nails,
tomorrow may be the reality,
the home my Father started ages and parallels,
dimensions and creations
ago.

Solitude or Isolation?

“The little child grew up and became strong in spirit. He lived in lonely places until the day came for him to show himself to Israel.” Luke 1:80

Last Sunday I mentioned the dangers of living in isolation. Things become intensified and magnified when we cut ourselves off from others for too long. If we tend to be fearful, our personal segregation may make us even more paranoid. If we tend to think too highly of ourselves, isolation can result in a greater conceit. We have no human interaction to provide the normal checks upon our inner fears or haughtiness.

At the taco dinner served following that morning’s service a lady showed me the notes she had taken, saying that there were good things about being alone as well. I was quick to agree and her point was well-taken. I think it can be summed up in two words: isolation and solitude.

John the Baptist practiced solitude. He found the quiet of the “lonely places” helped him become better acquainted with God. As the woman at church said, “Sometimes I need to get alone to get my thoughts together.” She needed solitude to keep the everyday noises from drowning the quieter voice of God.

I think modern society has produced great isolation and not nearly enough real solitude. In a greater degree than before we have the opportunity to work at home. Or we commute to work with people we never see outside of work. If we attend a large church we may not have real connections outside of scheduled weekly services. Families live farther apart and move more often than ever before. The chance for life-long friendship is almost a thing of the past.

I hope this is merely an observation of our culture and not someone longing for the “good old days”. I swore when I turned 50 I would never become one of those who always looked back and wondered how the world functioned “today” when things were so much better “yesterday”. Mother Teresa commented that the western world has a poverty, not of money, but of real relationships. We go through life without many relationships that go much deeper than the surface.

A few years ago I wrote for the weekly newspaper in our town. For Veteran’s Day I was assigned a story about a man who had served in Viet Nam. I was told to go gently, he had some experiences which had greatly affected him, and he might clam up if I were to probe too much. The paper wanted highlights, not an in-depth report.

I called and set up an appointment. When I stopped by his house he welcomed me, and we sat at the dining table, just two men; nearly a generation apart. He began to tell me his story and where he was stationed. He brought out his old uniform, and he laughed when I asked if he could still fit into it.

That was the first fifteen minutes. I spent another hour with him. I do not remember exactly how it happened, and it may have been because he knew I was also a pastor, but before the first half hour was up he was spilling out his heart to me. He told me things that he had told no one. “I haven’t even shared these with my wife,” he told me. The tears flowed, and I saw a man who had suffered isolation for years, even having good friends and a supportive wife. He was afraid how people would receive him and his heartbreaking stories.

John the Baptist practiced solitude. Isolation often enables us to hide our hearts from others. Solitude is meant to produce exactly the opposite. As we are alone, just our thoughts and God, we encounter the choices between continuing to hide who we are, or open ourselves to the God who already sees. Solitude teaches us to stop hiding.

Our solitude may be fifteen minutes during the morning, a day during the work week, or even several days in which we get away alone, and let God speak to our hearts. Solitude always has and endpoint, isolation seems to go on forever. Solitude invites God to open our heart, isolation is a way to hide out from God and others.

As we learn that it is safe to be open with God, we receive others with more grace. As we see people like my Veteran friend, we become welcome hearers whose only role is to let people tell their stories with acceptance. People need validation that their story was ok, that they will not be rejected or abandoned because of something they consider too dark or hurtful to share.

Having spent time in the “lonely places” John the Baptist could be truly “on point” as he started his ministry. In that solitude he learned what many of us only learn second-hand. We learn “about” God, but He knew God Himself. Perhaps a bit of solitude would teach us all a little more about who God truly is.

The Former Country is Fading

The Former Country is Fading

(“Therefore, accept each other in the same way that Christ accepted you. He did this to bring glory to God.” Romans 15:7)

Did you come to the door just to tell me
that the party time had changed: and
those who peeked from behind the curtain,
were they early or late? or today’s top 10 list
with no room for 11?

Did you think your silence in the face of truth
made it any less a lie? Were the promises you made,
but had no intentions of keeping, worth the same confessions
you eked from the mouth of one already sweating
grief over his own slide down the black volcanic ash?

What word of knowledge did you possess,
to pretend to a microscope into my heart?
What word of wisdom did you purchase,
that inserted a microphone into my unspoken?

Whose prophet are you? And what puppets
wore your hands like gloves? Who gave you permission
to play like Pharaoh and send the helpless to another
desert drier than a year of chastisement making bricks
without straw and without pay?

Whose apostle sent you? That after the wander,
and after the promise, and after another
semi-miraculous crossing, you waited till we
finally caught our breath and announced, after the cure,
that there was no healing after all.

I’ve sent too many home myself, peeked out from the window
and pretended I was not home. You and I are no different
though, I wish you only the best, and
I wish
some of us were not the only
who had to confess.

The day grows slow now
and the former country is fading. This is an old song,
and the words are memorized, while the healing, without
prophets or evangelists or laying on of hands or vials of oil
is undeniably Divine.

Calm Down

“Do not say, ‘I’ll pay you back for this wrong!’ Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.” Proverbs 20:22

Sometimes the pain that continually plagues us is not the result of wounds inflicted by others, but rather are the result of repeated attempts to pay back the wrong. It is something like a fire. The first wound is a flaming cluster of dry kindling. To repay the burn, we throw our own inflammatory actions onto the fire. Not only is there no balm or healing, but we actually create even greater heat.

