A Positively Poetic Priest

The only realms of existence Even open to the idea of unconditional Are love and fake physics We all remember those days In senseless High School Where some ageless science teacher Had you skating around on frictionless surfaces So that the equations were "easy" And completely unconditional  Remember there's no wind friction in the void These days you wonder what happens To the length of years Totally reconditioning your mind Into a jaded maze Where was innocence lost On the sidelines of growing up In the learning of lessons unfit for respect And the shaking off of the idea That all love is unconditional Left behind as dried old rattlesnake skin Waiting for its resurrection day

There are so many struggles man against man, man against God man against himself - a total of three but oh the variations on the theme we are so very good at imitating and we learn from the best our ancestors our society parroting the us versus them the subconscious subliminal messages that we don't even realize exist the conversation around privilege around race, poverty, hunger shows the deeper disconnection of fear look at the parents all huddled in groups finding like minded definitions of yore as the children unbiased and unformed skip about with everyone with joy

February 28th Luke 13:1-9 Heavenly Father, who tends us as a gardener tending his flowers, help us to recognize the time and tending that you have given us to heal, repent, and grow into the fullness of who you are calling us to be, through your Word, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The Greek Philosopher Epictetus said, “No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” In the first part of the gospel passage today, the people listening to Jesus, including us are given a charge: Repent. It's an unsurprising charge for us, there is precedent after all, years of prophets, John the Baptist calling out, the tradition of repentance and penance of Lent. We are called over and over again to repentance, but it seems that we keep needing the reminder. Perhaps we just aren...

Nature or nurture is a question Only worth asking given its fallacy Dichotomies are lies in a gradient of colors Nature and nurture work together A melody that makes good use of dissonance Within its intricate staves are parts Unheard by human ears at decibels Not understood by time's conniving fingers Let us soak in nature's nurturing The salt, herbs, bacterias, aculturing weathers That bind us to our place as generations Make their home in the grasp of befriending land

The lazy lidded moon staring At Malala the Riveter Attempting to tell the world Far beyond the blank minds Of broken long-houred workers That power lies in the imagination In intuition and equilibrium  Integrity and identity Can you answer truthfully When they call your name Do you claim the inherent authority For the light of day can be as dark As the street of hell God walks down Wishing to comfort the sufferers Where you hear Him whispering Don't stop imagining something better My gift will be beyond all measure  Hope like despair could eat you up But the day that you do Is truly the day that you die 

Sometimes it is in the rigid boundaries set for us that we find the most freedom. I am not unaware of the irony of the set of haiku I wrote tonight about the word creative: What scares the public Threatens the communal mind Creativity Conformity is Not the answer to our ease It is undefined Labels do not make  Happy and healthy home lives Daring greatly does Haiku are rigid Creativity within Blooming green lilacs

Today I wrote two it seems. Sometimes this poetry thing is quite a surprise to me.  Mr. Cohen had a point When he sang that cracks Are how the light gets in Cracks are also how we can hear the waves Of music wobbling through Down the time soaked corridors From when you and I tried to fathom How we could be alone together And feel a wholeness we did not know How it pains me to admit My weakness as my strength My heart still seeks to love Despite the world's greatest efforts Though we strive perfection's way We rebel with honest integrity And the idiocyncracies of each machine Reminding us of imperfection's endearing qualities  Love is a crack we were not meant to find Without the maturity to understand Yet who could understand the holy trinity  Of faith and hope and love divine  Without the immaturity of time We grow more intricate, every passing thought Making what is solid impermeable  Giving light a third quality, white the culmination of all the colors, joy...

even Merriam-Webster has like eight definitions  for that tiny transition 'so' not that it matters the world isn't paying attention to the forgotten tension  and those of us who live here watching  the people and the watchers slowly dancing a conglomerate of styles in improv hell we notice what everyone has hidden locked away in overflowing closets splattering the pavement walk through your house listen, read the signs, what does it say about you to those who simply visit have you changed from instinctual animal dependent  or did the daisy petals land on 'he loves me not' and thus you stayed like so the season of blooming is waiting

