The Dregs…

(To be read only with one’s tongue at a ninety degree angle inside one’s mouth and firmly thrust against the inside of one’s cheek.)

O misery of Cave!
Cold Blanket of Winter
Wrapping ’round flesh and bones!
O despair of the Dark,
Day scarce diff’rent than night -
All flesh woefully moans.

O Truculent Season!
Living Death of All Life -
Banishes color green.
O Robber of Visions,
No interest emerging -
Thief of Beautiful Scene.

O Imposer of Gray,
Brown, and Infinite Beige -
Imagery impov’rished.
O Inconstant Season
Of freezing and thawing -
To end you I’ve oft wished!

A cheer for the springtime,
A hiss for the winter,
The death before new life.
O emerge from the Cave
To thawing of senses,
The end of wintry strife.

*Inspired by the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder

My mouth laughs and sings
As a mere echo of my louder heart.
It makes sounds
That I had forgotten.
It is the burbling of
A once dried-up spring
Renewed and insistent
Thundering over rough rocks,
Polishing off sharp edges
Giving life to the hard ground
In and around its path.
Rivers in the desert -
It is God who has done this!

I can see God’s goodness
Out of not-so-perfect eyes,
Hear the grace of the Lord
Through ears that sometimes distort sound,
Feel the peace of Kingdom justice
As it breezes into the room,
Ruffling the graying hairs of my head.
His love and approval bedeck me
As with the finest of silks
And most precious of jewels,
As though crafted especially for me.

It is God who has done this -
God who lifts heads,
God who raises those
Too bent by troubles to stand,
God who sets to running those
Whose feet were once bound together.
I say it again,
It is God who has done this!

To the brokenhearted I say
Grieve and mourn for a time.
To the oppressed I say
Doubt for a spell.
To those overcome by life I say
Sit silently for a space.

But God has not forgotten you.
His eye sees how your feet
Are swept from under you,
His ear hears your cry
Of surprise and pain,
And his hand is at the ready
To put things right.
It is the Lord who does this.

All feet -
It is time to dance!
All hands -
It is time to clap!
All arms -
It is time to embrace!
All voices -
It is time to laugh and sing!

Now is a glorious glimpse
Of restoration and renewal
In the age to come.
So dance, clap, embrace, laugh, and sing
For it is God who has done this!
It is the Lord who has shown us
A fragment of the fullness to come!

The tree of life my soul hath seen,

Laden with fruit and always green:

The trees of nature fruitless be

Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.

 

His beauty doth all things excel:

By faith I know but ne’er can tell

The glory which I now can see

In Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.

 

For happiness I long had sought,

And pleasure dearly I had bought:

I missed of all but now I see

Tis found in Christ the Apple Tree.

 

I’m weary with my former toil,

Here I will sit and rest a while:

Under the shadow I will be,

Of Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.

 

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,

It keeps my dying faith alive;

Which makes my soul in haste to be

With Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.

 

by an unknown New England author, set to music by Elizabeth Poston

I seem to need to hear these words of Saint Patrick over and over again. John set it to music so our congregation could sing it. Even better. I can pray through the words and music.

Christ be with me*
Christ within me
Christ behind me
Christ before me
Christ beside me
Christ to win me
Christ to comfort
And restore me

Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ in quiet
Christ in danger
Christ in hearts of
All that love me
Christ in mouth of
Friend and stranger

*Substitute the word “you” in place of the word “me” throughout the second reading.

Mouth open
Drool descending
Awake in the sleep of boredom
Not pretending

Brain heavy
Eyelids closing
Faint buzzing noise coming from lips
Lightly dozing

Clock ticking
But time stands still
Progressing from numb to brain dead
Thinking of nil.

*Inspired by ACTUAL EVENTS

My soul is greatly grieved.
My heart is choked with anger then mourning,
Darkness then shadow.
My chest fills with molten lead,
And I burn with anger.
Then my tears melt me from the outside,
And my grief from the inside.

Where is the delight in this day, oh God?
Is it anywhere to be found?
A brilliant sun shines on the newness of life this spring day,
But in my heart there is anger, despair, and death.
I take no pleasure in the blossoms and the fresh green
That cannot be ignored as the brown of winter fades away.
The glory of your creation mocks the pain of life;
It mocks those who walk as your children;
It mocks those who lead others to grace and truth.

I dress in cheerful colors,
Hoping to sway the inner by the outer.
But I hesitate before donning my crosses in this passion week,
Not wanting to associate with those who
Steal the meaning from this icon of pure love.

