Big-city fun

ON THE BIKE PATH

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?

Waves

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

Green

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

Parting

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

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

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

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.

"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?

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.

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.

Still here, not so still

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

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

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.

ABSENT AND WITH US

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

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?