Rand's Glimmerings

What God is not saying

2009-03-06T16:58:00.001-08:00

Somewhere, somehow God is connecting everything --
can you hear the music?
even right now.

God is not saying: tell it, tell it, tell it
the words he speaks are heard
even if we are mute or sleeping

or stupid as usual.
Does the snow wait for you to fall?

Slumber, or get up to achieve
with something to show them all on paper,
prize your dust if you like

The big finish is already finished
enjoy, sing along
put on your headphones
and turn it up
you never wrote this song

Rejoice.

1001 Sanctuary Dreams

2009-02-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

We bring in the college gospel choir, a few hundred strong -- faces shining like Mary on her big night -- like Moses on his way back down the mountain, irrevocably aglow, kids like 19, like 20, calling us into the harmony, into that voice that speaks it into being, draws us up and in younger and younger... and wow I can't believe what I'm hearing

We call in the dance crew -- their electric limbs, lightning-flash fast and flowing up and down the aisles all over the floor until it's pulsing through your own veins... the rooms full of peks and shoulders and stomachs and arms hands fingers feet thumping blood through your dreary, weary stone... let out a moan... from the heart you have not known... let them fly great fleshy distances, let life rush, radiant God all a - flush, oh what have I done, O beautiful for spacious skies and hips and thighs... boo-hoo for you if you miss this chance to be shaking with God inside the pants of the new creation... let all God's people say what on earth?

And please let me be the DJ... turn it up loud Capt. okay Bono will do until it's blaring... until no one can stand to sit any longer, until their all dancing, all looking and seeing there is no ceiling, there is no ground beneath their feet... there are no walls, there never ever were... let the open mouth of Eden sing... glory ring... dear God let me live only as a worshiping thing... there among the throng, inside your song... crying til we laugh how long how long how long...

Epiphany

2009-01-05T14:57:00.001-08:00

An epiphany is... An appearance or manifestation of a deity -- God showing up out of nowhere.

A sudden, intuitive perception or insight into reality or the essential meaning of something usually initiated by some simple, commonplace occurrence -- something seemingly ordinary happens and then... pow!... you're never the same again.

A day -- January 6, 1929 - when Mother Teresa, a young compassionate nurse answers "a call," arrives in Calcutta to begin her work among India's poorest people.

A time when Magi, lovers of the stars, people whose wisdom consisted in their willingness to search, to follow their longings as far as they would lead them... Magi were led, known and found and given a light to pursue... the outsiders made their way in to show the insiders who and how to worship... they surrendered their careful thinking, fell on their knees, poured out extravagance and in the deep silence knew what could never be understood.

Epiphany is an opportunity for you, a searcher, my dear one, to rediscover the revelation that you are to this world... ordinary and magical... a chance to share the rarest, finest prize -- insert name here... to open the gift of the silent present... and See.

Sight and Silence, Randy

The Palomino Stallion -- Alden Nowlan

2009-01-04T20:07:00.000-08:00

Though the barn is so warm
that the oats in his manger,
the straw in his bed
seem to give off smoke —

though the wind is so cold,
the snow in the pasture
so deep he'd fall down
and freeze in an hour —

the eleven-month-old palomino stallion
has gone almost crazy
fighting and pleading
to be let out.

Lioness

2009-01-04T15:16:00.000-08:00

I found the perfect picture for my desktop. For the longest time it had been a brightly lit shot of a stream trickling through a snowy forest. I kept losing the icons among the frosted twine of twigs. It was at first rather soothing, an invitation to peace. But after a while I found that spring running contrary to so much transpiring.

But this one right here... She's a beauty looking out over the muted horizon... a vision of waiting, hunger, contentment, natural equanimity? It is one of those black and whites that is in no way black or white and all of it so soft and unassuming, the vast African prairie bone-dry-field far as far away... brushed near and drab and seamless in sky and cloud and sunray, soft as her fur, soft and nondescript enough to be real.

Whether at peace or starving, at rest or aching to the core, facing dawn or days ending, the approaching light of East, surrendered to the West, I do not know. Nor does she.

Alive as the indiscernible hum that animates the screen, she lives silently in front of me, a lioness.

