February 7, 2009

Romans 11

i want to be the morning light,
slowly dispersing over hills to
drive the dark off the rocks.

My unbelief burns brighter,
for where You have abandoned
mountains, dug lonely caves

i wish to explore, to invade
these unelected quarries with
my oscillating flame. Underneath

i may find those uncalled by You.
i don't understand. i want to.
Lest i flare indignant, i must admit,

if there are some You do not want
then i will go, offer sorrow, apology,
and perhaps a cup of tea,

then hopelessly hope they will walk back to You
with me.

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 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.