You did not receive a spirit of slavery
         to fall back into fear,
         but you have received a spirit of adoption.
               —Romans 8.15

You have a Word to speak,
         a song to sing,
         word of yourself, song of God.

The stage awaits you.
         What are you afraid of?

They won’t like your word?
         So? Their likes, hidden from you,
         are already different from yours.

You aren’t a slave to their likes.
         You only imagine those chains.

You fear they won’t like you.
         You’ll be all alone, unloved.

Child, you are already adopted:
         chosen, belonging, beloved.

What can they do to that?

Remember whose you are
         and
         sing.

   —May 24, 2018

 

         No one can see the Realm of God
         without being born again from above.
               —John 3.3

Womb-nestled, bathed in God,
wrapped in heart-throb, heart-warmed
in umbilical darkness.

Waiting without knowing for the unknown,
unaware of boundarylessness,
enslumbered, unimagining.

Then, unwilled, thrust and kneaded,
potter-thrown and pushed by pulsing music,
through a grave-thin valley shriven.

Drawn by darkness into light,
uttered out into the world,
choiceless, falling into the air.

So much ceased or left behind, or cut,
the warm and safe, contained,
the unknown known of who you were.

Borne, bare and blinking into brightness,
into arms, into hope, into a life
reaching out in all directions.

Needy, nursed, and crying, held,
a stranger, named, a pain and a delight,
set free and still belonging.

New and tender, weak, at risk,
unknowing, small, and wondering,
the only wisdom learning.

Beginning, now, and now again,
each breath, a birth of love,
and God alone your mother,

each of you the center of the other’s life,
both changed, both rapt, and bound,
your calling now to be, and hers to love.

Held in her arms through every wind.
Borne on her back,
and carried where she wills.

   —May 23, 2018

 

         Then I heard the voice of the Holy One saying,
         “Who shall I send, and who will go for us?”
         And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
               —Isaiah 6.8

I am an unclean person, living among the unclean.
Our complicity in oppression and injustice is deep.
Our privilege is an entrenched addiction.
No angel can cauterize my racism with a single burn.
No single vision can open my eyes all the way.
But I can be led. I can grow. I can risk for God.
I can let the Spirit light my fuse and send me out
to witness, to speak out, to proclaim justice.

My resistance to public witness is my resistance to the Spirit.
That’s the limit of my faith, the edge of how far I’m willing
to be guided by the Spirit, to experience God,
to be vulnerable for the sake of the vulnerable, to be born again.
Out on the street, speaking your mercy, at the limit of my power,
there is where I will be born again, a new person,
a dependent infant in your strong and loving arms.

Your Spirit burns in me, and either it burns me up,
or it sends me out with light and warmth to the people.
Yes, I am unworthy. Yes, I am unprepared.
Yes, I am a little afraid. But send me.
Touch me with your fire, and send me.

   —May 22, 2018

We who live by compassion
are so small in this world.
It seems sometimes as if
we face a forest fire
of fear and violence
with little paper cups of love.

They appear like magic tricks
in trembling hands,
not much, just little cups,
but we offer them,
the great baptismal, birthing flow
in little cups, mere drops
of God
that flood the world,
that never run out.
 

—May 21, 2018

         We do not know how to pray as we ought,
         but the Spirit prays in us with sighs
         too deep for words.
               —Romans 8.26

Deeper than my words,
deeper than my knowing,
Spirit, pray in me.

I open the door of my heart for you.
I hold the arms of my spirit open for you.
Welcome. Spirit, pray in me.

I only hold the space.
I do not hear your prayers,
your sighs too deep for my hearing.

I do not know how to pray.
I only know how to be still,
Spirit, as you pray in me.

   —May 18, 2018

         I will send you an Advocate from God,
         the Spirit of truth who comes from God,
         who will testify on my behalf.
               —John 15.26

When we say God is our judge
we really imagine God as prosecutor, judge and jury.
But Jesus says he will send us the Spirit,
usually translated “Advocate” or “Comforter.”
The word John uses is paraclete.
Paraclete is a Greek word meaning “one called along side of.”
Originally it meant a “legal assistant.”

God is on our side.
God is not the judge or prosecutor or jury:
God is our defense attorney.

When you judge yourself, God doesn’t.
God believes in you, and is on your side.
As you face the challenges of your day
trust that God defends you.

The truth the Spirit begins with
is the love of God and your belovedness.
Even if Jesus is no longer here to speak for you,
the Spirit will testify on behalf of Jesus
in your defense.

The Spirit says: “You can do this.
I’ve got your back.”

   —May 17, 2018

 

         They began to speak in other languages,
         as the Spirit gave them ability.
               —Acts 2.4

I send these posts out daily through an email server.
Turns out it has a monthly message maximum.
Once I hit it, I try saying something, but the words don’t get out.
I hit “send,” but it doesn’t go.
So nothing went out for a week.

I wonder if God ever feels like I did?
What if God wants to express love but we’re not transmitting it?
What if God is still doing Pentecost?
What if God wants to say something through you?
Is it getting spoken? Is it getting sent?
What if you are the Word God is trying to get out?
What if you are the language in which God expresses love?
What if there are ways, even beyond your own knowing,
that others hear God’s good news through your life?

Listen deeply.
Speak boldly.
You are the blank page of the letter,
and God is the writer.

         You are a letter of Christ…
         written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,
         not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
                  —2 Corinthians 3.3

   —May 16, 2018

 

 

Something is true,
more true than most,
more to the root:
the love that founds you,
the joy that finds you
the peace that frees you
in the being beneath your doing.
It is the sun of the sunrise of you,
the song
that gives the singing of your life.
Let it be the music you dance to,
the drumbeat of your journey.
Let it be the path you’re on.
Let it be the one heart that believes
what is worth believing,
the one ear that hears
what is true in others.
It married you long ago.
Renew your vows and stay faithful.
If you lose it,
stop and listen.
Go with it, always with it.
Trust it deeper than any thing else,
except maybe the voice that utters it.

―May 9, 2018

 

 

Love, open me to this day.
This is a day.
I need no words or categories─
rain or sun, clouds or wind─
only to see it, to feel it.
I want only to be open to this day, this moment.
I release all desire and attachment
to it being otherwise, to being elsewhere.
Open the windows of my heart
and throw back the curtains
to let this day in.
To notice and receive.
To be in this day,
shields down,
eyes open,
hands ready to be yours.
Love, open me.
Amen.

―May 8, 2018

 

 

I remember as a young father
holding little Daniel,
only months out of the swimming darkness,
late nights, early mornings,
feeling like a pitcher poured out,
incredulous that he was not as sleepy as I,
holding him as he wrestled with the dark
and stayed awake, I wrestling with the dark
and not staying awake, staggering
up and down the hallway, or half-slumbering
in the wooden rocker, waiting for rest
for both of us,
wondering if I’d live through it.

Awakening me before dawn,
playing at nothing,

his son holds me against the strange dark,
holds me, soothing:
Don’t worry Grandpop,
you will die,
and I will go on.

―May 7, 2018