For now, ready to pounce in the next moment or pine on for another 1000 years, stalking or stalked, shot sharp to the marrow of a vital kill or soothed to stay long again and still, for now this one will do... this creature, this vision, that is, until, until...

Prepare Him Room...

2008-12-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

It came back to me this morning... just on the heels of telling Jill how, despite the delicious energy boost I get from morning coffee, it does pose a challenge at times. Before I "know it" I'm flying down the mental highway, completely in my thoughts, strapped in to the vehicle of an idea, a scenario... sometimes I love where these take me and then other times I find myself working ahead or obsessive about some potential problem or difficulty. The more clearly my mind paints the picture , the more I feel the pain, frustration, fear... Then, gratefully, I snap "out of it"... or back into the present. I shake it off wondering if we really need to have Starbucks every day of the week.
Well, anyway... it came back to me this morning, this invitation from Eckhart Tolle -- inviting me to listen to the quiet. The suggestion was to enter the present more fully by listening to silence, considering how despite its no-thingness... silence is a kind of fullness, a spaciousness that gives all other sound and stirring -- a place to be. To turn our attention into the depths of silence is to reach out for the presence of God -- the one whose present presence... envelops us, embraces us, offers a home in which to live.
What came back to me was this mantra... Silence without, stillness within.... each time I allow it to return me to the open spaces, it feels like a gift. I thought about that this morning and immediately felt like sharing it.
So, this Christmas -- to people like us and all those mired in the fears and frenzies of daily living, I commend this little mantra: Silence without, stillness within.... Silence without, stillness within.... may it help to create space for you, a place for peace and new life to be born.
I bless you all... with the kiss of Christ.
Merry Christmas

painful and glorious

2008-11-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

How glorious it is - and also how painful - to be an exception.

--Alfred de Musset

2008-11-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

"Prayer is dreaming in league with God..."

Thank you Heschel

open your present

2008-11-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

... each moment is a gift

Open

Your

Present

(haiku)

2008-10-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

If you think you can,
brace yourself against this Wind--
til foolish, you fly.

For my niece... Oh, That Kid...

2008-06-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

Oh that kid...

Bring it on!...

complete dark unpredictable
unfathomable depth
cause I've got this
light...
she's a real being
just about 60 some odd miles away
with some pavement and stoplights, a Starbucks,
three or four towns, a speck on the map
a broad swath of land in between --

a surface I can move across
among a million trees with names, duney mounds
and sand, a lake to either side
and a river or 2 --
that's really all there is between us.

Soon she'll be getting into a car
maybe even barefoot on a summer day with just enough gas
winding along a prayer, a long boyfriend walk and talk for practice and a song
blinking a few times and pulling into my driveway
into my life with its

shadowy, cool constriction,
every offbrand sham
I've accepted as the prize --
till she rushes in with the bright smiling news
I've got it! I found it! Here it is!

... but for now I'll rest in the premonition
completely aware that

I've got this life -- in mine.
She's living out there ...
discovering, dreaming, putting it on pages for people to hear
my niece showing the world who knows what
opening hearts, hers first, stepping into the tall
timeless dance with God, swaying, saying
oh that kid --
bring it on, bring it on

It feels good

2008-03-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

It feels good to feel good and
that is why I am feeling bad
about feeling bad when I do.

I'll be worried if you worry, my
own might even become a concern, because
I know for a fact that one
needs to feel free to feel free
and when we can or when we
do those around us feel free too
-- to feel good about feeling good, left
to wonder what wondering on that all
day long might do.

Cheese Please

2008-02-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

Cheese please.

I've had my meat -- too bloody chewy, red death in a faraway
place, air freight made straight to the plate -- no thanks.

But Cheese, creamy life in wheels and shavings, oozing out
the sides, spread it on my days while I strain to hear that sacred mooing.

Cheese please, with a history of a life well lived one slice
at a time, that could've been curd, stayed cool in a cup all
clotted up -- plopped into the ripe-center of my melon
mornings or chilled in a glass, cold milk, that's class, drink
thick white love one sip at a time and leave it on your lip.

