Peace on Earth?

Everyone is busy
So no one is alone.

Everyone is funny
So no one ever shows.

Everyone is living
So no one ever goes.

All have friends.
No one cries.
Certainly, no one dies.

Let there be peace on earth.

Everyone is angry
And points the blame away.

Everyone is hurting
And covers over the stain.

Everyone is dying
And everyone's to blame.

There is war.
There is pain.
Each one has his bane.

Let there be peace on earth.
Goodwill to men.

Peace on earth.

Our peace is not your peace.
Our good is not your good.
Our will is not your will.

So, let there be peace on earth,
Goodwill to men.

Your peace.
Your good.
Your will.

God with us.

Peace on earth,
Goodwill to men.

Riches and Praise

Riches I heed not
Nor man's empty praise
Wait... What?!

I am a heeder of riches
And man's praise doesn't seem very empty
Heeded and full
Riches and praise

Truth is/in fact/actually:
I cannot conjure up two things that consume me more
Than my need for
Riches and praise
I grasp and perform all the days of my life
Reaching and striving
For
Riches and praise
Heeded and full

Need is misplaced - out of order - pointed in the wrong direction
Desire is fine
Riches and praise
Need is misplaced

For...
The riches of the heavenly realms and the simple, stunning "Well done"
Are mine.
Desire is fine
Beautiful even.

The need is misplaced
When a man's praise is full
And the world's riches are heeded

For the riches belong to heaven
And me
The praise belongs to God
And me

Riches and praise

Riches I heed not
Nor man's empty praise
Thou mine inheritance
Now and always
Thou and Thou only
First in my heart
High King of heaven
My treasure Thou art.

*Inspired by Be Thou My Vision, the 23rd Psalm in The Jesus Storybook Bible, and the painful process of leaving a well-loved job.*

Ebb and Flow

A rock
A rock
Just a silly, stubborn stone
Coarse, ugly
Formed by the water of Your Word

A bride
A bride
A fearful, faithless bride
Flighty, failing
Washed by the water of Your Word

Form me
Wash me
Shape and love are Yours alone to give
Form me
Wash me
In the powerful and loving water of Your Word

Smooth and strong
Spotless and pure

Ebb and flow
Ebb and flow
Smooth and strong
Spotless and pure
Ebb and flow
Ebb and flow

*Inspired by the rocks in Spencer Lake, WI.  The small, smooth ones, just on the edge of the lake, in the ebb and flow.*

Galatians 6:17

For Jenna and Annie.

Holy Father, you let me get hurt.

In the distress and anger of a child, I want to call you: "Dad."
Dad, you let me get hurt.
But I know I "shouldn't..."
It's too casual, too much like a jerky teenager.

But, you of all people can handle me doing what I "shouldn't."
So...
Dad!  You let me get hurt.

My carefully crafted study-of-God has shattered.
I cry out, neck deep in rubble:
You let me get hurt!?

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

I used to sing that and believe it.
But it sounds empty
Neck-deep in theology rubble.

"Even though he slay me, still I will praise him!"
Yeah right, Job.
Maybe now, in the pious drama of fresh rubble -
But what about when the rubble ages?
And your wife begs you to die?
And your friends investigate your heart for the causal sin?
And God won't show up for the court case you've planned?
The one you think you need to survive.
What then, Job?
Praise?

No - jerky teenager:
Dad!  You let me get hurt.

Grieving child:
Daddy, do you see me?
I'm hurt.

Calloused and cynical adult:
God, thought you should know, I've given up on you... decided you're not trustworthy.

You make beautiful things out of us.

I used to sing that and hope.
Like real hope:
Substantive.
The kind you can put in your mouth and taste and smell.
Bread and wine.
Body and blood.

That's right...
I remember now:
Body and blood.
Sinew and puss.
Wound and guttural cry.
Death.
Alone.

It's not good to be alone.
"Adam, where are you?"
"Cain, where is your brother?"

You ask a lot of questions.
I state a lot of statements.

"Job, were you there when I...?"

Dad! You let me get hurt.
"Eloi, eloi, lema sabacthane!"

You answer my uninquisitive statement with the Aramaic question.
The one that changes everything.

