Those mornings when you wake up burdened,
already thinking Oh why bother,
start here:

thank God for one thing.

One person whom you love will do,
though even a remarkable coincidence is acceptable.
You don’t even need to go into peaches,
the color blue, or migratory birds,
or a child’s laugh you heard the other day,
let alone the angelic speech of nerve synapses
or the inscrutable ballet of spiral galaxies,
or God’s outlandish love for you.

Just one thing to give thanks for.

Then resolve to live the day
in adequate gratitude for that one thing,

and begin.
 

   —April 9, 2018

       While it was still dark,
         Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…
                           —John 20.1

Light out of darkness is the primal dance,
all things dance.

God made love with this world
to create it,

freedom
its bones,

becoming
its being,

the one love
of all things.

The face of the earth is the bottom of the Red Sea,
slaves turned free.

God has already kissed this passage,
its losses a flowering seed.

All falling
is into.

What dies starts over,
received into Love’s enlarging,

guilt a stone
turned to light,

grief and dread a jar of myrrh,
given away.

Become a wrought vessel
for God’s alchemy.

All our life is a long walk
in the dark

toward a grave
already empty.

   —April 6, 2018

         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side,
         I will not believe.”
                        —John 20.25

The true redeemer is the Wounded One
with the stigmata of the oppressed.
Unless you find him among the incarcerated,
hear her voice in the trafficked and abused,
you have not found redemption, but relief.
Unless you sense others’ pain in your ease,
someone’s death by drone strike in your security,
someone’s suffering in your white privilege,
someone’s poverty in your cheap fruit—
unless you see the marks of the nails,
you have not found the Crucified and Risen One.

Unless you see the Beloved’s brokenness
in your fearful desires and hurtful habits
it’s not your Savior who has risen.
Unless your Christ bears the scars
of your own behavior it’s not you they will save,
not your sin borne off to hell, your betrayal forgiven,
not your life changed, but somebody else’s.

And unless your despair is swallowed up in forgiveness
and your greed changed by gratitude
and your heart emptied out in love and courage
you don’t believe, you just wish.

But when this drops you to your knees, blessed are you.
Rejoice, for you stand before the Living One
who offers you new life.
 

   —April 5, 2018

         Thomas (who was called the Twin) said,
         “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
         and put my finger in the mark of the nails
         and my hand in his side,
         I will not believe.”
               —John 20.24-25

Seeker, twin of Tomas, keep searching.
Keep looking to see; keep stretching out your hand.

Your questioning is not refusal; it is loyalty,
faithfulness to the Presence, not the rumor.

Don’t let some preacher tell you what to think.
Seek the living Christ who moves your hand, who trembles it.

Don’t fall for the happily ever after Jesus,
the It was nothing, I’m fine Jesus:

seek the true suffering Christ, whose wounds you can feel,
whose marks sting you, whose forgiveness saves.

The Beloved isn’t testing you, but will reach out a hand
and give you what you need for your next step.

Don’t require yourself to believe any but your heart.
The next step isn’t likely a leap of faith

but to stumble upon love and fall to your knees
crying ,”My Beloved, my Sovereign, my Life-Giver, my God!”
 

   —April 4, 2018

         Tomorrow, April 4, is the 50th anniversary
         of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We lift our song of praise and victory
for beloved brother Martin.
He bore God’s yoke,
God’s passion to set us free.
With the courage of the prophets he named
the evils of our racism, materialism and war.
He stood fast against our hate and greed
and was not silenced.
He stood fast against the tide of fear
and was not swept away.
He stood fast against the threat of death
and was not stopped.
He bore in his bones the sorrow of his people
and their mighty hope.
He did not point the way for others,
but walked the journey of self-purifying love,
with gentleness to speak to our violence,
with humility to demand justice,
with honesty to name our sin,
with love to confront hate.
He became a furnace of God,
where love burned away fear
and light burned away darkness
and life burned away death.
He was murdered for his love,
but his love remained.
This is his victory: not that all ended well,
but he spoke the word of love and justice and freedom
and even in death his word struck the bell in our hearts
that rings and rings and rings.
Death has not stopped the song of freedom;
death has not silenced the voice of truth;
death has not closed the path of justice:
we march on with brother Martin.

