With the Tongue

With the Tongue

(“With [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God.” James 3:9)

Another day I might have ignored the comment,
another time I would have kept my peace.
Another day I would have slept through the thunder storm,
another time I would have caged my words.
You didn’t know the races that person ran,
you didn’t pay attention to their struggle and pain.
You just ran your tongue over your incisors, sharpening
your sentences to slice them whole. You memorized
the hymns and high songs,
and spit out invectives like tiny missiles across the
face of the target of your disapproval. Your aim was
off-center and your poison spread around the room.

The mouth formed the words moments after you
thought them. You didn’t look close enough to see
that the victim of your aspiration was another
re-creation of the Divine you loved to sing about.
You tamped down like a foot destroying a rose,
destroying the image that would have beautified the moment.
You doubled-down your unsacred sound moments after
How Great Thou Art, and Amazing Grace. You scattered
the light you could have shared across the floor in the
faintest phosphorescence.

God doesn’t need your compliments, God isn’t looking
for your slippery accolades. But God is waiting for you to
inhale and find the words to reverse the damage you did
to his creative artisan. You are just a crock of clay,
and so am I, inhabited by the Spirit, we should be
shining without looking away.

Waiting on Hold

Waiting on Hold

(“Then a dispute also arose among them about who should be considered the greatest.” Luke 22:24)

I called you up with my remaining time of the afternoon.
I waited on hold; I laid the phone on the desk while
scanned the internet until you picked up. It wasn’t
your fault
you were running late. The demands on your time
are endless,
and I called without an appointment.
So I waited on hold; patiently wondering how you had changed
since the last time we talked. I heard rumors
that you had traded your throne for
a camp chair in the middle of nowhere.
As soon as you were settled you looked in
on the children whose scrapes and bruises spoke
more of abuses than playful stumbles in the yard.
You touched their wounds delicately;
you understood their cries instinctively. You
interpreted their prayers silently and
slowly learned their names. You sat beneath
the sun with each one of them telling their stories.
You cradled the smallest ones who barely formed
a dozen words and had not yet found yours. You
always said your name was a mystery. But your
reputation preceded you. Even at your pinnacle you
mixed with the least of these, you decreased to
come down to their size.

--Hello, it’s me. Do you remember? Thanks for answering
my call. I just wanted to say I’ve learned from your ways and
will not stall another day to jump off my high horse and walk with
the poorest on the dusty road.

On the Patio

On the Patio

(“Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Hebrews 13:16)

Afterwards we ran inside to escape the rain.
But until then we had been breaking bread on the
patio surrounded by palm trees and bougainvillea.
The music was loud, our feet were tapping the concrete floor,
and the children hopped like sugary frogs.
Nearly the entire neighborhood was there, invited
on a whim. The grills were hissing, the dogs were
growling playfully waiting for every morsel
intentionally dropped their direction.
We ignored social graces and didn’t set places
based on early reservations. We
sat where we wanted,
stood and chatted like geese populating a mown field.

The sun had warmed the day, pushed the clouds away until
midafternoon. We laughed at silly jokes, some we’d told
since childhood.
No one cared except the stray teenager who heard and
rolled his eyes and then told it to his cadre of bros.
The cats, domestic and feral, soaked in the sun,
stretched out like tablecloths on the warming driveway.
No one talked of God, or angels, or sanity, or delusions.
We didn’t test the temperature of faith or check the boxes
of doctrinal hoaxes. We had no need of talk, no requirements
ticked of on ballots. It was lately the place where
names were memorized and acceptance ubiquitous.
Men remade amends, women healed the wounded,
children built memories out of legos and no one was
left out in the cold.

And then the deluge, then the downpour, then the dash
for irony that what started outside with more room than
we ever needed was
forced inside where we stood face to face, shoulder
to
shoulder
and nothing changed. Everyone sang. We ate and
then ate again.

The Unshakeable Room

The Unshakeable Room

(“So since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks, and through this let us offer worship pleasing to God in devotion and awe.” Hebrews 12:28)

I tried every door, tested every lock,
tried to gain admittance, you rang the bell,
I knocked on the door until it echoed back to
my knuckles on the wood.

There was rubble all around me, but I wasn’t
sure why. The buildings had just been standing proudly
the day before.
But I stood at the threshold the only edifice left unbroken.
It was a home, it was a bungalow,
it was the dwelling of a handful of vagabonds
who insisted the world was not their final home.

I listened for their voices. They seemed coarse,
almost hoarse. Had they not used them, had they
vowed away their noise for silence?
Someone turned the handle, and the door curved
on its hinges slowly, without creaking. It was a
heavy wood and dark, maybe mahogany. A large man
filled the frame and invited me in.

I turned around to look
one more time
at the debris behind me and wondered how this simple
abode stayed standing all alone.
The man croaked lowly at me, inviting me in
and I turned my head around once more to see
my bearded host bid me come. It was dark inside,
illuminated by candles. Half a dozen sat around a
large table in the middle of the room. They were laughing
in the midst of tragedy. They were waiting for others to
seek sanctuary. They were sending invitations up the road
as far as they could see.

I did not know how they escaped
destruction,
but I knew I needed the instruction they could give. I knew
there would be others at the door, so I took a platter,
ate and drank what I needed, and asked permission to welcome
others up and down the block to the unshakeable room.

