Prepare the Way

“You will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” Luke 1:76b-77

Even before he was born, John the Baptist’s role was prophesied by his father Zacharias. I suppose many fathers have expectations of their sons. I have a picture I took of my oldest son sitting in my favorite chair with a Christian-themed book open on his lap. Oh, and he was 10 months old at the time. It was all meant in fun, but I’m certain another dad might have his son pose with a football, or a hammer, or a computer mouse. Yes, we fathers have high hopes for our sons. And every parent expects great things from each of their children.

Every Year or Two

Every Year or Two

(“Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God.” Romans 10:4)

Obsolete. Stuck in a snow globe with tinted glass,
all I’ve seen for a quarter century past are the gray arcs
of a home without corners to stash new thoughts. Left
with no filing system and trusting the handlers who shake
my occupation, I trust the simulations of winter.

Guarded: Within my residence I keep my thoughts to myself,
(heaven knows spokes are heard around the block and back)
and search every angle for another misdemeanor
in hopes my doctrine will not go missing.

(for the astute reader who is about to point out that my metaphor began with a globe and now describes searching every angle, you are to be saluted)

Incomplete. A closed system with nothing new to think,
nothing novel to drink, and memories of shrinking back
if a theory insisted freedom beyond my well-ordered turn.
Well-orbed living means, no matter which route I choose,
I will arrive. The paths are infinite, the destination prefabricated.

Artifacts. If you find my several parts under glass at the museum,
you may construct, with reasonable certainty, the square meter of space
I occupied. One pristine piece, briefly used and sadly set aside;
the Though Generator has been replaced by a turbine which keeps
every word in line, at its proper time, spaced apart to appear,
new

Every year or two.

Transformed. The lovely art I thought had freed me, deceived me;
the walls curved inward reflecting brief light back into a man-sized
follow spot upon a tiny stage. Centered, I was handcuffed by certainty.
Until the infinite touched my single-set theory and burst the walls
from the crystal ball I inhabited.

(for the previous travelers who have arrived here before me,
I will remember I may reside, even yet, in
a larger version of the globe from which I have been redeemed.)

Unchanging

“The Rock: His works are perfect, and the way he works is fair and just; a God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God.” Deuteronomy 32:4 (The Message)

Relationships can become very frustrating when it is impossible to depend on someone. I’m sure we have all been the victim of someone’s changeability along the way. We are lead to believe the person is trustworthy, true to their word, and we base our relationship upon that. And then, sometimes completely by surprise, we find we are not able to rely upon that person at all. They may have promised to help with a project and not show up. Perhaps they offered emotional support, but could not be found in the moment of crisis.

Foot Replacement

Foot Replacement

(“Now at last the Lord has helped me,” she said. “He has taken away my public disgrace!” Luke 1:25 )

I am sorry my writing sounds like moaning,
the ache from morning until groaning for the moments
I slumber only to recall in dreams the burst words upon my brow,
the worst guards against any reoccurrence against the rules.

My momentary agony is the glacial ice of a decade of abuse,
accused from the left and left by the right, and stumbling on my
own two feet the clumsy dance I’ve known since childhood. I would
have submitted to experimental foot replacement to cure my excursions
off the path.

So the cries you hear (when you would rather see roses and robins)
are the contest between the testing of the gods and the arrogance of men.
Midst it all, the sorrow, the heartbreak, the bait that hides the hook;
I have drunk their smog into my lungs and nearly drowned upon the
streets I hoped to live.

Like Zechariah, I’ve questioned God, and God has kept me quiet
more than once, more than twice. Are my sights so short that
He cannot find me in well-timed chastening to undress my disgrace?

I have waited for the waters to recede, the tears to disperse,
I’ve rehearsed every good thing I will say when He turns my dreams
of captivity to joy one day. Yet even He, I do not understand, offers
(through serendipity) the happiest career. Offered to me years ago,
it is once more a special on the buffet. When I turn the table,
ready to take the smile upon my plate, the course is taken;
I am shaken to the core.

Once more, another god-fellow lowers the boom, so full
of himself he cannot see past the fumes of his own hot words,
and severs a tie of 33 years in one angry stroke.

I once spoke fearlessly, now want to sleep and ignore the
knocks on the door, the rings of the phone

And breathe and eat and write alone.

Disrobe this ugly costume of disgrace.

Speak

Speak

(“Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.”  Proverbs 28:31)

The silent store their aches and stains while
the babble hoards gold and shallow paintings
of their pretense of justice; write books, sign books,
speak at banquets, repeat themselves and are talked about

In every self-respecting conversation in and out of tradition foyers
and emerging porches.

The silent hide their bruises, the mute (abused for each question)
mark the days with passive phrases they have forgotten to repeat;
but know by heart the threats like a three-chord hook on the radio.
Stab them and they barely sigh.

The few words they finally say; with fever rising from throat to
cheeks to eyes to brow, are not to sway, somehow, the powerful.
The short sentences, unpretentious, are the flumes of steam from
a pressure cooker’s only solution for survival.

The righteous machine, maintained and oiled, digs for reasons
in the stomach of the hurting who have died already inside.
In holy metronome the go through the motions, assign
daily prayer potions and leave, two by two, for downtown
and brunch

To talk about themselves and why the silent
never ask to join them for lunch.

Five-Year Plan

Five-Year Plan

(“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Proverbs 28:13)

It was meant to be merely a stroll,
a half hour wandering from shade to sun,
tree to tree,
to let the dust settle. I wrote it down
five years ago: “Take a walk and
sort out your options.”

I stopped.

Or should I say the pain knocked me to my knees,
freezing me in time. I’m
the one who has to fight the hardest
just to keep my darkest deeds at bay;
the weeds that grow from the muddy mind
so certain, yet so unwound. I’ve renounced

My sins

As often as a gardener squeezes the constant roots
from the old-growth hedgerow that hides the flower bed

From view.

It was meant to be a meaningful stroll,
a half hour worshiping in shade and sun,
sturdily
letting the dust settle. I engraved “grace”
in the morning mud: “Watch the sky and
wait for rain’s erase.”

I sighed.

Do You Know Him?

(“Immediately a rooster crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him: ‘Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.’ And he broke down and wept.” Mark 14:72)

It is far too easy to read of Peter’s three denials of even knowing Jesus and assume we would not be so easily swayed. After all, haven’t we already faced the scowl of fellow workers when we do not follow their excesses out of reverence for Christ? Haven’t we felt our tongue grow thick when asked about our faith, and though we stumble through our answer, we would take no thought of actually saying, “Jesus? Never heard of him!”