Category Archives: Poetry

Eat the Bread of Life Instead: Memorial Day Psalm

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, , ,
June 14: Click the picture to access an interactive map

When the houselights came up and people did not chat,
…..when they jumped on their phones to occupy themselves
…..lest they be undistracted too long,
When curbs to a federal judge’s power to hold someone in contempt
…..were stealthily added to the bad billionaire budget,
When I went to the protest with all those grey heads
…..and noticed my black neighbors were checked out of the fight
…..and the man I love like a son refused to listen to news anymore,
When Stephen Miller gave the word to bomb Houthi civilians
…..and Pete Hegseth concocted a way to get Trump his Qatari jet,
When Israel decided to colonize the spit of land
…..the Gazans they are starving call home,
When Kivu, both Sudans, Somalia, Kashmir, Ukraine
…..frothed in the sea as mountains fell, and five years after George Floyd,
…..police kill more people than ever, and Kristi Noem is someone,
When my list went on,
I was tempted Lord.
Memorial Day was a bitter taste in my mouth.

But when I turned to you, I remembered wonder:
Remembered anxious people reaching out to yesterday’s rainbow like a life raft,
Remembered over 1000 events planned to counter Trump’s vanity parade —
…..the “Tanks-Rut-on-Constitution-Ave. Day,”
Remembered concerts of talented children making end-of-year music,
…..Remembered Bruce Springsteen taking the hits with his hits for us,
Remembered new neighbors checking to see if we need anything,
…..Remembered the dogged kindness of the people in my church,
…..Remembered how we somehow got a new cat who kisses,
Remembered that affliction breeds endurance which breeds character
…..which still breeds hope, born again.
It is hard to stay bitter in May.

God help me, I felt Memorial Day possibilities
…..despite the day’s repulsive hypocrisy —
…..business people wading into the ocean down the shore
…..in their Odunde-like appeasement to capitalist gods.
But, God help me, some old men said we were born for a time like this.

Don’t give up America.
…..People bled for your best ideas.
Don’t give up church.
…..People are looking for you right now.
Don’t give up leaders.
…..Your good intentions are enzymes in the body politic.
Don’t give up high school grads, college grads, music students.
…..A.I. avoiders and creators,
…..inheritors of a warming earth,
…..first victims of the billionaire world order.
Please make something better.

Yes. Exceptionalism is an illusion.
Yes. America-the-better won’t save you.
Yes. The whole thing is a grift right now.
Yes. Memorial Day is a celebration of power not love —
…..at least not the love of bread, wine and miracle.
But very few are listening for America or God,
…..just yet.
No one sacrificed for Donald Trump in Germany,
…..or would.
So yes. You’re right.
But remember Jesus, beloved country.
…..Turn into visions of born-again better.
When you’re tempted to feed your list to the phone
…..eat the Bread of Life instead.

The One Tree

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

One of the words I kept hearing at the CAPS Conference this past week was “presence.” The message I took away was: “In the middle of Trump turmoil, stay present to God.” Like anxious clients need to hear, “Feel your feet on the ground and sense the air moving in and out of your body as you breathe deeply.” In doing so, we return to our awareness of our life in Christ and rest in the presence of God.

Returning

If you are anything like me, most days I get “messed up.” People and situations disturb my equilibrium, and my capacity to think and feel are an invitation to be disrupted from the inside, too, even if I stay holed-up in my house.  I need to get up every morning and turn into my source of life.

Psalm 65 is a useful tool for returning. I meditate with it using three long, slow, deep breaths, one for each stanza:

You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,
    God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
    and of the farthest seas,

who formed the mountains by your power,
    having armed yourself with strength,
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
    the roaring of their waves,
    and the turmoil of the nations.

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
    where morning dawns, where evening fades,
    you call forth songs of joy.

After three sets of three breaths, I think anyone might be more able to face the day.

Now is the time

The springtime of Lent is a perfect time to turn.

