Of Feathers and Fur

More like these.

More like these

I need to be.

No agenda, nor calendar

No anticipation, expectation

No bracing – upon awaking – against the day ahead

No worries over appearance

Or of gettin’ soiled.

No agonizing, second guessing, tumult or guilt.

Eyes wide open

Alert to what may harm

But not fearfully paralyzed by it.

Play and work and fight and gather

Sometimes all at once

Resigned to weather,

Food gathering,

Woes.

Never held back by a self

Undeterred, unconcerned, unaffected

By dirt or bugs or drips of rain,

These furry feathered neighbors

Remind me of a better way

As they ornament this lawn

And orient these thoughts.

Noisy

Didn’t realize how noisy I was ’til I went outside.

How relevant I thought I was.

How ridiculous and small I am.

But outside

– In the wind and the green and the birdsong –

In beholding flora’s quantity, array

All my petty clamberings are silenced:

Within and without.

I am quieted.

Restored.

Perhaps it’s the absence of my own kind

Perhaps the silent roar of “wilder” things

Fulfilling their respective states of being

Remaining true to their natural functionings and purposes

None ill equipped or unsuited for their work

(so far as they know)

Naturally enlivens

(Even without a sense of one’s own diminishment)

Fresh air in my lungs

Hushed by the vast green of plants in my sight

I wonder why

Sometimes humanity seems more to eat up so much life

When ours is all potential to add to it.

Why creation’s forsaken in our forgetting –

How and why we die in our detachment from earth and sky and creatures.

If there’s to be death,

May it be of the worst parts of us:

– My sense of my own importance, to start, –

And let there be a remembering of the life that surrounds.

Burdens (and their proper carrier)

Swinging on this crazy pendulum

Between all right and all wrong

Is dizzying, wildly disorienting.

Atrabilious! This brainy black bile

And I feel to be held under by all this care.

Loving ought be liberating:

Come to find out that the world’s weight

Is anything but light.

Then I look up

(A common, but too uncommon theme)

And realize that You’ve been gentlemanly

Standing, waiting

For me to lay all this burden down.

I’ve been bent over with it,

Eyes to the ground

Impossibly straining neath all this weight,

Saturated with the sweat and the load.

I look up at You (finally)

And You smile at me:

All that impossible, tender, complete, understanding, compassionate love in a look.

With nary a word – it took but a second to see you there, to remember You there –

I hand over the load.

It’s not heavy for You:

I don’t know what or how You do with it,

But it’s gone

– or completely changed into something else –

And we walk, You and I.

And there is nothing superfluous or in question

(There is little to be said in true love’s companionship,

Once the repentance is over.)

No more swinging or straining

I find that I am standing upright

Eyes straight ahead

With You

Reconciled and whole and free of all those many burdens

Ready to tackle more

Now strong and courageous

Thanks to the nothing’s-impossible-for-God

God

The next step blessedly clear

And beyond it

A burden not mine to carry.

This moment, this quiet, His assurance

All I’m responsible for.

Hallelujah!

Good News

Worry over not giving Him enough airtime

Write-time, credit-time

And He reminds me that most things already have His look.

He doesn’t need my positive press:

He is already present

In all His glorious, perfect sufficiency.

With or without my attention.

With or without my drawing attention.

He reminds me

That I don’t need to worry about forgiven failings.

That noticing all this

And remembering the Him all round and herein

Is worship.

And true worship is naturally contagious.

Real, live, savoring gratitude and

Overflowing goodness

From a heart that knows Him, loves Him,

Believes Him, gives Him notice even a little

Is transformative

Because He’s transformed it.

He’s in it

And no tiny conjuring on my part enlarges or diminishes Him.

The Gospel – the Good News –

Can’t be manufactured,

Forced, faked.

Real, true, good news

Really, truly transforms everything.

He doesn’t need my help.

But between you and me,

I’m so glad He wants it…

Road Trip

Throwing off all this adulthood

Feels reckless

And who knew

Windows down

Radio up

A tank top on

And shoes off would allow

Summer to lick all this skin

Liberate all these senses

Back to

All wide open

Being here

Makes way

For remembering

And looking forward

Move

When? When’ll it get written ‘cept now?

When? When’ll it get planted and how?

‘Less someone like me cares a whole awful lot

Nothing is going to get done, it’s just not.

‘Cept what happens when caring’s not in the equation

When my mind is so full but so dull

What happens when I’m paralyzed with my self

And I just can’t distinguish my call?

What happens when my brain’s so full of turmoil?

(I’ve been stewing, despondent and down)

Feeling a victim all over the place

Smiles are scarce ’round this face: s’mostly frowns.

See nothing gets done – I just stop and I stare –

Then obsess more with all that’s not done

I am weak, Lord, You know it, wish I had more of a scapegoat

But my self is at fault – I’m the one

That is faulty and sinful and wretched and dumb

Full of Amy and all of her woes

I forget – least don’t act like – all Your goodness is here

That I could myself on Jesus throw

I’m sorry, I am, I’m so sorry ’bout these:

These leanings towards over and whelm

I don’t know what the cause is, the source or the problem

That threatens my place at the helm

‘Cause it’s that: it’s that feeling that I’m not in control

Of my destiny, life, or e’en hope

And it leaves me despondent (yes I know it’s redundant)

And I wonder how better to cope

I can’t figure it out (it’s only been 40 years)

So maybe the answer’s not there

Maybe the answer’s in just looking up

To the One Who assures me He’s here

See “what would Jesus do” is slightly off base

It’s “what’s Jesus doing” that’s now

It’s a matter of aligning myself with His Self

(And relaxing these lines on my brow)

