I can imagine
Barely
The terror of the pilot
Locked outside the cockpit
As the plane descends. 

I can imagine
The pain and deep despair
Which makes
A person wonder
If their life should end.

I cannot imagine
The torment of the soul
Of anyone who takes
So many other lives
To end with theirs.

For this I’m grateful, Lord.
Amen. 

They stand upon a row of guitar cases
(These four guitarists of the apocalypse?):
A bright pink bunny
A penguin with a red bow tie
A scarlet orange bird I like to call a phoenix, and
A teddy bear whose joints are mostly mending and
Whose scanty artificial fur is mostly worn away.
My merry melancholy troop of memories.

The oldest is the bear (of course)
Whose presence comforted my nights
From nigh my birth.
My mother’s fingers held the needle
Seeking stronger cloth beyond the rips and ravels,
And left the thread that holds this bear together.
A little boy is rough on bears!
Each shiny patch where fake fur wore away
Declares a multitude of fierce embraces
Tumbles down a hill
Mad dashes clutched in sticky hands
Relieved retrievals from that spot beneath a tree
Where this forgetful, careless boy had left him
To dissolve in tears until a kind exasperated parent
Recovered him again.

The bright pink bunny was not mine to start.
He rested on the pillow of my mother
As she endured the last months of her life.
Recurring cancer struck and laid her low,
Restricted her ability to speak
And made her final bed one in a hospital.
The bunny joined a host of other gifts
Designed to comfort one whom many loved.
And when she died, the bunny went with me
In a green Plymouth Valiant
Back to school
Despite a lingering sexist part of me
(It lingers still, I know)
That isn’t fond of pink.

I won the scarlet bird at a game of chance or skill –
It’s hard to tell those games apart upon the midway of a fair.
As I recall, I offered him to someone that I loved
(It might have been another prize, some other time),
And she said, “No.”
Not so long after, she said, “No,” to me.

Standing tallest: Opus, figure from a comic
Popular when I attended college
(Strange the power those brief years
Hold now so many decades hence).
It is an early Opus (Opus one?);
I can tell because his beak grew markedly
While the comic lasted.
I found a kindred spirit in this penguin
Who combined a wonder at the world
With certain squeamish reflexes
And funny guilty pleasures:
“Actually, I enjoy this is the same awful way
That I enjoy the ‘A-Team.'”
I always pitied the Pinocchio direction
Taken by the artist. This nose looks best to me.

They stand upon a row of guitar cases
(These four guitarists of the apocalypse?):
A bright pink bunny
A penguin with a red bow tie
A scarlet orange bird I like to call a phoenix, and
A teddy bear whose joints are mostly mending and
Whose scanty artificial fur is mostly worn away.
My merry melancholy troop of memories.

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.