Life and Faith

Christian Materialism : The Good

2011-12-08T09:42:00.001-08:00

Tis the season, again. The shopping with the twin complaint of the over materializing of Christmas, along with cries to remember the reason for the season. Like the cold, the falling leaves, the shorter days, these indulgences and complaints are now part of the decor of the next few days and weeks. We will again be bludgeoned with reports of people behaving badly trying to get a bargain on the hottest Christmas present, this year it was pepper spray, last year, a death, 30 years ago battling mom’s over Cabbage Patch Kids (remember them?). We will listen to the siren track of pop Christmas music both frustrated by the holidays and filled nostalgia and anticipation.

They are all integral to the annual rite of our holiday season. As are the related complaints of offense given by saying “Happy Holidays,” instead of “Merry Christmas” or the opposite offense of saying “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” Of course somewhere there will be a nativity banned or a counter display for Atheists will garner news. We will all have our opinions for Christmas brings out a great deal in us. Lets not forget some poor families will be remembered, when usually they are forgotten. Many will get items they would not have, and the cuisine for the homeless will turn remarkably better. For a month, the poor will be called less fortunate and not their what we normally call them. Christmas in America, like all things human, is a mix bag.

Some how it seems strange to believe that pointing out the obvious, the commercialization of Christmas, will somehow turn it into one of our imagination or make it, at least, look more like a Christmas TV special. Like indulging the illusion of pointing out the blue of the sky will somehow make it red. It’s more like if we complain about it, then we can participate with a minimal amount of guilt. We live in a consumer culture and one where Christmas can mean up to 40 percent of the year’s business to most retail shops. We will be shocked at the excess of Black Friday. And in this economy, we also will rooting for big shopping numbers just the same. Yet, we complain. The complaints have been around longer than before my birth and most likely long after I am dust.

As a Christian, a follower of Jesus, what am I to do? Shake my fist at the appropriating of the holiday (all the while pulling out the credit card for presents for my family)? Indulge with the comfort that of course I know better? I have come to believe that the complaining does as much to keep the commercialization of Christmas in place in our own lives, because the complaints are directed to the society or the other, not me. The complaining, like the lights and the anticipation for getting presents and the anxiety of getting presents for others are all just distractions.

I have written before in Praise of Christmas materialism. Christmas should be about the flesh around Christmas time, as we Christians are in fact worshiping when God became flesh. But Christian materialism is based being together and taking care of each other. It is summed up in the two great commandments, love God and neighbor. The most telling words for Christian at Christmas is in John 1.4 “dwelt with” for after the Word became Flesh, the Word (Jesus, God incarnate) dwelt with us. God being with us in skin, bone and blood as a baby, helpless and needing mother’s comfort makes the very act of living Holy. This is a materialism in reality.

This made me think about the nature of consumerized Christmas. The reality is that it’s not a materialism, but a disillusion. I remember as a young boy wanting a deluxe Electric Football Game, you know the one where plastic football payers move on a vibrating metal plate. It looks so cool on the commercials. I did get it on Christmas morning and for all of Christmas day, I was happy. After a few days, the game was boring and I did what most boys did, I experimented with other things to vibrate like dirt, and my sister’s dolls. That became boring, as well. Within a couple of weeks it was in closet. The promise of endless fun was not real. What was real and I keep coming to was moments and rituals of my family. I plan to cook Beef Bourguignon for my in-laws this year, because I want to share space with them and show them I love them. A group of us will serve at Ronald McDonald house and share food with families that have a child in the hospital out of a sense of knowing what means to have a child in the hospital. Joy comes from sharing good and suffering. I will not complain but find moments to look into the eyes of my fellow humans, even if they complain. Because God came to us.

For where everywhere God trends the ground becomes holy, and choice to be with us, and so our lives have been touched by the Grace of Emanuel, which means God with us. So as I watch my son, a 2-year old with dawning of the awareness of Christmas with its wonder lights, I am reminded for the glory of God-loving us in the touch of a new-born. If any thing we, Christians, should pause on the materialism of Christmas. Enjoy the excitement of the children at this time. Taste and see the goodness of the holiday treats. Be with people where ever they may be. If a person is offended by saying “Merry Christmas” I will say Happy Holidays (at least Merry Holidays to shake both of our non-thinking for a while.) I will serve at the Ronald McDonald House, as we do once as month, not as a duty but as gift from God.

Commercial White Water Rafting

2011-12-01T05:08:00.001-08:00

Commercial White Water Rafting

Rather than pouting, the pair pointed upward

in a gaze, daring the gathered around them

to see the bearings of the universe in the fight

on one lone eagle gliding in the blue of dispersed

light. On their feet, the gesture of the two, leads

the others to the untouchable show above them.

