I Shall See You

I Shall See You

(“Now you are going through pain, but I shall see you again and your hearts will thrill with joy—the joy that no one can take away from you.” John 16:22 [J. B. Phillips])

Another night and another dream where somehow everything I attempt
goes partly wrong somehow.
Letters of intent that scare me out of my wits,
a plow that pulls me through the backcountry fences
onto private property where every eye can see.

Another morning when the pain wakes me early,
keeps me prone till noon and will not let go. A violent
season
that my brain invented, and no other brain can diagnose.

Some questions are impaled, some answers are so veiled
they mock the slightest turn of the mouth. Every phone call
used to send me
into broken twig apprehension,
and now that the phone doesn’t ring the
dreams
supply the same intentions, driving sleep from the cells
that need duplication. But the tiny thoughts that
still find expression
are turning like neutrinos undiscovered until
the atoms were sliced like cheese.

I will not talk of my faith, as if I possessed it like real estate;
I will not answer as if I owned anything at all.
I will not speak of circles unbroken when every chain link
seems to come apart at the seams.
(Like the disciples, I can huddle behind locked doors
as long as is needed.)

I do not see You well, and my search is even weaker;
but You see me, the weary and broken seeker.
I do not comprehend, I can barely compose a tune;
but You show up, broken and risen from the tomb

With wounds so visible there is no mistaking Your identity.
The room shakes at the intensity of fire that carries the ash
into rivers that run beneath our senses.

We will sleep again, dream again, and certainly
go wrong again and again.
But You-Who-See-Us again take our trembling letters
of resignation
and rewrite us again and again.

For Once

(“I was eyes for the blind person. I was feet for the lame person.” Job 29:15)

You took the lives that were broken eggshells,
the eyes that had not slept in weeks,
and rocked them like a lullaby, and sang them
like a hymn.

You took the ears assaulted by spears and arrows,
and listened to the sparrows for them,
heard the promises of lovers and
danced for them to the tune of children’s laughter.

You took their feet, shrunken with time,
and walked the forest among the pines for them,
marched in the parade and plunged your toes in the mud
for them. You massaged the scales and the brittle nails
that displayed their age too soon.

You took their soul, fragile as a soap bubble in the wind,
and flew it like a kite for them,
despite the unpolite words of those
who do not understand how love can take
the saddest of them. You took their soul,
crumbling like desert clods,
and rained for them in tears that,
(let no one know) for once
were not their own.

Christmas Gifts in July

Christmas Gifts in July

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. John 14:27

Now that I’m retired from ministry there are a few things that I’m beginning to understand about life. And, there are a whole bunch more questions, but we’ll leave that for another time. Here is one thing that I’ve learned: No none likes to be told what to do.

Even the best leaders in business give people objectives and not specific instructions. A leader who is constantly telling people what to do quickly is seen as a micro-manager and someone who does not trust her team. But, if they can delegate responsibilities and allow others to accomplish the objective in their own way, the team members see themselves as valuable and trusted.

I wonder how often as Christians we tell people what to do, or what they should be feeling, or how they should be experiencing the world. “Jesus left us peace. So, you should feel peace no matter what is going in on your life.” “Jesus left us peace. Here are four ways to achieve that peace in every circumstance.” “Why are you so anxious all the time? Don’t you know Jesus gifted you with peace.” And on and on and on.

I understand that sometimes people respond to such exhortations, and I do not want to exclude them entirely. But we also need to take a step back and realize none of us experience peace (or joy, or faith) one hundred percent of every day. And, some peoples’ lives have been so disrupted by hardship, that for them, even accepting that peace is possible is an immense challenge.

I almost decided not to write about this verse today. Most who read this already know my situation, and I won’t belabor it. The short story is I retired early due to health reasons and now my wife and I live with my sister and brother-in-law in Texas. Patti is working, I suffer pain every day, and do not have a vehicle at the house. I would much rather still be in Washington near our daughter, but we have to finish paying the mortgage on our home there before we can move back.

All this is not how I envisioned my life at 64. So, the situation, along with chronic pain and clinical depression, have produced a situation that is not conducive to feeling a lot of peace. And, if someone wrote me a letter with this verse as a heading, I probably would not receive it well. It would sound like they were telling me “Hey, dude, buck up. Grab the peace that’s there for you!” (As if, after 40 years of ministry I was entirely unaware of Jesus’ promise.)

