After the Kneading

After the Kneading

(“However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience…” 1 Timothy 1:16a)

How long does it take for darkness to unfurl,
for the taste of violent cuisine to roll off our tongues
into loaves from the earth baked in the noonday sun?

We used to let the elders take the front of the line
in our potlucks and banquets,
with unaccompanied minors right behind.
In that thin place between age and innocence we
hoped
prophetic purity might arise.

Time (that place unmeasured except by planetary motion)
outpaces our lusts and unmade faces until
we are dissatisfied again by the meager fare
of private meals where with little love and less challenge
we eat by ourselves.

But bread is meant to be prepared with muscled hours,
rising after the kneading like a carnival balloon.
Bread is meant to be shared with all who detected
the aroma of the afternoon, arriving to a circle of
friends for a repast near evening.

Some bring guitars, some bring songs,
some read poetry, some play along,
some limp in slowly, others tumble like clowns,
some take off their shoes, some make the rounds
and hug every neck, high and low, telling
the same jokes they’ve told one hundred times before.
Still everyone laughs; maybe everyone snickers.

We’ve been around the block a few times,
some have even met each other in the ring;
some have had words with each other more times
than you would believe,
but that is why they share the bread which redefines
argument and apologetic from winning and sinning
to singing and ringing the dinner bell with the
screen door wide open and the wine already poured.

There is a banquet, there is a picnic,
and if you get confused, just watch the dragonflies play
and hear the echoes of the frogs in the damp grass

And sit with us a spell, sing with us a prayer (even
with your mouth full). Stuffed and sleepy we’ll end
the day, but will wait for the very last vagabond
who always arrives much too late.

And the Children Play

(photo credit: Mercy Aiken)

And the Children Play

(“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 [The Message])

Entering the avenue where the unlikely children play--
a brother on a bike, a little sister right behind--
and there are paintings on the back of the facades,
dripping down the necks of the alleys
detailing recent history and partisan rallies.

And the children still play underneath the signs
of times adults ignore. What, indeed, are we fighting for?
When Palestine suffers, so do their neighbors.
When Africans suffer, so do the children in highrise daycare.

Unidentified artists paint the meaning for us so we do not
have to walk through the galleries; stop; wonder; deeper;
and never let the children out to play.

They painted caves in France; dark; damp; edgy; older;
and the children played in the prehistory.

They doodled walls in Bethlehem; bright; breath; deadly; newer;
And the children tagged their playmates unwalled.

They spray-canned stucco in Minneapolis; memos from a week ago;
african and indian, spanish and norwegian, stayed where the flowers lay
upon the asphalt dark as skin. And the children stood hugging
the knees of adults who they hoped knew better than they.

And my next door neighbor turned three today; she; bashful; blonde;
skipping;
and she plays in the backyard pool just before the party begins.

Her chalk drawings smile from the cement driveway as she catches
hugs from anyone who will toss one her way.

The Terminally Crazy One

The Terminally Crazy One

(...so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thessalonians 1:12)

When black lives seem to matter less to
people dressed in their sunday best
than people of privilege driving by with
rifles in their racks and stacks of collectable angels,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When care bears are satanic, and purple teletubbies are gay,
when a president who prays and quotes the mountain verbatim
is called the anti-christ and his family monkeys
and his wife not a woman but a man,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When pledges of allegiance to an empire’s flag
are enforced from stadiums to sanctuaries,
when the national flag flies proudly from steeples
that declare Jesus is lord and soldiers are honored before
teachers and workers with the poor,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

Even my therapist asks about my church attendance
and wonders why it has fallen off
like a toddler too near the top of a ladder.
Seems like I’ve seen her forever (or a facsimile)
and she insists I’ve made very little progress.
She is right, I’ll admit; the forces that forced me to
make my first appointment have not decreased since
the first day I confessed until yesterday when I doubted.
Talk is cheap with the right insurance, and prayer is all
left to the bereft and poor. But the meds help me sleep,
though they do not repel the dreams where every attempt at
to exonerate my soul is unexempt from overnight sweats.