The other day I wrote my own psalm like Psalm 65 but in my own time and my own place. I did not write it in the name of great art. But you might relate to it and find it useful for your own process. The Lord stills the “turmoil of the nations.” Yesterday, I was stilled by the dawning of creation on the leafing trees outside my window. In the middle of my mess, God called forth “songs of joy.”

Lord,
there is that one tree —
just the top of it I see
through the legs of my desk
as I look toward the sky,
in the Spring morning looking,
looking for light, looking
to see if the chilling wind I fear
is moving in the tallest branches
and locking me in some defensive coat
as I venture out into the sun
after a chilly winter, one chilled
with trouble and the grief
of letting go and letting in.

As I start to write, the tree,
that signal tree, roots me
yet reaches into uncertainty.
We’re completely still.
Serene. Blessed. Surprised
by the joy of the morning.
Nestled. Snug with the other trees
blessing the park with their community,
a home for us wanderers longing to rest.

Now, as I turn my head and heart,
I see the faintest touch of breezing start.
Breeze winds its way through the tallest twigs,
teasing the huddling branches apart.
My tree raises hands and gently claps
in the rhythm of creation as old as time,
in the glow of day breaking with new unknowns,
assured, as one who knows Spring personally
and feels rain like friendship.

In the chill, I would have huddled
in reassurance, longing to cuddle
some wished-for insurance
against the cold, some imminent gale.
But the season has lifted.
My roots tingle with the whispering
of ancient voices tendriling in the park
with a message as fresh as Mystery.

Your love is a hard truth and scary,
and a beam of sunlit hope to carry,
hope gently pushing me like what launched
the tuft of spring’s first dandelion,
a seed launched into the way of brother wind,
now looking for a place to root and bloom
at the foot of our wizened Oak
in the freshness of a Spirit-blown day.

You might want to hear me read it here. 

******************

Today is Oscar Romero Day! If you want to know how to respond to authoritarian regimes, he’s your spiritual guide. Commune with him at The Transhistorical Body. 

Epiphany Psalm

A life in the Spirit, Poetry
A woman much like this one has been my inspiration.

I looked at Christmastide
through my historical telescope:
a distant planet of revel
clouded with 13th century faith,
a faint tune from a long-past
collective unconsciousness,
a wisp of memory clinging to
moments of glittering hope
painted on a faded background.

My celebration turned, stretched,
lurched into the unrepeatable future.
Pondering whether to toss old journals
led to guilty, ambivalent listening
as they echoed down the trash chute.
Discovering an old speech from the past
led to a spiritual rehab.
But all the old poetry was saved as is:
hundreds of psalms sketched in moleskin
like Mechtilde esoterically
scratching for the Poetry Foundation.

I am at odds with the year again.
My Advent is just beginning:
as taxes come due, as we are on the road,
journeying to a new place, a new era,
waiting for a final shoe to drop,
dreading flaws in the makeover,
anticipating grief in the unknown.

I am still following the star
hoping a cradle is in my future.
But also sure I will meet a Herod,
or confront the inner intolerable,
living off some dead woman’s inspiration
or at least subject to her grandiosity.
I have come to so many mangers,
it is hard not to think the present star
is rather dim in comparison,
the myths of memory casting shade.
Waning and waiting go together now,
like John the Baptist finding his dream job
is officially over and all too brief.

But I suppose if I am the last person
longing for the next Epiphany,
strangely inspired by the wild 1200’s,
following some ineffable star,
that will have to be how it is.
Because it is, just as you are:
as inescapable as life and death,
as brilliant as you are dim and dimmed,
uncovered from the rubble of history,
obscured by the uncertain future,
and as bright as a New Year’s dawn.

 

[I recorded it, if you like  LINK]

Clare Day Psalm

A life in the Spirit, Poetry,

On Clare Day last week many aspects of my meditation combined into a psalm of wonder, which she helped me write.

