Prayer By The Back Door

When I think on my ways,
I turn my feet to your testimonies  
~Psalm 119: 59

This threshold, this morning floor,
and all the heels about to part
from here are dear to you. 
You know our skip and jump,
our step and stumble-stump

and by hesitance or haste
we know the rap and rustle
of your gait.  Whether in a dell
or on a mound, may your
footfall be a welcome sound.

We confess, our toes have trod
on others—forgive our trespass,
as also we forgive.  In the midst
of break or blister, splinter, sprain
or twist, may we find rest.

We falter at this door until
we fall on you.  Turn our paths
to your statutes, give life to arch
and ankle, pursue your servants’
feet; we hasten and do not delay. 

Let A Rose

Let a rose be all things beautiful and true; let the rain be you.
Let a button be forbearance; let your blouse
be faded blue. 
Let a shoelace be repentance;
let me stop and tie my shoe.
Let a rose be all things beautiful and true.

Let a rose be all things beautiful and true; let a sigh be you.
Let a button be forgiveness; let your fingers
push it through. 
Let a shoelace be a promise;
let me double knot my shoe.
Let a rose be all things beautiful and true.

Elephant

The elephant, the thick-heavy wrinkle,
Shows no movement. 
He stands in the room like a defendant.
Like boots put in a box, he may not walk again. 

I’d like to read, or watch TV, but there he is. 
The crushed sofa, the love seat—
There’s no place to be. 
So, busily, we make the elephant a pet;

Busily, busily we ignore and he remains. 
Once, I reach around him.
Twice, you try to find me and (I know)
There’s almost-absolutely-no-one there. 

The ghost of my shadow tells you
To not worry the beast,
To not even think of mice or make a move
That might disrupt the elephanty peace. 

And though we want to forgive,
We cannot forget HIM. 
So, we go on tiptoe while he stands there:
A sad sturdy brow and four enormous feet.

On Disagreement

These bricks, in our hands,
rise up like storms to wreck our plans
on disagreement—to lay up, or pull down?  
These mortar joints and tools
break the arms of worker-fools.
For us, there is no harbor in this town.

If bricks could attest,
They’d raise a cairn to our unrest;
This post would tell of work yet to be done.
It can only point the way
back to where we quit the fray.
For us, there is no haven from the sun.

These bricks build choices;
they raise questions without voices.
The answers are chisels on a stone.
Bricks can compromise;
they won’t bruise or get black eyes!
For us, deals are made of flesh and bone.

These bricks will destroy—
rise up like lonely in a boy—
while, ignorant, I try to keep my life.
…we can build…we can rise…
there is time to gain the prize.
For us, the shelter stone is in the strife.

cairn: a marker, often a pile of stones

Quotations: Forgiveness

From the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  The character John Ames (a 77 year old pastor) reflects on his struggle to forgive his godson (the son of his pastor friend).  He has previously described his godson as mean.

…I spent the time thinking how it would be if Jack Boughton [John Ames's godson] were indeed my son, and had come home weary from whatever life he had, and was sitting there still and at seeming peace in that peaceful night.  There was a considerable satisfaction in that thought.  The idea of grace had been so much on my mind, grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials.  There in the dark and the quiet I felt I could forget all the tedious particulars and just feel the presence of his mortal and immortal being.  And a sensation came over me, a sort of lovely fear…(read more)

Letter To Joel Osteen

A revision of my poem previously titled Suffering: A Poem To Joel Osteen.

Joel Osteen, you are a champion.
Even your name is like esteem.
You are reassuring, unable to offend,
and I cannot help but like you.
Yet I wonder,
where do you put pain?
You seem to manage headaches
and American depression,
but what about big suffering,
like that mentioned
in Hebrews five, verse seven?
Are people who obey God always happy
and content?  Sinless Jesus
learned obedience
by what he underwent.

Well meant are your admonitions.
You believe in good decisions,
and in Jesus, by whom promises are given.
Don’t forget, as Christians
we confess best intentions
as hankerings to be a mannequin
or a magician.
Listen, one pastor said,
you’ll know you’ve encountered God
when you limp.
We are inexorable. Happiness feels foreign.
Oh, to be sleek like plastic,
to live with faith-expectant…
if only our ragged souls
were not so bent.

Words are power, but we don’t hear them.
Coaxing can’t turn us, we must be caught!
We have a worship problem.
We won’t receive a gift
until our hands are shaking.
Ask the poet, ask Bob Dylan—
behind every beautiful thing
there is persistent aching.
Where are your sick, your sad,
your malcontents?
We read your books
to become smooth and stiff.
Prop us up behind plate glass,
we want to be convinced.
But we must ask ourselves:

do we love the poor;
do we pay attention?
Imagine we visit the slums of Kolkata
with Mother Theresa.
All of us are smiling.
She sees the people.
We look at them.
We stand straight, full of promise.
She is crooked
from leaning into their faces.
We want to help them,
but we’re stuck in our position.
The masses are borne up
by her cracks and creases;
gleaming teeth shame them.

So let’s close our mouths for a season.
You may have built an empire
on your congenial smile,
but what we really need
is to put on desperation.
Do you want us to be like you
or be forgiven?
Idols fall.  People get bruised.
But that can help us
to stop encouraging belief
in a god who gives his best
only to those who follow
the rules.
That god is ruthless.
And his face is never at rest.

Broken

Between us, on a tabletop of glass,
a working hand becomes a hammer.

A man wants his way.
He won’t take no.

Blood, though not spilled, boils.
Shards ring out and sing

the ways we will not mend—
how the heart, like a fractal,
repeats a pattern of breaks
and splits when magnified.

My heart rages.  It pushes blood
along a crooked line of strife

until I heed the rattle-crack
and attend the bang of anger.

The embittered rackets rise until
the broken pieces lay at rest between us.

The Violence Bearer

3.  The Violence Bearer

To recap, there is no virtue in me that changed the meaning of violence in my life.  But there is Jesus, who was subjected (in humble reliance on his Father’s goodness and loving-kindness) to the collective brutality of every sin.  On the cross He absorbed every violence that ever was, and ever would be.  By doing this he enabled the forgiveness of every sin (past, present, and future) for everyone who would call on him for forgiveness.

After all, every violation of God’s good law is ultimately against God and his son Jesus (and the Holy Spirit).  The historical figure of King David makes this very clear in his response to the prophet Nathan’s rebuke of him for killing Uriah and taking Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.  (Continue…)