April 3, 2018

Oh! The rejoice of it! Oh, the amaze!
The Gift, the uplift! Alleluia-ful Day!
We thank you for Wonderful, Easter-ful Love
that we are the risen-up subjects of.

You’ve emptied the grave of us. Oh, what you’ve done!
The cross you’ve uncrossed. The big bang re-begun!
Now earth is made heaven, the prison the garden.
The sepulcher dances, set free of its burden.

Our graveful of misses and messes are blessed,
our Didn’t undid, and our No you have yessed.
The Can’t and the Shouldn’t made vanishing small
and death and its scariness not there at all.

Poor death has its rules, but Easter’s response
is that God can and will do whatever God wants.
There’s no How to explain or Therefore to defend;
there’s only your mercy and grace in the end.

The blessingful cross and the emptyful tomb
spread their arms and say Yes and say Hope and make room.
Your love sets us free and undoes what was done,
brings each me back to thee, and makes ones into one.

This Day! of impossible made into Yes,
made into Receive, into Trust, into Bless.
The angels are partying on our behalf.
Then what can we do but, oh, weep and, yes, laugh?

Ah! The leap and the bow and the fling of this day,
we dance and we sing what we can’t really say.
How to thank you with thanks for the gift that you give
we can’t say or believe: we’ll just have to live.

   —April 2, 2018

         They went out and fled from the tomb,
         for terror and amazement had seized them;
         and they said nothing to anyone,
         for they were afraid.
               —Mark 16.8

Our Sunday morning Alleluias won’t be enough.
We will fail to tell this mystery.
Only language honest enough to fail can speak
God’s grace.

Christ is risen, and escapes us—
escapes our words, our deeds, our lives—
and yet comes to us: our failure the sign
of God’s victory.

Before our failure Christ is risen,
beyond our failure Christ reigns supreme,
in our very failure we are saved
from capacity.

Fearless of our weakness now
we are bold to lay down our life, and falter,
hoping only for God to love magnificently
in us.

Christ is risen. Let terror and amazement
carry you. Let your words fall like petals.
Let nothing suffice to tell the unspeakable
but the light in your eyes.

   —April 1, 2018

         They returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
         On the sabbath they rested
         according to the commandment.
                  — Luke 23.56
               

In the beginning

you opened up

an emptiness

in yourself

for creation:

space

for darkness to sit in,

then time,

for light to travel.
 

This day of emptiness,

formless and void,

a pregnant pause

of sabbath rest,

space in you,

and time between,

divine abyss

for Creation

to happen.

   —March 31, 2018

         Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
                  [My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?]
                                    — Mark 15.34 / Psalm 22.1

In the beginning you created pain.
You split yourself. Light from darkness.
         This from not this. Separation.
         But you are the light and the darkness.

You made space in yourself for another,
and you are the other, and the space.
         You are the unity and you are the abyss,
         width and depth, post and arms of the cross.

Yours is belonging, and being alien is yours,
loneliness and its aching distances,
         a world of gap and absence.
         In our pain you cry out to yourself,

Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?
When we can’t imagine closeness
         it is you who cry in us for that return,
         even as we push you away into yourself.

My God, my God, that you know my pain,
that you live in terror of losing God,
         is my salvation. There is no exile
         in which I am not in you.

When I am derelict, abandoned, deserted,
you cry out to me, in me, for me.
         Your agony is mine.
         Alone, I am in your arms.

   —Good Friday, March 30, 2018

         “Sit here while I pray.”
               — Mark 14.32

My beloved,
You don’t need to pray great prayers.
I don’t ask for powerful intercessions
or profound meditations.
You don’t have to pray for me.
You don’t have to do anything at all.
I just want you to sit here while I pray.
I’ll pray. You just sit with me.

Do you know how much I want you?
Bearing the sorrows and the healing of the world,
I need you to care enough to stay near.
I’ll save the world. You just sit with me.

All I ever wanted is your companionship,
to follow me— to keep me company.
I never demanded belief or insight,
never required miracles or worthiness.
All I ever wanted on this long road
was for you to stay near.
Not your sainthood,
just your friendship,
just you, my friend.

Please, will you?
Stay near.
Sit here while I pray.

   —March 29, 2018