Ghost Child

To be clear you are all grown up now and living somewhere as I try yet again to excise what you have done to us all from pictures of beautiful children.

You were

You are a dangerous male child

But what you will be

Is mountains told to throw themselves

Into the Sea.

Mark 11:22-23 NIV

[22] “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. [23] “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.

Apophenia

I pull the elephant ears out of the water, one and then a handful and then none for awhile, risking dead fish and live snakes to find you. At dinner the little boy asks what miscarriage is and my answer is accurate but brief because why tell a little boy about lost siblings and the trees grown in their place or the way that forgetting is not better than carrying this

This memory of you dark, indelible angel, in the midst of all I hold dear.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act

The Congress of the United States passed by an overwhelming margin an act authorizing the US embassy in Israel be located in its capital–Jerusalem…during Clinton’s presidency.

He refused to sign it.

We decided this as a representative democracy more than 20 years ago.

70 years after the birth of the modern state of Israel and 73 years after the end of the Holocaust.

The Common Era

We name the fox Kristofferson after the character in the Wes Anderson movie. He sticks to the shadows but when he emerges you know it is him–not a cat or stray dog, too vulpine to be anything else and we are worried because the kittens are in the woods somewhere while their mother is out.

What can I do?

Leave the children in the running car? Leave the headlights on? Turn on the flashlight? Stomp through the tall grass into no-man’s-land? Keeping eye contact with him all the while? As if I could just scare him off from where the young ones are?

…pray they survive the night.

One

Matthew 1:1 NIV

[1] This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Matthew seems pretty confident that Jesus is the Messiah, a word with so much power to reckon with us and all that has captured us that I am not sure how big or long or loud our explanations of Messiah could be and still be only an approximation of the real.

Some synonyms: King, Anointed, Savior, Redeemer, Ransomer, Hero, Deliverer, Protector

The Reckoner.

To Govern the Night

The moon recites the prayer with me, tethered to a God who never sleeps Our Father, who art in heaven…where does the slivery-thin-orange moon go when it passes below the shoulder of the hill? To all the other insomniacs…hallowed be thy name…indeed You hear me, Maker of that smoke wisp moon, Maker of the metonymy of darkness, a body can rob a body of light until You are here …Thy kingdom come…thy will be done…among the sleepless…on earth as it is in heaven.

His face shine upon you

Numbers 6:22-27 NIV

[22] The Lord said to Moses, [23] “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: [24] “ ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you; [25] the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; [26] the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. ” ‘ [27] “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

Small Prophets

Sometimes I can hear them through the digital quilt of my son’s smartphone, San Antonio songbirds not unlike the full-throated prophets I hear in the backyard, not minor prophets, like Micah or Nahum, although come to think of it these would be good names for the night birds. No. They are small, easily overlooked, not altogether heard which leads me to my theory about Isaiah, not a minor prophet at all but must’ve wanted to be for awhile in the naked days when his voice competed with the spectacle of it all–ordinary-man-naked, not rendered complete until the blood-and-agony Redeemer he sang about

Proves true.

A.D.

Matthew 28:5-7 NIV

[5] The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. [6] He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. [7] Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”