Go back
Go back to the place you lost
Your courage
The battle
The war with fear
People were never intended
to walk on water/
Raise the dead
It requires things of us
We do not possess
Gravity
A voice to calm the storm
And turn ghosts into this
Man who calms the sea
Twice today I encountered people who expressed their extreme annoyance at service people.
The first situation involved late food and lukewarm fries and the second involved prescriptions at a pharmacy.
The workers of the world were having a tough day.
I was struck by the gumption it takes to tell a stranger off.
Which led me to remember who we do not confront:
When was the last time you berated a pedophile? When was the last time you raised your voice against a rapist? When was the last time you made a stink about child abuse?
I ask because over the last few years I have watched a lot–lots and lots of people be very polite to some pretty bad men.
It seems to be easy to rant at a waiter or pharm tech, but much, much harder to confront real evil.
…at some point, being so very polite to evil might be a sin of its own. A grievous sin of omission.
In the end I decided to meet you
In the same place I found you
A waiting room near bridgewater
I squeeze myself into the Fisher-Price
Playhouse
And wedge myself into the picnic table alcove
Has your life always been this small?
You were Thing One
He was Thing Two
And you whirled in
Nonstop noise
Your first foster mother
Expressed infinite relief
In the space around her eyes
At the imminent prospect of
Handing all 200% of you
To me
I am handing it back.
But since 95% has been
Yours for years now
I give you all that is left:
An expression about turtles and hope
A song about going to town
All the way to town
A pocketful of french fries of indeterminate age and origin
And telling the truth on the one day it mattered.
If I had the picture still
I would be sure to send it to you
The one that survived the fire, your father’s wrath
I know
It is all mythological
Just Zeus
Arguing about what he had for dinner
Who,
Who he had for dinner
Her first words
Carefully recorded by the state of Pennsylvania–
Charles, I am going to kick your ass
Hardly appropriate words for a lullaby
Ask him how your mother lost her
Teeth
Children, like soldiers sewn in a field
You cannot redeem
Yourself
Your life
The smallest act of violence
The crickets and amphibian victims
Of your pitiless mind
Mind your manners broken boy–
Lung cancer is the last stigmatized
Cancer
You say you smoke too much
Too many
Too many victims
Goodbye baby
Read Dante or John
The Beloved for how this will end
Without me.
You used to stand
In the doorway of winter
Receiving the Russian men
With their flowers and words of love
As transparent as their motives
Never letting on
You were a sucker
For their swarthy accents and abundant facial hair
But not that much
That you would fail
To mark each hour of rising light
Not yet
The full Twelve
He speaks of so casually
Before dark.
Unsay me
Uncall my name
Unbraid this coil of hair
Unspeak these things
Unspell these words
Untie this knot
Unhand me, fear
Unbreakable Love
Unquenchable fire
Undo this curse
Under this tree
Unbearable pain
You spoke for me.
The essay appeared to be heartfelt–urging people to brook the barriers of their resistance to organized religion and find a church, any church…because churches do good things.
Do they?
I spent the better part of my (Christian) life believing this. I still do, generally, on principal.
There was one thing missing from the impassioned church essay. One Person, actually.
You should go to church to see Jesus.
You should do everything to see Jesus.
“Christian” means “little Christ.” What happens to us when we excise Christ from our identity? All that is left is the “little” in us.
It is not easy to follow Jesus. Recently I gave a dramatic depiction of Jesus to someone who would definitely identify as a believer. This person rejected my gift with forthright disgust.
Did not actually watch the DVD….
I thought, huh…not an unusual reaction really.
How many of us would dare stand at the foot of his disfiguring Cross? How many of us have the courage to identify with our naked, broken, bloodied Savior?
I am a terrible Christian, unwashed and unlovely. But no one said redemption would be pretty.
Just absolutely essential for life
Eternal life.
The story goes like this:
A woman who owes a great debt to Jesus takes her expensive dowry perfume and breaks it, then pours it over his head.
The scent wafts throughout the house. Beautiful, costly, extravagant.
She weeps and wipes his feet with her tears.
Humbling, intimate, kinda embarrassing.
Onlookers don’t get it.
Jesus does. He is the ultimate gift of love, she responds with the next dearest thing she possesses.
Because he has returned life to her.
Because he has redeemed her soul.
We have an impulse to scramble either to embrace or evade the expectations of our “love holiday.”
Perhaps we don’t need to do either.
Perhaps we already possess the most priceless gift of love–a perfume born of sacrifice and redemption.
More satisfying than chocolate, far more enduring than cut blooms.
The cost and burden of love is a Man who pours out the only life he has for us.
I have a theory about all of this–overpriced roses, fancy chocolates, even costly French perfumes are all nice, but the real symbols of love are often more like the tears at his feet–baby wipes, paper towels, mops, and detergent.
Often it is the daily, ordinary sacrifices we make, the humble and invisible things we do without any glory whatsoever, which in the end define love…
in the shadow of his Cross.
Carrying Light 