When Jesus said,
“Love your neighbor as yourself,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Do not be angry with your brother or sister,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Let your word be ‘Yes, yes,’ or ‘No, no,'”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Love your enemies,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Beware of practicing your piety before others,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Do not build up treasures on earth,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Woe to you who are rich now,”
He meant it. 

When Jesus said,
“You cannot serve God and wealth,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Do not judge,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Give all you have to the poor, and follow me,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven times,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“It will be hard for a wealthy person to enter the realm of God,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“All things are possible with God,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“Put your sword back in its place,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“God, forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
He meant it.

When Jesus said,
“It is finished,”
He meant it.
For the moment. 

When Jesus said,
“I am with you always,”
He meant it.
Unto the end of the age. 

A poetic venture into the Gospel of Matthew – with a guest appearance by the Gospel of Luke.

Envy, as a sin,
Didn’t make it to the Big Ten –
Though it did make the Big Seven.
It took some time.
In the Big Ten
It feeds, I guess, the sin
Of coveting.

I rarely sense it, but
It’s hard to tell
If it’s so rarely resident
Within my soul,
Or if it’s so ensconced in me
That I can’t separate it
From the background noise
Of my existence
Until it’s fed by circumstance
Or magnified by need.

Still, on a busy Monday, I confess,
As I admire the violet blossoms
Of the crocus rising from the soil,
I envy it.

Not for its beauty, though I might,
For surely Solomon in all his glory
Lacked its glorious array!

No, it’s the profusion
Of the day: the calls, the mail,
The words, the code,
The questions answered
And the questions still unanswered,
Turn and turn and turn about.

Amidst all this,
I tender my confession:
I envy you, sweet crocus,
That all you need to do today
Is grow. 

We thought we’d won. We thought the Church had won.
We’d won a global war and conquered ills
And cruelties stark and horrifying. We
Had saved the world from evil. Then we looked
About and saw prosperity spread wide
Across the land. Our steeples rose above
The village greens and city thoroughfares,
Our sanctuaries filled with worshipers.
Our land rejoiced in peace. We thought we’d won.

We did not see the gaps in victory.
We had not seen the thousands shut away,
Compelled to leave their homes throughout the war
Because of fear and racial prejudice.
We did not see the suffering of those
Whose ancestors had journeyed to this land
In chains, whose darker skin marked them to be
Oppressed, denied their birthright liberties,
Prevented from embracing their true gifts
By education minimal (or none).
We did not see that half our people could
Not chart their course through life, but gender marked
Them for unquestioned roles, and subject to
The powers of their fathers, husbands, sons.
Far fewer than we knew believed we’d won.

We weren’t the first to think it, nor the first
To find that we were wrong. It seems to rise
In wake of tragic conflicts, “wars to end
All wars” (which never seem to make their mark).
We’d given peace to Europe at Versailles,
But found we’d only planted seeds for a
More deadly conflagration. We believed
We’d freed the slaves, and saved the nation when
They stacked their arms in Appamatox’ field,
Then turned away as, clad in hoods and white,
The former owners terrorized the ones
They should have honored as their neighbors. Strange
And horrible the fruit of southern trees.

We thought we’d won when we established a
New nation on this soil – soon forgot
The plight of slaves; and soon forgot the ones
We dispossessed to gain the land we farmed.
We thought we’d won when our English king
Declared the land for our religion: Once
Again we failed to see the flaming pyres
And swaying scaffolds bearing Catholics
For what they were. We thought we’d won when we
Declared a “Holy” Roman Empire, and
Imperial it was, but holy it
Was not. We thought we’d won when Constantine
Declared our faith not only lawful but
The guiding force for all the land he ruled.
What catalogs of evil did he loose
All in the name of Christ, who died at hands
Of those who loyalty was given to Rome?

We thought we’d won: again, again, again.
But on this side of the immortal veil,
The struggle for a home of righteousness 
And peace may never find a victory
So final and conclusive as we seek.
The signal that we’ve more work to be done
Is that we pause and wonder if we’ve won. 

Howling wind outside my window
Threatens to whirl away
Whatever I have left untended
(Did I fully latch the storm door?)
In echo of the prophet’s mountain storm
Swirling around the Mount of God
As he sheltered in the cave.
“But the Lord was not in the wind.”

Fire blazing in a city apartment
Tragically bereaving
Leaving a neighbor grieving
For the children whose small shovels
Moved away the snow.
A fire unlike the one which left
The burning branches unconsumed.
“But the Lord was not in the fire.”

Still, small voice
Whose gentle tone does not conceal
Its disappointment:
“What are you doing here?
You’re out of place, Elijah
(Insert my name here).”
Voice of direction.
Voice of command.

Lend me the wisdom, Holy One,
To distinguish between your still, small voice
And the whispering desires which are mine.
Lend me awareness so that you need not repeat yourself
(Too often, anyway)
And the humility to recognize
When your impatience with my inattention
Rises to the wind and fire. 

