Two Poems

Today I take a Sabbath to reflect on what God is working on in me. So as I try to fight with my wife and dog for some silence, let me present You with a poem I just wrote after experiencing a Lent service at an Episcopal church. After that is a poem I wrote in the waiting room of a doctor's office while waiting to get my routine kidney check. Thanks Lord, for the beauty of the language that You've given me, for the creativity that you routinely display about the world that strikes me as gorgeous, the thoughts that You inspire me to that I find simply beautiful.

POEM I:
THE BEAUTY OF TENSION

Off wooden beam ceilings bounce readings
nervously holy with rolling meaning.
A tightening in the beauty of tension,
between the yes and the yes,
between bowing and relaxation,
of strained continuation till
we’re drawn to the space where the Lord,
the Lord God is one.

And thus being undone,
being like a shamed man flung
in all disgrace between the One
who holds the justice of life and death,
the same One who with every breath
hopes to graciously harbor fear.
The promise of heaven drawn near
despite the reverence from always offending,
of rending ourselves from the unending
wonder in Your balance sincere.

God of covenantal reality,
the God in the paradox, in actuality
the unity. The completeness of all things,
the restoration Your blessing brings
rings in praise and penance, knees bowed,
heads down and hands peacefully high.
The God of the sky, the ashes, the earth,
guarding the grave, giving forth birth.
Both hearing and acting, present now
and afar, in the sound of pews creaking
and the orphans bleak cry,
in organs ascending and the circles beneath
the bare widow’s eyes, empty relief,
on my coldest hands or all hardened hearts.
A beckoning cracking and bounding within
liturgical groans, a Lent filled with sin,
but never escaping the stained glass of men
and forever coming despite separation,
forever longing to lead in salvation.

POEM II:
IN THE WAITING ROOM

Your chatter, loose and enormous,
numerous depths, wondrous heights,
and weight. The chatter of wanderers,
chairs and walls, crammed with aesthetics
competing for the glory of the eye,
while all too softly falls the weight.
While we wait, we grow old,
for our wait if heavy with worry,
and that won't add what nothing can,
yet I know that lest Your hand
be cover we would all kneel, then
all but disappear as we
spill upon each other in breaths of fear.
Here is plenty of explaining and
unexplaining, hands wrung and deals done
and muttered prayers offered lightly.
For pretty pictures, black and white
and unevenly spaced, bring not peace,
but instead the forceful image of it.
Under all such lie the opposite.
Under silent talk lies louder chatter
of many a more weighty matter,
And benaeth this haunting sticky film;
this airy fear of death belies
a still heavier fear of life.

Fear-of-the-Lord

So Lord, I'm down to this very simple fact today. There is a lot inside of me that needs to be fixed, and it will only be fixed by laying it down at Your feet. I know that, but I have yet to feel that.

I continue reading the next passage in Luke after the one that I wrote about yesterday and it is very clear that Jesus is pointing out that the experts in the law lack fear-of-the-Lord. Jesus instructs his disciples to look out for the yeast of the Pharisees, that they should be sure to fear the One who controls both death and life. This is fear-of-the-Lord fear, a reverence, a respect, an awe.

Right now, for whatever reason, that is what I am lacking. An awe of the Lord, a reverence. For some reason, I am bringing You down to my level. Maybe it's all this trying to understand You, maybe its in my trying to draw close to You, maybe I need to step away for a second and let You come and get me. And obviously, cognitively You can see that I understand my need for fear. But for whatever reason I am hard-hearted and cold. Here I am admitting it but yet feeling in my gut that it won't change.

Change it. Bring me into awesome fear and reverence for You. Lord, hear me and act.

Wait no... I'm really scared as I write this. The One who controls both life and death. I do not deserve to challenge You. Standing up against You, I suddenly realize the awesome power that You have. Act favorably one my behalf Lord. Oh do not crush me! The power that is in that act. The weight. The glory.

I take it back. Change me, give me the reverence, but hide me in the cleft of the rock with Your hand. Your glory will crush me if You act. Please, act as You will and give me the reverence to know that is the only way it can be if I want to live.