Cheese please... with the cow left in it and her long summer
day musings, the farmer with dreams of catnap's after lunch
and the sprawling yard with muddy clumps, the carpets of teaming
grass they lived on, the birds flying blessings overhead breathing blue
into their lungs, their lives, my cheese, my glorious cheese.

Big-city fun

2007-07-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

ON THE BIKE PATH

2007-06-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the message of evening in
early summer: watchful are those who see,
live as the Holy one you are.
Sunset comes early with a front
from the West.
I drive through the drying stream
of some old dogs urine --
some good mornings lappings
left over.
Weeds dry tawdry in tumbles,
flowers waft wild intoxication
and I notice to revere
the sweet attentive struggle
of an inchworm
on the bike path.

What holds us to the earth?

2007-05-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Waves

2007-05-13T20:24:00.000-07:00

Innumerable,
hushing in soft -- I see that
giving is God's way

Green

2007-05-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

Spring field rising up
with a spirit hand, waving
light in shades of green

Parting

2007-05-13T20:15:00.002-07:00

Let these be my parting words: I hated loving you.
Always have. Always will.
I'm not going to say it hurts, not going to talk
about feelings -- never had a feeling in my life actually.
Goodbyes just as good as hello.

And this partings got me thinking about all
of those unfortunate people with their
connection, affection,
finding, binding, bonding, losing, grieving, mending, moving on.
Nine ways at least to waste one's vitality.

I'll loath the silence before the last words
we say to each other, and all of the predictable tears
over limits and why can't things last
and I'll never be the same and it's forever I promise.
I've no use for statements about what things meant,
no patience for what some say they'll always mean
-- in fact, who's got energy for everlasting anything?
Feel it and fling it, I say, I'll not wring out every drop for meaning.

Along the finest stretches, enjoy the road if you must,
look out the window, count the hilltops, kiss the breeze
but handle the brunt when the bend comes.
Wave a hand at what's grand and let go;
permanence is a brand of perpetual boredom.

MY FACE

2007-03-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

I have never seen a face more beautiful than my own --
like it was in the restroom just after noon where I stopped to look,
where I reached for my own eyes
those dark wonders calling out
"come inside, dive in where it's warm and real,
you can stay here."

Those same eyes have traced the lines of lips, the ones
she said once were nearly perfect -- she was almost right --
the ones that live soft around my language, that form words,
that get bit by furious fangs, that hold in what can stink
and soothe and save the souls of millions each of whom have lips --
should I apologize for loving mine most more than any other anywhere?

Sure -- the mirror masks what's pimply inside,
a countenance that's clear as sand, man,
or the sea touched by the light just right revealing glory.
And woe is me, indeed and yes and how, till
Wow and radiant here I am --
in a glance, for a moment,
Sent with moist mouth, deep loving eyes to the mirror
where you and I collide and twirl the blushing world.

Take-home: Every person on this earth should love their own face most and first.

Today a River

2006-12-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

Today I live as an unbroken stream, a river of life. My banks are ceaseless bravery and humility and their harmony guides my movement along moments. The sky turns above, casting shadows, touching and tarrying on while I bubble in the rapids, white-capped with current curling skyward, splashing sound out to the forest universe. Later then, and again with time, my song will quiet and flow like words from a still, speaking heart... "dream, run-effortless, cool the place with seamless peace."

Embrace the grace

2006-12-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

All day I embrace the grace,
no matter where the time or place,
the fullest swell, the faintest trace...
all days, all ways I shall embrace.

2006-11-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

"Put me down!" I scream.
But the one holding me up overhead replies
"Why won't you just let me love you?"

So, like you, I'm given a view from above
though I never asked for it.
And I need to tell you all
it's all so very small
the great big thing you're in
the thing worth killing for
the thing that fuels the fitful night
the thing you won't stop working on
the thing you're convinced you're so close
to mastering, conquering, quieting.
From above its already done,
the Words been spoken, the wide world's body broken,
reassembled, complete as a reverie, with hands and feet.

So be Lifted up
be raised you ancient doors and little ones,
Springs bud falls in a lifetime --
the relentless kingdom comes,
grave lives release from grumbling,
Grace drains unwilling eyes of their darkness.