I’ve Narrated the Road

I’ve Narrated the Road

(“Let us look only to Jesus. He is the one who began our faith, and he makes our faith perfect.” Hebrews 12:2a)

The story doesn’t end there, even though it felt like the final chapter.
The asteroids still circled obliquely.
Bring me another water please; my throat is dry and I have
such a long tale to tell.
We haven’t finished, though we needed a moment’s rest.
The pale yellow butterflies show it best, the way they
flit from flower to flower undisguised as the day lengthens.
The beginning has little thrills,
the middle is unexciting,
but the ending is unexpected and sometimes causes me to flinch.

When you have come this far already it is hard to
see clearly the beliefs that may be unsupported by the facts.
My story is full of pitfalls, my tale surrounded by struggles,
my ending unreliable, my addendum just a summation of facts.
But I suppose I’ll keep writing,
I might keep believing if there are no more suitors for my heart.
I could use a navigator,
a fellow traveler who knows the terrain well. Or someone
who doesn’t mind traveling blind. You take the wheel for a while
and I will nap until our next pitstop. We can write our bearings in
the journal I’m keeping, another chapter to a story I would never
have written if I hadn’t traveled so far. I could use a navigator,
I would love an illustrator to picture my ups and downs.

I’ve narrated the road from beginning to end, from “gentlemen
start your engines” to the checkered flag. I finished far back
in the pack, which explains why so few follow me.
But on further cogitation, I say, without qualification,
that the one who began the race still accompanies me and
has completed the story long before I’ve crossed the finish line.

Chase Us Away Again

Chase Us Away Again

(“He told them, ‘The Scriptures say, ‘My house should be a place of worship.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!’” Luke 19:46)

They rode in late, just as the sun was slanting
through the gates and turning the plaster walls golden.
The day had been long, minding the store, trading in livestock,
stowing away coins taken from foreigners before they could worship.

But their afternoon was interrupted, their commerce dented,
when someone chased the merchants out of the precincts
and quoted prophets quite out of context. We were
the elite who showed up every week to facilitate the
transactions that put offerings in the hands and silver in our pockets.
It was standard practice. We enhanced their worship for a modest fee.
We set up early in the morning, we were prepared for every transaction,
we counted our earnings often, and gave sojourners reasons to
sing the old psalms paid for by the temple tax.

How were people
supposed to worship
when that man caused such a disturbance and hindered their prayers?
We deserve to earn a living, we deserve to be paid for our time,
we offer a sacred service, we offer entrance to god.
We do it in the open, we do not hide. We capitalize our assistance
in banners print boldly about our booths. Today only we offer
a Passover special, two lambs for the price of one. Share with a
friend or just sacrifice both and you’ll be happy with your results.
God will double your prosperity, and we will divest some of our inventory.
But our supply is running short, that man chased them out of the temple.
The whip he used cracked louder than the ravens flying overhead.
We weren’t the first and we won’t be the last who, dressed like
penitents, hand out tickets to god with a price you must agree,
is quite reasonable to gain an audience with the Almighty.
Come back next week, the intruder will be gone by then.
There are plans afoot to make sure he disturbs no one ever
again.

So, we’ll be back to work, with better deals than ever before.
Announce it to your friends, let’s keep the practice moving
through the centuries. I’ve heard Jesus doesn’t shout as loud,
or maybe the churches have drowned him out. I’d like to see
how much money is spent to make one prosper with lear jets
and castle compounds built off the exchange of dollars for
distilled water from the Jordan.
Jesus, come and turn over our tables. We will not know how
to put it all together again without you. No more grand opening
sales,
no more closeouts,
just a room large enough for pilgrims to pray, women to worship,
and men to mend the relationships hardened by corporate greed.
We need you to chase us away. We need to get the picture.
We need to be quieted. We need to be freed.
We need to offer, free and fearless, a place at the table
for the poorest and the rich. We need to be divested of our
big-eyed lust for the best. We need to honor the humble like
the lambs we are and the Lamb we follow. Come, chase us
away again.

When We Emptied Our Pantry

When We Emptied Our Pantry

(“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” Hebrews 10:24)

Now that I think of it, we should have white-washed
the entire edifice before the strangers came to play.
The shadows would be silhouettes in the late afternoon sun.
We poured milk for the lime-faced children who asked for
nothing at all.
They deserved our attention, they reserved their laughter
for the moment we appeared.
We shared cookies newly baked for the skinny-faced children
who squealed for it all.
A lot of us questioned why,
a majority assumed we were required to distribute
the goods we had in store. But some of us wished
there was more that we could do for the baby-faced
children who shrunk silently around the corner.
It is the height of embarrassment to admit there are
no baked goods back at home.
I cannot describe our motivation,
we had not thought it all through,
we were only daylight decorations,
we thought it came out of the blue.
But the children played brighter, roses on
their cheeks, chocolate chips melted in their hands.

We decided to travel there again,
to memorize their names,
to baptize their happy eyes,
to bring sandwiches of peanut butter,
and instruct them silently to fly.

And yet we sprouted wings once our feet
hit the asphalt,
we were heavier too, weightier than
our many words we displayed uncarefully.
And all we wanted was to get lost among the
throng of the needy, and have enough even
when we, unready, emptied our pantry
uncarefully.