I can trust Him (we can!) we can trust Him always

And forever to do what is best

I can trust that my angst, and my self, and these pains

Can be completely shored up in His rest

It’s not a naive sort of trust that I mean

Rather it’s hard and a battle for sure

But it’s all not for naught – there is good purpose here

Makes us loving, gentle, right, and pure

In order to separate the good from the dross

Some fire’s required: heat and light

The yuck must be skimmed from this soul that is His

That His presence is all that’s in sight

See there’s too much of me too much world and distraction

That it muddles one’s right view of Him

So these troubles I feel – though they seem very real –

Must be brought more to Him so to dim

So now on to remember – Lord, help me do better –

Remember Your presence always

Remember what You’ve done, are doing, begun

Fixed-on-Jesus-eyes are what must stay

Thank You, Father, for even now I realize

That You’re helping me this very minute

To remember Your goodness, faithful, gentle leading

Redeeming all that is amiss

That’s the God that You Are, the One who rights all the wrongs

Who brings healing and light to dark places

Turns all things inside out, turns all things upside down

Transforms shame into beautiful spaces

Thank You for help, and thank You for love

And thank You for helping to love

And thanks for redemption, freedom, and reminding

Me blessedly towards You to move.

Staying Light

Knowledge arms: no question.

But how encumbered am I willing to be

Seems an important question.

In poetry, in theology, in dealings with others –

Information can drown.

Think soldiers in Normandy

All their accoutrements

All that gathered up, strapped on, other-imposed equipment

Didn’t liberate them…

(It pulled them down.)
So how?

How does one sort through all what others perceive as necessity?

How does one remain equipped

But light enough to stay unencumbered?

Don’t assume the trappings

Just ’cause they’re there for the taking

Don’t take another’s word for what’s needed:

Celebrate the tools

And the capable wielding of them

– I’m not above them, I’m probably below them –

The point is, I’m not them.

Try on the armor perhaps,

See how it feels.

But don’t keep it on just ’cause it’s been offered

Find my tool, trust my voice

E’en though it be a slingshot

Such as these have slain giants: and endured.
So read, consider, deliberate

But stay afloat too

Buoyed and buoyant and in command of one’s own weight

Armed with one’s most well fitting, carefully chosen tools:

For otherwise I may easily succumb ‘neath another’s trammels

I was never meant to carry.

Good Morning

Ah, morning.

Before uncertainty, wit’s end, torn places

Before confusing, unfamiliar, troubling spaces

Before unkind, frowning, scowling faces.

Ah, morning.

All wide open and new

All quiet, serene, with no people in view

Stretched out and ahead

Before sapped strength,

Deferred hope, and fresh reasons for dread.

Fresh start. Hopeful. Still tackle-able.

Before unsure, full-on, and neurotically unstable.

Before all this wretchedness

Crowds out all this goodness

When the day’s potential’s

All fair and endless.

Ah, morning.

After coffee, before crashes

Before misunderstanding, disappointment, or miscommunication’s backlashes.

Ah, morning.

After prayer, before talking.

Before progress or insight or bad news that is shocking.

Just Him

And just me

And just peace therein,

Good morning.

Sacred

Some things are too big to be processed

Too difficult, too tragic

Not suited for fitting into

Neat little boxes

Bigger than words

“Unfixable”

In any tidy, clean-up-any-trace kinda sense.

Some things defy understanding –

Even if our tiny brains clamor for and demand it.

Some things just beg for

Peace –

As in quiet, and time, and protection.

Some things are too much for us:

And yet we’re invited into them all the same.

Some things are sacred

And ought to be treated as such –

Carefully, quietly, beseechingly

As seekers:

Not as ones ready to impose any will of our own

But as wide-eyed children:

Ready, open, and open-handed to receive good gifts,

– whatever they may be –

Wise direction

As given by the Giver

Not to be infringed upon by lesser ways of being

That we may be ready and willing to share on.

Oh, make us so…

Brain Conversation

I must insist, brain,

That you quiet down.

Yes, I am the boss of you.

Even if, at this minute,

That seems untrue.

Even if taking you captive

Seems an impossible feat,

I am.

I can no longer afford your company

In its current way of being.

You have taunted and shamed

And convinced me that

All my best parts are buried and forgotten.

Encouraged me to blame.

Riddled me with confusion.

And though “I listen to my words but they fall far below”* *Cat Stevens

As an honest admission

Sounds terribly weak and puny,

There is truth to it.

In spite of all your efforts to confound me,

(And with so much life feeling to be swallowing me up)

Maybe I ought to be relieved.

In healthier moments

Such “sensitivity” coins as “virtuous.”

I don’t know what makes the difference:

Why and when moments posing as majestic or terrible

As savor-able or unbearable

As breathtaking mountaintop or suffocating pit

Pose thus.

That song

Before today too light, too cheesy

In light of today’s darkness

Held just about too much poignancy to bear.

I want to put words to this

more-than-anxiety more-than-depression more-than-difficult

overwhelming-not-severe-enough

terrifying-may-be-a-start

Experience.

Suffice it to say

I want to figure it out,

Only it’s you who needs do the figuring

(you and your ridiculously murky waters).

Come to think of it,

Such navigation requires a sounder captain.

I think I’ll ask your Maker.

He’ll know.

Brace yourself.

‘Cause for all your best efforts,

He’ll undo you

In all and truly best ways…