Look and see
throw not one more stone,
the heart you spare shall be your own
and all there in your midst be found
as God's good dream encircling ' round.

What Eyes Did We Bring?

2006-11-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

What eyes did we bring to the world of the visible?

Those that knew the weight of tears held in the clouds above,
those that saw the space between, the dire divide instead of love?

Were they empty taking notice of the void, counting chasms
rather than fitting places to draft bridges, boardwalk's,
and ways to cross over?

Did they strain and dart about trying to let the demon out
with glory all around, and pain and enemies
and ecstasies and every other real thing?
Did they watch wild and worrisome with darkness in the wings,
were they hungry for the truth, red with thirst for living things.

Or maybe they were full as sky is of blue,
as birds and children are of dreams, as ripe as flight
in the gusty firmament, the ready womb, the open page,
one deep-driving breath of God.

What eyes did we give to the canvas of our lives,
to each other, to the place lit by this other Light?

We gave the ones we had,
the ones we shaped by day and night,
and enjoyed of earth and heaven
what we offered with our sight.

2006-08-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Merrily float in your mediocre boat softly down the mainstream.
Wear your thorny wreath, grind your lonely teeth
and try your best not to scream.
For they'll surely give praises
for all the bland phrases
that moved them not more than a yard,
till with them resigned to soften in spine,
you've drowned all thats vital and holy and hard.

2006-07-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

2006-07-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

Still here, not so still

2006-07-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hello friends...this is not a poem -- it's one of those entries or something... I suppose I'm becoming a better blogger as I go. Or at least I am trying. It has been some time since I last posted.

I do wish this was a poem -- but sometimes inspiration runs like sap through the veins of the tall Vermont Maple's -- or any sweet sister tree... when you see a drop of that good stuff you should go and put your finger to it immediately! Get a taste while you can... you never know when the next one will come.

I discover again tonight, while sipping a delightful scotch, that I'm still handicapped. I was just at a task force on disabilities meeting -- perhaps it is there where I was reminded. If any of you have been wondering such is still the case with me... disabled -- home again from vacation, where I journeyed far into the North -- to a lake I would call superior -- astounding -- where I sat in the tall grass in a chair where my wife placed me down -- not without some struggle -- to sit and rest and inhale the sunset -- to draw it deep into my soul... if I had neglected to do so, I could not have it now here with me as I speak to you, disabled before this computer, remembering where I was -- disabled sitting along the shoreline that could've been heavens... waiting for Jesus to come by -- to make a remark or two about the beauty of the place, to pick me up, to carry me to the water, to disappear into the deep, to find myself breathing as a fish, watching the salmon swim -- knowing their element, calling me out into mine -- out into the deep blue cold waters where Jesus wanted to swim with me inside my soul.

So there's a fresh blog entry for you... I'm still dripping from the experience, still disabled, still sipping scotch, but not quite so still -- come Lord, come now, come again... and let's go swimming.

Twinkle

2006-05-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Twinkle, twinkle Little Star
sing with Lady moons guitar
fill the vast and vacant sky
till all the lonely earth reply

we've heard and sensed your songs deep dream
our children trace the milky stream
with fingers that can point the way
to Heaven's Gate in living day

twinkle Star and twinkle again
glimmer on my now and then
till I am young as morning dew
resolved to twinkle just like you

Rev. Reptile

2006-05-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

Look at Rev. Reptile poised among the clutter on my desk. See what I have tamed by my finest mental taxidermy. Stuffed, calm and harmless with its dangling warrior headdress, I've exorcised the electric demon. The iguana feared since childhood, the crafty colleague, the open question, the undisclosed contingency, the thing I should have thought of, the violating impediment, the person in my way, the velvet green creature is now frozen impotent, now a mere vile paperweight that I can keep my eye on just in case.

Because I remember how, like a thought in the back of one's mind, they will not move, sometimes for hours at a time, like statues with something secret pulsing cold within. And I think I've heard they can sleep like a scheme with their eyes open, wide and waiting for you to look away until the switch, like it happens in a bad dream, the bulb that zaps before it dies and then their on you in the dark, in a power-line snap to the jugular with stony claws reacting at your neck and a high-voltage tail, the convulsive wire giving up the unsuspected storm that gathered for days upon your desktop, that lies inside all lizard's, laity and clergy.

