Montana, how does your morning sun
get so big?
Its bigger than the sky
and no matter how long i roll
I am still under
that giant burning face.
Dakota, where are your clouds from?
they would crush my head
But you hold them on your shoulders
so I can wander
around your chest
looking for rest
for rest in Bismarck.
Aug 15, 2010
Jul 18, 2010
grace
A kindness given from a prostitute
blackberries plucked off a cold roadside
winter winds that drive the well-prepared
inside warm homes, where sleep is.
A touch from a stranger
someone else's beautiful tattoo
a scab that forms over a wound
where evil has cut through soft skin.
This touch of divine order
causeless, effectless
this cup is the unlikely key
and this wine
is the breaking out of false time
for the rejected.
this window has a scarlet cord
that drips blackberry juice
off chins and bird-beaks
old walls
in these old walls
everything a routine
a normalcy
i know i am in neutral
we visit burbank's gardens
a million plants
growing on the soft land
but my ground is hardened
when does the plow harrow a line?
how long to wait
till the neighbors say
that this earth is ready to plant in?
in these old walls
i am germinating
full with anticipation
bored with travel
in these old walls
everything a routine
a normalcy
i know i am in neutral
we visit burbank's gardens
a million plants
growing on the soft land
but my ground is hardened
when does the plow harrow a line?
how long to wait
till the neighbors say
that this earth is ready to plant in?
in these old walls
i am germinating
full with anticipation
bored with travel
in these old walls
Wedding Poem #2
Put seeds in the ground
to die
and you pull in the harvest
Put love in every life
you meet
and your barns beg for rest
Open up the barn doors!
Where the harvest is stored
And let's dance on the floor
at sunset, at dusk,
dancing where the harvest is held.
You vowed your lives with the sun in the sky
You looked at each other and cried.
After sun went down, we saw you in the barn
and we--all your friends from years and years,
the fields you plowed, where you went down to die--
And we danced holes in our shoes
to the rotating lights in the sky
to the full moon.
And to star-time,
we pulled in the harvest to the overflowing barn.
to die
and you pull in the harvest
Put love in every life
you meet
and your barns beg for rest
Open up the barn doors!
Where the harvest is stored
And let's dance on the floor
at sunset, at dusk,
dancing where the harvest is held.
You vowed your lives with the sun in the sky
You looked at each other and cried.
After sun went down, we saw you in the barn
and we--all your friends from years and years,
the fields you plowed, where you went down to die--
And we danced holes in our shoes
to the rotating lights in the sky
to the full moon.
And to star-time,
we pulled in the harvest to the overflowing barn.
Jul 10, 2010
big love
My feet are dripping
with big love.
You knelt in the sand
and dirt of
the unswept floor.
You took in your hands
my secrets
you did not speak out
my regrets
or the lopsided score.
Standing in the mud made
when you washed
I am mercy's child.
We are not lost
to ourselves anymore.
Mud on darkened eyes
we can see.
We let down hair, cry
the eyes, feet clean.
And, feet in hand,
walk through God's Door.
with big love.
You knelt in the sand
and dirt of
the unswept floor.
You took in your hands
my secrets
you did not speak out
my regrets
or the lopsided score.
Standing in the mud made
when you washed
I am mercy's child.
We are not lost
to ourselves anymore.
Mud on darkened eyes
we can see.
We let down hair, cry
the eyes, feet clean.
And, feet in hand,
walk through God's Door.
Train
Rolling over little lines drawn
on the world, the hills
is being known by the dusk and dawn
that lie over the plains.
Dawn and dusk are parallel rails
holding a chugging train
and being alone here quickly pales
the frenzied life.
It hardens the muscles and sets the jaw
callouses the hands in the sun,
burning one side through the window,
crystallizing a road consciousness.
Broken down to the bare pieces
trying to find the way home
The loneliness of these old desert trees
is perfect, perfectly whole.
on the world, the hills
is being known by the dusk and dawn
that lie over the plains.
Dawn and dusk are parallel rails
holding a chugging train
and being alone here quickly pales
the frenzied life.
It hardens the muscles and sets the jaw
callouses the hands in the sun,
burning one side through the window,
crystallizing a road consciousness.
Broken down to the bare pieces
trying to find the way home
The loneliness of these old desert trees
is perfect, perfectly whole.
Sep 11, 2009
Revelation as the central question of our lives and liturgy
So I'm working with this John 2 text for youth group tonight. It hit me new this time around. On the one hand, I'm dealing with the juxtaposition of this text to the miracle of turning water into wine. On the other, I feel like I've been deeper in the ways that we sell sacrifices in the temple than ever before in my life.
What would Jesus do with our church? There is so much hope in his fermenting water, keeping the party going, encouraging the union of this couple at the wedding. But then he breaks into the temple and starts throwing money, animals, maybe even people around. Josh (my roommate) commented tonight that it seems like every episode in John (and all the gospels, for that matter) has the same point: Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God Incarnate. Jesus is the Revelation, the Word, Life Eternal.
