Birds

I am sitting on a porch
The air is still, chilly
Sun dipping below trees and mountains
My hand is outstretched in front of me—still, chilly
It is covered by a tiny pile of slippery seeds
They slide between my fingers at the slightest interruption of the stillness
And birds fly back and forth around us
I am silent, still
Now and again little feet tickle my open palm and fingers, spilling seeds onto the porch- wood beneath my feet
And your presence is in the still of the air around us, and I breathe its sweetness
There is an absence of time and circumstance here
The suspension of a moment in the quiet, cool of November
No before
No after
Only here, now
There is peace
And I feel beautiful here.

It is the lack of circumstances I think, of strings, of the pains of history that make memories so welcome in our thoughts.
They require no commitment, no striving, no choice for self-denial
They are nice but then they are not so real as reality, more beautiful because of its hard truth.

Fever

I have fever in my bones.
I keep night-time in my soul.
Sing the blues all day,
I got fever in my bones.

Girl, you speak in un-tamed verse of greater men than me,
And I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

You’re playin’ soft rhythm and sweet melody. The stars are trippin’ out of line, and I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

Sing me somethin’ sultry, slow. You always rain on my parade. This fever in my bones is killin’ me, but I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

I was singin’ songs of pain on street corners and alleyways before you called me yours, blue eyes.
And our music was just in time, but hurtin’ songs ain’t like the lovin’ kind.

Lay a poor man’s money down. It’s all I ask of you.
I’m dancin’ with the Devil now, and Heaven don’t approve

There’s healin’ for our ugliness, but it ain’t in this, it ain’t in this.
Home is waitin’ warm and kind and callin’ us by name.
And I won’t rest til’ I find it Love, and you’re safe there with me. Cause’…

I have fever in my bones.
I keep night-time in my soul.
Sing the blues all day,
I got fever in my bones.

my first mass

Gloire a toi qui etais mort, gloire a toi qui est vivant,
Notre sauveur et notre Dieu, viens Seigneur Jesus!

So the irony is obvious enough. I went to my first Catholic Mass my first Sunday at the international program I'm attending as part of my studies at a small, private, Church of Christ university. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.
But there is truth at both ends. As well as truth forgotten.
I am more quick, I suppose naturally, to critique my own end and it's lack of color and mystery and to soak up the fresh perspective on the other side of the swinging pendulum, but I would like to think that's a sign of hunger for some sort of balance where I believe balance is seriously lacking.
Somewhere across the spectrum of Christianity I think the vision has been lost. Or really, maybe it's the relationship with Christ that has been lost. The body has been severed from the head.
And we are stumbling around without him.
The good news has lost its goodness, its power to redeem, restore, and unite. Or maybe we have forgotten the message altogether. Maybe we aren't even preaching the gospel anymore.
Somehow our familiarity is beginning to breed contempt. It certainly isn't breeding intimacy.
The church is characterized by division, lack of depth, and charade--not exactly the oneness Jesus prays for in John 17.
Bottom line is we've strayed. And it's time to remember who we are.

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." --John 17:22-23

groundhog's day

"wake
from your sleep. the drying of your tears. today....we escape
we escape"

i know the world is asleep
and having a bad dream
colorless
adventureless
soulless
dream.
sometimes i want to rip them, crying, from their safe indifference.
tear my own chest open first
thrust my beating heart in front of my own wide eyes
and know i have been alive all this time
after all
and live.