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Dare I answer?
An angry and grieving child.
A jerky teenager.
A calloused and cynical adult.
Yeah, I dare:

Because
You make beautiful things out of the dust.
You make beautiful things out of us.

Believe and hope.

Someone had to be alone.
It isn't good to be alone.

It wasn't me.
It wasn't me.
It wasn't me.

Holy Father, you let me get hurt.
But not alone.

"I bear in my body the marks of Jesus."


*Inspired by true healing, Job, Paul (Gal. 6:17), the Covenant Presbyterian Women's Retreat, Jenna, Annie, and the song Beautiful Things by Gungor.*

O Fall, My Dear Soul!

Prelude (before I play):

A poet places words
On top of wordless things
And so, is often sad.

Lude (now I play):

O Fall, my dear soul!
Only one breath of the season is needed
And I am young again.
No, not just young: little.
Afraid and bold and full
Of joys.

O Fall, my dear soul!
Awaken as things begin to die
To who you were in yesteryear
To who you long to be anew.
Certain and fast and true
Like frost.

O Fall, my dear soul!
The smell of you is people and places and past.
Faithful, tried, and true.
You leave me lost in "might've been;"
"Will be" seems lost to me again
And fleeting.

O Fall, my dear soul!
Of joys,
Like frost
And fleeting.
Of joys like frost and fleeting.

Postlude (after I have played):

And again, the poet places words
And muddies beauty
And is sad.

Today's Confession

A song from Sunday - "A prayer of one afflicted."


I have no words for today's sin.
Only pictures.
Metaphors.
Because today's sin is too vivid for words.
It has light and life, smell and texture,
Its reality is suffocating.


Picture one:
A woman of stone.
A heart of stone, yes, that's where this began.
My heart turned cold, a while back.
And it has transfused the blind, stiff rot throughout my inner world.
Now, I'm all stone.
So hard that the bench beneath me is numbing and trying to rub life back into the grain of its wood.
And a stale laugh escapes my rock lips at the futility.
And my void stone eyes die another death: deadened many times over.
Can you see me?  Can you picture it?  Touch me?  Feel the cold under your fingers?
Can you?


Picture two:
A woman of grass.
Not the green, lush, life kind.  The yellow, dead, fragile grass.
If you touch it, it crumbles.
And here am I, the frightened scarecrow, cringing from healing hands.
Fleeing from friends.
Rustling in the wind, all dry, all dead, all powerless.
Can you see me?  Can you hear my rustle?  Can you see my thirst?  Feel my parched strands?
Can you?


Picture three:
A woman of smoke.
A ghost, a specter.
Opaque.
People try to grasp, hold, love.
But they are surprised to find only air roiling around their fingers.
I am kind enough to leave tendrils of ash on their hands.
Proof of me.
And on I fly.
Can you see me?  Do you feel my homelessness?  Can you smell the burnt hands?  Hear the surprised cries?
Can you?


Can you see me?!?


No, words won't do.
Only pictures.
Only light and life, smell and texture.


And I and the poet yell:
"My days pass away like smoke,
And my bones burn like a furnace.
My heart is struck down like grass and has withered;
I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
Like an owl of the waste places...
My days are like an evening shadow;
I wither away like grass."


Only pictures.


Unless there was a word that could breathe off the page.
Unless there was a word that could grasp smoke, revive dead grass, melt a heart of stone.
A Shepherd who held me in his hand.
Living water.
A purifying fire.
Unless...


The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we have seen his glory.
Can you see me?






Excerpts from Psalm 102




 

A Lenten Consideration

From dust you came.
To dust you shall return.
Dust.
Ash.
The ruach lifts the dust
For an allotted time, in an allotted place,
And it seems to have a life of its own.
It believes its entitled to a life of its own.
Silly mist.
Vapor.
Dust.
Ash.
The ruach-filled dust lives "its" claimed life
In laughter and games,
In sorrow and pain
In wasting minuets - days,
In sin,
Truly believing it is "its" life to spend.
A fool-hardy ownership.
A condemned self-lordship.
But remember, O my soul,
Remember.
Dust.
Ash.
Vapor and mist.
Remember.
Repent,
And believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.