Day 23: Random

A Short Meditation for the Hours

At sunrise, we praise You.
In morning, free us.
At noon, sustain us.
In afternoon, work with us.
At supper, we celebrate You.
In closing our eyes, we rest in You.

Day 21: Morning

Psalm 42

"Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?"

Where are You?
i've sensed that You often hide face
from me. Asked desperately, why?
i wantonly search for personal
seclusion in the private nooks of
Your vaulting sanctuary.
i've looked for You in books,
prayers, rituals, and layers of
silence, stillness and fasting.
El Shaddai, send forth your light!
Let Your face be uncovered!
If wickedness dwells deep in me,
certainly it is unshrouded, i am sure,
for i've visited every veiled corner
of my soul and torn all cloaks in two,
searching for You. Instead unmasked
unflattering darkness, so i still seek
Your shine. Where do You lie?
How long must i wait, wait, wait?
Delay tints my countenance,
my soul becomes downcast
when asked to be content with simply this:
what is hidden must exist.

Day 20: Evening

Matthew 20

"About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing..."
"Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, 'Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!'"

i do a lot of standing,
doing nothing,
making mental checklists
of the nothing that i want.
It's the spoils of materialism,
to stand in the marketplace
doing nothing
and still believe your entitled
to receive something.

i do a lot of sitting,
shouting things,
"Lord, Son of David,
have mercy on me!
What have i done to deserve
this present calamity?"
Nothing, you stood in the marketplace,
bored and staring,
doing nothing.

"What do you want from me?"
You ask.
Good question! Makes me think
of something...
What is it i've been wanting?
i've wanted entertainment and prosperity
but somehow i'd don't think
that will be answered with mercy;
mercy is more like a sparing

than a giving.
But since You asked, i'll ponder,
probe the depths of my desire.
So, if mercy is a reprieve,
then i'd like a complimentary
release from the consequences
i've accrued and from accompanying pain
of doing nothing,
and, maybe... something to do?

Day 19: Morning

Psalm 37

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him..."

Be still before the LORD, o envious me,
even forceful uneasy stillness.
i would settle for that success,
like the cool promise coming on
in the ascending shine of the dawn.
perhaps this morning of quiet,
amidst the garden in shadows,
beneath the oaks dripping with midnight rain;
perhaps this dawning in devotion
is rising to my midday pain.
Worry and fear infringe on my wide open
fields of joy and peace and i must abide
with them side by side, for they have become
too entwined. So difficult to distinguish
what is fear and what is joy. When i walk
through my meadow, my movement
deprives me my discernment. But still,
the morning light is making life visible,
peace possible, You attainable.
Yes, be still, o little, busy eyes,
the LORD spreads before you in sunrise.

Day 18: Evening

Matthew 18

From the unmerciful servant...

i've decided, when fear dwells within,
mercy is neither perceptible nor performable.
Only in infamy did i realize, but then, well,
i'd already been titled the unmerciful.
The economy shook, unstabled by
the steadfast taxes of the empire, and i
had to sturdy my family in the face
of the gripping fear of hunger, thirst and worse.
Under the constant economic storm,
business rusted and cracked. Leaking funds
and racking up receipts of debt, small bills stopped
coming in, large ones i stopped paying out.
In circles, i crumbled. Money tempts with promise
of surety and shelter. So when pennyless,
panic became a scattered sanctuary that
perilously saved me from mental homelessness.
In fear, the mind is never present, never really
home, for it rests in a refuge for which
the foundation is always shifting with the uncertainty
of future. You can't control that which you dread.
I felt alone but I wasn't, when everyone worships
the denarius in a city of failed empire building,
then yielding to the frenzy of fear is a community
cancer. Everyone is after the next coin owed.
In this cyclone economy, practicality reigns, and
rarely do we imagine something rare as mercy,
for it displays weakness. In a culture of cowardice,
like ours, the weak are ground like flour.
My master exists as force, a weighty tower
amidst the powerless, mighty hands set to mighty works.
i was timid, eyes down, in his audience
murmuring of excuse and of future obedience;
i barely heard the reprieve.
Still my forehead on the floor, muttering how poor,
how mistaken, how deceived. His servants dragged me up
to the door, repeated that i was free.
Oh captive soul, i didn't know, i didn't know
what had happened! i was not constrained, yet debt
remained, still obligation to be paid, lest i fall
again before my daunting, merciful master.
i had survived, i must survive, my life was caught in
tension. And the only path, the only path,
to have to that could keep my head from wrath,
the fairest way on my behalf. To exact the debt
that others owe, to bring my fear into their souls;
make them sorry as those left to the flood,
to threaten their blood or imprison in pain.
All to make gain and pay what was forgiven.
If i had been reflective... still how do you slow down
when you are being chased by ghosts?
If i had thought... but how do you think
when bills continue to show up unpaid?
No, you cannot escape, i would not allow
rescue, no, i reacted in my raging mind.
i grasped his collar, oh the regret, but i remember
how raptured the release, in finding one more hopeless than me.
Now chained, i see the motion of mercy,
how it was to envelop and inspire me.
But the vision failed here: that mercy requires
what is not there in fear, both hope and creativity.
So, now i watch and speak warning,
a failure turned prophet in pitiful exile.
i watch others bow down before need, feed fear with
unbelieving practicality, and live with blind eye to raining mercy.

