Sometimes we Dream ...to Live in a Space Which, Though Committed to Truth, Accepts all Variations in the Attempts to Understand it

Sometimes we Dream
…to Live in a Space Which, Though Committed to Truth, Accepts all Variations in the Attempts to Understand it

(“O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” Isaiah 25:1)

Without hiding a single intention, I would like to share
indented inventions and the hopes I wrote down on the back page
of a red covered Bible so many years ago.

So far behind me now, I live in my future, I sit outside the circle I envisioned;
Adobes and an artistic community, Georgia O’ Keeffe and New Mexico,
Toas and Santa Fe and Albuquerque snow.

Or somewhere like it all; Santa Cruz or Sausalito would do,
to spin my gadgets like unwinding yoyos flying in the sky,
dancing over the bay, and, for every observation, there would be
twice as many weblog reports of unusual phenomena sighted
and dated
and photographed

While I shared pie at the coffee shop on the way
to Santa Fe
or up the bay
to Strawberry.

If I had the time I would write my rhymes like
Ansel Adams loved his wilderness; mimes
silently speaking the red filtered shutter God
had prepared for just that day.

I hate museums, unless I live near one,
and rarely visit zoos (there is no on there
to talk to).

I am charmed by beauty, the green and the grandeur,
I am grateful for vision, the shadows and the yellow.

My dream, my scheme for my pinnacle pronouncement,
was a local consort where minds were applauded and
thinking was as welcome as the next cup of coffee poured
by a waitress with a wink who knew we did not, did never,
know it all.

When will we (You know who) ever learn, faithful as You are,
You leave us freer than liberals to examine the facets of diamonds
just discovered,
to bounce the ball of interpretation higher than the boys in grade school.

It is not heresy to say
“I do not yet know it all; symbols or prosaic arcanity.”

Who Washed Your Hands

Who Washed Your Hands

(“Every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26)

It should have been me who washed Your hands
that night before eating the exodus meal; I should have
set the table neat with white linen, poured the wine
red
in the cups that speak so well,
set the matzo unbroken before our final
consummation, our ears not hearing
this was no celebration;
more memorial, a portrait predicting
what we would not speak throughout our
entire meal.

How could we know (except You had told us
time times it all) what we were too excited to hear.

We knew who You were, but missed who You are,
We confessed You Messiah, but doubted Your methods,
We wanted to follow, though unclear of our destination,
We asked the right questions, and lost the answers in our assumptions.

I cannot approach the table again with my sentences dotted,
my paragraphs complete.
I will not dine so certain nor stare down the uninvited,
I will sit with men uninitiated, talk with women untrained
and admit we are all simply amateurs, in it
for the love of the game.

It should have been me, washed Your feet,
but You took the towel, the basin, the water.

It should have been me, broken like bread,
but You took the fracture, the spikes and the thorns.

It should have been me, poured out like wine,
but You spilled the blood, for our tears and sweat

And built a family upon winning one death final
like we thought we would die given half the chance
(accomplishing nothing).

And built a family upon dying like victory
teaching us with basins and nails the announcement to make
to a world dead of war and sick of valor.

Family DNA

“’But he said to them, ‘These people who hear the word of God and do it, they are my mother and my brothers.'” Luke 8:21

These words of Jesus are shocking. But I think the shock comes from how they sound, and not so much from what Jesus means. At first glance it seems Jesus is rejecting His family by blood and adopting family from an entirely different set of people.

Locked in Stone

Locked in Stone

("Look!" Joshua said to all of the people. "This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all of the words the Lord has spoken to us. Suppose you aren't true to your God. Then the stone will be a witness against you." Joshua 24:27)

Last time you spoke to me,
or I should say,
last time miniature terms bounced across
the predated conference table,
you would not admit the words you had said
to me in private just weeks before.

But the stones know,
the mortar and the field-stones that
the master craftsman quietly measured
to last on the walls longer than his sons or
daughters would live there. We sat within
15 feet
of his handwork,

And now there are
none of us who occupy the same space.

Except the stones who know
exactly what was said, and keep the vibrations
within their molecules for centuries

And may release them, decoded; rocks have no
particular point of view. They may release them,
like bar codes which cannot ask for a judicial review.

The rocks on the wall, the pebbles in the gravel,
they all heard it true, and will hold the marvel of humans
who think the air is a vacuum where nothing is heard without
a third person.

But the stones and the boulders, have no orders to obey,
no seared conscience to sway the opinions from fact to
a better face. Even mirrors will not truth our spoken,
less our broken image.

Hold the stone to your ear and re-hear.

Lest you fear
more than I,
it holds that half of conversation which I said too;

Forgotten or faded, it holds my words unspun
and empowered enough to blush me as much
as I wish it would for you.

Numbers Don't Count

“Think of it—one of you, single-handedly, putting a thousand on the run! Because God is God, your God. Because he fights for you, just as he promised you.” Joshua 23:10 (The Message)

When God is for you, numbers simply don’t matter. That is what gives the courage and resolve to people who walk so closely to Him that their hearts beat with the same passions that God does. God had shown Israel His power and His commitment to them by subduing every nation in the Promised Land. He accomplished that even though Israel was much small in manpower and lack military training, strategy and equipment.

Of Unholy Forwards and Gossip at a National Level

Of Unholy Forwards and Gossip at a National Level

(“John the Baptizer came and did not eat the usual food or drink wine. And you say, ‘He has a demon inside him.’” Luke 7:33)

The president speaks and we would rather
drop his words on the asphalt, stirred up with the hot
summer sunshine, and serve them back as if we
were there, front and center, heard every word,
counted the freckles in his eyes, and deflected his inflections
in forwarded emails so every gullible saint

Would know the truth that
we took the time to manufacture.

Snapshots with colors (greenish squirrels) prove
the acid rained exactly how we prophesied.

Let the bragging begin, if the church service is just an hour
only handfuls of god hang around long enough to overcome
the caffeine’s fine effects.
At an hour and a half, it is so long we lost our lunch reservations,
and the roast burnt t-bone, the stew dried in the crockpot while the
crackpot
pastor spoke too long.
But run up to three hours or four and the Holy Spirit has locked the door,
no leakage or early exits, God has broken through our resistant noggins.
We judge so well, that every song, announcement, prayer and sermon
is measured in Olympic style; (poor preacher who thought God could
help him make the point in 20 minutes, and excuse the good people to
ruminate the good food from Heaven’s Bread at home. The Sermon on the Mount
takes 15 minutes read.)

Did I leave you there? Were you still wondering about snapshots and
presidential pardons? Were you still snipping buds behind your back
in the Federal Rose Garden?

Some women spend little and mean it. Some men eat less without pretense.
Some men consort with the sinners, the poor, the abused by gossip that other
saints vilify and demean it.
Some women like a Chardonnay with dinner, but when the pictures are taken
they are lushes in future tense.

I have never hated a president (it’s true), and never thought one to be the
anti-christ (even truer). But I’ve come near an unholy rage when those whose
faith is always italicized cannot disagree with humility, and start their sentences
(after counting the freckles in your eyes) with,

“Now, I’m not saying he is the anti-christ…

Upside Down Messages

“Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ.” 1 Corinthians 9:19

Paul was a master at blending in when it meant he could avoid causing offense to others. He didn’t mind causing a stir if it was necessary. Goodness know, there was a huge riot in Lsytra when he made it clear there was only one God, and only one Savior, Jesus Christ His Son.