Clare, you were so young
when you ran down the hill to Portiuncula
and begged Francis to cut your hair!
I suppose I love you because I was eighteen once
and I ran through fields
and I asked God to circumcise my heart,
to cut me free from the domination system,
from my own fears of never being myself.
I suppose I love you because you are an anima,
like a figure in a waking dream
looking for a key to open new doors in my soul,
a mysterious other side to me,
to the Francis I cannot seem to shake.

You, Lord, the Eve, the Eros, the Mary, Sophia
appear in the dreamy places just beyond my grasp
and yet deep in the recesses of my mind and memory.
On Clare Day I turn to you.
And though you flee and I am left in awe,
lost in another shifting, inner building,
left wondering what integration is yet to be,
yet I wait for you, and you will come.

I will look you in the face,
into your blurry familiarity:
so near and so elusive,
so known and so mysterious,
so welcome and yet so wild.
On Clare Day, as I follow you,
an old man limping through the poppies,
I am found and still finding.
I am sure and still surprised.
I am filled. And still you come,
as if we were eighteen together
and opening doors for the first time.

Pentecost season

A life in the Spirit, Poetry

You are so kind Lord!
When I wondered who I am,
You said, “Call me Abba”
and the calling made me. Makes me!
I call your name and you call mine.
I name you mine and you name me back.
You are so kind, Lord!

In a day of meaningless words,
who will you send into the streets? Who?
In a day of CGI-fantasy fire,
who will marvel at the tongues? Who?
In an ocean of one-bedroom apartments,
who will join your fire-born community? Who?
In your broken-down church,
wearing its terrible reputation,
where will you show your face to the world? You!

You are so kind Lord!
I shied away from saying, “Let it be me!”
and you still said, “I’ll let it be you.
It has always been you and me.
Always. Before you were born, I knew you.
I loved you and waited for you to grow.
Waited. When you first saw me, I was looking at you.
When you were a twentysomething,
I knew what could happen and laughed.
I laughed at you thinking you were too old
to burn with fire and energize grace.
Old! If you are too old, what am I?”
You are so kind Lord!

In this season of celebration —
wearing red, singing confident songs —
this season of unimagined beginnings,
help me. Help me to be looking for you
as you seek me out again and name me.
Seek me! Lick me with the presence of the future.

Thirty-three and thirty-three again

Poetry,

Today, the sun rises again
and the Son again rises with it.
You may want to sleep through it again,
the pillow over your head in dread again.
It may burn your eyelids as it invades your bed,
make you queasy with its sky turning red,
make your dizzy brain reel in the face of new day.
You may resist it all and hit the snooze,
pick up the phone and zero out, or lay
and feel the uneasy knowledge of staying still.

On your road to your Emmaus
you may not spy the bloom among us
right there at the edge of your blinders.
You may not recognize the warming,
the gentle, but binding, binding heat
of burning light in the deep, in the dark,
in the places you are sure no one sees,
in the old pains you feel will never heal,
in the memories you cannot forget,
in the aches you never could forgive.

But there He is again. You
turn your head and catch his eye again.
You take the bread from his hand again
and the moment is an eternity before
he’s gone missing, gone in some fog —
working and loving, God in God,
until he rises from the good earth again,
descends through a thin place again,
connects through a tender touch again,
surprises with that distant voice again.

My new friends call it Eastertide. It
ebbs and flows unstoppable, again and again; its
waves of life, sweet and swelling, wake us up to live again.

Would you like to hear me read it? Here is a link.

Today is John Leonhard Dober Day! He is the first missionary the Moravian Brethren chose to send out from Herrnhut in 1727. He has a remarkable story of faith and courage. Get to know him at The Transhistorical Body. 

What will it be when deep calls to deep today?

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, Spiritual direction

Deep unto deep calls out
at the sound of Your channels.
All Your breakers and waves have surged over me.
By day the Lord ordains His kindness
and by night His song is with me –-
prayer to the God of my life. (Robert Alter)

My Psalm this morning came after pondering the portion of Psalm 42, above. 

