Still Rumored

Still Rumored

(“Some of them began to spit on him. They covered his face and hit him with their fists. They said to him, 'Prophesy!' Even the guards took him and slapped him.” Mark 14:65)

It is still rumored across the prevailing winds that
my sins
were included when they put that sack over Your face;
your nose scratched by the pinny burlap, your mouth closed by
the tight squeeze around Your head. One fist, then two, another,
then three, four or five, seven or ten, we lose count when the blows
come, one and then again, one after the other; knuckles below the nose
and palms straight up the cheekbones.

I do not remember that shadowy place, lit only by oily torches
leaving soot shadows in the air; ghosts crawling on the palace walls.

But the wind still whistles that I lack an alibi. There was no where else
such as I to be. (Though I had often discussed Messianic possibilities,
setting seniors upon their heels with my well-rounded arguments.) I
knew none of that mattered
now. For I did not recognize the very face I had theorized
God might have if He were to visit, satisfied to portion His
grace to the rightly studied few. I knew I stood head of my class.

I have an inkling I attended the mock court and its proceedings,
though I would swear I never meant to be there when God was
knocked down in the preliminary rounds. As the fists flew fewer,
You were left in the middle, a dizzied man pummeled by courageous
bragarts with a blindfold just in case the odds were not even. Turning
like a tree ready to topple, we screamed at your circling room,
“Tell Us! Speak Up! Tell Us, mighty son of god. Prophesy! Speak up!
Prophesy, who hit you, You Wretch of a Blasphemer and Pretender
to the Throne. Tell Us! Speak up! Prophecy! Tell Us! and we will leave you
alone.

But the breeze broke about the darkness of midnight; the whistles of wind
and the prevailing opinions were stopped when the prisoner did not speak,
did not moan, did not mumble, did not accuse. He stood, bloody; his
skin raked like a garden ready for seed. His face was shredded, flesh
torn between lips and cheekbones. His knees were buckled, though he
refused to kneel; and He swayed like the most majestic of trees
when the storms do their best to topple the wooden wonders with
roots spread over acres, and live among us still. He swayed,

But He stood. And for a moment brief as lightning I knew,
though my mind retreated to darkness quickly again:
though beaten and torn, bruised and aching,
before me stood, more than I'd seen stand before
was, no doubt, the Creator, the King.

Family Business

Family Business

(“Men made it very hard for Him and caused Him to suffer, yet He did not open His mouth. He was taken like a lamb to be put to death. A sheep does not make a sound while its wool is cut and He did not open His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7)

You who call for the end of all things,
nuclear conflagrations and conspiratorial
elections,
how smart you have become in your invested opinions,
claiming blue jays are hawks without reservation,
decrying marriage as just another contract with paper and ink.

How great our brains have grown to act as if what we know now
we have already known and leave God out of the question,
or question whether knowing Him is part of the question at all.

And you who call for Christ to return,
as if your aches and pains are the scheme behind all things,
though we all sympathize, (who wouldn't want a home where
eyes never go bad, the paper is on the porch, and health insurance
is affordable). But my limp falls far short of filling up the lack

in Christ's sufferings, if there is any lack at all.

And you who ache for the first wake of the final seven years
that the book series insisted would Leave Behind mostly the left
because they don't go to church, or when they do, the inhabit those
demonic denominations
who sometimes actually find an open mouth to feed. Do you want
the end
simply because your favorites are out of power?

I do not exaggerate, look not for hyperbole, I shudder when I
sense the Silent Lamb so mistreated, the Unblushing Love of
all
leaving word and protest on the floor like the greasy cleanup
of a short-order store. I weep that I do not see it well enough.
I shiver at stone churches, big screen projections, tight harmonies,
bright fantasies that stir up dust but stare at the the ones who
traipsed the mud into their house with their unfashionable boots.
Is it too late for anyone to remember?
Are we too far, too american, too rich, too accepted,
so high and holy that no one can see the vague resemblance
we once had to our Elder Quiet Brother?

Don't say He was harsh with the fakeries, unless you,
fakery of His family, agree you need His words strictly
for your own unfinished family business.

Noise and Hammers

Noise and Hammers

(“Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys his servant? Whoever walks in deep darkness, without light, should trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.” Isaiah 50:10)

Late the sounds we've held in memory careen
on waves like storm fronts in battle array. A song
we danced to and background conversation meet
in the middle above the microwave beeps and beneath
the four year old screams; no one seems to notice,
staring at the shared-screen movie with sub-titles on.

But one hears, each noise echo off wall and floor at
the same level, the volume building as each source is
added; punctuated by pain above the temples which has
eaten through the filter. All is loud, all is equal,
all is surround, each voice a crowd, every whisper
a personal intrusion into the life that once
played in sound like

a child in a bathtub with water running.

