Monthly Archives: September 2022

Fathers and Daughters

Fathers and daughters turn circles holding hands
and paint each other's faces with favorite colors.
The words spoken as the evening moves into night
gently rest upon the air and need not go further
towards demands for the future or place expectations
that flinch in the face of possibilities.  Peace rests
between the generations after having shared
the experience of the weekend together.  Small miracles
have not been overlooked.  All attachments honored.
Those who stumble walk again with the help
of every presence.  No talk of salvation arises
as the fathers write daughters a letter.  Each one
inscribed with the words, "I am the luckiest Daddy
in the world to have you as a daughter."

We Are Wine

"We were water and now we are changed into wine!"
we cried two thousand years ago.  Where has our cry
gone?  The lip of the cup circles and circles forever
into infinity; surely there is enough room for a thousand
lips and more to drink the drink of life well into the evening.
Demons do not need to appear each and every time
we dare to come to the table.  And all waiting will cease
as we bring the chalice to our mouths and allow the 
juice of forever to wet our tongues.  This is our prayer,
we pray.  To be drenched in the love of one another.

First Blessing

We receive our first blessing when
the boy living down the street
asks us to be his girlfriend.

My daughter came inside for the evening
glowing with all future possibilities
embraced into the joy of being cared for.

She shared the unexpected news
before taking off her shoes and we danced
together with the front door still open.

How many times have our hearts
been made whole and for how long
do we frolic before laying our heads down?

…to walk in all God’s ways… – Deut 10:12

God, 
who strolls in the garden and in the desert,
who walks the sea and down from the mountaintop,
who dares to become human out of curiosity
and who dwells in our midst where we are gathered,
sometimes your steps are so wide apart
that our all-too-human strides stumble and trip
trying to keep up with the latest demands
of our own interpretation of your holy ways.
Pick us up and dust us off once again
and as many times as is needed
so we may more than dream
but yearn to walk with you.
Amen.

This Morning

This morning I write when I do not feel like writing
without thought of ought or should
or striving to meet any standard of perfection.  
The words are all there in the air and,
whether I pull them down through my typing fingers
or leave them for another day or for someone else
to use for me, they patiently do not call for attention.

This morning the busyness of the world can go ahead
and compete against itself believing one side
or another can and will prevail.  I choose not to be
in the press of such effort but in the rhythm
of small places where people once stood
thinking there was something more to all of this.

We Move Slowly

We move slowly through the realms as anointed ones
hoping to find purpose in any given spacious time.

The inquiry unwinds with each pull of the errant string,
Will we be brave enough to declare where the kingdom is?

In knowing that this moment is the wonderful moment
we will keep ourselves from asking any questions of the future.

Which may be the brave thing to do in the great unraveling
as the selfish need to impress gives way to mindfulness.

We must hold tightly to our own treasure as we ask
where our silly and precious questions come from.

Being Holy

Here is that purpose thing once again
arriving from beyond the reach of what
I ought to do as if somewhere in the future
there will be a perfect version of me
running and not moving.  

Hope and fear come from the same place
arising not from any cherished sense of self
but from the space of seeing the present
disappear into an unknown future
where all time ceases to exist.

I have heard that it was possible on rainy days
to be able to lift a thought on angel wings
straight to the heavens beyond the storms
stirring all from the complacent dreams
which surround us from being holy.

“And when was it that we saw you?” – Matthew 25:41

God who hides,
God in plain view,
God who dwells
with those who are hungry,
with those who are thirsty,
with the stranger, the naked and the sick,
and with those in prison,
we cannot ask you to give us anything
when we have given nothing.
So when we are brought to judgment
with goats and sheep all around us
wrap us gently in your wrath.
Amen.