2006-04-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

ABSENT AND WITH US

2006-04-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

The sky was gray all day long on Friday, that's when I wrote most of my sermon. I finished it yesterday morning. The sun was out. I sat in the backyard and I prayed "Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love."

In order to be at our best, in order to survive life's worst... sometimes we need a guide, someone to invite us in to show us how to do what we need to do... with that in mind I offer some of the words of Psalm 31 this morning... and invite you to pray along...

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many-terror all around!-
as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.

Before he was crucified... Before Jesus echoed the psalmist's words from the cross "Into your hands I commit my spirit"... before they stripped him and beat him and crushed a thorny crown into his temples... and laughed and spit and mocked... before the disciples ran off... before one of his own betrayed him... before the crowds cried crucify him... they cried hose ana in the highest Blessed be the one who comes in a name of the Lord... before he entered that great city of Jerusalem among their praises and the waving palms... before he felt the dread of turning and traveling and entering that place, that hour... before his baptism in the Jordan River, before his ministry began, before the signs and wonders and miracles, before the parables, before all of his astounding teachings, before all of that -- Jesus learned the Psalms... He was brought up as a devout Jewish man was brought up. He learned about the law that was handed down to Moses for God's people, he knew their history, the places they had been, the things that had happened -- the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David, he knew the words of the prophets, all of the lessons of the Kings... he knew about the 430 years that Israel waited without an answer from God to be freed from the Egyptian captivity... he knew about their many times and places of exile and dislocation... and he knew the songs and prayer's of his people. Jesus prayer life was shaped by the psalmist...Jesus knew their words... and most importantly he knew all of God's words that had been spoken, and he knew about all of the silences too...

The psalmist prays from a moment, a place of distress -- be gracious to me of Lord, I am in distress... is a problem named, a problem solved? -- -- Sometimes we are in distress... enemies of circumstance surround us, they whisper terror all around us, they conspire -- persons in our lives, problems in our family's, dark, life-threatening prognoses sometimes they conspire together against us, they do it in these ways and in countless other ways -- they plot to take our life and we are overwhelmed by fear... asking, where is God? He must know what is happening, he must care... and if he does surely he must act, he must want to... but so often he does not. We cry out from places of distress and despair and when we do we join the psalmist's... and we join Jesus too, we join the one whose choice was to join us there -- who knew to the most painful extent the experience of being abandoned by God.

We hear the psalmist pray from a place of deep sorrow, feeling the sting of betrayal from those who he loved, grieving the loss of relationship. Despised by his neighbors, shunned by his own, a broken vessel whose life is spent with unconsoled sighing... he mourns the loss of what was, the loss of what might have been, the psalmist mourns from a place of isolation and despair. Sometimes we do too... sometimes we take our wheelchairs down the streets of Saugatuck and people stare and well-meaning moms and dads pull their children back, away from us... sometimes those who see me in the street flee from me.... and sometimes they say hey aren't you Jill Smits husband? Sometimes we are blue... truly blue -- truly poor in spirit -- disenchanted, discouraged, overwhelmed -- and in those moments don't we sometimes have the wish that the whole world were blue right with us...

As a young man I remember holy week experiences... we celebrated Maundy Thursday Last Supper and for several years, when that evening came I can remember feeling like I wanted the weather to be miserable, I wanted it to rain, I even wanted it to storm, I had the desire for God to set the stage for grieving, for lamentation, for sadness so that as I tried to draw close to Jesus I had some help... to enter in to this much-needed connection with Christ... I wanted the world to become as troubled and abandoned, as God forsaken as I was... as Jesus was too...my God my God why have you forsaken me?

Sometimes we need a teacher, a guide... we need someone with us in those God forsaken places.