I have been robbed of the joy
Of tending my gardens.
I attack every weed as though it had a name,
As though each were a human enemy
Encroaching upon the beauty of intentional life.
But there are more weeds than enemies,
And I quickly run out of names
For these reckless invaders of purposeful being.

These enemies are snakes,
Serpents with forked and deadly tongues,
Their eyes now glittering lethally,
Ready for the kill.
Only a moment ago their eyes
Mesmerized their beholders
With a hypnotic gaze,
Reassuring their victims
Of good intentions,
Lulling them into a false hope
And a goodwill that cannot last.
It is not certain whether help will come
In time to save the serpents’ prey
From a hideously painful death
Or the disfiguration of a poison
That works upon the body from the inside out.

These serpents consider themselves
Doers of your will,
Protectors of your holy words,
Keepers of a pure faith.
But they have murdered your commandments:
“Love the Lord your God” and
“Love your neighbor.”
The cross is desecrated,
And the one who bore it for them, maligned.
They would condemn Jesus himself
As Moral Slacker, Perverter of Truth, Sower of Confusion,
Never understanding that to see such things
They need only turn the mirror upon themselves.

Strike these serpents, God,
With the heel of your almighty foot!
Wound them
So they cannot torment again,
Cannot perpetuate the living death
In which they live, and move, and have their being.

Step in, oh God.
Come down and save their victims!
Provide the antidote to this poison
So they might be renewed to health
And live in the rays of your mercy forever.

Blow upon us, warm breeze of quickening life.
Brood over us Holy Ghost, Comfort of God.
Pray for me Invisible Spirit of God,
For I am helpless to pray anymore.

*Thanks to my brother, Tim, (and his colleagues) who provided me with a fitting title for this category of psalms. This particular psalm was written during Holy Week (last week).

Are you there, God?
Are you anywhere nearby?
I’ve counted to a hundred,
And I’m coming to find you.
Come out, God,
Wherever you are.

I find traces of you all over the world
And on the ones I love,
But I can’t discover you.
I’ve hunted for
Hours, days, weeks, and years
Amidst the trees,
In closets among old worn-out things,
In a building with stained glass windows and
Filled with the smell of fresh-baked bread.

In my weariness
I lower myself onto a decaying log or
Onto musty carpets ignored for years.
I lean back upon a scrolled and intricately carved bench of wood
As I sit spent and staring at signs that you have just left.
I hear the rustle of leaves,
Feel the brush of coats warm and familiar,
See rays of vivid beauty through the colorful glass, and
Smell the inviting aroma of a satisfying presence
Just after you have passed through.
But you are gone before I can find and
Tackle you in my delight.

Is this game of hide-and-seek
To be played till death?
Will it end in the hereafter,
With a childish shriek of surprise
And peals of laughter
When you finally reveal your hiding place?
Every now and then I glimpse your back
As you move quickly and quietly
To another more secret place,
Out of visual reach,
Away from my searching eyes.

Sometimes my attention wanders.
I grow weary of the game.
Then I am compelled to sit
And ponder the unimaginable:
That you will never end the game, or
That the end result will be a laugh on me
But I won’t be laughing with you.

Are you there, God?
Are you listening to me prowl around nearby
In an effort to expose you?
Are you stifling your laughter with
A hand bigger than life itself?
Are you waiting for the perfect moment
To jump out and shout,
“Here I AM!”
With arms thrown open wide enough to
Embrace every willing mortal ever born
Since the day you first
Breathed life into clay?

Remember my fragile mortal state, God.
Remember and have compassion.
I am impelled by the flame in my soul
To seek you
Until you are found -
Till I can hear the music of your voice,
Feel the warmth of your encircling arms,
See the Father-smile that I have
Beheld only in visions, and
Smell the aromatic and enticing
Fragrance of your life-giving breath.

God, have mercy while I sit
In the shade of the Apple Tree
And nourish my flesh with fruit
Dropped from above my head.
Be gracious to me, God, while I lie back
Upon the massive roots of the Tree
Waiting for strength and unfeigned excitement to return.
Take pity, God, so that I can once again
Chase after you in childlike anticipation
Until the day you choose to end the game
And walk with me
In a world perfected,
Unhidden.

I’m not a poet by any means. But on rare occasions I write additional lyrics for familiar hymn tunes. One day when I was pondering what it must have been like to be the mother of the newborn Christ, I wrote some new words for a Christmas carol. They can be sung to the tune of The Coventry Carol (By By Lully Lullay). It’s a bit like a lullaby for Mary (rather than Jesus), albeit a dark one. Here they are.