Thank you for helping me turn, Lord —
turning: the base skill of spiritual health,
turning: the squeal of worn-out ball bearings
under the faulty drum of my inner washing machine,
turning: the painful choice to stop looking
at the past as if it were not over
but ready to click into the spin cycle and wring me out.

We don’t need to be in the churn of Psalm 42, do we?
What will it be when deep calls to deep today?

The psalmist probably meant
“’Chaos calls to chaos!’
I am stuck in the primordial soup
waiting for ‘Let there be light,’
for life to blow into my nostrils of mud.

The optimistic kataphatics
hear the depth of God calling to the depths of them.
Those “waterfalls and waves”
are a mindful trip to Bali
floating on a calm sea of love.

I always seem to start out in the churn
(only the faithful dare to look into the abyss),
but here I am longing for the turn.

Mindful or mindless, I hold this in my heart.
From the old RSV:
“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love;
and by night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.”
From the new VOICE:
“Yet in the light of day, the Eternal shows me  his love.
When night settles in and all is dark, He keeps me company —
His soothing song, a prayerful melody to the True God of my life.”

I will try not to toggle today Lord,
wobbling and banging like an overfilled washer
then floating on a sea of forgetfulness and wonder —
the twain rarely meeting.
I will have joy in one hand and suffering in the other
and turn into the song of eternity in me and ahead of me.
Help me listen
and listen again…
and turn and turn into your song,
even turn round right.

Memorial Day Psalm for Uvalde

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, , , , ,

 Old graves to decorate

Many towns in the United States claim they invented Memorial Day after the horrible Civil War, from which the country has never recovered, I’d say. All over the nation, graves were growing uncared for and many people thought that was shameful. Within 30 years the government made Decoration Day into a national holiday. It was placed at the end of May when flowers are in bloom everywhere.

Roughly 2% of the U.S. population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty during the Civil War.  Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as six million people. 

There are many people to remember on Memorial Day. It is hard to get a hold on just how many there are!

Most record keepers suggest that about 75 million people worldwide died in World War 2, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians. Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation.

America has been in 19 known wars since World War 2. But just remember the death toll from three of the bloodiest conflicts: The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total death toll of people killed by American troops in all these wars put together is over 12 million.

Our war weapons are used on our own own citizens, too. 

This week last year, the sad facts of Memorial Day were heightened when we heard about 18 year old Pedro Ramos, who shot his grandmother in the face after they argued over how he did not graduate from high school. He then took his two legally purchased AR-15 automatic weapons to Robb Elementary and shot 36 people, mostly children in two adjoining classrooms, killing 21.

You probably don’t remember the details. There is a year-full of subsequent shootings. As of the end of April this year, in just four months, there have been 185 mass shootings in the U.S. (using the definition of 4 or more people shot in one incident). 254 people died. 708 were wounded. Untold numbers were traumatized. 

The Uvalde victims

I often say, “How could someone do that?”  But there are many terrible reasons. They are not all personal. Pedro Ramos lived in a country in which leaders of his state tenaciously protected his freedom to buy an automatic weapon in the name of freedom. He lived in a country which is committed to spending, if I calculated the unfathomable right, about $26,000 a second in 2023 to maintain by far the largest military in the world to protect Pedro Ramos’ freedom. You can do your own moral math about that and watch the country refight the  civil war on the “news.”

New victims to memorialize

I want to spend my Memorial Day tears on placing symbolic flowers on the graves of
people killed in Uvalde on May 24, 2022. I know the survivors are more overwhelmed by their losses than I can imagine, even a year later.   But I can imagine a lot.

Lord, I pause the fun at the lake.
I dare to look at my lively grandkids.
I force myself to look at the numbers,
at the evil statistics too horrible to know.

I will ask for forgiveness later.
But first I examine the sin, the heartbreak,
the wounds reopened every second
with every dollar spent on power,
spent on the mistaken notion the right to kill
makes Pedro Ramos free, like he must have thought.

Ten year old Nevaeh Bravo.
Her name was heaven spelled backward.