When leaders lie to cover their mistakes, not bishops,
but maybe a few. And others insist their lack of candor
was necessary for the saving of a soul,
when the screw was turned in the name of purity
and holiness was a name for those with the fewest
tvs and lps in their home,
then I start to wonder if
I am not the terminally crazy one.

When love is the flag we love (not a rebel rag or country’s
glorification)
when the least of these matter (the widow, the poor, the
black, the immigrant)
when sight is given to the blind (thus seeing Christ in
the crowds, the soft and loud)
when the lame are allowed to walk (thus marching in streets
for the beloved we have forgotten)
when freedom is the air each one breathes (thus untasting
the sour fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)

When the walls finally crumble, not from war our shouts,
not from trumpets or triumphs,
but from the sheer weight of grace that descends like rain
filling the oceans and rivers, the streams and inlets
with the knowledge of God, the mercy of Christ

Then

I may decide to join
the terminally crazy ones.

The Mortal Silence

The Mortal Silence

(“As they led Jesus away, Simon, a man from Cyrene, was coming in from the fields. They forced him to carry Jesus’ cross and to walk behind him.” Luke 23:26)

There was nothing peaceful about it,
the clouds were leaden upon a graphite sky.
The body politik and the rest of us, (anger and sickness)
saw events transpire for the best of us and so we cried
to send the one most like us down the avenue of shame.

Fires bled in our eyes, boiling over from the first boot
on our necks
to our last breath (and yet our feet were tattooed as well).

I misunderstood every word, tried to right and wrong the
whole day to death. I shouted with the crowd, I cursed the
powers that occupied us like slaves, I was with and against,
as my heart burst outside the courtroom and within the
reflexes of oppression. Yet I pressed closer to
the blazing procession, a day for the dead.

I saw death where people sang like mardi gras,
I saw life in the pierced head, the welts like a
pollock painting on the back of the fainting one
whose breath came as slow as summer wadis.
I saw strength in the stumbling,
power in the fainting,
and something else, something without a name.

They cast their words at him, dashing them against him
like stones through a glass wall. They were right after all,
and the lynching lasted far into the afternoon.

I did not volunteer, nor did I imagine I would hear the
turpitude wound around my own soul like shackles.
I was conscripted and took the beam, the angry
crossbar with its weight centered across my shoulders.
I knew the drill; it was all too common on this hill
where so many were hanged like cursed fruit from a tree.

But he. He was. My breath escapes and does not return.
But he. He was. His life escapes and so has the sun.
But he. He was. His eyes were fire and life and gold.
But he. He was. I was tired, compelled, and old.

Old as sin is what they say in the country. But he. He was.
Older. 

How does the Ancient of Days walk to the auction block?
How does Eternity Past put his feet on the same path as mine?
I was compelled. But he. He was.

Not repelled by the worst of us. And I, I loved this
weakest of kings, this dying god, and stayed as he
gave his life away.

He was. He is king over my erratic thinking,
and lord-in-love to a world still addicted (some in
His name)
to mining for violence. He was. He is
only found in the compelled quietness,
the mortal silence of tears of offender
and offended.

Old Paint and Pale

Old Paint and Pale

Have you ever felt stained? I don’t mean with sin,
but with paint. Old paint. Paint stored in the garage.
Paint in rusty gallon buckets with drips down the side like
old-fashioned earring loops. Paint with scum on top
and dumplings on the bottom.

Have you ever felt stained by old paint?

Have you ever felt electrified? I don’t mean by joy,
but fences. Wire fences. Fences that hum high voltage.
Fences in muddy quicksand with muck giving birth
to mosquitos and disasters. Fences that whine with direct current
and pulses to prevent your escape.

Have you ever been electrified by fences?

Have you ever felt stranded? I don’t mean on purpose,
but houses. Old houses. Houses left to pasture.
Houses with rusty hinges and broken windows, the shards their
only decor. Houses everyone declares are haunted
with rats the only renters.

