Three dots aligned
and gave us pause.
A midday Selah
strung our wonder
along a celestial seam.
Intelligent design
bill-boarded,
nearly blinded us,
our naked eyes
clothed.
Once again
the heavens
declared the Glory
of God.
Psalm 19
Actually the dermatologist took it.
He defaced my face,
plucked the mole hill,
and put a mountain of gauze and tape
over the three little stitches.
I googled Mt. Rushmore,
and there it was,
the size of a boulder,
that if tied around my ankles
would sink me to the bottom for sure.
If Abraham Lincoln could,
would he want Jack-hammer Jack
to remove the pronounced punctuation
from his righteous cheek?
We all take it for granite.
My mole went missing,
and I shall miss it indeed.
I pray for a scar of remembrance,
a Rembrandt, should I need to face it,
because I will never have that chiseled look.
Sometimes music is the crowbar
which pries open my spirit.
Melodies warming the flowing
marrow in me.
Major and minor tones
plucking at tendons
under the surface
of leathered skin.
Each morning, creation
sings praise to all
the light by which I see.
There is joy in the squinting.
I feel the notes winged flight
on the scaled heights
of orchestrated air,
I knelt before The Musician.
“Will You play it again?
Tomorrow maybe?”
“My symphonies have no end,
you only need receive them.”
The shape of passion,
not of getting, but
giving.
A crossroad of wills,
intersecting between
I and Thou.
Centering the crux
of the matter…
Relationship,
where my flat-line
crosses His up-line.
Good News.
The clouds aren’t usually this quiet.
They’re trying to sneak by unnoticed.
No definition. Looking a little pale,
they scrape the tree-line like a hangover.
The cool night chained them to the low places
and now they slip away into the light of day.
With their dissipation I am thinned,
the heaviness of dark lifted,
shadows spilling as a remembrance.
Forgiveness as the dew,
mercy as the burning thereof,
and grace its antecedent.
Yeah, you might have seen the commercials. I think they’re advertising a beer, anyway, I got to thinking… Would I really like to be the “most” in anything?
Even the most interesting man has to accomplish the most uninteresting of duties. Take a leak. Brush his teeth. Eat some eggs.
I caught myself thinking “I want to be the most humble man in the world.” I don’t know if that is a paradox or an oxymoron. Maybe it’s simply moronic.
Maybe I want to be the most “telling-it-slant-poet” in the world. I would lay down lines which echo for a hundred or so years.
Being the most… Most. Most. Most. What a funny word. The more I ponder it, the sillier it sounds. Say ‘most’ out loud enough times and well, what do you think?
Honestly, have you ever met anyone aspiring to be the most UNinteresting person in the world? Maybe you have, and just didn’t notice. Did you see what I did there?
I think God-math comes into play as far as being the ‘most’ in any endeavor. You know, it is in dying we live. It is in denying we receive. Like walking backwards to settle into the starting blocks… I think.
The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp started all this mental wondering. She got all up in my stuff by reminding me of Jesus’ words…”Unless a grain of wheat dies, it abides alone.”
That is all.
It is for the birds I climb the fully extended ladder hoping my son can break my fall should I lose my balance. The wing-ed ones which God said are under His care. The sparrows which worry not, but flit around, plucking and chattering, waking me before the set alarm.
“Bring in the birds, Lord, so I remember Your grace. So I can ease off the hustle of life and know Your love and forgiveness is worth more than tuppence, yet a tuppence of faith is all that You ask.
When Your grace flies into view today, I will thank You.
And the rain falls one drop at a time,
All at once.
Its voice collected from the spaces between
The pear shaped missiles.
Variations of tone, from guttural to whispers
Of moisture wending.
Thank You for speaking this way
When Ecclesiastes became my umbrella
Under the sun.
Saturday June 3rd 2000
Last weekend I realized I hadn’t been to see Dad’s marker since the graveside service. So I called my three brothers and asked them to meet me there at sunrise on Memorial Day to remember Dad. I got there early to have some time to reflect and lay some flowers down. The funny thing was that it took me ten minutes to find his spot…to find him. Then when I did tears came like a dike had just burst. I hadn’t expected that. “It was just like when he was alive…I had to go looking for him,” I whispered. Then the translation to my spiritual life was more understandable. Issues of my doubting God came to surface. Lies were uttered, “You have to go looking for God all the time too. He even tells you to do it like some cosmic game of hide and seek. When does He ever come looking for you? (Believe me, I’ve found some pretty good spots to hide.) It seems God’s still at the tree, arms crossed, counting to infinity as only He can.” Then truth chimed in with Psalm 139 and other scant passages I stored for the Spirit to recall. Not to mention the sun that was starting its daily journey. The smell was fresh of the flowers and the colors that brushed my senses. Then my brothers showed up. We talked, cried, and I read some journal entries from around the time of Dad’s death and then read “his” poem. We prayed the Lord’s Prayer and then I thanked the boys for joining me in my therapy session.
There are some arms of Christendom today that are promoting a gender neutral Bible. Technically God is gender neutral. Maybe a better way of putting it is bi-gender. God encompasses femininity and masculinity, He created us male and female after all and we are God’s image. But for me personally, I need God to be my father. I need to know that God can pursue and protect and be strong in a “man” way sometimes. Forgive me please, ladies. I need my Dad. I need my Abba. I figure I need a father maybe because of the absence of my own.
P.S. “Dad, I know you’re story, and I am thankful for you and know the struggles you had. Can’t wait to see you again.”
When poetry slants,
And phrases dribble down,
My parched lips part,
And life trickles in
Where nothing else passes.
A Psalm, a song,
An edge-wise word
Tipped over
Into my soul.