Oh Mary on this night do you
Know the fate of your son -
How he must die and suffer, too?
He is God’s chosen one.

Yet while he lives blind eyes shall see,
And shall deaf ears then hear.
The lame shall walk, the mute shall speak,
And shall he banish fear.

No throne of gold for him on earth,
But a cruel cross of wood.
No crown of jewels to prove his worth,
Yet it shall come to good.

Hanging upon a cross shall he
Take the world’s sin away.
Then he shall rise from death to free
Humankind from the grave.

Oh Mary sing a lullaby
For your small, helpless son.
For he must suffer; he must die.
He is God’s chosen one.

God, I’m pissed off,
Hacked off, cheesed to the back teeth.
I’ve reached the boiling point,
And steam is rising
From every pore in my sorry body.
My anger has made me sick.
I could vomit up the gallons of poison
I feel in the deep places of me
And still have more left.

Have you determined
That the Pharisees will actually win?
Has the game changed
Since Christ condemned them?
Have the tables turned?
Is it now a requirement
That we bow and scrape to their pat systems -
Their systems that plot Almighty God on cosmic graph paper,
Their systems that prescribe precise equations
For reaching the God-point?
“Have our theology of Communion,” they say.
“Map out your theology to agree with ours.”
And they say these things
Hoping the floor beneath us will crumble,
Hoping the roof will fall down on us in huge chunks,
Crushing us beneath its weight.
They are incensed by our refusal to embrace the graph,
By our desire and attempt to dance the two-step with you.
If we were crushed, the worlds their hands have made
Could go on unchallenged, unhindered,
And our dance would end.
There would be no need of love for us,
No need to begin an honest, loving dialogue
As Christ did.

But the roof hasn’t fallen.
And so the Pharisees,
Finding stores of nuclear energy,
Bomb the hell out of their favorite targets of grace.
Their weapons of mass destruction
Are continually aimed in our direction.
Just when we think they’ve stood down,
Another mushroom cloud rises,
And we are forced to breathe in the toxins that linger.
The bombs hit
Leaving us in the fall-out zone,
Leaving our souls blistered beyond recognition,
Dying a slow death from the poisonous radiation.

Again, I ask, God,
Have the rules changed?
And if they haven’t
Why don’t you do something?
A human soul can only endure so much before it becomes
A wild animal,
Frightened by the mere presence
Of a human,
Finding even the most primitive existence possible
Only with its own kind.

And they call themselves by the name of Christ.
Ignoring the two commandments that he gave -
Love the Lord your God, and
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Their theology is more important
Than Christ,
Than his example,
Than his commands,
Than his people,
Than the lost.

I wish you would send them to a deep, dark place
Where they can’t hurt anyone,
Can’t spew their noxious rhetoric,
Can’t alter the portrait of God
Painted perfectly as Jesus.
I weep for those already led astray,
For those who see your Portrait
As Munch’s “Scream” -
Christ horrified by humankind,
Not loving us as we are.

If they were gone maybe we could
Have kinder thoughts toward them,
Pray for their well-being,
Win our battle with hate finally.

Why have you awarded them
The power of ecclesiastical life and death?

We have searched for answers in the Word and the Word Made Flesh.
Nothing condemns us.
We have waited on your Holy Spirit.
Nothing condemns us.
We have probed the deep places of ourselves.
Nothing condemns us.

So why do you allow our enemies to condemn us?
Is your power less than God?
Or is your Parent Love flawed
Even more than mine?
“God’s ways are higher than ours,” I hear.
But when will you make these ways known?
I want to believe that you are
The All-Powerful, Perfectly-Loving Father God of my childhood,
But life is so messy,
And sometimes you are nowhere to be found.
A “Dark Night of the Soul,” I read.
But a soul can only endure so much darkness
Before hopelessness sets in,
Before madness has its way.

Prove yourself God.
Glorify your son’s name.
How can Christ receive the honor of a master artist
When black ink has been splattered on your masterpiece?
How can you receive the renown of a Good Father
When some of your children are violently beating the others?
If not for us, then intervene to protect your integrity,
Your Good Name.
Do it,
And we will return the thanks of those
Who have been granted the impossible,
Our desire for you greater than ever before.
Do it,
And we will raise our Ebenezer
To remind us of how this miracle happened
As in the days of Joseph, Moses, and our Lord, Christ.