The schools of birds swoop and dive crisscrossing into and out of and through each other and the children never notice caught up they are in the balls and each other playing games are all afoot they don't even know another's name but of what importance are names to those who do not know and fun calls to you and joy and delight dance with you yet you barely know your self to be dancing! The birds are dancing overhead. The adults are sitting along the sides trying hard not to ponder life's greatest mysteries despite being faced with them so clearly, dearly why does being self conscious mean knowing others are watching you and not that you know your self because two separate things are being awkwardly uncomfortable always seeking outside validation for your self and being free to swoop like a bird so easily conscious of your self as simply enough

The Problem of Renewal Otherwise known as Surrender The brownness of the fields and the grayness of the sky lack the vibrancy of real color fading purposeless expanses of God's earth wishing for a second chance revival the inner dark abyss scaring all those who know themselves cowards chasing every scared mask wearing party lover yet never moving anywhere because it lurks inside as real being wishing for a second chance revival the bent up beat up broken down body waster lying drunk on the cracked curb of Bourbon Street among the litter of the bedazzled fiberglass parade wishing for a second chance revival wishing for a second chance revival escapism born of broken armor lacking luster the choice is known and still avoided being a human renewed is vulnerability unconquerable Epilogue being a human renewed is vulnerability unconquerable because the dream and wish are quite the same to be a being fully worth being and known requires letting vulnerability ...

I am well practiced at the Art  Of walking around in the dark Watching the possibilities of the day Dissipate as so much summer heat Rising off the blackened road And the coolness of the night sink in While gazing into other people's lives Seeing minute differences that gather questions  In the questioning of the back of the mind Am I happy the way I live Should I be storing my clothes in other ways And I, I, who have hated every moment Every breath and fiber of my life Am now punch drunk in love With every question every dirty dish  Polluting my kitchen sink with requirements And every silly random act of kindness along the way Reminding me of my mother's saying Practice does not make perfect Only perfect practice could make perfect and we are everything but perfect But as the moon rises to greet us Those who pay attention to its quirky smiles And I giggle about trying to find the one mistake  In every Turkish rug hand-lovingly-made The wind sighs and whispers It do...

A walled enclosure marking space apart Us versus them in concrete form Hiding all those things we are hoping to forget Yet when we come up barren,  lacking fruit, leaves, or berries, nothing to lend us praise We come to sorrow we tear our wounds And grieve in loud estate Giving up on the weeds is the biggest mistake Time heals all wounds... when they are tended Cared for, cleaned, and bandaged against the rot Ever creeping closer to becoming a person We grasp waiting but waiting needs to be let go For that joy-filled love-steeped quiet moment When waiting is overcome I was thinking about the story of the fig tree in Luke 13 and the different ways we can put ourselves in that parable. If we think of ourselves as the tree, we can see that others can get frustrated that gifts we have are not bearing fruit (parent/teacher-child relationships). If Jesus is then the gardener that wants to give more tending, then  it seems to say that sometimes we need tending with manure in order to...

Today is an overflowing day. The price you pay is willingly reading more questionable poetry.  Peace A bar of soap is slippery and always slightly undefined When cut it is as designed  sharp edges holding shape But the only way it stays Is packaged on the shelf  Unused Once taken out  It immediately is eaten By the water and the grime Giving it it's very purpose meaning From time to time we fancy ourselves In need of punishment  Distastefully reminding us  Of simpler days Soap is of necessity  It's basic principal  Cannot be held by human hands We feel drawn To dirt to mess to wayside train wrecks Barely pulling ourselves away Peace as soap Stands no chance Nuclear Fusion Ah! The bitter ripples of the fountain pond Gleaming in the midnight's unnatural glow We missed the chain reaction of water into snow  Changing all that of which we were fond Relationship Our identity A beloved child of God See God has no taste We wish special we Forgetting ...

