Waving Us

Waving Us

(“And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Mark 3:23)

When light stands up displacing the haunts of darkness
and
the rivers flow solid with richer healing than imagination,

Why do you still ignore your Creator?

When a night of certain-death is redeemed with a Word of forgiveness
and
a stone is moved like mere liquid from a tomb’s gaping mouth,

Why do you still resist your Rescuer?

But some still can see a shadow with crisp lines early afternoon
and insist there is no sun to make them.
And others will never, (evidence aside), believe, crucified,
the Man rose alive while earth was shaken.

And so darkness wrestles grayness,
sickness wrestles faintness.
The forgiven walk ashamed,
the Risen One remains the Anointed One
the Right Hand Man, whose wounds still bear
the scars of love’s best wager.

Demons scream at His name, and we still dabble
in our darkrooms hoping to discover the germ that
started it all.

Or we steady ourselves by our daytime labors,
our professions and provisions making sense of
the calm that comes before the final call.

He sits on the shore with breakfast
already baking, waving us shoreward;
He sits on the throne with mercy
already won, pointing us homeward

If we will walk in the light; creation’s best invention,
and redemption’s best intention; once (then, there, here, now)
for all. The strength of love revisited awaits
the next open moment, the silent solace of grace.

A Star Will Come

A Star Will Come

(“I see someone who will come someday, someone who will come, but not soon. A star will come from Jacob; a ruler will rise from Israel.” Numbers 24:17a)

I have lost friends along the way like crumbs falling off
a white chocolate scone. Some are buried by time,
faces fading from memories. The first time ever I
saw your face
is how we listened to each other’s’ movement. But,
the last time ever I
saw your face
we ate burgers at Denny’s and talked shop.
Some are time’s possession.

Some have dropped at latest weakness, with each
new mistake I make
new heartbreak unwraps the comfort
of ageless friends who now are better than
I ever was. I have no defense, what they have heard
(or observed) is probably true. Although, one thing
I would note,
that what they hear is not
all the truth.
Some are my transgressions.

Some I have left in other states, though
part of the same Union,
too many state lines make for loss of breath
for people at our age. The hurdles have grown,
the route is longer. So from Baltimore to Minneapolis,
Chicago to Dallas, Sacramento mostly and
the East Bay I love; I’m in a corner that no one
passes through on the way to another.
Some are my vacations.

Some have left me like children turning over a rock
lying atop nearly melted ground; and having found
ugly bugs, earthworms and slimy colonies of
we-should-have-known, and having thrown the
stone in disgust at my feet, discuss my biography
like book clubs chewing through chapters.
Some are my repentance.

Some new have entered my breakfast routine,
though I am slow to open anything beneath my
wrinkling skin.
I carry my failures where no one can see,
but believe me, they are my closest companions
(when I know they shouldn’t be)

I cannot wait for someone to come,
a star on the horizon, a scepter over my scars,
when my sins and your sins,
my memory and your assertions

Are the zero-sum of the next step,
while listening to some vinyl like we used to do
all summer.

What the Sliver Sees

What the Sliver Sees

(“Son of man, the ones living in these ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land, but we are many; surely the land has been given to us for a possession.’” Ezekiel 33:24)

The moment our numbers reach a peak, our towers loom above the
jet streams that streak across the sky; the moment we’ve made a million,
counted the membership fuller than a beehive; Pride

Is the slight breath that blows our towering egos to totter and sway
the way an elephant on skates loses momentum, and cannot find
gravity’s center for the life of him.

Hand me my profit, today’s bottom line is higher than yesterday.
Hand me my commission, I’m ready to spend it now
and next year the same. Watch the graph point to the sun,
we’ve added on and jammered on, led interested buyers on
enlightening tours of exactly how to build it better with nothing more

Than staying late to close accounts and learn a handbook full of
redefinitions. And, I’m happy to say, the building is still bustling,
the roof is renewed and the money keeps flowing through
the front door into the anxious pockets that own everything they see.

But a handful smell the tar that constantly fills the holes,
a sliver see the misdirection that keeps the bodies inside the building
so those who enter are counted with the exiting and reports are doubled
like lightning.

There is a new creation that never aspires to awards and plaudits,
but, in horizontal architectures, builds across the boundaries that
counted some in with money to spend, and some out until near the
end of another business day. A new creation enwrapping every
block on the street, bum on the avenue, executive at the bus stop;
every junk shop, swap meet, back street and front row seat. A
New Creation where everyone’s view is the best view in the house.

The walls are sand now, fortifications unemployed. The guntowers
and turrets
are belfries and steeples now; the sales charts ripped from the wall
while
new songs older than creation fill the hearts and throats of all
willing to love bridges more than the
barricades of yesterday.

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

The Spirit Poured out Upon All and Certain Jealousies

(“Teach me how to live to please you, because you’re my God. Lead me by your blessed Spirit   into cleared and level pastureland.” Psalm 143:10 {The Message})

Now  the last phone call I received was well-intentioned,
but I have a view from another side of the mountain,
If I speak as I see, acknowledging the focus of the other’s scene,
everything can be disremembered and spread like stale smoke and perfume
until my observation is dissolved as completely as the last bubble
in old champagne.