If you are uncomfortable with me saying that Jesus was forsaken by God on the cross?... you're in good company... we could talk about it in many different ways, as people have for centuries. We could talk about it as we do about the weather... the sun was out today, the sun was not out, I hope the sun comes out, the sun went away... have you ever spent the day under cloud cover -- a day from beginning to end where the sky was gray... on such days what you truly experience is the absence of the sun... where it really is dark, cold... hard to see... things are half lit, half dead ... that is what you experience... Now, some people, whether talking theology or meteorology, some people would like to get technical with us and would like to say "the sun hasn't gone anywhere, you just aren't seeing it... for different reasons they don't want to hear about your melancholy... your gloomy attitude... the sun is out, the sun is there -- you just can't feel it... to which any one of us, to my way of thinking, has every right to ask -- if I can't see it or know it or feel it's presence, does it really matter -- technically -- if it's their... you can imagine it's presence but you experience its absence -- and that experience is real and valid.

And people do this with God... especially Christian people. And I don't think they have to -- especially given the facts of our Good Friday history... the things that happened and became part of our salvation story...

The story in which God does his saving work arises among a people whose primary experience of God is his absence. And although that experience doesn't fit into what we would call a normal or understandable place in God's salvation plan, the more we look at the life of God's people and the deeper we search into the experience of Jesus, the more we discover that it is part of the plan and it is normal.

The teachers of prayer, the psalmist's and Jesus' guidance offer us this: Belief in God does not exempt us from feelings of abandonment by God. Praising God does not inoculate us from doubts about God...
Meditating on God's words won't always rescue us from the darkest and driest places of our lives... (Peterson)

As we experience God's silences in the stories of our lives, We need to name and to measure the significance of God's silences in the story of salvation. The silence of God while Christ hung on the cross. When we do, our experiences are made valid, we see that they are not exceptional or preventable or a judgment on our feelings or the way we are living our lives.

Sometimes we need a teacher, a guide, a real person... we need someone to help us cry and to be with us in those God forsaken places. Jesus is that person and in that connection lies the goodness of Good Friday... it's where our desire to be like Jesus... is eclipsed on the cross by his desire to be like us -- even to be forsaken -- truly and only... for our sake.

In the Spell

2006-04-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

In the spell of sleep I learn to savor longing, or
maybe when I wake -- to dash the sweetest dream,
to find dark, real, outside of me, where
I offer God tears for a way back in.

I rose from a powerful dream.
Do not ask what it was about.

Would you believe that the curse feels
tender? That is, anyway, it's
guise in the daylight, its charm in
the woken wish to fall back in.

Would you ever think that you could fall
into it like I did, into the tumble of
a beauty-hum, into the smile you'd
tried to turn from,

Into the sofa, floors and walls,
a face, a kiss, a cure?

Would you believe that God had lips
or that a true Being would leave
you to your own laughter,
to your own life, to live awake
in disbelief, until you'd mastered yearning?

2006-03-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

Rejoice my love and in your beauty see us both reflected(St John of the Cross)

God-Wolf

2006-03-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

Haunt me, hunt me, have me God-gray wolf.
Snarl and sink into my foundering flesh.
Inhabit the forest of my dreams
and Prowl and stalk until you rest behind
the knowledge tree -- one eye on me, one set on deeper things.
Pursue until sated foreteeth find their moist home within your muzzle,
until reverie and lapping savor the last of me
and I have been devoured into the fur-clad heaven of your stomach.

March Moment

2006-03-16T14:26:00.000-08:00

Half of the yard behind the house
is dusted with the cool sugar of mid-March;
the early talc prepares unpowdered earth
for vital spring and panting summer sweats.

From author Jim Harrison -- Marching

2006-03-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

Marching

At dawn I heard among bird calls the billions of marching feet in the churn and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid, and very old halting feet, the feet of the very light and very heavy, all marching but not together, criss-crossing at every angle with sincere attempts not to touch, not to bump into each other, walking in the doors of houses and out the back door forty years later, finally knowing that time collapses on a single plateau where they were all their lives, knowing that time stops when the heart stops as they walk off the earth into the night air.

Lost holy now

2006-03-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

Late holy morning in February -- first, bright sunlight, a rare welcome and I do not strain to stay within the womb of sleep this time.

One click releases me from the white noise of a fan that blew in the cool room throughout the night -- it retreats and I am given to the sparkling silence, the holy now.