we are as intricate and as simple as the Celtic knotted cross on the wall we are as normal as the daily habits of brushing teeth and flushing toilets we are passing away each day never to be returned and never to be seen again almost forgotten in the sands of time as someone in the normal rush of life for there is nothing that cannot be forgotten and there is nothing that should be forgotten every joy, every sorrow, every mishap and quirk is the artistry of a world more diverse than one can ever imagine we live in houses we cannot explain yet we take it all for granted granite counter tops quarried from who knows where in this world built of stone which has lived for ages in the depths of vast material countless rows of atoms compressed and polished and gleamed into a surface barely noticed on the way through the kitchen hoping for a snack this is the world at your finger tips woven into the lives of those you have not met daily striving same as you to be loved...

The clouds were very fluffy today Hovering high above the sleepers below Of the two million in this bustling city How many noticed the perfect shape Of today's cotton clouds? My thoughts were very positive today Bouncy excited scheming fellows Urging me into action unplanned but joyful  Did you take note to the tune and melody Playing in your head? We think in terms of space and transparency Between you and me there is nothing But air - zooming molecules changing pattern What else lies unseen between the seconds of the clock Were you aware?

Where were you ten years ago? Consider all the decisions Bringing you to this opportune moment Not just the questions of grand repose Of where to live and what to do But each precious second's investment Are your bananas organic - when was The last potassium rich fruit you consumed  Hanging ripening in community? Consider the lilies of the field And in consideration realize you've never Never seen lilies in a field - a pond, a shop, a vase But never in an open field, what else? What else do you know so deeply  There are imprints on your heart But have never truly seen - reality Changing our considerations With an awareness of another side of life

Resurrection is part of a seed's life cycle Growing to the song of special tending Nature, nurture, yes, we adapt to circumstance Knowing that what is born of unseen seeds Is not our own but God's, for what can we claim  When the cause was tangential to another era Bygone, barely remembered, yet taking root Sustained in soil we cannot admit - lest By some completed accident we see ourselves Fully as we were made to be in that celestial mirror And upon seeing, change, accepting not society Nor our pricey educational mores but truth And upon waking step beyond into life *I am very sorry that SSJE isn't actually doing the word of the day now because of their focus on the rule of life for Lent. However, I am still taking the word of the day for my poetry from their daily devotion. 

All the dots unnumbered Making what could be ordered A beautiful pattern of color and light Chaos and confusion Unknowable in full, lacking definition With softened eye and open heart The unfathomable unrelated Becomes a window letting through That which is unseen deep within Momentary connection, reconnection The butterfly wings of elapsed present moments 

The nature of a building lies within its structure The outside will only share so much Of what lies between the floor plans' many layers While every building is unique Despite the cookie cutter rows We make nothing perfectly the same In the end it can be gutted and recycled But we cannot Our nature lies not within our floor plan grand Even with our many varied layers Our nature hides within unseen  But time means nothing in the finding

The liturgy of ritual is like the mother's ruler Marking boundaries to be learned and giving space for freedom When we plant in ash and soil We grow what we once knew The living dust of love  Let me empty all my inner closets Into plastic containing bins Remembering, sorting, realigning Making space for planting stardust Relationships full of light 

Now that the King Cake is settling in my stomach, I have turned my sights on tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, and the season of Lent. I have been thinking and praying about what to do for Lent this year and what I have decided to do is continue what I started for Advent and have not stopped doing. And that is writing a poem every day. I know, for many people, that idea makes you cringe. But for some reason, I have greatly enjoyed the challenge I set for myself for Advent and I haven't stopped. Everyday the Society of Saint John the Evangelist puts out a word of the day with a quote from one of the brother's sermons. (I highly recommend getting their emails.) I put that word in my journal in the morning and let it bounce around my head throughout the day. At the end of the day, I write down the poem that comes. What I am going to do for Lent is share them on this blog. You are welcome to read and ponder them too, and even respond. I do not guarantee that the poetry will always be good...