If you looked at my heart carefully, microscopically, carefully,
a quarter century ago; you know before the first peek; you hear
it speak in healthy rhythm, and you would doubt any deficit of
love or
surrender,
sprint or
marathon;
though the breath may be heavy, and the mistakes plenty,
you would find only the few healed scars from crashing
friends and cars in laughter afterward.

Examine again the intention. Listen once more for the intonation.
Hear the songs resound off the walls, and give slow devotion to
the wafted savor of fewer or two who sing outside the encampment.

Like Moses who could not
care less
that 70 prophesied around the temple
and two within the marketplace; and only wished
that all and complete,
the Spirit would fill, and splash, and gush and flash
like tropical thunder from every heart before or after

Human inspection.

A Little Dusting and Pruning

A Little Dusting and Pruning

(“You know that the day after tomorrow is the day of the Passover Feast. On that day the Son of Man will be given to his enemies to be crucified.” Matthew 26:2)

If the earth had stopped turning, or something even stranger,
we would have noticed it more than the posthole dug
on a Friday morning
awaiting the mixed sounds of mobs and mourning.

Like a thread wound round the earth, a thousand times and more,
the inner coils of an electric motor, the strands have surrounded the
inner core. And so, seas and continents are touched by the cruelest hoax
man thought he had ever devised.

The surefire method to rid the world of madman prophets is to
kill their sorry message with the breaking of their bones and heart.
And, so many succumbed to angry passion, some drank their own poison,
and followers fell at their feet, then drifted, then disappeared like rain clouds
that threatened a month of monsoons.

But, the One, the Son of Man was put down the same way by enemies
who grew religion alongside their houseplants in the windows.
A little water, a little dusting and pruning the dead growth just before
company comes; a faith well-suited for entitled classes who need a way
to keep the masses abated.

But truth is longer than potting soil, heaven deeper than pop-song worship.
And so, before the event upon the next dark Friday, perhaps a child would
kick a clod unknowingly
into the posthole made ready for a dead trunk of a tree
to root for a day while its fruit hung, and slowly dropped in agony.

Few call it victory, all know its name; Calvary, a skull-place is where
hate and sin were defaced by death. For, when He breathed His last,
gave up the spirit and said, “Father, into Your hands
I commit my Spirit”, he carried, in all his ugly scars,
every wound of the world to healing. Yet, unregarded by many,

There are still those who, supposing control is better than conversion,
tend their houseplant daily, keep up appearances, and sway the masses
to war. The Prince of Peace still is weeping.

Know the Fire

Know the Fire

(“Order the People of Israel to bring you virgin olive oil for light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually.” Leviticus 24:2)

Once the dust has cleared,
once the tables have turned,
once the night fog has lifted,
once the lessons have been learned

We may see the fire, we may see the fire,
we may feel the flame, and sing with every
citizen and alien, the light eternal
is climbing higher.

Once the guns have stopped,
once the arrows are sheathed,
once the cannons are silent,
once the truth has been believed

We may feel the fire, we may feel the fire,
we may see the flame, and dance at every
neighborhood and boundary, the light concentric
began the choir.

Don’t settle for less
when the deserts bloom.
Don’t keep up the battle
where war is entombed.
Wait for the valleys to rise,
watch for mountains to fall.
Lay down your armor, your shields,
your thrones and quarterly yields.
The day has arrived for divides
to learn from bridges and
home-light to be the newest general address.

We will know the fire, we will know the fire,
we will give the flame, and share with every
loyalist and objector, the existent light
is kindling desire.

Nor Bathed, Nor Washed

Nor Bathed, Nor Washed

(“This is the first and most important commandment.” Matthew 22:38)

Wetness never surrendered our sins, nor bathed, nor washed
them.
A chanted prayer or babbled tongue never broke the ceiling,
revealed the spoken faces or reassigned the thirsty graces
to the needy-not-us.
A whirling grandchild is not the Spirit’s toy,
divine words are not playthings to conjure a win
or a raise,
hide my sin or drop the haze upon my exposure.
The best for me and the slight for you,
the blessing upon my brow while it must be the cursed
who cannot pay the rent or
who have tsunamis sent to wake the dead. I love
my religion, my old songs, sawdust and drum kits
all within the hearing of the hungry who do not
know how to clean their houses or their children,
who swipe their paper-thin soles upon the newly-laid
carpet. (Will you sit here, closer to the door, and maybe
we won’t have to replace quite as much flooring.)

I’m the worst, I’ve just rehearsed my compassion.

Loving up and loving down, embracing light, enwrapping sound,
carousels of words, morsels of moments we hope will please
the deity we’ve become.

Oh holy and glory, all truth and only All who leaves
no space vacant in Your Fullness; who leaves no heart
empty in Your With-ness; let my witness be, my reality
the
elite thrones torn down and shattered, replaced
by
a simple and slightly tattered shirt from the back
of my closet
that I wear when I visit my
closest friends.