On Sunday morning this week, we went over Jesus walking on the water in Mark and it is interesting because the text says that Jesus was "passing by" the disciples as they were straining at the oars. He went to help them, but then he just decided to pass on by. Was Jesus being coy? Or was he tired of helping people--he just helped 5,000 men (not counting women and children)! Maybe there's a better answer. Jesus passes by, the way the Angel of Death passes by at Passover, the way God passes by Moses in the cleft of the rock, the way God passes by Elijah in a whisper. Jesus is revealed as the great I Am. In a minor Sea of Galilee squall.
I sometimes wonder if church has anything to do with revelation these days. Are we concerned about revealing the nature of who God is? Do we have it in our hearts to let God reveal God's self in us even as we seek God outside of ourselves? My good friends are searching for a church in the Riverside-Loma Linda area and one of them found herself crying at the emptiness of one of the Nazarene churches they visited. What is the goal of our liturgy? What is the purpose of our free-form worship? Why do we come to the altar and ingest the body and blood of Jesus? What do we do with our time, our interests, our desires? Is it all just a spinning into nothing or is it a search for revelation, for encountering the revealed, passing-by God?
In our encounters, we reflect.
Jesus throws the people out of the temple who have abandoned the thought that God is to be revealed in the temple and have come to use it for other purposes. I remember once at work when a young, confused man came into my office and we talked about his sexuality. He was pretty convinced that he was gay and wanted to know what to think about it. I told him to read John 15 and then we could talk. If he felt like he could remain in Christ and still be gay, then we could start to have a conversation but this whole talk of homosexuality, of capitalism, of feminism, of whatever you want as an issue to be dealt with by scholars and leaders, judged on a spectrum of what the Bible "says about it" leads us into artificial ways of thinking. Even the Scriptures are revelation. Maybe our first question ought to be, "How is Christ revealed in it?"
God is revealed very poorly in exploitative practices, when the marketplace controls the worship place. I'm still really unsure about how God is revealed when two men or two women have sex with one another--committed or not. God is revealed clearly when Jesus climbs into the boat, the winds of opposition dies down, and discipleship takes place. This I know.
These are just some thoughts. Peace and grace.
What would Jesus do with our church? There is so much hope in his fermenting water, keeping the party going, encouraging the union of this couple at the wedding. But then he breaks into the temple and starts throwing money, animals, maybe even people around. Josh (my roommate) commented tonight that it seems like every episode in John (and all the gospels, for that matter) has the same point: Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God Incarnate. Jesus is the Revelation, the Word, Life Eternal.
On Sunday morning this week, we went over Jesus walking on the water in Mark and it is interesting because the text says that Jesus was "passing by" the disciples as they were straining at the oars. He went to help them, but then he just decided to pass on by. Was Jesus being coy? Or was he tired of helping people--he just helped 5,000 men (not counting women and children)! Maybe there's a better answer. Jesus passes by, the way the Angel of Death passes by at Passover, the way God passes by Moses in the cleft of the rock, the way God passes by Elijah in a whisper. Jesus is revealed as the great I Am. In a minor Sea of Galilee squall.
I sometimes wonder if church has anything to do with revelation these days. Are we concerned about revealing the nature of who God is? Do we have it in our hearts to let God reveal God's self in us even as we seek God outside of ourselves? My good friends are searching for a church in the Riverside-Loma Linda area and one of them found herself crying at the emptiness of one of the Nazarene churches they visited. What is the goal of our liturgy? What is the purpose of our free-form worship? Why do we come to the altar and ingest the body and blood of Jesus? What do we do with our time, our interests, our desires? Is it all just a spinning into nothing or is it a search for revelation, for encountering the revealed, passing-by God?
In our encounters, we reflect.
Jesus throws the people out of the temple who have abandoned the thought that God is to be revealed in the temple and have come to use it for other purposes. I remember once at work when a young, confused man came into my office and we talked about his sexuality. He was pretty convinced that he was gay and wanted to know what to think about it. I told him to read John 15 and then we could talk. If he felt like he could remain in Christ and still be gay, then we could start to have a conversation but this whole talk of homosexuality, of capitalism, of feminism, of whatever you want as an issue to be dealt with by scholars and leaders, judged on a spectrum of what the Bible "says about it" leads us into artificial ways of thinking. Even the Scriptures are revelation. Maybe our first question ought to be, "How is Christ revealed in it?"
God is revealed very poorly in exploitative practices, when the marketplace controls the worship place. I'm still really unsure about how God is revealed when two men or two women have sex with one another--committed or not. God is revealed clearly when Jesus climbs into the boat, the winds of opposition dies down, and discipleship takes place. This I know.
These are just some thoughts. Peace and grace.
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