Endowment Plus

Endowment Plus

(“Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” 1 Peter 1:13)

He improvised a dance that delighted starlight,
steps unseen, light and pristine, with backdrops falling
like crystal confetti like vapor trails behind each leap and twirl.

He synthesized the structure which his muscles had memorized
in practice in private, before no one’s eyes. The mirrors were his
only judges, the note-beat-touch synchronized so well his body
met the music head-on and passed through it like liquid;
fluid and precise.

So when prompted to perform by the impromptu crowd,
he flashed the confidence of a thousand repetitions and
leapt upon their suggestion, a deer careening across the
evergreen brush like everyman walking home a completely
new direction. He did not fear the pauses,
and landed like prism light opening up the sun.

Only the closest few, the three, perhaps four, knew
the repeat completions he turned to perfection in the
quiet late and blurry early when no applause would be heard;
only the slow breath of one unhurried to string each unit
a symphony of movement;

While we watched, embarrassed into thinking he
never had danced this way before. While we watched,
commenting of born talent and gifts; silly and jealous
about genetics without

Learning the secret of repeating that turns effort
to effortless; endowment plus preparation.

Larger than Fulfillment

Larger than Fulfillment

(“Be patient, therefore, dear friends, until the coming of the Lord. Note how the farmer waits for the precious harvest of the earth, being patient for it until it receives the early and latter rains.” James 5:7)

Stranded midair between the conception and completion
is the day we swallow our food without tasting, drink wine in gulps
and count every miscue that needs resolution to bring ourselves
to perfection.

Better to watch the rain as the red-hooded woodpecker, ignorant
of our project,
finds his food rounding the gray wafered bark of autumn’s late tree.

But our count is incomplete, our uncertainty competing with
the movie we produced in our memory before we ever began.
Now, halfway through, there is a quarter done,
and, without a time-bending solution, we will land far short;
proving the fact we should have started much earlier,
or scripted something shorter than our ambition imagined
inking open the first page and day.

Associates do not return calls; texts fly out, competing for space
with radio waves. They are late, they always say. They forgot,
conveniently mistaken. They would have told us yesterday
but (the writer apologizes, but cannot think of a worthy excuse
to follow the previous phrase. Excuse, please, the inability to
complete the thought). Stranded midair, yesterday hums like
a record sung backwards and texts never answered.

Better to what the river run with logs and branches from
upstream’s overflow riding the brown water. Better to see
geese overhead with silhouetted wings against the charcoal sky.

Better to take the next step grounded, and finish today what
yesterday started with dreams larger than fulfillment. I’ve seen
the day change in a moment and clouds split at the most
unexpected break in time.

And So He Prospered

“He sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.” 2 Chronicles 31:21

Hezekiah, about whom this verse is written, was one of the godliest kings of Judah. He restored much of the temple and Passover practices, motivated out of deep devotion to God. This verse sums all it up by telling us that he prospered as a result of this wholehearted love.

Me and My Models

“Don’t just listen to the word. You fool yourselves if you do that. You must do what it says.” James 1:22

I loved model planes and cars as a young boy. That is to say, I loved the idea of assembling them so they would look just as wonderful as the picture on the box. I loved biplanes, and I also lived in Southern California during the “funny car” era of drag racing. So, those were my two primary choices, plus the one odd Plymouth Barracuda. I chose it because favorite teacher drove one, although reverse didn’t work. He had to always park in a way that could drive straight out.

One Side to the Other

One Side to the Other

(“But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:4)

Moving, I am told, one side of the head to the other,
the sounds of sea, a step into the river
can rip the loops apart that repeat the hurting tracks
over and over, D.C al without Fine; and find the chord
which resolves the pain.

The child still cries (he is nearly 60) at the angry hands
that red imprints that faded quicker than the picture stuck
in his brain. The soldier shakes (he is home now) at the shells
and mortar that nearly ripped his barracks and comrades; it
was just the neighbor shutting his car door.

For those who remember vinyl long-play with scratches
that sounded like wax paper crumpled beneath the hi-fi,
the needle sticks in a groove deeper than the rest
and won’t let the two bars finish, won’t let the 3 ½ words
complete, the over and the over and the over and the ove

er and

We are brains and we are minds, we are spirit and we are muscle,
we are wired hard and scratched by misuse; we are puzzles not yet
assembled, we are garage sale jigsaw puzzles bought on faith that
all the pieces are present.

I am told there is music in the spheres, truer than the rewinds
our past lives have struck into our casting; and moving, one
side of hearing to the other,
we may find the lines rewritten, circuits rewired,
memories of smitten hopes soothed by the chords and words
written before the hands that brought affliction.

Endure to the end, the story which sings its death and sting
rises to release us from the refrain we’ve repeated to the verses
of life Christ created for each ditch, scratch and vein we
thought each blow had depleted.

Endurance

“Endure until your testing is over. Then you will be mature and complete, and you won’t need anything.” James 1:4

We usually hear this verse quoted something like this: “Let patience have its perfect work.” I think most of us perceive “patience” as non-active, letting life just sweep by, or sweep us along, while we do nothing on our part to advance. Even the idea of “enduring” can evoke thoughts of sitting in a foxhole, taking shot after shot, just waiting for the bad guys to stop firing at us.

The Quiet Unspeak

The Quiet Unspeak

(“Do not let the love of money control your life. Be satisfied with what you have. God himself has said, ‘I will never be away from you. I will never leave you alone.'” Hebrews 13:5)

Content upon the rocky banks that overlook
the same river that ran here yesterday; my eyes
still see the island obstructing the view of
Oregon and the cargo ships slowly up-channel
beyond it. It has misted since early morning,
even during the short peeks the sun makes
tricking my expectations of an uncommon dry day.

Within the next hour, though, same place, same
slippery rocks, green island and river view;
I fetch undue anxiety from the same air I breathed
so serenely before. Quiet now is not the same
as quiet then.

I am a kettle just before the boil; a miniature
weather warning, the siren ready to blow.
The quiet unspeak is the sleepy gravity
that is on the verge of blowing the roof off
the 50 year shingles 49-years-old.

If not for the promise, if not for provision,
if not for my Father’s love and precision
that bids me quiet like the morning and
take the pot off the boil. He will, I know,
do what all good Father’s do and calm me
long, teach me longer the relaxation I should know:

The river, the slit sky, the treed island and rocky banks
are never caught off guard by my visits; hustling to
adjust the river’s flow back east to west. And so,
Father of it all, my hope below is quiet in respite
before dawn or under a covered sun.