But, if I received a note that said, “I’m thinking of you. I know this is probably one of the hardest times of your life. Wish I could do something. Try your best to find some peace in the middle of it all. I understand how difficult that must be right now,” I would rejoice. No, I would weep, with joy. It would be a human touch that transmitted the presence of Christ.

When my mother died in 1987, she was only 53 years old. She lived in Upstate New York and had bought a Victorian home she hoped to remodel into a Bed and Breakfast. Unfortunately, she never was able to fulfill her dream.

When we heard of her death my sisters and I met up in New York to grieve together, comfort her husband and each other, as well as have a memorial for her in the little village she had called home. We pulled up in front of the old house in the car we rented. Though in some disrepair, it was beautiful, and fit our mother’s sensibilities to a t. We walked up onto the porch that circled the entire house, knocked on the door, and our step-father beckoned us in.

After hugs and greetings, he gave us a tour of the house. One thing caught my eye almost immediately. In the corner of one room were at least half a dozen wrapped Christmas gifts. But Mom died in late July, so I asked about them. Those were the gifts Mom had bought for us and her grandkids, but never had the funds to mail.

In the middle of our grief we all laughed. Mom always made sure to gift her kids, and especially her grandkids. It hadn’t gone without notice that there was nothing under the tree from her the previous Christmas.

We looked at each other, picked up the gifts, turning them over, looking at the labels and wondering what exactly to do. Eventually we unwrapped them. I cannot tell you what the gifts were, I do not remember. But it affected us deeply that Mom kept those presents wrapped and ready for us.

Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving them a gift: his peace, his shalom. Shalom is more than feeling calm. It is the common greeting in Hebrew, and is a desire for wholeness, purpose and goodwill in a person’s life. It goes far beyond living without anxiety. Jesus’ gift is purpose in life that is not defined by career, popularity, good looks, or any of the outward measures we use. It is an inner awareness that we are so valuable to him, that he has bequeathed that purpose to us forever.

The disciples didn’t respond exactly as Jesus suggested; their hearts did become troubled, they were fearful. Within a few hours they would see Jesus taken away by military might, tried unjustly, beaten to with inches of his life, and hanged on a cross in the cruelest form of punishment invented by mankind.

Peter denied Jesus out of fear. The disciples scattered during the crucifixion, later to be found huddling out of fear in the upper room. But, after the resurrection they discovered the peace Jesus had promised. Now some of them would be treated in the same way. Yet they would ask forgiveness for their persecutors, they would pray instead of denying the love Jesus had brought into the world.

I do not want to tell you that you should be experiencing peace in this very moment. Grief over our mom’s death overshadowed our happy discovery of the Christmas gifts. Of course, it did. And the struggles of the present, the pain of the past, the fear of the future can all work against the sense of peace Jesus promised. But I do want to remind you that he did promise that peace, well-being and sense of purpose. I am slowly learning that, now that my “purpose” is no longer in being a professional minister. Indeed, much of my time is spent simply nursing this 11-year-old headache. One day this week I spent only eight hours out of bed.

But, if you will accompany me on this journey as we seek to let the presence of the risen Christ give us peace, maybe we can encourage each other in our difficult moments, and avoid simply telling each other, “Hey, you oughta have peace.”

Abbreviated Fog

Abbreviated Fog

(“If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored— so clean up your life.” Job 22:23)

If you don’t mind, would you take some time to
simply be silent
and sit in the pain,
and restrain yourself from trying to
put god in a place that explains what
you can never understand?

When someone has lost it all,
is it your calling to take some more?
Will you seize the fractures in his soul
and insist he walk upon the shards?
Is it so hard to live within the ellipses,
the dots and dashes,
the abbreviated fog of suffering
with another whose life has become
a broken paragraph, the torn pages of
a book nearly written.

The wind speaks better than the air that escapes
from wise men without knowledge. Spacious in their
capacity to blame and misname every flinch
of the afflicted, they see only effects that must have had
a cause.

Will you pick apart the psalms of despair,
throwing them upon the ash heap of your assumptions?
Will you hear the moans and reject the questions
because answers are easier to handle? But what if
the sand filled your castle; what if the fire melted your
everything you had crammed into your storage sheds?
What if the heads of everyone in town turned away because
they relished answers just like you?

