I open my eyes in the dark and see stars on the ceiling
not plastic, like ithaca
but glowing in the cerulean night,
innumerable, like secrets between those couples
that can eat a meal together and never say a word.
scratchy blankets, camel spiders, his steady breathing
background to the sky
(a silence so loud it drowns out my thoughts).
(It's a silence not like theirs; the stars are so loud
I've lost what to say).
And where would my hand be but wrapped among yours?
and so we experience together
(senescence in duality)
like they always warned me not to.
(if I throw caution to the win,
they said I'd get too attached.)
but on the precipice, there's no one I'd rather
stand beside.
-06/25/08
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
second.
You don't have to listen hard at night to hear the waterfalls.
A girl passes me on the curb,
on her way to a booty call (I'll keep her secret)
and I hear nature alone.
I picture what my mother will say when I bring her to such beauty,
crystal glass tumbling off rocks older than Jesus.
Because the water's so dirty, and it's so dangerous,
she won't swim.
My father, as always, content to observe from afar,
with a book.
My brothers, full of life (and in some cases, hormones) will wrestle each other on the rocks
(and probably get hurt, she says)
and probably get hurt, I think.
But I have no doubt that you won't let 10 minutes pass
and stay dry.
It's not in your nature to observe beauty
and not experience it.
It's really rather formulaic, you'll say later, just grab hands and do it.
They won't understand.
-6/22/08
A girl passes me on the curb,
on her way to a booty call (I'll keep her secret)
and I hear nature alone.
I picture what my mother will say when I bring her to such beauty,
crystal glass tumbling off rocks older than Jesus.
Because the water's so dirty, and it's so dangerous,
she won't swim.
My father, as always, content to observe from afar,
with a book.
My brothers, full of life (and in some cases, hormones) will wrestle each other on the rocks
(and probably get hurt, she says)
and probably get hurt, I think.
But I have no doubt that you won't let 10 minutes pass
and stay dry.
It's not in your nature to observe beauty
and not experience it.
It's really rather formulaic, you'll say later, just grab hands and do it.
They won't understand.
-6/22/08
Sunday, June 22, 2008
first.
Sometimes the stars here are so bright I can taste them.
I feel your shoulders pressing into my back,
almost as if you were wearing this sweatshirt again.
But that's not the point.
The streetlights are motion sensored, but properly.
They turn off when I walk underneath;
God must know that I want to feel the stars.
And it all feels like a flashback,
scratchy grass, navy sweatshirt, bad hair
innocent desire (controlled, not extinguished).
the light flickers, and I wonder if you
ever stop and remember.
Remember how alone we were (as alone as I feel)
or how much peace there was.
Peace is tangible among people that seek it,
and in places where it is stored.
(Sometimes I think God bottles it up in nature just as a reprieve for us).
The stars are so bright they're loud; they're yelling.
I have so much more in store for you, they say.
Be patient.
(God stores patience up in nature, too. I'm convinced).
-6/22/08
I feel your shoulders pressing into my back,
almost as if you were wearing this sweatshirt again.
But that's not the point.
The streetlights are motion sensored, but properly.
They turn off when I walk underneath;
God must know that I want to feel the stars.
And it all feels like a flashback,
scratchy grass, navy sweatshirt, bad hair
innocent desire (controlled, not extinguished).
the light flickers, and I wonder if you
ever stop and remember.
Remember how alone we were (as alone as I feel)
or how much peace there was.
Peace is tangible among people that seek it,
and in places where it is stored.
(Sometimes I think God bottles it up in nature just as a reprieve for us).
The stars are so bright they're loud; they're yelling.
I have so much more in store for you, they say.
Be patient.
(God stores patience up in nature, too. I'm convinced).
-6/22/08
sometimes I wonder how the sky got that blue
why these trees are so green
not lime, light, dark, or tinted
but so.
how someone would choose somewhere
so beautiful
to push themselves over the edge.
there aren't very many straight lines
in nature.
trees bend, rocks jag, plants curve
albeit gracefully.
the water off the falls arches
the same pattern, but different everytime.
the metal plaque with the name on it
that warns us that you died
and how
and to be safe
has only straight lines.
-6/15/08
why these trees are so green
not lime, light, dark, or tinted
but so.
how someone would choose somewhere
so beautiful
to push themselves over the edge.
there aren't very many straight lines
in nature.
trees bend, rocks jag, plants curve
albeit gracefully.
the water off the falls arches
the same pattern, but different everytime.
the metal plaque with the name on it
that warns us that you died
and how
and to be safe
has only straight lines.
-6/15/08
I'm pretty sure I'll save this forever.