My dog is breathing beside the bed, she snores, knowing the rest that comes with perfect trust -- I practice it myself. I let my ears guide my painting mind to the cabinet I hear closing, the gentle drag of a kitchen drawer, the soft-shoe of a coffee mug across the countertop. The furnace breathes beneath the floor, the fridge opens and closes and with great intention I can hear the deep brown brew rising to its fullness -- I can hear the steam, the pot returned to its electric holster, the sound of a stirring spoon.

It is the stillness of Eden on the first day. It is what they heard before the whisper for more, before any of the conquering began, before the sly Self first performed.

Throughout the night God has placed a universe within. The holy now of first light is where I behold that glorious replacement and it is where I wait for trust to fade, for fear to return with waking. It is where I ponder whether or not I could actually live there, stay there; whether it could make here into a heaven, with sunbeams showering away the imperfection, with coffee warming up from slumber the gladness that longs to live outside. Perhaps I could hold it in the hands of my heart as I am held, perhaps I could live from the inside out.

But then, as a twitch, the new creation shrinks. The phone rings, I hear it from the bedroom and I do not anticipate what good old friend it must be, what communion we might have for a few moments over so many miles. The now being so holy, the quiet so soothing, I am sure it is a demon on the other end with just one quick question, not meaning to bother but ready to destroy what was boundless and so holy. Surely they are ready to set fire to the golden sprawl that was my soul for one late morning in February.

A Lighter Touch

2006-03-02T14:14:00.000-08:00

Lord let me bring a lighter touch to the canvas of my interactions
that all may know who is the Artist, and who the brush.

Untitled

2006-02-23T16:36:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who commits himself to one full hour of poetry writing every day.
I don't know who he thinks he is,
jerk!, early-riser recluse,
he's no religious realist.

I too would give myself away
if not held in by plans and a picture window pointing West
where the sky has lived throughout the day
without me noticing.

Letting me inside, the lovers eye will not release,
it presses warm upon the skin of poems within
while I in countless coming moments
will betray that touch and truth and beauty,

Feeling myself the worst of perpetrators
having turned from the purple dusk
to hear the sigh of God
wishing I had never glanced.

2006-02-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

Every poem is provisional

There

2006-02-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

There

There
I can hear the whisper of the breeze upon each leaf
I can count each one,
can paint with precision,
caress the naked fact of each one's color.
I can tell the story of each one's life.
I can tell the truth of every leaf on every branch on every tree --
tall, small and in between -- on every rounded acre
of the holy land of my inheritance,
where knotty logs raise high stories home,
so moist in the morning,
where the dung of my horse is fresh alive--
useful to the soil and to my soul,
where prayer at dawn is sighed
like the sorrel sway of a buckskin brother’s tale.
There, where still ponds of glass remind of world's past
and mountains keep a watchful eye
and cool quench the streams supply
I with cowboy-Christ can labor through the day
till dreams of moonrise and fire-dance
console the trees at sundown.

Red Christ

2005-12-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

Clutter

2005-12-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

Remnants of yesterday's hurry, and the day before,
called clutter fill our kitchen table where steaming coffee cups could be
and quiet conversation and meals with second helpings of memories
if we were only less successful.

Now and Then (in progress)

2005-12-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

Now, watching light play along the edges of so many blank white restroom tiles before my eyes, I look through to see the leaves I saw dance back then, to see them sauntering to their death. Undressing trees made me pause to look and grieve and wonder at beauty that drew me in to stillness. Now I ponder where I put those words, that phrase that let the world capture me, that let me dance there and then. Then I felt its charms, the poetry of autumn, the sweetness of goodbye. Red-lit, golden treasures of the trees holding on and letting go, chanted "watch us now, now we fly, now we dance, now we burn, now we find our place in the long dream of winter." Then one of them fell on my lap.

Now I remember the offerings made in surrounding yards, the smoke I smelled encircling me, hanging in the air and creeping away slowly through tall fences, caressing bare limbs, sanctifying squirrels and crows and rakes and chatty neighbors, calling in the durge of dusk. Then there were snowflakes in the sanctuary. Now I try to recapture the line and verse, the surprise of white morning, the bright blanket of hope that touched my eyes made wide again. Now in silence waiting, I sit as I did there beside the window losing track, happily unable to count the sauntering manna seraphim, the treasures of the heavens sent down to sooth, to whisper "watch us now, now we fly, now we dance, now we melt away the pain, now we seep into the earth to cleanse the stain, now we find our place until the resurrected spring."
Then one called me out into the street, one teased and twirled refusing to fall. Then one uncounted, unnamed, unnoticed gave itself over to bring me life, the pure wet kiss of God to my lips.

