Soul is Face, Black is Red

Soul is Face, Black is Red

(“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9)

Sometimes the wind turns offshore and insists
on another whiff of trails I have left behind me.
Another note I played half flat, another name I forgot,
and more than that, could not remember the connection
we certainly once had.

Sometimes the circuits are crowded and
emails are never answered. I wished for days,
hoped for weeks, waited for months, now despair
over the years that my misspoken and slippery tongue
cannot be forgiven by the one who misheard my intention.
(I do not blame your hearing; it is my speak that
shorted out like a light switch with the wiring worn away.)

I have heard the words from men over the phone,
no tears, no cracks in the armor of their voice,
only the admission they couldn’t break the sickness
until they sent apologies. (Never mind my wounds
and splinter bed, or tears spread everywhere I thought
about the next blast of angry flame. I forgave,
nevertheless, though, as I’ve said, I wished you hadn’t
continued to blame me for days, weeks and months after
you called so you could recover from your cold.)

My old soul is black from its youth,
my thoughts are intractable,
my actions driven and drunk from
the impulses that only serve to break my boredom.

My face is red from effort and embarrassment,
and my feet slide upon the incline littered with
lava’s gravel; my pace is unknown.

I am open, having stolen words from poets;
I am guilty, having spoken lies to prophets;
I am filthy, having broken vows to comrades:
I am captive, having pursued praise from patrons.

I am free, completely above the inactive plains
of stone-cold lava flow. I am clean, entirely within
the passion and pains of momentary composition.

The river is sweeter than the peak I pretended to conquer,
and the pretence that nearly conquered me.

The Weight of a Grudge

“So Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father had given to his brother. Esau said privately, ‘The time of mourning for my father is near; then I will kill my brother Jacob!’” Genesis 27:41

“Carrying a grudge” is a fitting way to describe what happens when we are so offended that all we can think of is leveling the score. We pick up the offense in the morning as we rehearse the hurt along with our morning coffee. We carry on imaginary conversations with the offender as we drive to work, probably repeating the same arguments over and over again. We take the grudge into bed with us. After the weariness of carrying such weight around all day, we do not even lay it down to sleep. We allow its weight to press down upon our minds, keeping sleep at bay while the grudge grunts through our thoughts like an angry bull.

No More "I Can't"

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3

Two of the most deadly words in the English language are “I can’t.” We limit our options, we subtract possible joy and, saddest of all, we do not make room for God and His gifts. That is not to say that we can, in some fairy tale way, have three (or more) wishes and obtain anything we want. I cannot, for instance, suddenly be fit and muscular if I have been sedentary and listless until that point. But, what I am able to do is begin a pathway toward that goal.

Are Enduring

Are Enduring

(“Resist him, strong in your faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are enduring the same kinds of suffering.” 1 Peter 5:9)

Blankets and clothing,
baby cloths and netting,
what can I give for the suffering;
what can I do for the hunted left out in the storm?

Food banks and free dresses,
toy donations and grandchild kisses,
what does it mean so close to me;
what can I do when most of me is spent on
another trinket the in-crowd on tv insisted would
change my life, make me free, and give me all the love
and company a man could ever ask for. I would change the
car I drive
if I had the money.

Until one mother calls me to give her child a ride home,
you see, practice will go past nine tonight and it is far too
late for a young teen to walk home even our little hamlet.
“She would walk, otherwise,” I promise, the mother almost
apologized…and I stopped her. “Of course she can have a ride.”

I would change the car I drive
except for families I know
that don’t possess even one.

Boxes of underwear, schoolbooks and pencils,
a hand-drawn mural for the school-wall from eight little
children in Sunday School that only know
some others as tiny as they are scared of halls that once
felt so safe.

All they know, and I know, is Jesus gave. My garage has boxes
filled with things I haven’t seen in a decade. My life is too crowded
to keep from filling a hole somewhere that lets in far too much winter air.

Scorched and Skillful

Scorched and Skillful

(“God was kind to us and had them send a skillful man named Sherebiah.” Ezra 8:18a)

The prairie was a wide putting green unwatered through the winter,
and crumbled bumps plowed weeds and wheat encircled the lot where
a few dozen hoped to raise a simple box of a building; gray and white
on the outside;
earth-tones within: forest green carpet with lines and leaves and branches
barely visible in the background underfoot,
adobe pink walls that dimmed to sandstone under the soft light,
white cathedral ceiling training the eye upward hoping for the
nonverbal
“ah”

Of comfort and reverence.

Ten years previous a parsonage sat on the same prairie
75 miles southeast. In an oasis of evergreens, and one night unoccupied,
current does what current does, taking the path of least resistance across
two wires with frayed insulation. Scorched, angry embers
blew from room to room, up bearing walls to ceiling tiles, only
to fall, a flat pancake of coal, square upon our 2 year old angel’s crib.

Non were hurt, nearly all was lost, and we had little to rebuild
lives we thought had dived into a crater lake of the unknown.

The prairie is a fair example; latest fall when brown lies upon brown,
gray dirt blows into gray dust bowls sometimes taking the tops of
storage sheds or mobile homes. That’s why they tie salvaged truck tires
to weight the light houses down.

Scorched, so the hairs on our arms curled up and singed,
eyebrows indiscernible, skin red, then purples as days progressed.

Scorched, so the memory turned a determined talent
into trade. Maybe the scars on the arms, the ache on the legs
are all the interpretation of Scripture one man needed to
point a living way over the piles of embers to the pains
of those who remember much the same. We remain
scarred, but, stepping out of the rubble into the next
man’s trouble
we are healing while…
we remain scarred.

We Need You, Prince of Peace

“Ezra was determined to study the Lord’s Teachings, live by them, and teach their rules and regulations in Israel.” Ezra 7:10

Today 20 children were shot and killed by a crazed man in a Connecticut elementary school. They dead are primarily kindergarten students, plus the shootist’s mother who was a teacher at the school. Not a week before a man opened fire in a shopping mall, killing two and taking his own life as well. Nearly 10,000 were in the mall at the time of the shooting.

Peace and Goodwill

Peace and Goodwill

“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” Luke 2:14

It was the middle of the night; the sky was the purple black that appears once no remnants of the setting sun are left. It is dotted with starry points of light, and quiet. It was the time of night very few experience; either because they are sleeping, or are safe and warm within their homes. But, the few times we have lingered outside, far away from city lights and far past midnight, we understand the magical quiet and peace which that hour of darkness can possess.