How reassuring, God,
That when another snowfall
Threatened to depress my spirit,
I could stop and gaze in wonder
At the startling beauty
Of the falling crystals,
At the subtle loveliness
Of silver surfaces
That glaze the arching trees.
It’s been a long, hard, winter,
Yet in a snowfall on the equinox of spring,
My heart took just a tiny flutter
Of gratitude and joy.

Gotta run, gotta run
‘Til day is done
Help me, Lord!
Amen.

 Pain is an odd blessing.

It’s the body’s warning
(Or the mind’s, or the heart’s)
That it may be time
To do things differently
Than you are doing.

That kitchen knife you’re washing?
Pull it away!
That door you’re closing?
Open it!
That heavy bale you’re lifting?
Put it down!
Oh. Not there.
That’s your toe.
Pull that away.
Sorry.

There are other times
When pain’s warning has to be ignored.
I’m running, pain,
Don’t tell me that my legs are tired.
We’ve got somewhere to go.
I have to be here, pain,
To honor one I’ve lost
Despite the sadness and the tears.
It will be but a moment, pain,
To live the heartbreak once again
And rip away emotion’s scab
(It’s only had a day to form, again)
But it’s the price I pay for what
I value more than life.

Pain is an odd blessing, God.
Oh, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

It took a moment to realize what I saw:
In the median that separates
The asphalt belts of highway
An utter lack…
Of snow.

The grass I saw looked pale and wan
No brightly glowing green, at least not now,
But just emerging from a heavy blanket
I don’t look
My best.

Despite a forecast threatening
Another snowfall in a couple days (oh, not again),
I’ll seize some hope from this poor pallid green,
This median
Of grass.

O Holy One of heaven and of earth,
Renew my hope and courage in this season,
To cross the middle zones of life
And crossing, find
The spring. 

I have grown weary of the lie that this
Is a society that values work.
We shame the ones who do or can not work,
And thunder moralistic speeches from
The floors of legislative chambers and
The pulpits of religious homes of prayer.
The ones who seek and can not find a job
In an economy they did not wreck
(Which others, who enjoy the benefits
Of wealth, demolished in their mad pursuit
Of gold), endure the condemnation of
The comfortable and the privileged. 

I have a job, and though I’m praised for all
The effort I put into it, the truth
Is that I sit upon a chair and type,
For which I’m paid far more than those who bear
The burdens of delivering the stuff
I order on the Internet, or clean
The bathrooms of our building to preserve
Our health. The hardest workers in the world
Are farmers in a jungle or the edge
Of deserts: one who struggles to remove
The e’er-encroaching weeds; the other bears
From stream or well remote the water which
Will coax the crops to grow. And their reward
Does not approach the compensation I
Received, so many years ago, at school,
For shredding obsolescent documents.
And still we gravely claim to value work. 

A quick and superficial glance at rates
For income tax reveals a startling truth:
That you will pay more tax for what you earn
By work than what you gain by sitting still.
In every bracket, gains in capital,
When what you own increases in its price,
Is taxed at lower rates than what you’re paid
To build, or think, or write, or do, or clean.
It’s cheaper to do nothing than to work.

We value work by blaming those whom we
Will not employ for what they can not change.
We value work by paying those who work
As little as we possibly can do
And still retain the services we need.
We value work by taxing what we earn
More highly than we tax what we do not.

Oh God, deliver those who work from our
Hypocrisy, for it is sadly clear
That we, as a society, will not.
May those who labor find the hidden joy
Which lies within their toil, at the least
To know that those who scorn to pay a just,
Befitting wage will stand before you on
A morning glorious, and face the son
Of an impoverished carpenter. Amen.

The joys of parenting are manifold:
My hands still feel, despite the passing years,
The pressure of small fingers and small palm
(My happy thought) experienced so oft
In crossing streets and crowded shopping malls.
My heart still swells with happy pride to see
The photographs of public readings, plays
And concerts, graduations and awards.
My eyes delight in memory of belts
Of many colors earned in karate.
The joys of parenting are manifold.

This morning I awake content as I
More rarely do these days: a child is home
From college (not the other; I enjoyed
His company two weeks ago). They each
Are making their own lives, which bring a new
And different pride, which counts upon reports
They make, and scanning social media
(O blessed invention for the parent of
A launching young adult!), and precious time
In conversation over dinner (How
They both devour Indian cuisine!).
The joys of parenting are manifold.

Last night I made a new discovery
Of joy. My younger daughter simply said
To me, “I have an amazing brother.”

She does. He would as well, except that he
Has an amazing sister. I have two
Amazing children, whose accomplishments
Include the rare ability to see
The value of the people whom they choose
As friends and confidants, and see as well
The virtues of the sibling they’ve each known
The balance of their lives. That’s hard for some.

And hearing it, my soul exclaimed and danced.
The joys of parenting are manifold.

I wonder what new joys another day
Will bring, what wisdom and what grace will spring
From this amazing daughter and from this
Amazing son? I smile as I write:
The joys of parenting are infinite.