Now I rest remembering. Then I spoke aware, as now, that speaking could not slow the breeze, could not restore the trees out of season, could not call back the incense, could not retrace the frozen angels whereabouts. I spoke with these same lips that do shrink dry again, and I worshiped then as now, in the rich dim glow of my study, drawing in slow deep breaths, now open as eyes traveling over heavens page, then in every place that I can be with Eternity looking through to find me -- flying, now dancing, now savoring my then, my now and all the treasures of my days, watching light play along the edges of my life.

A Good Morning

2005-11-23T15:08:00.000-08:00

I woke after nearly 11 hours of sleep believing that all things are possible with God.

The sleep was put to good use, I thought. The coffee might have been a little extra strong that morning or see what a good breakfast can do... but what I tasted I could not account for, a hunger and a tasting at once. All things are possible. The world was radiating color and my marrow buzzed and tickled and I knew that I and all could be felt, I and all could be painted, all could be celebrated, all could be held or shared or consumed. I could eat my fill and later float with a belly full of pleasures knowing that what filled me and what held me were one and could never be exhausted. Did I hear take and eat? And would I...? as I sensed that everyone can do this, that no one ever does.

"It's madness or its joy, again or at last." I gave words to it within myself. Oil and mud slurred and seeping from a crack in the asphalt beneath me was beautiful, it echoed back the laughter I was sharing with my wife, the gasp of recognition and remembrance, the laughter of limitless possibility. There was Hope in the morning hours where art and living interpenetrate, where I was poured out in primaries, where beauty whispered my name, where God gave the world a showing and I could be revealed naked and unashamed. I was there with her in the parking lot, entering the store, entering the hope of morning where great books are written and poems unfurl and where we are attired such as to leave no doubt as to what it is we desire to express. That is where epic stories find us at the center and where acclaimed films are formed from our simple days and everyone sees them and feels the touch of God in them as we did when we first lived them. All scale, all cast, all colors of light, every hue, every texture and tingling dimension of life lives there with you and lives without limit in the hope of morning. That is where you see that You are the living breathing hope of the world because all things are possible with God.

And God is with you in that joy and madness; knowing their inseparability from the view below, knowing why and where and how to reach and resurrect you, knowing how to bring you morning's hope like your dearest brought you coffee. This is the reason that you sing throughout the day and later hear it as the song of God's enjoyment.

I woke desiring to write it in the sand of my soul. I woke discovered by the good morning, alive with health enough to dream, with God and all possible things.

Prayer after Ordination

2005-11-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

You are still writing the book of my life, oh God, and I am still trying to be a faithful scribe. Many people are reading this book and celebrating what you are doing through it. Yesterday I felt the strange sense of knowing that "this is my life" and I joined them in looking at it, celebrating it and experiencing you magnified in the midst of it. It felt uncomfortable and wonderful.

You know the prayer, the song that sings within me. I am a mortal and cannot put words to it. Spirit of God, pray for me, sing the prayer of my life to the Father and let the Son teach me to hear it and share it. Let your creation continue in me, sing your new creation through my dreams and days... and as for those who gathered in ordaining celebration and for all they represented -- Let me lay down my life for these children, these towers and teachers, these priests and poets, these nourishing trees of life, these angels in robes and uniforms and jeans and gym shoes. Let me adore you by loving them. Let me, as fearless and as selfless as you, as fragile and discerning as you Lord Jesus... let me thank them by living a grateful, worshiping life with you.

Jesus -- you are my Lord and my King! Amen

Rumble, tumble

2005-11-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

Rumble, tumble,shimmer in the mumble.
Role, reach, feel, preach
glory in the grumble.
Metaforest's rivers reeling,
truth of trees our terms concealing,
sense all healing life revealing
glimmerings bold, glistening humble