DAISIES OF LONDON
The still of silence wakes me at dawn.
As I try to stand, I’m bound in bed, by the weight of the summer air in
Virginia.
I try to drown out the white noise of another day at home with the silence of a
new sun,
but New York skies and Appalachia are calling my name through greens and blues;
a collision of hues so magnificent even Da Vinci would be inspired by it's
Creation.
Maybe I’ll let my mind take a slow Saturday stroll through the park.
High noon comes radiantly through the holes in a canopy of trees.
Rays of light pierce the air like bullets ripping through the barrel of a
shotgun;
The birds are awake now.
I wonder if I sound as beautiful to them as they to me.
She would know, but she’s inescapably beautiful picking her daisies.
I’ll let her be.
Hours pass away just as my ancestors did, slow and peacefully,
Until I find myself on a bus back to Heathrow.
Late, but not alone.
Stretched out on the seat, the bus begins to moan.
The windows close in around and time stands still
As if the guards at Buckingham are being changed.
Breathtaking
I’ve spent too many restless days longing for the hot
Virginia air to bind me to a stroll through the daisies of London.
6/21/08
The still of silence wakes me at dawn.
As I try to stand, I’m bound in bed, by the weight of the summer air in
Virginia.
I try to drown out the white noise of another day at home with the silence of a
new sun,
but New York skies and Appalachia are calling my name through greens and blues;
a collision of hues so magnificent even Da Vinci would be inspired by it's
Creation.
Maybe I’ll let my mind take a slow Saturday stroll through the park.
High noon comes radiantly through the holes in a canopy of trees.
Rays of light pierce the air like bullets ripping through the barrel of a
shotgun;
The birds are awake now.
I wonder if I sound as beautiful to them as they to me.
She would know, but she’s inescapably beautiful picking her daisies.
I’ll let her be.
Hours pass away just as my ancestors did, slow and peacefully,
Until I find myself on a bus back to Heathrow.
Late, but not alone.
Stretched out on the seat, the bus begins to moan.
The windows close in around and time stands still
As if the guards at Buckingham are being changed.
Breathtaking
I’ve spent too many restless days longing for the hot
Virginia air to bind me to a stroll through the daisies of London.
6/21/08
Thursday, June 12, 2008
tango instruction
in america, we hide from eye contact.
(a common recognition of a shared
humanity)
we crunch over our
laptops, newspapers, textbooks, solitude
and hope we won't be bothered
by someone asking for the time
or smiling.
over there, they recognize
more than the humanity in it.
they see an invitation,
not unlike a beggar does in the eyes of the
20 year old boy who seems interested
and buys him a sandwich.
they see loose morals, short skirts,
unbuttoned shirts in their future.
we take prodding. we don't assume. we are blunt.
"do you want to come back to my apartment?"
they are opportunistic. they infer. they hope for an opening.
"do you have the time?"
both end in sex. hopefully.
no wonder men and women separate
polar opposites, a magnet.
I step to the side to avoid
bumped shoulders, arms, hips
(contact is electric).
I avert my eyes so you can't see into my soul
(if you were wondering, it's screaming to get out).
you step forward, I step back.
-06/12/08
(a common recognition of a shared
humanity)
we crunch over our
laptops, newspapers, textbooks, solitude
and hope we won't be bothered
by someone asking for the time
or smiling.
over there, they recognize
more than the humanity in it.
they see an invitation,
not unlike a beggar does in the eyes of the
20 year old boy who seems interested
and buys him a sandwich.
they see loose morals, short skirts,
unbuttoned shirts in their future.
we take prodding. we don't assume. we are blunt.
"do you want to come back to my apartment?"
they are opportunistic. they infer. they hope for an opening.
"do you have the time?"
both end in sex. hopefully.
no wonder men and women separate
polar opposites, a magnet.
I step to the side to avoid
bumped shoulders, arms, hips
(contact is electric).
I avert my eyes so you can't see into my soul
(if you were wondering, it's screaming to get out).
you step forward, I step back.
-06/12/08
Friday, June 6, 2008
you say you want a revolution, well, you know... we all want to change the world.
I read a sermon the other day that the pastor began with "Thank God that he created highlighters." He then said that, "because without highlighters, how could we go through the bible and pick and choose what we want to listen to so easily and ignore the rest?"
