What Will it Take?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another.” John 13:34

I know it is quite fashionable for Christian writers to point out the failings of the modern “First World” church. The failings are not easy to miss. We are easily attracted to big buildings, flashy productions of worship, political rhetoric and self-indulgent prayer. We measure success by numbers. We attract the world with Broadway-style flash. We stack our literature tables with booklets telling exactly who is “in” and who is “out” in every election.

Uninvented

Uninvented

(“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.” Titus 2:11)

The skin is good, the seeds are fine, the pulp delicious,
the juice refreshing, the crunch awakening. The first bite
is elegant, luxury for less than a dime. The last bite a solid
goodbye,
an expectation of the next fresh taste of the sweetest flavor
uninvented by the hands of man.

So why do you take the most exquisite of creation,
the imago dei, the crown and the glory, the decadence of God
wrapped corruptible human skin; why do you divide,
red and blue, dull and wise, your personal preference
for round and open eyes? Why would you insult at all

The greatest antecedent artwork which exists at all,
skin and bone, by the breath of God alone;

And whose every ideation is a gift, thought and wonder,
from the God of grace, the Lord of thunder.

Why would you divide such sacred fruit and art?

Pesky

Pesky

Listen to the squeak of the windmill,
the small one, the wrought iron black blades
turning with the wind vane’s direction.
Let it become the rhythm in your brain,
the top layer of thought and ideation.

Do you follow its whining to discover the source;
Search nearby roofs and fences, abandon your chores?

(For, we have all hated that moment, like a foul fly
we could kill with the slightest pressure, who still buzzes
about our faces unfazed; a miniaturized bully. Its
distraction becomes our obsession. Nothing well be
complete
until rid the room of the bug. The pest becomes
pestilence in a mere moment.)

Compelled by the nagging squeal, the squeaky wheel
begs my full attention. With so much to do, so many
neurons to fill with messages to my feet to walk,
my arms to bend, my fingers to tap the end of my shovel
I’ve carried the whole way searching for this siren.
How, while the synapses fire the words for my writing,
can I be so uninvited the list of five primary tasks that
I chase the fan-like hum of some propeller clasped by
the roofline of an attic.

Shall I say, at the end of the day, that nothing was accomplished,
and what I began at the beginning still waited in my office
at midmorning with coffee
by the time the wind stopped at evening; the evidence
retreated, the source of the squeak silent as pre-storm,
save for the whirring that stayed in my head.

The Life Oozed

The Life Oozed

(“Then Jesus shouted, ‘Lazarus, come out!’” John 11:43)

For ten minutes the life oozed between the molecules
of a well-ripened apple. Tasting like honey and
summer hay,
headaches (always invisible), ceased their
unwelcome battering upon my door.

(Do you know the sort of caller,
usually a friend, who climbs your front porch
and pounds the door like a boxer working the bag?
“I needed to ask you a question,” as if I was in the
back quarters of a mansion giving last minute instructions
to the servants about the banquet’s menu later in the day.
Then you watch them drive away, wishing they had known
you were in the front room of your bungalow with the
television turned low.)

For ten minutes life tasted like rain and thunder,
dog’s breath and wonder, all ready to go to waste
unless enjoyed before the bruises on the apple
remind you of the cycle
of the seed’s death and the fruit’s life,
of the fruit’s death and the seed’s burial,
inedible until the season circles again.

For half a week the tomb gobbled God’s own
possession,
dead and stiff, wrapped tighter than a cocoon,
a cadaver too soon. Yet, just like the
tiny pellets the size of hatpins, packed full
of all the life necessary to raise a tree to the sky,
lading its branches with fruit dangling so low
the children reach the sweet orbs of joy,
and springing new buds for decade upon
decade; like that tiny inkling, an ugly
kernel that seems a harlequin of death;

The body of Lazarus waits on the word
that calls life from the haphazard meeting of
husks and grain, mud and water, sunshine and
wind to paint the fields with wildflowers
and fruit trees without the help of a single
human finger.

The body of Lazarus, the body of us all,
depends upon the shout, the call to rise,
and rise it must

For it is the Creator who calls.

Sunsets and Fawns

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” John 11:25

I meet each Wednesday afternoon with a group of teenagers. Any middle school or high school student is welcome to join me at “Pop with Pastor”. I spring for drink for all who show up and we usually just have conversation for 45 minutes or so. We will talk about everything from our favorite milkshake flavor to the latest “drama” happening on campus. Occasionally we even get to mumble a bit about spiritual things. More than a “teaching” time, it is simply a way to make myself accessible; and just rounding the bend to 60, I need their input as well!

Great Gain!

“But godliness with contentment is a great gain.” 1 Timothy 6:6

Several years ago we pastored a church within five miles of a gambling casino. An occasional attendee once said to me, “Pastor, I hope I win a million dollars at the casino. Wouldn’t the tithe on that help our little church!” As far as I knew, she had not given a tithe of her normal income. Ironically, a few years later, she won a $50,000 payout and it was reported in the areas newspapers. The church never received a penny.

Now: One through 6

Now: One through 6

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11

Overnight the heat gave way to cool and sweet break of day;
the sighs slowed, the groans lower than the pain they
displayed until waking faded away. Had I another choice,
another pasture to roam,
I would find freer green, warmer sod, a happy flock
without an axe to grind.

But I am now, I am here. I am the center with a radius
of a half hour in any direction. Most days the circle is split
at only 100 yards. Pain is the rusty nail that has secured my head
to the pillow on this bed. I cried day, before the pain invaded without
a word of invitation, or a note from its mother. I count them down
each November:

1 year, 2. 3 years, now 4. Five (no, not 5), and now six without
relief. The hammer hit the nail the moment my body was splayed
spread eagle and defenseless. Invisible wounds from nuclear weapons
chinking the aluminum foil armor, the only defense I had left.

I had men who called themselves shepherds. But they spoke abused
and drove us, berated us and drove us to the edge of town with
a gift certificate to Red Lobster and said “have a good life, God
bless your endeavors.” And, before we were seated for our last
Valentine lunch, these ranch-hands called the management to
convince them we were not worth the serving. Now how much
were that gift certificate and holy word worth?

I am bored, and 7 years angry, for shepherds who would wound
the sheep who only wanted a place to call home.

I would have walked away, I know You know that,
if it were not for a Shepherd so Good, that despite the artillery
whistling overhead, not only lead me, but surrounded me,
as I had been de-gunned at the border. Helpless, hopeless,
heartless and tears less valuable for their volume, I still
sing the pain in overwrought screeches.

And yet, for my protests, my anger, my betrayals,
my deft portrayal as more innocent than any knows,
You chose to lay it all down, to be thrust into the ground,
rusty nail-spiked into the wood, and the silly gold crosses we wear
should carry the blood of the only One who Cared more about
healing the nearly dead than investigating their sins and diagnosing
the cause of their pain.