Green pastures

Green pastures                                                                                        

Jesus left the ninety-nine to find the one lost

and maybe that one lost, if its story be told,

was the only one not left behind, but truly

found, scooped up in the Savior’s arms.

You have to get lost to be found, I think. 

You have to lose the flock,

go out on your own two shaky legs

into the dark fields, trading all there evidently is

for all that might be, short of any real evidence.

Thinking maybe of finding your own way if you must,

but not really caring anymore,

just tired to the bone of the painful,

the false and fleeting and at that moment

of utter despair and defeat, maybe

you get lifted up, or you die trying – and perhaps,

you get carried away, led – not back into the fold but safely

released onto those metaphorical green pastures

to fatten you up before your next adventure.

O child of God, to escape the counterfeit,

surround yourself with the Mystery.

Out of earshot

Out of earshot                                                                                          

You’ve been given enough words, said my Lord,

but in truth, I have been long content with words

measuring my appraised worth against

distant utterings and their echoes –

sound waves crashing upon an empty shore;

quotations taken always from someone else’s book.

I have sought lifelong the living among the dead,

surrounding myself like a consensus

with cardboard and paper gravestones

as I pray so touchingly, beseech so effetely

for a truth that was never there for me

or has long since fled.

So very long it has taken me to hear it –

truth doesn’t enter through the ear.

O child of God, seek the truth out of earshot –

in the cavern of your chest.

Our only hope

Our only hope                                                                                          

Everyone is taking sides,

yet everyone is on the same side:  

it’s our vision versus God’s. 

Should we not give our tongues

to Him to quell, flesh to subdue,

our thunderous hearts to becalm

amidst this impossible rebellion?

Not in piety and passivity

but as a clear and dutiful course of action,

out of our compassion, such as it is,

out of our ignorance and impairment.

Out of a tenuous devotion to mercurial truth,

to set out along the narrow way, His way,

as best it might be determined, holding out faithfully

for the one great hope – our only hope –

the truth from God’s perspective, God’s big picture.

O child, keep your opinions to yourself.

Only silence should come from a grave.

His dancing body

His dancing body                                                                                               

To appreciate God’s imagination

I must stop cherishing my own.

To view His dancing body,

I must sit still myself

and cease drawing the curtains

upon His performance, cease staging,

for my own benefit, fantastical inner choreography,

arranged, directed and starring

my unlimbered, imagined self.

God is dancing eternally before my eyes

but I am unable to catch a glimpse

for the tall man standing in front of me

for a better view himself. 

No, wait.  I’m the standing man

and the only barrier

between God and myself  

is a hard, green willfulness, a failure

of consent, intention, discipline and nerve.

O child of God, we abandon heaven at a whim

to play yet another casual game of pretend.

A dark, narrow place

A dark, narrow place                                                                                

Go into a closet to pray, Jesus said,

not just to thwart a pious display –

but to go to God is to go alone,

into a dark, narrow place –

that being the reason so few venture toward the Divine. 

We hug and gabble of brotherhood and spiritual links,

but if you are not laid low, 

lonely as the day you were born,

unacceptable to the many,

you have no chance at all

of securing an audience with the One

Who is shy of crowds and flattering strangers.

Strait is the gate, quoting Jesus again,

and narrow (as a grave) is the way.

Best to pare down, pilgrim; get lonely,

odd and disconnected, rather

than dressing yourself in virtue,

hiding among the bowed, religious crowd –

the sure way to speciousness,

death, rejection and return.

O child of God, when you address pilgrims

you must surely always include yourself.

That which cannot be taken away

That which cannot be taken away       

For better or worse (be that as it may),

my life long, desperately have I sought

that which cannot be taken away --

the enduring aspect, the intended-to-stay.   

To quell the sorrow my flesh has brought –

for better or worse (be that as it may)

I’ve chased that which time will not betray,

the eternal portion truth has wrought –   

that which cannot be taken away.

My lifelong quest and still I pray,

grasp and cling and gather naught,

for better or worse (be that as it may)

the treasure my heart and mind assays,

the prize for which I’ve labored and fought –

that which cannot be taken away.

The nugget hidden in the grit and clay

(which still I seek and have life long sought) –

for better or worse (be that as it may) –

is that which cannot be taken away.

Feathered costume

Feathered costume      

Earthbound, we view the heights with envy;

sew together costumes of borrowed feathers,

wrap up, marching to the high meadow

hoping to catch a friendly breeze

under makeshift wings to lift us,

to become that which we imitate,

to make real that which we pretend to be;

wretched, absurd, but the only chance we have

bound in this heavy and grave custody,

until, when and if, grace invisible, yet palpable,

grace of some sort unimaginable

comes to retrieve us, inform, redeem us,

comes to transfigure, return us

to the heights we view

from such a great fallen distance

and believe we once commanded

yet ever so dimly recall,

having only our loneliness and estrangement

to encourage us to attempt our liftoff

and escape from this earth

to which we seem, even in death,

to be so inextricably bound.

O child of God, perhaps God’s mercy is moved

by the sight of your ludicrous feathered costume.

My practice

My practice                                                                                                         

A salesman keeps knocking

on my door, not easily dissuaded.

My practice is to pretend I’m not at home, 

purchasing never again, as I have lifelong,

fading, fraying things that sate and jade,

shatter, wither and pale,

always less than advertised,

ripe for plunder, loss or neglect.

His persistency echoes now

through the near empty house,

like a hearth fire or the grandfather clock

in the parlor, joining its natural

ticks, murmurs, creaks and groans.

At some point, the salesman will go away,

the fire die out, the clock run down.

No one then truly will be at home.

O child of God, truth comes not

from accumulation but gentle subduction.