Whoever does not
         receive the reign of God
         as a little child
         will never enter it.
                        —Mark 10.15

Not as: cute, innocent, pure.
More like: vulnerable, at risk,
powerless, weak and unsure,
easily overlooked,
worth little to the Empire
(will you be this?),
last to be counted,
first to be hurt.

As a child, awkward, still learning,
always a beginner,
necessarily open,
dependent, reaching upward,
needing to be led,
willing to be carried in arms.

As a child, uncomprehending
of what it has taken
to save you.

As a child, beloved
without your having
made yourself so,
fiercely beloved.

   —October 4, 2018

          Let the little children come to me; do not stop them;
          for it is to such as these that the realm of God belongs.
                        —Mark 10.14

The realm of God does not belong to those who earn it,
only to those who receive it as a gift,
who are willing for it to be given away,
who know it exceeds their grasp,
who have seen others enter ahead of them,
and have not complained,
those who have no title to it,
who have no status, no standing.
Not the cute innocent ones we have in mind,
but the ones we have overlooked and excluded.
God has given God’s own dominion away
with the most love to those we have forgotten.

The Reign of God is the everyone-ness of life.
It will not happen by thinking of yourself.
To enter the Realm of God
give it away.

   —October 3, 2018

         “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them.
                        —Mark 10.14

The little one in the refugee camp.
Let them come.
The one in church, squirming.
The one having a tantrum:
that one, too, is holy.

Why is it hard for you
to let the snotty kid
be in line in front of you?
What are you thinking?

Le them come
to the Christ in your heart,
the child playing, pure of joy
and full of beauty.
The child wondering, asking,
gazing without opinion.
The one crying, feeling deeply,
profoundly present.

The child within you,
seeking, coming home,
the child just now waking,
the child in you who is small,
who is awkward and unsure,
wounded, yearning,
with open arms—
child, come
and be blessed.

There is only one child.
Let them come.

   —October 2, 2018

Before the neighborhood
this hillside was wilderness
where I used to play.
I wish I had a picture.

After the paint job I wish I’d taken
a Before picture to lay along the After
to marvel at the difference.
It’s always after the remodel,
after the fire, the new addition,
that we wish we’d thought to get a Before,
sometimes to remember and sometimes
because we don’t,
but now it’s too late.

Friend, now is the Before.
Notice this now, while you can,
because it won’t be this way forever
and whether you rejoice or mourn
you’ll want to have noticed,
to have been here.

   —October 1, 2018

The summer was warm, and autumn is late,
the dooryards still green, the harvest time waits.
The first hint of orange occurs to some trees,
the first thoughts of gold to spend,
but they haven’t yet committed to turning.
Some leaves they let go, but not many, not many.
The full blush of autumn is not yet upon them,
its funeral, its pyre, its riot, its feast.
The reds and yellows are still coiling their springs,
embryos of generous abandon. They are faint
among the confident greens, but they’re there.
It will take time, but time will come, and the changes.

And I,
I walk through these woods, ripening, and I know.  
Already tomorrow smiles in me, glowing.
A single tree, fearless, throws its beauty to the sun. 
Apples redden.

   —September 28, 2018

Some days I feel like a Pulitzer winning novelist
whose manuscript has been eaten by beetles
and whose typewriter has been thrown into the sea.
I feel like the greatest husband on earth
in the Alzheimer’s ward trying to pick out my wife.
A world class musician who’s just had a stroke.
A holy saint trapped in the body of—well, me.
A prima ballerina on crutches.
I feel extraordinarily gifted,
and unable to live it out.
Whether it’s luck or fault or fate matters not.
The crutches are real.

But I am a prima ballerina,
and I am resolved,
even with these damned crutches,
to carry myself with grace.
Some odd divine intent prevails.
I am still a saint; so I am resolved
to live with a shred of kindness showing.
In my corner of the world,
even if this is all in my head,
that’s a noble calling,
and, when I can pull it off,
God being in it,
something of a miracle.

— September 27, 2018

         If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
                  —Mark 9.47

My eye of judging,
deciding this is bad or good,
unable to see without opinion,
pluck it out.

Hands of my heart that grab and cling,
hands of wanting and seizing,
feet of opposing, of running away,
and their eye, cut them off, cut them off.

The eye that is the mind that is the heart
that is not a heart of peace―
the eye of war,
it causes me to sin.

The eye of resentment,
the eye of greed,
the eye of deserving,
sew it shut forever.

The eye that sees only from my place,
only for my gain,
sees myself without the world,
pluck it out.

Rob me of my cynical eye,
blind me of my distrust,
let me rest my hand on yours
with its white cane and lead me.

Close the eye that already knows,
and let the eye that is mindfulness look,
let me not see,
but behold.

―September 26, 2018

        John said to him, “Teacher,
         we saw someone casting out demons in your name,
         and we tried to stop him,
         because he was not following us.”
                        —Mark. 9.38

I’m not in the same hive as those bigoted disciples—
am I?, with my pious bigotry
against those who are not in my hive?

What will it take for me to embrace
with heaven’s fullness those who are not like me,
who see it differently?

It may take slowing down and listening,
holding my fallibility like a torch,
being more curious than right.

And maybe tending to the person, their story,
what is right and true in them,
even cloaked in all the wrong dressing.

And maybe looking for where grace happens,
in whatever form, even strange ones,
for grace always wears the shabbiest costumes.

And maybe listening for God
who is not pronouncing but calling,
even in the wrong people, calling to me.

Tending to God,
who works even through misguided people,
even me.

   —September 25, 2018

You have your story,
the knife that stays in the wound,
a tapestry of hidden pain
made of twisted threads of silence,
turned backside out, unseen.
No one wants to hear,
the wall keeps its secrets.
Behind your lips the darkness
is a tomb, still deepening.
A body wrapped in stiff linens.

But the Beloved wants to hear.
Knows the story, of course,
having suffered it.
But waits patiently at the table,
sits resting in the silence,
like his hands in his lap,
belonging there.
Lends courage for the telling,
remembering the men and their stones,
the crown of harsh words,
the women running from the garden.
Stands weeping outside the tomb.
And waits for the Lazarus moment
of your story coming out,
alive, and changed.

   —September 24, 2018

         Show by your good life that your works are done
         with gentleness born of wisdom.
         The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable,
         gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits,
         without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
                        —James 3.13, 17

God,
let gentleness be the air I breathe,
wisdom the well I drink from:
wisdom from you,
pure as a mountain spring,
wiling, not willful,
the wisdom that is mercy,
a strong river of grace
a tree with life-giving fruits.
May mercy be my muscles
and gentleness my bones,
and your wisdom the breath
within my breath.
Calm and resourceful,
I face the world
with courage and love
born of your grace,
gentleness born of wisdom.

   —September 21, 2018