Month: September 2017

Settle and breathe deeply. …

Rest in the peace of God. …

Bring to mind a person you haven’t forgiven. …

The two of you stand together.

Jesus comes and looks at the two of you
with great kindness in his eyes.

He embraces the other.
Perhaps there are words,
though likely you can’t hear them.
Perhaps there are tears.
He holds them for a long time. …

They release the embrace, look at each other
and smile. …

Jesus turns to you
with great kindness in his eyes.
He embraces you.
Perhaps there are words.
(What might they be?)
He holds you a long time. …

He releases you and looks at you
and smiles. …

You look at the person you want to forgive.
What is in your heart? …

Tell them. …

Jesus blesses you and leaves you
with your new heart.

   —September 15, 2017

The ocean,
all movement,
seems so still,
the surface of a mind,
the waves coming in
against the grain.

Behind me
two horses,
mine and another,
wait together
grazing in tall grass.
They are friends,
they know the way.

I sit and wait,
not for something,
just wait.
The afternoon floats by
overhead, white and puffy
in the blue of God.

You come up
out of the sea
to me though
it seems you have walked
down into my waters
and disappeared.

September 14, 2017

To forgive you will pass through the sea.

You will leave much behind:
what is owed, obligations,
the heavy chains of your master anger.
Just leave them.

You will be tempted to turn back and fight
but that is the slavery you are escaping,
the lie of superior and inferior,
the cruel economy of deserving.
It is a lie. Walk away from it.

You will be afraid of being overtaken
and hurt again
but God’s mystery will protect you.

Go, on foot, through the wounded sea,
your tears a wall on your left and on your right.

Take only your love with you.
You will find yourself on the far shore
unburdened, free,
in the wilderness of love,
never needing to go back.

You will do this
seven times seventy times.

September 12, 2017

I sit, giving my weight to the chair.
I breathe. I wait. I behold.
The tree exercises patience,
lets go a leaf, pauses,
lets go a leaf.
I can’t see it
but the horizon embraces me.
The hills pass it on.
The ground abides.
Planets, too.
God unhurries, unworries.
A depth opens.
Presence wells up.
I have passed
out of the world of adjectives.
         
                        

   —September 12, 2017
 

         The Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea,
         the waters forming a wall for them
         on their right and on their left.
                  —Exodus 14.29

No one on the Underground Railroad ever said,
“Go back, I forgot something.”
When we are free
we sit on the far shore, bewildered,
with only what we carried,
and our loves.
And we learn to do that.

The mother makes it through the desert
with nothing but her children,
and is happy.

You stand beside the burned-down house,
the washed-away neighborhood,
and mourn the cost of actually being free.
The grief is real, though the possessions are not.

Sitting there on the shore you give thanks
that though you didn’t think to bring your soul,
it came along, in love for you.

Next time the fire comes, or the argument,
you’ll know what to grab.
                        

   —September 11, 2017

         “I will pass over you,
         and no plague shall destroy you.”
                  —Exodus 12.13

When fierce winds scream
you want to know
what’s your own breath and what isn’t.
When water rises over you
you want to know where your blood ends
and the sea’s begins.
When fear swirls
look to see how much of it is within.
When hate burns vast forests
don’t be on fire.
You are a child of God,
not the headlines,
in the world but not of it.
Know what is you and what is not.
Mindful, you can bear peace into chaos,
light out into the darkness.

   —September 8, 2017

         Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,
         and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
                  —Matthew 18.18

Maybe not “whatever you do, God will agree with.”

Maybe: “whatever” means whatever sins.
The hurts you hang onto you’re stuck with.
The hurts you forgive open you to divine healing.

Maybe: “whatever” means whatever relationship.
The relationship in which you stay connected,
despite conflict, is rooted in God.
The relationship you break loses its divine energy.

Maybe: “whatever” means whoever.
Whoever you oppress truly experiences oppression;
whoever you set free is truly free.

Maybe “whatever” means yourself.
You can set yourself free, or bind yourself up.
God doesn’t do it; you do it to yourself.

Maybe:
live in harmony with the divine energy of liberation
and the divine energy of faithful connection.

Maybe:
let go of what God doesn’t care about
and hang onto what leads you to God.
      

   —September 7, 2017

         If a brother or sister sins against you,
         go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.
                  —Matthew 18.15

         
Well, don’t go for “sin” or “fault:”
it’s too easy, and useless, to judge.
But pay attention to “hurt.”
Defy that voice of false politeness
and the repression of the truth.
If someone hurts you,
go toward them, not away,
and name the hurt.
Neither hide nor retaliate, even politely:
simply, gently tell the truth.
Claim your part of it,
even if just to receive it,
and to give them access to their part of it.
Not to nail them, not to relieve yourself,
but because you love them.

Be prepared to listen—
to their journey, and to your own.
Think of it as opening a door
to a place neither of you have gone before,
and can’t without the other.
Think of it as opening the door
to that Jesus place.

Imagine how refreshing the air would be
in a community of open, caring honesty,
without that hidden bucket of hurts
fermenting under the kitchen sink.

In the dark places where our hurts lie
is the tomb from which Christ rises, alive,
the very Christ who,
wherever two or three are gathered in his love,
is among us.

   —September 6, 2017

         “Where two or three are gathered in my name,
         I am there among them.”
                  —Matthew 18.20

Where there is relationship,
where there is love, there is Christ.
Where there’s conductor and ground—
electrical flow.
Loving community is Christ,
each of us the fourth member
of the Holy Trinity.

Not “beside,” Jesus says, but among:
in the in-between-ness,
in the exchange of energy
between us,
the power of forgiveness,
the light of gratitude, honor, affection,
the death and resurrection
of giving and receiving.

Gather in that name, that mercy,
and feel the Beloved
humming between you.
 

   —September 5, 2017
 

Dearly Beloved,

Grace and Peace to you.
         
         Observe the sabbath day, and keep it holy
                  —Deuteronomy 5.12

Whether in Egypt or not you remember slavery,
to be a thing, replaceable,
valued according to your output,
by how you make someone else happy.
That isn’t you.
You are the blossoming of God’s delight,
even in your sleep.
Once in a while, stop.
Stop doing, stop proving yourself.
Lay down your bricks.
Lay down your bales of cotton.
Stop for a moment, an hour, a day,
and the slave-master’s voice rises up,
doesn’t it?
Defy it.
Be satisfied for someone else
to be dissatisfied with you.
Just be, without use.
Let God do the same.
Or is God just a tool, a thing?
Learn to carry this mystery with you
in every breath:
you are who you are, not what you do.
It is good now and then to stop and be,
uselessly beloved.

   —September 4, 2017