Poem – Storm (predictive text)

So many times I’ve got the job
and a few weeks and months
and it will take the bus driver
just got to go out
with the best way of saying
it is the most recent version
and the first place
I have no clue who
I want you
in my room

This girl
just a bit too easy
for the rest
is history
is not an easy
to play the piano
is not an issue
that the company
is trying
not too late
now that I’m a good one
to be able
the first place
I have no clue

One day
and the rest is history
is not an issue
that the company
is not the best way
of saying
it is the most recent version
and the first half
and I love the
fact is the only way
of the best of all of them
and the rest
is the only way

Right there in my room
for a long way
in which a man
with my family
and friends of friends
with a few weeks
and the other side
is the most beautiful and amazing
I can’t believe I’m saying that

Me
to get my money
and time
consuming
but it doesn’t even work
for a long way
in which a few years
and years
in a while
and the other side
is the most beautiful

——————–

(This “poem” is the word equivalent of random paint splatter. It was “composed” using the predictive text feature on my iPad. I used the letters in the word “storm” to generate the first letters in each paragraph. Then I used only the word choice that appeared as the far right option. I did not add any words. My only input was to break up the lines of words and take out five of them.

The sad thing is that this will get more “likes” than posts I worked very hard on that say something meaningful and important. But such is the way of the world, a world of flash and glamour, of style over substance. Plastic and fake is often preferred over real. Perhaps monkeys should have written Shakespeare.)

Poem – snow day

snow day

Remember that feeling you have
when you look outside
and everything
is covered by snow?

It was forecasted
but they didn’t know exactly
when it would happen –
what time of day,
or even if this day or the next.
But it was coming,
that was certain.

And while you were asleep
the snow appeared,
silently
making everything white,
everything new,
covering the world
with a silent calm,
a soft pure light.

Every prayer,
every reconciliation,
every bridge mended,
every addiction cured,
every honest conversation,
every deep listening

is a snowflake.

The world will change
because we will change it
because we were changed
one
by
one
by
one
a light comes on
and we share it, we shine it.

A new day is coming.
A new day is here.

Poem – what Church really is

Christmas stamp

I dream of a world
where people understand
that you don’t
go
to church.
You are Church.

That service is what God wants,
not hymns,
not prayers from a book.

Where people see every window
as a church window
and see the whole world
through it.

Where church buildings
are more like
thrift stores,
the Red Cross,
food banks,
soup kitchens.

Where they aren’t a place
to escape the world
but to equip people
to serve it

– not by preaching the Gospel
but by being a living example of it.

Poem – What gets you up?

What gets you up?
You have to have a reason
for getting up in the morning
and for making it
through the day.

Children? Work? Art?

What brings you joy? Do that.
What does the world need? Do that.

Can you get paid for it? Even better.

But even if you can’t,
do it anyway,
because it will feed your soul
and that kind of nourishment
can’t be bought
in a store.

There is no nutritional supplement
for a soul deficiency,
like there is for scurvy.

Rumi says: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”

Buechner says: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Poem – This is not a Christmas present

not a present

This is not a Christmas present.
This is hatefulness.
This is the exact opposite
of a present at all,
much less one celebrating
the birth of Jesus.
This is pure aggressiveness.
There is nothing passive about it.
The label is superfluous.
It is quite obvious
what he thinks
about his sister
from how he has packaged
his “gift”.

If this were given to me,
I might set it on fire right in front of him.
I might take it outside first.
I might put it under a steamroller.
I might shoot it with my revolver.
I might tie lead weights to it
and throw it into Percy Priest Lake.

Under no circumstances would I open it.
It doesn’t matter what is inside.
Gold bars?
Enough money
to pay off my mortgage?
The key
to my dream art studio?
A contract
for a personal chef and gardener?

No gift is worth this.
Sure, it wouldn’t take long
to cut through these cable ties.
Maybe an hour.
Maybe a few pairs of scissors
would get destroyed
in the process.
That isn’t the point.

My friend,
I’m telling you
this truth:
don’t take any “gift”
that is given
with this much hostility.
It isn’t worth it.
Walk away from it,
and that person.

That is the best present
you can give
yourself.

Poem – terrorist incident

How about we agree
that any time a person
willfully attacks
another person
it is an act of terror,
regardless of the color
of the people involved?
Regardless of politics or creeds,
regardless of belief,
regardless?

If a person attacks another person
with a gun,
a bomb,
a knife,
it is a terrorist act.
They are trying to terrify,
to instill terror,
plain and simple.

Poem – In the winter, we can see

In the winter,
we can see the bones of things.
We can see the true shapes
of the trees.
We can see where the birds
have made their homes.
We can finally see
the river that nourishes both,
that sustains.

In the winter,
we know what is what,
without any pretense,
without any show.
No more padding,
no more guile.
In the winter,
you know where you stand
and what you have
to work with.

It is like this in our lives
when the storms tear down
our defenses,
our walls,
our artifice.
Only when we have nothing
do we see what we really have
to work with.
Only when the tornado has come through,
the divorce is final,
the tragically died has been buried,
do we see what we really have,
what is our foundation.

Who knew?
We might have been building
all our hopes
on something frail,
something false.
We might have been
pinning our dreams
on something as insubstantial
as the morning mist.

It is a gift, this stripping away.

Poem – go walk yourself

How interesting that people will
buy a dog because
they
want to go for a walk.
They know that the dog
has to be walked at least
once a day
and so they have to
take him out.
They get the dog
as an excuse
to go for a walk.

It seems like it would be far cheaper
to forget the dog
and take yourself
out for a walk.

Why do we put more value
on the needs of others
rather than ourselves?
Why is a dog’s need to walk
more important than
the fact that
you
need to walk?

We have all been trained that we
should be
self-sacrificing
and serve others.
But they should not be
at the expense
of not taking care
of ourselves.
There should be a balance
where both happen.

So, skip the dog.
Skip the dog food,
the shots,
the veterinarian bills,
getting her fixed,
taking him to the groomers,
the whole thing.
Skip all of that.

Save your money
and go take
yourself for a walk.

Poem – afterlife

Nobody can tell you
where the flame goes
after it is
blown out,
so how do we know
where the soul goes
after
we die?
How do we know
there is more,
there is life after life?

Is it a bedtime story we tell
(our children, ourselves)
to keep away the boogeyman,
the things that go bump in the night?

Now is all we have.
Why worry about
the afterlife
and waste the life you have?

Live before you die.

If there is an afterlife,
let it be a bonus,
an extra.
Don’t let it be your only,
because it might not be.
Don’t worry
about whether
it is
or is not,
because that steals away
time
from the life you have,
now.