Have you ever felt stranded on old dirt floors?

Have you ever felt old? I don’t mean by measure,
but thrift store. Used jeans on a rack. Flannel shirts
that still smell of field and smoke. 8 track tapes and
players. They all bear the stains of usage, the strain
of shrinkage. 

Have you ever felt old like someone else’s clothes?

Have you ever felt godless? I don’t mean immoral,
but pallid. Opinions, like fog, faded. Belief, like fairies,
barely seen past legal age. Prayers, like babbling,
meaningful as a wordless book. The chasm is just as yawning,
In or around, air or solid ground.

Have you ever felt godless like gasps of supplication?

Your Count Was Off

Your Count Was Off

(“The king replied, ‘But look, I see four men. They’re untied, walking in the middle of the fire, and unharmed. The fourth one looks like a son of the gods.’” Daniel 3:25)

Have you ever stood outside when the grass was dewing,
when the darkness was wooing your feet to the meadow,
your arms by your sides, and your eyes to the sky;
Have you ever stood outside in the smudgy dark
and watched all night as the moon came down?

And were you certain, mostly because of the static electricity
from people rubbing on your head,
that it was your fault the moon was dead?

Have you ever lived in God’s house (in our out) where
every move was calculated, measured, and manipulated?
Have you ever walked in to pray, and cried instead, words and
devotion fled and only your naked knees understood anything?
Have you ever dreamt, 30 years later, that it all meant something
but you never were tall enough to bring the glory down?

And were you certain, mostly because of the chemical reaction
from short-robed preachers accusing your soul,
that it was your fault behind and ahead?

Have you ever held up new grapes to the sun,
wondering in a half-second’s eternity of winding vineyards
and wines that brighten the eyes?
Have you ever had a day when a king’s summons
met your serenity tête-à-tête squeezing you between
another’s troubles; a wound upon the head because of what
the king had said?

And were you certain, mostly because of the wind in your soul,
that there was no other option, though most thought the king a priest,
that it was you and the troubled who might not escape unscathed?

And did anyone tell you at midnight, after the madness, in the middle
of either faith or sadness,

That your count was off and one more stood unburned, not only in the furnace
but also in the years with you unarmed. And unharmed.

George Floyd, I Did not Know You

George Floyd, I Did not Know You

(“After ten days, Daniel and his friends looked healthier than all the young men who ate the king’s food.” Daniel 1:15)

Will you eat the king’s meat,
Will you sit at the table of deceit,
Will you change your middle name,
Hoping it will sound nearly the same
As the swarms of modified eagles
Cackling like hens?

Will you visit the robbers’ den
Pretending it’s the temple?
Will you stand outside of it for a photo opp
To prove you are not the devil?
Will you kneel as an example
(on the necks of the devoted, no less)
of dominion you think you’ve been blessed with?

How long did it take for the blood to stop flowing?
How long did the air squeak like a dying balloon?
How long did you know there was not breath. He was
lifeless?

Will you refuse the king’s madness,
Will you fall on your faces and confess,
Will you join your tears in streets
Where blood stopped flowing, where the breath ceased
as the swarms of mystified people
pleading like moms.

Stay inside if you need too, stay outside if you want,
all I know is eight minutes is far too long to compress
a brother’s throat. Mingle your outrage with the grief
of too many removed from the scene, lives taken
unseen,
justice stolen like Macy’s front door and
peace bartered for projectiles piercing the soul

Of a nation broken and plagued. A nation only healed
By its own self-confession and sorrow. Today (and last
Century, and three before that) are the time for crying,
And judgement. 

And tomorrow may justice flow like
A river. Tomorrow may peace demand the rocks give way.

George Floyd, I did not know you. I know less of your anguish.
Teach us (we who stand outside cathedrals),
Rip us (we who sleep inside bedrooms),
Paint us (we who live so colorless),
Point us (we who navigate so well…

past our privilege in the famine of shame.)

Let us (fasting and sacrament) fully taste your pain.