He goes downstairs before his crinkled brow betrays him,
staying as long as he can with each noise that families never
live without. It is the mix of yelps and lapping, the puppies
clicking their nails on the hardwood floor. It is the
“Dr. Who” gladly, the granddaughter proudly, the son returned
from Guatemala, peaking his Peace Corps stay upon the highest
volcano. It is the oldest son with wife, the youngest daughter
wrestling for the place on the sofa with both boys she tells
the entire universe about. Every vibration is celebration;
a family as comfortable as Christmas.

But for the one whose head has become anvil for the hammer,
he hopes no one thinks he loves the noise any less
than former days when he shouted the loudest at guessing
the winning answer late into the night.

Waters Run Free

Waters Run Free

(“Behold, I do a new thing: now shall it come forth: shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the desert, and floods in the wilderness.” Isaiah 43:19)

The open space and arid desert land
like fish scales, shale and sand, once
were shallow and wet with ocean;
the fossils in stone testify.

Why not now, I wait and watch and
still find naked fragments of yesterday’s masterpiece;
I watch and wonder why
the same etching in pencil that began the
glorious oil on canvas is now dirt,
rust, oxidation and corrosion.

It was shiny once, it was perfect then,
the pieces fit, the shades were hints
of what the naked eye never sees.

Now I try the same, and must be to blame
for the colors that touch neither fantasy or
reality.

The open space, the empty, the arid air
robs the moisture and leaves it bare. My heart
is just the same, dangling where I left it.

My prayer: and I’ve said it before. My ache:
and I beg it all the more. Winced and lonely
with the air knocked out of me. My plea:
Renew these salty tears and let me laugh again.
My cry: I cry more than I should, and would trade
each whimper for something simpler. My day: Your
friendship and a way to see the

The waters run free from the mountains,
across the desert, to the ocean and over me.

Bursting

Bursting

(“God began to do a good work in you. And I am sure that he will keep on doing it until he has finished it. He will keep on until the day Jesus Christ comes again.” Philippians 1:6)

I.

While your expectations may be bursting,
pain a hammer and your soul its anvil,
the landscape is still flush with living springs,
the quiet stream sings the lullaby your may have forgotten.

While you search for momentary cover, a reminder
of safety, a friendship or another sign that the designs
you imagined are still within sight,
the plight with its vise-grip deadens the colors
you used to plant, presidential roses in a row.

While the numbers decrease, the failures constrict
the fancies you snagged with your singing imagination.

The days snap at you hearing, the morning is a bully
and evening is a tease with its offer of ease until
the day takes it all away again.

What can we say to the invisible agony?
What gain is there in repeating the couplets
out of time
when no one hears them the second, third
fifth or 10^th time the title is announced:
“There is no cure for the atrophied brain”.

So says the pain that strangles the flow
from thought to light, light to dream,
dream to vision, and vision to…

And that, dear concerned friend, is all I remember.

II.

I’ve heard there is a work within me
and I pray it is so. The exterior is flaking,
the colors are fading, the frame is limping
with skeletal burrs.

I’ve heard it will continue, the will and the do,
and I suppose it is true.
But what once was easy, what once was free,
the words that set fire, the crowd that came to see;
these
are memories of days I played the music of the skies
and the came with cousins from hills and plains
to learn the dance and teach it to others.

Today the tune is confusing, my dance steps are ragged,
and a few watch for a day or two
(some, I’m sure who like the tune).
I am not a solo artist.

The tunes which spread town to town
now are only sounds of puzzling origin,
yet, I believe it honest,
the Author is true while I wriggle the same
as I did without the pain. 

Undying Love

“Grace be with all who have an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 6:24

These are the final words of one of the loftiest writings in the New Testament. With phrases packed full of worship, the Apostle Paul has painted a radiant panorama of the heights and depths of God’s love for us in Christ. I am told that the first chapter, and even more, read as one run-on sentence. It as if Paul can’t get the words down on the papyrus quick enough. One phrase after another describe God’s plan: “heavenly places”, “chosen”, “adoption”, “redemption”, “lavished”, “riches”, “wisdom”, “fullness”. And, the one word full of blessing: “grace”.

Outside the Comfort Zone

“Finally, grow strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.” Ephesians 6:10

As humans we grow naturally in the direction of our own comfort. That is why we are often inspired by people who take risks and overcome great obstacles. Though we may not be given super-strength to perform amazing feats as Christians, we are enabled to move through pain and even into areas of discomfort. It is those occasions where we learn the true power God provides.