from the pen

Baptism

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:44:20 -0800

Blown by wind, the years of my life
Are spread—either as litter or dabs of paint
Upon the lawn. They gather in drifts,
Temporal meetings of the me I have been
And the me that I am.
The changing that courses in all things
Flows in my sap, oozes slow when I am cut,
And though a single storm can leave me naked,
My rebirth and growth are as sure as my withering.
Do not tell me that life is one thing.
Do not say that we but live.
We live, and in our living die, a thousand times
Die, are cast about in storms and baptized in sunlight,
Our friends and foes are often one and the same,
We are caught in the spells of winter, set free
In the birth of spring. We are purged in summer fire,
We are slain in the ritual sacrifice of autumn.
I am not a single thing—for the me I am today
Is a choosing though guided, a freewheeling
Though often road bound, me.
So it is that I may at once be spread wide
In December winds, and gathered close in piles,
That I may be hopeful when even death grows,
Spreading as both sunlight and shadows within me.

I Have Learned to See Through Things

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 09:24:59 -0700

I have learned to see through things—
Through pews wrapped in liturgy as vines,
Through cracked asphalt and hardened facades,
Through ideas, beliefs, calloused minds,
Rhetoric of religious leaders, sermons of politicians.
I have learned to find the middle in all things,
The space between a blinded left eye and blinded right.
I have learned the secret of growing old fast.
And what have I gained?
Have I found the center of all things, which is Life?

This precipice which below and around me fills,
Is it fear-fired isolation, the feigned strength
Of perpetual hiding, or is it true knowledge,
At once safe and unsafe, like family, like home?
Do I stand on the edge of true knowing,
Or of tumbling, beyond repair, into swallowing dark?
Would You, whoever You are, if You can hear,
Fill my abysses with Your light—for whatever the end,
I must plunge into this beyond, and if You or I
Can be found, to meet Us there.

Raingutters

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:15:54 -0700

Eternal life is not what begins when
Your flesh withers and your bones remain.
Holiness is not a checklist
Of everything to do and not do.

Abundant life is to have roots wrapped around
The center and core of all Life.
Righteousness is to be radiant in delight
In the center of all that is corroded around.

Leave the piety to the pietists.
Leave the religion to the religious.
Join in the dancing fury,
Plunge into the whirling fire of grace.

How many spend their breath
Eliminating all that is not the Center.
How many expend their todays
Deciding all that tomorrow should not be.

As for me, I want to suck you into me,
To know the coursing of the Eternal in these channels
Made to swell with blood
As raingutters overflowing in the downpour.

I Want to Be Open

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 16:43:33 -0700

I want to be wide open,
As a holy book, vast, with enormous script,
For all passersby to behold,
Tinged with the scents of worship.
I want to be hidden,
Like the roots that slowly, silently, dig
Into the black earth,
Never ceasing to suck life
From the soil.
I want to be like a fire that burns
And warms, that consumes with passion,
That casts to sky and earth
The marks of my blaze.

There are days I feel myself
A sheet hung loosely in the sun,
A path upon which pilgrims walk,
A platter for serving guests.
When I am seen from afar
And when I am concealed nearby,
In both I am alive with longing.
Is greatness a decided thing?
Do the holy strive to be so,
Or are they made so in the ordinary living?

A Single Question

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 09:58:52 -0700

Is the world a place where one is to drink in all the sweetness one can, staving off the shudder that ever accompanies the bitterness? Is the life of fullness a life spent upon staring hardship full in the face and in mounting courage to see the days approach, whatever storms are carried on their winds?

And even so, what vision of the eternal makes most for life? Is one to stare at this world, at these moments oozing inestimable goodness, beauty, tragedy, and evil, and in the midst of the spreading mess to fixate upon joy, love, and beauty, being there satisfied? Is one to turn the whole of one’s gaze to the beyond, living in constant expectation of the heavenly realms, knowing that these earth-bound years are but hours in the eternity of life? Or is one to live ever in the tension, the space taut between here and there, between indescribable delight and silencing sorrow, to stand upon the fierce edge and admire the rocks below, the sky above, and the thousandfold variety of the landscape beyond?

Cannot each individual choose how to live? Cannot a life be tuned to play one unending song? Is life but one symphony, endless in variety and incessant in its one refrain, or is life a cacophony of noise, sometimes harmonious, pure, sometimes discordant and gut wrenching?

What matters most? What is worth giving oneself to? Is the aim of life then to live richly in a single thing? Is the worth of a poet to write a single great poem? Do feet exist to bring one perpetually to home? Or is the end of life to set foot in as many lands as possible, to string together as many beautiful words as possible, to be always a pilgrim? Do things happen for a reason, or do things happen for many reasons?

Do questions have answers? Do I ask that I may find an answer, or do I ask that in the asking I might be ever drawn to live a life ready to receive answers when they grow inside of me? Are there answers which satisfy? Are all true answers ones that I can eat and drink?

And God? Can a world so full of wonder, of beauty, and motion not have a mover? But what of the orphans, genocide, and plague, can a God of love so afflict what he loves? Are these not the simplest questions? What am I for? Why am I here, and am I here for any reason at all? Can I answer even the simplest of questions with only my reason, or must I employ faith to lay hold of the invisible?

The aim, the meaning the end, are they not left to the questions and their answers, if any answers may be found? Must I ever labor in their answering, or can I at once come upon answers which are everlasting? What choice has one but to ask and seek or to ignore the longing altogether?