These “pay back” sessions rarely end with the first fiery response. Burning words and actions aflame with retribution only feed fierce blaze until it is nearly impossible to extinguish. More lives are damaged as a result of the desire to pay back a wrong that was done to us.

The initial pain, if worked through in a healing fashion, can be manageable. But the pain which results from constant sessions of payback never heals. Like a wound that someone constantly picks, it has little chance to completely heal.

Most of the time we think the person deserves our payback. Their actions or words directly hurt us, and the only course of action is to make the playing field even one more time. Let them feel the hurt to the same degree that they caused it. This might work if we human beings were rational beings who always acted out of simple logic. But we do not. More times than not, the person doing the wounding actually believes they are in the right!

Think about it. The last time someone was hurt by a word or action on your part, when it was shown to you, didn’t you think your actions were justified? You were simply trying to set someone straight, or you wanted to correct someone before they ran aground. You were only trying to help, right? So, if they attacked when your attempts to “help” inaccurately stabbed them in the heart, you might react wounded yourself.

Slow down! Cool down! Let the initial rush of anger and hurt pass by. Though your emotional reflexes insist you must act now, that is not true. You can wait. If you unwisely pick up your club to hit back, you not only will cause more wounds, you will obviously not display the Spirit of Christ.

It is no great wisdom to say, “Forgive”. Though more difficult than the mere admonition, it heals what would turn into a raging infection if we take the battle into our own hands. To let old injuries irritate your heart, and to plan how to get even only keeps those old wounds open and creates new ones.

When you feel the pull to answer back, especially if you think you will look like a fool if you don’t, do what this proverb advises: “Wait for the Lord, and He will deliver you.” It costs us nothing to heed this advice. Lay the hurt before God, tell Him every angry thought, every burning nerve ending. To cry, shout, yell our pain out at God Himself is the start of healing, without the side effect of causing further conflagration.

Then, believe what He said, that He will deliver you. He will do it, though we have no idea how, though we might never guess His final method, He will make things right. We are often made to look foolish when we answer back in anger. But, to wait upon God gives Him the chance to work, not only on the perpetrator’s heart, but also upon our own.

The more we wrestle with ugliness, the more it sticks to us. The more we stoke the fires of conflict, the greater the damage will be. So, take some steps to slow your mind and emotions down. Get rid of the energy in non-violent ways. Write it out, pray it out, sing it out, whatever works for you. But refuse to be a part of an ongoing wildfire nearly impossible to put out.

Wait, yes, that means some patience; but wait. He will deliver.

Got Some Good News

"Got Some Good News"

(“And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.’” Mark 16:15)

I never collected them, but I knew people who did,
butterflies all classified by shapes and size and color.
I followed a friend who captured them, a borrowed net
and plastic jar with holes for my specimen to breathe.
I caught a few, counted the hues, iridescent absorption of
light and reflected blush of foliage, they fluttered a bit
and, unable to escape, usually drooped to the bottom of the jar,
still breathing I think.

It didn’t occur to me then, a child who would rather see any bug
up close, but I think they are more beautiful in their flights together.
(I think they call the swarms or rabbles, and neither fit the glory
of those that transform from caterpillar armies). But I enjoyed
microscopes
and looked up close to see feather legs and scaled wings.

But I think they are beautiful, butterflies in whirlwind bunches,
a Pollock mobile freeformed against the sky.

So, I set free my little detainee and went with the friend I followed
home
for peanut butter sandwiches. He showed me his pins and labels
and I finished my sandwich, walked home quickly to find the bush
where the butterflies filled every gap. Standing upon the blossoms’ center,
they were countless ribbons who waved the breezes with their wings
so I thought someone was surely on their way home.

I have not seen a butterfly collection in decades, dead, dry,
pinned against the faded cardboard. But I did enjoy, and would love
to see it again,
a wedding where, alive and waiting their cue,
dozens, gossamer and streaked, leapt upon the sky from the midst
of a decorated box at just the moment the attendants wiped the
last tear of joy from their eyes.

You Dance with Wings

(written for my friend, and one of my favorite singers, Juliet Simms)

"You Dance with Wings"
(for Juliet Simms)

You laid down old words, a tune from the world
and made us smile. You laid it down for just a moment
and we knew we would love everything you offered.

You burned up new songs, a longing for the world
and makes us cry. You burned them up and down
like fire and took us straight to the heart of the matter.

You cried over joy, your eyes were open doors
and made us see. You cried like a child and smiled
like ice cream after passing your first spelling test.

You danced with wings, you soared to purple skies
and made us fly. You danced it round like the shy
girl who knows the secret we all wish she would tell.

You love like rain, you poured it across the air
and made us hear. You loved like drenching the sky
with new blooms that grow from the first word you sing.

He said What?

“Giving the right answer at the right time makes everyone happy.” Proverbs 15:23

Good conversation is truly an art. To be honest, as good a communicator as I can be when I’m “up front”, but me one on one with someone I don’t know well and I can sometimes clam up. I’ve always been that way. I even preferred double dating because it was so much easier to talk, not having to carry one whole side of the conversation.