Crazy? Yes, I suppose so. But he definately has a point. There's a lot in the bible that's hard to reconcile with our ideas of Christ and his mission both on earth and to us now that he's gone, and it's easy to focus on some things while forgetting others. For example, Leviticus 18:22 says, "you shall not lie with a male as with a female. it is an abomination." This text, along with two or three other verses, is a foundational one for many Christians that are outspoken critics of homosexuality. As the people with picket signs outside the Georgia Tech stadium on football game days have told me, "homos are going to hell!" So, it's obvious that they've highlighted that passage, and for them, that's foundational. My definition of foundational, however, is a topic or idea or rule of thumb that is absolutely quintessential and necessary for a faith, and I'd assume that it would be mentioned over and over by Christ, in an attempt to really drive the point home with his followers that "without this, there will be no new kingdom brought to earth."
By that logic, what's foundational about Christianity? Well, through a quick search on Bible Gateway.com, I can find 4 verses immediately that deal with homosexuality. I can also find 697 that mention love, 134 that reference justice, and 198 that deal with poverty and the poor.
So, maybe rather than taking justice into our own hands and condemning homosexuality, why not look at everything we've missed with our highlighters? What about love? Scandalous, impossible, rule-defying love? The kind of love that inspires hope, mends the broken, and pushes us to solve injustice with our voices, hands, and feet? Agape love, the kind that Paul challenges us to in Ephesians when he commissions men to love women as Christ so loved the church, and women to surrender our stubborn, independent wills to God for the world?
This brings me to another point. What does scandalous love really mean? if we've been commissioned to it, shouldn't we know? Because there's more to it than we originally thought. I think sometimes we forget to highlight the parts that specify what it means to agape the world, to love unconditionally like Christ did, because it's uncomfortable and shakes us in our view of a "good Christian life." Jesus said, "clothe the naked," not "donate clothes so someone else can." Jesus said, "feed the hungry," not "be sure to tithe 10% at church so someone else can." Jesus said to have active faith, and that means giving of more than our wallets--giving our time and our talents and space in our hearts to people that need it.
I'm not saying that everyone who has a guest room in their house should be giving it to a homeless person. If you're called to do that, that's awesome, but I really don't think all of us are. I do think, however, that we are all called to love, and to love actively and directly and with every bone in our body. It's easy to be active-- when you get close to the groaning of the poor, you begin to groan along with them.
All throughout the bible, there are awesome examples of people who took huge leaps for God. In Corinth, there is a church that is disgraced by paul for allowing some people to come to the table hungry while others are stuffed (1 Cor 11:21-22). Does this happen in America today? Everyday. I'd be willing to bet there are some people here, at grace, who have trouble feeding their families every week. And i think that we do an awesome job trying to help that, through the benevolent fund and the plethora of people here who, if asked, would totally come paint your walls or rewire your kitchen or help unclog a stuck bathroom drain. But not everywhere is like this, and it's a plague of today's society.
It's risky love that really makes a difference. Caring about people more than just writing a big check every week, bigger when you get a bonus at work, and feeling fulfilled. Not that that isn't helping, because it is, and it goes to allowing this church to help more and more people. But what's beautiful is what we're called to do--build a community of believers, relationships in the real world where you love people as individuals. It is about giving money. Yes. But it's also about so much more.
A Catholic bishop, Dom Helder Camara, once said, "when I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." This interests me on a number of different levels, but most people Bishop Camara believed and spoke out for the opinion that following Christ is as much about this world as the next. It's about change, and justice, and love for people that's so strong it forces you to desire these things. Tony Campolo, a really incredible pastor from pennsylvania, once asked a congregation, "even if there was no heaven and there was no hell, would you follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?" I'm not saying that anticipation of what's in store is a bad thing at all (goodness knows i'm excited for it.) but I think that Christ's message was no just to prepare us to die, but to teach us how to live. When people are hungry, we know to help feed them, because Christ taught us that, too. But, what's more, didn't Christ teach us to use our time on earth not only to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, but to work for justice for the poor as well? If we only think upwards and have heaven on our minds, do we then neglect the world around us until we reach that point? I don't believe that that's the truth that Christ taught.
This is the truth--that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. but there is more to it than there--there needs to be love, too. Because love is what Christ taught. Scandalous love. love for the Father and love for the world. I think a lot of us have the former. But what about the latter? Shane Claiborne has a really interesting book about all of this, and he mentions in it that "there are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth." This can't be the state of our world. The two go hand in hand, and if we are not shouting the gospel with our lives, what are we doing?
There is a comic strip that I've heard of that has two guys talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask God why he allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, "well, why don't you ask?" The guy shakes his head and says he's scared. when his friend asks why, he says, "I'm scared god will ask me the same question."
