April 2021 – A Thread You Follow

growth

i
grow
having
grown beyond
my
growing
edge

Sufficient

To be intentional
about my place
on the continuum
adopting a theology
of sufficiency where
one cup of coffee 
and two teaspoons
of sugar are enough 
for my rich blood.

A Marginal Muttering

Those 
who think 
the fastest 
do so 
to avoid
the consequences 
of 
their 
furious
thoughts.

After Collapsing

After collapsing, I cried,
"This day has wiped me out."

She looked over, "Funny.  
I do not see the straw
that broke your back."

I asked, "Are you suggesting 
that I am somehow related 
to camelus dromedarius?"

"Go far enough back and we
all managed to pull ourselves
out of the sea without 
much complaint."

Smiling, I said, "You need
to change careers, as you make
a great same-day, care technician."

She smiled, too.  "I like your 
words when you lie there broken, 
all humped over and distant 
from ecstasy."

To Live

I do not want to live in an infinite 
number of universes at the same time.
My mind...and body...can only handle one.

Instead, I would like to live a thousand thousand lives.
After each life arrives at an end, to begin again in 1965
as someone else, as one who suffers in different
ways and who watches waterfalls with the same
fascination.

“…only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence…” Galatians 5:13

My God,
who listens only to me 
and blesses only me,
indulge me not once again,
attend not to my cries, this time,
but turn my life out, for freedom's
opportunities bring sinuous 
temptation once again before me
to place me at the center of my world.
Amen.

to…

to lean back against the one i love
and feel weariness and worries
soften into wonder

to lower the volume of my own
heart's hate and breathe into
the questions

to see that all things have two
temperatures

to apologize for callousness aimed
at sounds of rejoicing different from 
those I make

to forgive

to allow flourishing

A Future

Qualified participants complete resource lists
feeling sufficiently whole now that the beginning
of wisdom appears on the horizon.  Stories with 
intent bring solidarity with suffering and the children's
events point to where the powerful run the rides.
Communication now happens with kind gestures
revealing possibilities for grace relations between
people and other people.  Islands of free will no 
longer float at sea since people discovered 
and then wrote about God hardening Pharaoh's heart.

The Difference Between…

thoughts thought
and thoughts spoken,
routines begun
and ruts escaped,
furniture purchased
and couches rearranged,
conversations begun
and lips sealed,
places of listening
and shouting matches,
fiber wound tight
and a spool unreeling,
breaking oppression
and exercise of dominion,
continual re-birth
and learning the story,
the end of wisdom
and what begins 
deep inside bones.

More Questions

How can there be talk of the absence
of God when things move?

Who wrote the narratives of power
for this day last year?

On what note does the awareness of privilege
occur while listening to birds sing?

Where is the cloud that stores up
all the words to be spoken tomorrow?