Stay quiet my friend. Sit close enough that I hear your breathing.
The time for talking will come. But now, leave your dissertations
and start the tea kettle please.

Call it Jazz

Call it Jazz

(“I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send also accepts me. And whoever accepts me also accepts the One who sent me.” John 13:20)

Please accept me,
and by accept I do not mean
tolerate me.

I mean all that I am, my frightened thoughts,
my unsteady frame,
my journey through the wilderness,
my nightmares, my anxiety,
my sins and the irony of a follower full
of doubts,
a flower dusted with thorns,
a friend who needs human touch more than
scripture quotes or attempts to diagnose my condition.

Let me come to your house, lay upon your couch,
shed the tears I will not shed unless I know you’ll not turn away.
And if I do not get better, let me cry myself to sleep.
Let me sit at your table with only coffee and memory,
let me stop pretending for just an hour.

The fingertips of a friend equal the hand of God.

I promise I’ll send you a card, a thank you note,
a gift or a poem. I’ll write on lined paper every
word that describes what taking me into your heart
has meant.

But please accept me,
and by accept I do not mean
put up with me.

Because I cannot become anything other than
what I am today. And I am longing for
the eyes of a friend, the tears of a fellow traveler,
the silent comfort for weeks at a time, the storyteller
who does not care if my poems rhyme. I long,
far and short,
for anyone who will accept this arrhythmic heart
and just call it jazz.

This Is Not About Me

This Is Not About Me

(“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3)

I promise you, that if my tears were perfume,
the world would smell like roses in the Sahara,
in Siberia, the inner city and the vacant lots.

But they are just salt.

But this is not about me. Pardon me,

But you have seemed a ghost, a zephyr;
like air; no. Hydrogen.

Everywhere (apparently) but so diffuse
you refuse to be held.

I am a sentient being, and sensitive to touch.
You are more famous, yet further than I can reach.

Many have left you for less than this,
and I sweat and shiver filled with longing,
tissue and regret.

But they are just water.

But this is not about me. Forgive me,

But I’ve emptied the wells of my eyes on a thousand
carpeted altars,
unloaded my life on your shoulders and
unfolded every ridge in my brain like
the San Andreas Fault.

I feel your cross daily laid across my back,
I choke on the dank cavern of the tomb,
But the rising, the morning, the third day
evades me, and I seem to loop:
day 1
day 2.

But this is not about me. Revive me,

But I have never prayed hard enough,
obeyed long enough,
or, so it seems, cried well enough
to hear what No Greater Love would say.

Though I cannot find you,
you have confined me to time and space.
Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.

Trembling I’ve asked, if not your voice, your hands,
your eyes, then
let me wash your feet.

A Letter Sent

A Letter Sent

(“When the news reached Pharaoh’s palace, ‘Joseph’s brothers have come,’ Pharaoh and his servants were pleased.” Genesis 45:16)

Every poem I write is a letter
sent
to the ones I’ve loved. They are meant
to diffuse the confusion of past
clowns and charades;
to clear the dusty air from my overnight mind
that awoke hugging a sliver of the bed.
I write in the hope the sky will be surprised
because I’m stuck in the moment,
riveted to the chair,
wanting to stop crying and laughing alone.

This is why I write,
in the hope my words will fold in on themselves
and, like a paper airplane in freshman English
sent from the back of the class,
will land in a soft slide upon your desk.
You won’t even need to read it once you see
it is from me.

Every word I type is a plea,
(I shall not beg)
that someone will recognize my face,
my time, my sweat, the footprints I left
when I only wanted the best for you. Sounds
I haven’t heard in decades
fill my silent isolation.

Did 12 years mean anything? Were 40 a vapor?
Are the cell towers dead? Did you run out of postage?
Is your bank account empty? Have I used up all my hugs?
Am I too weak, too needy? Even just a plaque with my
name spelled out small is something I could hang on the wall.

Unlike Joseph, I stumbled more than I want anyone to know;
still, did any of my days matter? I am sorry for sounding morose,
but couldn’t Pharaoh at least offer a toast and mention
that, though I did not finish perfectly,
I finished pretty well?