Crazy? Yes, I suppose so. But he definately has a point. There's a lot in the bible that's hard to reconcile with our ideas of Christ and his mission both on earth and to us now that he's gone, and it's easy to focus on some things while forgetting others. For example, Leviticus 18:22 says, "you shall not lie with a male as with a female. it is an abomination." This text, along with two or three other verses, is a foundational one for many Christians that are outspoken critics of homosexuality. As the people with picket signs outside the Georgia Tech stadium on football game days have told me, "homos are going to hell!" So, it's obvious that they've highlighted that passage, and for them, that's foundational. My definition of foundational, however, is a topic or idea or rule of thumb that is absolutely quintessential and necessary for a faith, and I'd assume that it would be mentioned over and over by Christ, in an attempt to really drive the point home with his followers that "without this, there will be no new kingdom brought to earth."
By that logic, what's foundational about Christianity? Well, through a quick search on Bible Gateway.com, I can find 4 verses immediately that deal with homosexuality. I can also find 697 that mention love, 134 that reference justice, and 198 that deal with poverty and the poor.
So, maybe rather than taking justice into our own hands and condemning homosexuality, why not look at everything we've missed with our highlighters? What about love? Scandalous, impossible, rule-defying love? The kind of love that inspires hope, mends the broken, and pushes us to solve injustice with our voices, hands, and feet? Agape love, the kind that Paul challenges us to in Ephesians when he commissions men to love women as Christ so loved the church, and women to surrender our stubborn, independent wills to God for the world?
This brings me to another point. What does scandalous love really mean? if we've been commissioned to it, shouldn't we know? Because there's more to it than we originally thought. I think sometimes we forget to highlight the parts that specify what it means to agape the world, to love unconditionally like Christ did, because it's uncomfortable and shakes us in our view of a "good Christian life." Jesus said, "clothe the naked," not "donate clothes so someone else can." Jesus said, "feed the hungry," not "be sure to tithe 10% at church so someone else can." Jesus said to have active faith, and that means giving of more than our wallets--giving our time and our talents and space in our hearts to people that need it.
I'm not saying that everyone who has a guest room in their house should be giving it to a homeless person. If you're called to do that, that's awesome, but I really don't think all of us are. I do think, however, that we are all called to love, and to love actively and directly and with every bone in our body. It's easy to be active-- when you get close to the groaning of the poor, you begin to groan along with them.
All throughout the bible, there are awesome examples of people who took huge leaps for God. In Corinth, there is a church that is disgraced by paul for allowing some people to come to the table hungry while others are stuffed (1 Cor 11:21-22). Does this happen in America today? Everyday. I'd be willing to bet there are some people here, at grace, who have trouble feeding their families every week. And i think that we do an awesome job trying to help that, through the benevolent fund and the plethora of people here who, if asked, would totally come paint your walls or rewire your kitchen or help unclog a stuck bathroom drain. But not everywhere is like this, and it's a plague of today's society.
It's risky love that really makes a difference. Caring about people more than just writing a big check every week, bigger when you get a bonus at work, and feeling fulfilled. Not that that isn't helping, because it is, and it goes to allowing this church to help more and more people. But what's beautiful is what we're called to do--build a community of believers, relationships in the real world where you love people as individuals. It is about giving money. Yes. But it's also about so much more.
A Catholic bishop, Dom Helder Camara, once said, "when I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist." This interests me on a number of different levels, but most people Bishop Camara believed and spoke out for the opinion that following Christ is as much about this world as the next. It's about change, and justice, and love for people that's so strong it forces you to desire these things. Tony Campolo, a really incredible pastor from pennsylvania, once asked a congregation, "even if there was no heaven and there was no hell, would you follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?" I'm not saying that anticipation of what's in store is a bad thing at all (goodness knows i'm excited for it.) but I think that Christ's message was no just to prepare us to die, but to teach us how to live. When people are hungry, we know to help feed them, because Christ taught us that, too. But, what's more, didn't Christ teach us to use our time on earth not only to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty, but to work for justice for the poor as well? If we only think upwards and have heaven on our minds, do we then neglect the world around us until we reach that point? I don't believe that that's the truth that Christ taught.
This is the truth--that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. but there is more to it than there--there needs to be love, too. Because love is what Christ taught. Scandalous love. love for the Father and love for the world. I think a lot of us have the former. But what about the latter? Shane Claiborne has a really interesting book about all of this, and he mentions in it that "there are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth." This can't be the state of our world. The two go hand in hand, and if we are not shouting the gospel with our lives, what are we doing?
There is a comic strip that I've heard of that has two guys talking to each other, and one of them says he has a question for God. He wants to ask God why he allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his friend says, "well, why don't you ask?" The guy shakes his head and says he's scared. when his friend asks why, he says, "I'm scared god will ask me the same question."
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