Thursday, January 19, 2006

Psalm 23

1. God holds me close,
and lets me know
that what I have
is more than
enough.
2. God shows me
glorious places
in creation
like the lake
and forest
where we camped.
3. In my darkest,
most deadly moments,
God points out to me
the absurdity
of it all
and I laugh;
God reminds me
of Goodness.
4. And though the
stink of death
is constant
in my home
God had made me
fearless
by making
divinity
clear to me,
by making
my journey
at all
possible.
5. A place is
set for me
at the
Feast of
the Lamb
and a place
for everybody else,
friend or foe.
and God has
designated me
to help host
this Feast.
There is food enough
and New Wine
for all.
6. There is Hope
for all of Life,
and a space
for all of being
helped
and all of
helping
as long as I
have breath
to draw.

3/15/05

lenten meditations past

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Psalm 22

Eli, Eli,
lama sabacthani?
Matt. 27:46

Am I now forgotten
and overcome with
my fantasies of loss?

can you even hear me

In the morning I wake
with Your name on my lips
like "Mother."
At night there is a
darkness in the basement
echoing my voice.
Yet I maintain that
You are Holy
& have inhabited my praise.

My Dad seems calmed by his trust.
You have been a bandage
to his recent orphaning.
This faith is his vocation
but mine is doubt,
doubt confounding all
and inviting their disgust.
And why not?
Oh, look at me:
a laughable waste,
good only as a punch-
line cautionary tale,
good for a head-scratch
& a shrug.
The people all I know
would say,
"Oh listen to his death-wish,
his hastening of apocalypse!
If he's so sure, et cetera."

Still and all, I know
that You were the
very author
of all my hope.
I had little choice
but to learn
Your greatness early.
I am ripe
for Your re-education.
Loss is on my face
always
and no person knows to listen.

The grief of death
[and of getting up to go to work,
and of riding the bus
or shopping for groceries
or walking to church
and seeing the way-laying tragedy
of all the people I might meet]
has surrounded me.
The undiluted pain of
breathing
has bitten me on my
legs & in
my chest.
The pouring out
of my stupid fragile heart
has turned to white noise.
My bones are made
of heavy water.
I don't remember strength
or how to speak.
You have watched me into
the dust of death.
Is this the sound
of dogs licking at
my seeping wounds?
Have I hated myself
into stigmata?
Tell me.
My bones wait for me
to relate your answer.
My beloved are eyeing
my books and guitars
thinking this is
goodbye.

But do not be far.
Hurry to calm me.
Move to stop these growing nicks and cuts,
stay my love from the alleys.
Spare me the mundane
by the power of the miraculous.
I'll speak Your name around me
and point at You.
You have taken note of the sickness
of the ill,
and haven't hidden from them.
But when those Last Gasps
and Why Hast Thous
have sounded
You have known.
I'll tell the ones
who know but doubt
and retell your comfort
to the darkness.
Your heart will live among us.
And maybe in Your comfort
my world will be overcome.
That world is Yours.
It cannot be ours
as we fear and rail against
this death
but cause so much of it.
And I, the least of this,
will serve You,
and You will grow me
into much.
The faithful will come
and exclaim
that this is Your work.

1/3/06

in insufficient memoriam:
Carl Peercy
Mildred Peercy
Michael Dahlquist