Nine year old Jacklyn Cazares.
Her first communion picture was offered to the press.

Ten year old Makenna Elrod.
Four sisters and three brothers will never forget.

Ten year old Manuel Flores.
His mother said, “He was very good with babies.”

Irma Garcia had taught at Robb for 23 years.
Two days after her death her husband died of heart failure.
Their children were told mom was seen shielding her students.

Ten year old Maile Rodriguez.
She died helping others to safely hide.

There are more Lord. Always more.
We are overwhelmed with more.
You bear the overwhelming sins of the world.

No amount of decoration on graves
will conceal the hideous truth.
Humanity chooses power over love,
even makes you a warrior God
instead of a suffering servant.

Can you forgive us who rarely forgive?
Can you save us who believe AR-15s save?

 

A psalm of examen: Bite and bile

A life in the Spirit, Poetry,

Francis receiving stigmata: Seville Cathedral

Not long after I spent a few minutes staring at this amazing piece of art in the sumptuous Seville Cathedral, I popped into a neighborhood church on the way to more gelato. Unlike how I imagine frustrated Francis patiently enduring his place in the wall of a treasure house, treasuring a lost bird winging through the  air near the ceiling, and seeing Christ in the hordes of tourists, I felt a bit too much bite and bile rise up in reaction to the state of the church — my church, and God’s.

This dashed-off psalm down the road by the pool reflects my examination.

An instinctive turn into the church:
Sevillans are intoning a rosary.
The leader gives a glance to verify
We are invisible tourists.

I make my companion sit with me:
Sevillans creating a foreign atmosphere,
making a world for the initiated.
I get through a cycle and leave.

Out on the sidewalk I speak softly,
m sotto voce of contempt lest they hear,
“That’s a good reason for the church to die.”
I am self-righteously upset.

I am right again. So right. So right.
But my scorn is also a good reason
for your beleaguered Church to die.
I kick its last leg in the shin.

Every time I wander here, I lament
when the baroque church was powerful,
when they got a cut of the land and gold
from which I still benefit.

They spread out art in every corner of each town:
brilliant details amplify your honor and glory
with the ill-gotten gains of thieves and murderers.
I inherited murderous thoughts.

I am instinctively turning into this psalm,
Into a place outside my bite and bile.
If for just a moment, I am freed by worship
As my heart sees the invisible.

Make me alive, so I see death dying.

A life in the Spirit, Poetry,

where dead beasts stay dead

He confessed a classic movie scene:
a hero must offer Dad’s eulogy
and can’t complete it because he sobs.
That’s not him. He’s a stone lit by flickers,
afraid someone will see his tearless guilt,
or hear his relief echoing in the loss
of the father he never had — that death
finally completed, his secret resurrection.

She held a service in her mind:
another tree fell in her strained forest
when the dominator finally left —
moved on to a new host, declaring victory,
leaving the rotting hulk of their influence,
a shadow still dimming the light in her bunker,
where she reflexively cowered in the springtime
of their crucifixion, weeping at the tomb.

Both pleaded, “Please stay dead, so I can rise.”

Though free they still felt oppressed,
surrounded by the blare of faux idealism,
screens teaching what no one is
but who everyone is supposed to be.
They could not confess their liberty,
consigned to forgive people who were not sorry,
bearing sins which others committed,
forever fearing the day they trusted again.

Both prayed, “I can’t die with you; only the living can.
I’m killed, choiceless, double crossed.”

Lord, the old confession finally seems relevant.
I welcome You into the fullness of your death:
the “daily death” Paul dies from the wild beasts
snapping at his soul, sitting at dinner tables,
leading business meetings, filling pulpits,
the stench of their breath accepted as atmosphere.
When it lifts, we feel normal might be in the air.
But it is the breeze of resurrection we smell.

We pray, “Make me alive so I see death dying,
so I am not an empty, tearless loss,
or still at home in a toxic memory.

Please stay alive, so my death can die.”