Day 10: Morning

Psalms 19 & 20

"The fear-of-the-LORD is pure, enduring forever..."

You see, i want a lot.
The darkness and the light,
to really know the shimmering
depths. i have places to go,
now, if possible, please.

i fill prayers with complaints
of unanswered wants the way
that You fill the spaces of the earth
with flowers, fruits, and vines.
They just spring up, pop out,
then sway the landscape.

Bearing the weight of a hundred
half-wants my body heaves and groans,
and lusts for purity. To want one thing.
That will that lightly flowers. Fear-of-the-Lord
flourishes annually because Your will

lives on forever. Forever undone by
us, the constantly dividing. i need
to be concentrated. Grafted into the all-
encompassing, given to the good.
i should, but i want a lot.

Day 8: Evening

Matthew 8

"For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes..."

"Just say the word."

i wasn't even in attendance, but
that sermon sang as memorably as
Mary. And though her Magnificant isn't
wordy, it's still not quite as distilled as
the word. Jesus used the same word
when He spoke to the demons that
He sent into the pigs. It seems good faith
and good poetry have something
in common, power in one word. One
word gives sturdy simplicity. Go.

i can see why the centurion wanted just
one word. It was more powerful that way.
We remember smallest speeches much
more than a multiplying of words. Pagans
believe that there is more force in perpetual
babbling, that they might be more heard with
use of more words. Jesus says no, We know
what you need. Use less, be simple. He could of
compacted the Lord's Prayer into one: Come.

i think i'll erase this poem. It could be said with less.

Day 8: Mid-Day

Isaiah 8

"Do not call conspiracy
everything that these people call conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
and do not dread it.

The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread..."

i know why we believe heaven is above
(though You incessantly send it down).
You rise out of everything; we fumble
around and bang our knees on theology,
structure, and bland practicality.

In helicopter seeds i have seen
oneness, a holiness of combinations.
In its spiraling fall, permeations
of death, fear in the dry, brittle wings
that glide down toward landing.

In grounding, hope springs from
the rotting of the leaves, in the sprouting
of the seed. You rise out of everything.
Fear of decay is, underneath all things,
promise of newness, a singular oneness.

What the seed dreads is what it hopes in,
for it can only find purpose in what
it also finds powerful. What we hold
as almighty will be, what we fear as the only
will be, therefore i hope You will be.

Day 7: Evening

Matthew 7

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it..."

The old and aged entered between the whitest blooms,
between the spring and summer.
The last garden spread before them.

We, brimming with our new life,
had entered on the side of dying,
and death: the fall and the winter.

It made me think of the gates,
of hell and of heaven.
We think we get in based on how

we thought that we had lived.
i wonder, is it the way that we died
that leads to new life;

what we die to resurrects anew.
They came in from the bright sun,
the path one sees as wide.

Their faces shone upon living
orchids, vibrant orange lilies,
and highest, efflorescing hydrangeas;

But despite rain, sun and soil
they are headed toward death.
December plants now are brown twigs cut down,

and we are empty, hungry and poor,
but skinny kids fit through narrow doors,
and so we are heading toward life.

Day 6: Mid-Day

Isaiah 6

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory..."

The Romanian room was meager, and we were moderately worn
out from a day of holding. We met God at the cradle, and from our lips
He ordained praise in awe of infants. Now lightning was striking;

they were alone and we were alone, we perceived. But in a grave bass,
dread welled up within us. Holy! Holy! Holy
Fear! Intense and bottomless, ringing these beds, round our feet,

and climbing. We felt at one, in sparseness, with our quarters
and quickly looked to conceal ourselves amid garments, pillows, and
blankets. We lay as helpless as crying babies in cribs,

and confessed to our lack of knowledge. How presumptuous we had been!
Holy heaviness covers those who we leave with hearts in tears. i have failed
to trust that You are there as You are here.

And then where does that leave hands that can no longer hold? Folded,
i suppose. Intercession is a lesson taught in times of terror, grown
beneath overwhelming, awful love, that we can no longer think so little of.

