Says the Teacher

Lectio Divina Series
Ecclesiastes 1

Notice good,
his wearisome voice
toils for
skeptic ears,
the pitch rising in prayer
above the lazy

leaning of
squeaking school-standard
chairs. The leaves
blow within
the bricked courtyard, they never
see beauty

there. It must
under the scribbled
69,
fashioned on
their vast and empty notebook.
This is nothing new,

it seems new,
but this search was here
before us.
At our end,
fascination with the fast,
furious, forlorn

will puzzle.
Did we not have sun?
Did we not
feel the wind?
Did the quiet ripple of
a stream

not provide
the music for our sleep?
What did we
not notice,
our wisdom of the meaningless?
With ears full

of our own
thought, the teacher’s drone
returns to
me again.
Let us remember. Let us pray
together.

Leviticus 8

Uncle Moses, why

are my brothers dragged dead

outside the camp,

and why

are the rest of us dripping

with blood?

This headband is tight,

and the drips from the lobe

of my right ear are 

distracting, like the rain

off the roof of my tent when

I'm wrestling uneasily

with sleep.

Uncle Moses, where

is the Compassionate? The Slow-

to-Anger One who hid you

within fire-formed rocks,

brought you into His presence and

let you live? 

Fiery incense and disobedience?

Where is Maintaining Love?

We are less

than thousands, we a weeping

and bloody family before Him.

Uncle Moses, what of me? I am

short in my robes, clumsy, bound

to tangle in these folds, knock into 

the altar. My chin barely has enough hair

to be singed. Forgive

the wicked questions, Uncle Moses,

but the fear...

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.

January 29, 2009

Job 9-10

One dollar Chuck's, muddied and salted,
escape a network disintegration,
an insignificant download,
my gradebook's confusion and erasure.

Depression in a purple hoodie,
pink splattered up the side and
hair swept over one eye, he dares
not see the world as whole for then

he may be demanded to live in it.
The wind hits the four corners of my
white walls, dulled by blank stares,
apathy destroys some, devours most.

Crowbars of ice cracked my favorite tree,
the brilliant yellow i never see
in the Indiana winter, and constrained
to the older hallway with knotted beams

overhead of the daily abuse of the minutia;
the gnats in my coffee, the furnaces to reset,
the daily laughs i routinely trade for headaches,
the boring light of computer screens.

All around me speaks Almighty, for i have
no control of winter storms and students born
nor the mysteries of work's tyranny.
Everything is spiritual, but today i see

everything is not good?

January 13, 2009

Joshua 6-10

Disquiet in the mortar,
shofar shakes limitless brick,
the calm of the City of Palms.

The calm of the nation of priests,
spiders in the desert sands,
spread thin and blown hard by
faithful winds of reverence.

Eventually the pride in mudbrick
will falter, and violence will fall
on the heads of all without a rouge rope.
What political savvy and dreadful
practicality, as the death cries

of children ring in my ears. Sinful
mothers without thought of the Only
watch one-year olds mumbling "bye-bye"
tossed aside for the purity

of these, the Lord's priests.
In this brutal march, i do not speak of
metaphor, but demand to see mercy.