Day 5: Morning

Psalms 9 & 10

i could say i love You,
but that is hardly specific.
O expectant One of immensity,
You are the completeness of love...

You are the intimacy of tracing
unintelligible love letters on my wife's back.
You are words that hold my head when
tears threaten to drag it down to my hands.

You are the joy in the giving, the fulfillment
of silence, the euphoria in the erasure of need.
Erasure so complete,
even the memory of need has left me.

So love is the word i use when i'm out of words,
when i look upon Your fairness

and am found distracted,
what did i ask for last week?

Ah, was it peace? For in the presence
of this present prayer, i could say i feel at peace.

Day 5: Random

A day dawns,
the stainless shower rod squeaks as
stainless curtain rungs skid over it.
There is friction even in a morning,
a self waiting to live for self.
i went down into waters,
and came back alive.
Now water crashes down,
a rainwater spout at just the right pressure
to rinse the death from me;
if only i commit to remembrance.

Car parked beneath trees planted purposely,
bringing life to brick buildings and wide cement.
Silent drops dot my shirt,
folder, books and threaten my Scripture.
Slip them beneath my tee,
now safe, but there's no place to
save my face. The rain runs through
my unkempt hair, through my unclipped beard,
into the corners of my mouth.
Taste and see nature's rebirth,
remind me of mine.

Only nine a.m.
and with garden leaves
a third sacrament is sprinkled over me.
A simple blue bowl as symbol;
speak of clothing, color, community,
and transformation.
A trinitarian renewal,
human-made and God-created,
then the combination.
As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
refresh vows that bring me to Him.

Day 4: Evening

Matthew 4

Tonight it was rice cereal
spilled following a tired ride.
Ominously my eyes follow
yours closed anyway, but I know:
the devils will come tomorrow.

They came for Jesus, promising
that which He would have by way of
pain and patience. Devils always
flaunt temptation as fulfillment.
When they stand me on the mountain

they are offering everything:
first the sex that we did not have,
then the affirmation i feel
i lack, and finally they push
me to senseless intimacy.

Devils half-deliver and we
usually live half-satisfied.
But not Christ, He denied the ease,
chose a way of costly waiting,
and then wept bitterly with joy;

for much travail transcends much ease.
And only the path through real life
leads to ascension. My reality,
though full of your sighs, will climax
in true touch and in pure delight.

Day 4: Mid-Day

Isaiah 4

Refreshed by water flung from
a branch, a twisted sprig of lavender.
Not false twigs that had been crafted
by hand, a forged instrument for

the blessing, but an offshoot snipped
from creation. Full of dew's scent,
fresh with violet lines, fresh with life;
a renewal of my promise to die to come alive,

a reminder that Creator is best conveyed
in the very earthly existance He has made;
His permanance like stone, His sustenace in fields,
refreshing in the lavender sprinkle that we feel.

Day 3: Evening

Matthew 3

And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Slave to sin and to You;
but the Lord God is one.
The ritual is learned,
in mornings discipline done.
Daily into the waters,
needing daily release.
"This is my son,
I am well pleased."

Day 3: Mid-Day

Isaiah 3

"You have a cloak, you be our leader; take charge of this heap of ruins!"

i am in charge of these ruins. i walk
on crumbled
rocks and speak the face of
God into the cracks
in
the wall, pressing electronic papers
with encouragement into
the tiny
slits, hoping they will be read
and sink in.
My city staggers,
it is falling...
There is a stench of guilt, loss of hope,
and broken hearts that hangs low
over our heads, almost shaped as a
noose.
It is menacing, with each intentional
tread we take over
balding stones we may certainly slip
and catch our necks and lose
our breath.
Sackcloth patches the past,
ashes no longer in
use, but their appearance is seen
throughout the ground down slabs;
we are covered
in dust. And yet, and yet...
We are branded by a Name
that doesn't fail,
yet we look as if crushed in failure
daily.
Ah, how redemption will turn
this weak to the
Strong.

Day 3: Morning

Psalms 5 & 6

"I am worn out from groaning;
all night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears..."

Lord, my linens have not been imperiled
by a flood of coursing tears. My pillow,
at its core, is parched for tactiled

sorrow, weeping it could feel. No, hollow,
unspecific pleas drown our conversation;
my soul is not in anguish, although

i do lament, "how long, how long!" Reaction
to what i have found more awful than agony,
the place of muteness and the unspoken

that my soul dreads eternally:
distance. It appears all my wailing
and groaning are a prepackaged dirge, easy

to program with exclamations failing
to evoke response: neither from You
nor from me. Should i deliberate exhaling

or quickest action, what would these do?
Bowing, becoming low to the ground,
laying petitions down and waiting for You...

but i expect You to answer this humble sound,
these practiced replies and rehearsed lies.
You should answer, it should be profound,

but it should be as i desired. All the whys
of my prayer, arrogant beliefs, lacking amour,
will You consider my bored sighs?

Will You accept this common prayer of the poor?
Of the one who should fling himself on mercy
but instead sits detached in the downpour?

Day 3: Random

This isn't really a poem so much as it is a meditation. I heard a story listening to a sermon from Mars Hill about a lady who worked at Calvin College. There is a mantle that is carved with the inscription "Be Still and Know that I Am God." The lady said that she had meditated on that for years by simply taking one word off at a time. I have done the same, but sometimes with phrases.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning, God created.
In the beginning, God.

In the ending, God reigns in the heavens and the earth.
In the ending, God reigns.
In the ending, God.

Day 2: Evening

Matthew 2

"Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
'A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted...'"

When all are called
together, violence and
discontent fall
around the edges, offhand
and unsaid. Responsibility,
formulation and
execution fall on me,
burdens, bags of sand
on my aching chest.
It pressures down
the ephod; though rest
is coveted, this gown
is not for sleeping,
instead it makes me bleed.
For it is written,
"i am the lead."

And I've more to escape
than the ecclesial, mind
obliged to reshape.
To grow anew, refined
and now designed to
refine and design more,
to be filled true
and then to pour
like the waters of Baptismal
pitchers, cleansing all
who step through the abysmal
door, and stare at the white wall
while I talk of hope refilled,
the joy of incarnation.
And so was fulfilled,
"out of my obligation."

But where obligation fades,
makes room for play
and passion. i get paid
to lead the way
that these children grow
and strive to win,
and the hours there know
that they are shackles in
locked mode, combination
lost to my competitive drive,
the seat of all frustration;
the need to compare. i contrive
to kill me along the way,
as a means to get ahead.
thus what was said is fulfilled,
"mourning, for i refuse to be comforted."

Day 2: Mid-Day

Isaiah 2

In the fulfillment of the anointing,
shamans and priests puzzlingly pause,
watch each other's winking eyes,
and waltz together into wide, everlasting hills.

In those final, fulgent hours,
asses and elephants agree and release
the right to vote, to disagree, like
a child setting a captive balloon free.

The capitalist will say, "Come, let us go,
let us fold fifty dollar bills for use
as origami spoons, so we can eat sweet
ice cream," smiling at the socialist.

In the day of the anointed,
our humbled hands and haughty ideology
will be ashamed of arrogance and antipathy,
while praising face down at the feet of Peace.

Day 2: Morning

Psalms 3 & 4

"I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety..."

Dance through my heart, oh, with loud claps remove
the formless from my liturgy. If found
without color, wanting for life, or browned,
then banish the artless. In beauty, You've
wrapped a garden round me, I dare not move.
But lie down in this peace, rituals resound
and reflect rhythms of sleep and unbound
joy in working. Drier grounds must improve,
therefore supply text to the wordless way
Your ceremony mystically transforms
Augusts into Septembers, a Tuesday
into weekend nights; all the darkest storms
are turned for good, to water not dismay
meaningless life in all its dreadful forms.

Day 1: Mid-Day

Isaiah 1

"Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow..."

the fatherless, pumpkin, my fatherless...

My hands spread out but prayer-less,
pumpkin, for there is resistance.
Guilt in my insistence of constraints,

time, son, money, uneasy conversation
leads to an uneasy comfort.
Painting walls a poor excuse for presence,

but undoubtedly it pacifies my doubt.
Self-doubt, in any case, wasted
on my conscience instead of your hopelessness

the fatherless, pumpkin, my fatherless...

i'm becoming religious about Sabbath,
less contradictory in sacrifice,
with shorter stipulations on presents,

but injustice? Like an incredulous
one diseased, shown a dim prognosis,
i can no longer dispute my ignorance.

Turn to Christ by turning to you, pumpkin.
Will i let you fade like used tees, broken toys?
Oh, you boys, climb my shoulders with joy

the fatherless, pumpkin, my fatherless...

Day 1: Morning

Psalms 1 & 2

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night..."

Stripped and elegant,
i long to be.
Honest and unashamed;
but honesty
exposes nudity as it is,
less often romantic,
less utopian than utilitarian,
less poetic.
My mediation, days and nights,
the heights
of novelty and creation,
the original lights
through the darkness of forthright life,
i rarely find.
But when i walk, stand, then sit,
and often bind
myself to vain plots and inane
amusing crafts,
then my meditation, nights and days,
i must have.
For i cannot break chains, throw fetters
off as of yet.
But in trembling, rejoicing stillness
i am not beset
by a mocking slavery of what has
made me weak.
no, in meditation, i am loosed
because You speak.