Soon, the Eagle disappears in the updraft,

and we return to our smoked gouda sandwiches.

The Arkansas River leading to prime show

of Browns Canyon still flows past, while the rental

equipment loses a bit of its water coating to the sun.

The 12 year old boy from Delaware still talks of the Golden

Eagle’s visit as if the bird made a personal visit.

The meaning and metaphor are there, but my hands

too small to grasp it. Between our lunches end, the fourteen

of us, our two rafts, and our remounting in formation,

I count eleven passing rafts filled, two kayaks

and one canoe, which means seventy-seven

photos will snapped before ours. The pair that fell

into the cold Colorado river water just before lunch

will, fifteen years later, still have the frame image

on their living room wall. The boy? He is lost

to the mystery though his breaking voice remains.

In the Valley of Life: Stories

2011-11-22T07:28:00.001-08:00

I have been reading John Goldingay's reflection and remembrance of his wife, Remember Ann. I have had the book awhile and have been fearing reading it. I knew John and Ann during my days at Fuller. Ann was

diagnosed with MS early in their relationship and John took care of his wife throughout their forty year marriage. I made the acknowledgements. But I fear reading it on two fronts. First, my son has NF-1 and it may be a severe form and I don't know if I have the strength to go through if I know what that means. Better in such journeys to only dealing with whats in front of you. I remember when a friend from Colorado was looking up at the top of Mount of the Holy Cross mountain. Seeing the top he could not imagine making to the top. I had been on the top already, by taking on step a time. I did not what to deal with seeing the top from John's story. Second, I am dealing with a persistent Glaucoma problem. I fear being a blind husband to my wife, and undue burden up her, especially if our son also might need care. It was to overwhelming.

Last night, the three of us, wife, son and me, sat a the dinner table and laughed. My two year old laugh with a deep laugh that filled his whole being over something little. I saw God in this moment. I found the courage to read a friend's story. Tears mixed with laughter, this is what I am grateful for. This does not change the devil's choice that my wife and I will have to make. Nor does it change the possible terrors my son will have to face. But sharing the story, as John does, somehow makes more alive. Below is a poem I wrote when I found out Ann had passed away. In it I remember what many forget about the Gospel is about being fully alive and fully alive with others.

The Early Church Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons famous quote about the meaning of Gospel, comes to me through the giggles of my son, “The glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God”

In the Valley of Life

In memory of Ann

The music exists

intime, in silence,

and in the valley of the bones before the prophet,

the mortal, spoke. The dryness of the land

lacked the wind of life before the God’s

question. God

asked theprophet if the bones

could find flesh again and dance asa living

people. Demanding an answer,

We become

Mute to the fracturesof our time.

Snap, and we are orphans. Crackle,and life

Dissipates like the smoke

From an extinguished

Beeswax purplecandle. The still hot

Liquid of stilled blood longs tomove as if

It remained a springtime brook.

On the crossplanck

Where the points of the valleymeet,

We answer with a song, only Godcould know,

of cold loss in our marrow.

God asks the prophet

Again, and we defer ourdifferent

Ignorance. We speak to the bones ofour past,

Findingmemories, finding

Sinew attaching

To our stories. Will they spring up

From out of the ground? Will they speak to us

In a new voice.

The mortal speaks

To the brittle dust and water begins

To turnto blood. The skin needed to contain

The red winecolored

Fluid covers

The memories. Notes of forty plus

yearmarriage begin to play the dignity of Ann.

Through the silence,

She heard

God’s s libretto through the voice

Of the mortal.The mortal proclaimed the words

Of life, of body broken

For new being. Alive,

Again and for the first time,

Weremember and give thanks and sing

For sweet Ann given to us.

The Pain in my Thoughts and Thighs

2011-11-21T11:44:00.001-08:00

The Pain in my Thoughts and Thighs

I start my morning with a cliché,

a lukewarm one at that. Walking

on ice, my reality.Trending on ice

that was once was snow, but tires

and time turned into a sheet of a mixture

white and black ice, another overused

metaphor of good and bad. So, here

I was pushing, with likeness of a beer

induced dance, toward my morning bus

stop. In the wide middle of the street

there was a path cut by tires, I meet

the moonlight of the walk and snow dust,

making sure of the planting of the heel,

the best way to avoid slipping in real

time. The red lights of warming cars

with exhaust breathing into the darkness,

became markers in my not falling.

Already, I ave pain from the ape walk

that I use to walk on the ice. Being

a meaning making machine, I wonder

why? The best I can come up with, due

much to the weakness of my morning coffee

yet to hit, and the knowledge of so many

thousands of year of poems, predictions,

pacing on ice, both black and white,

is that sometimes it snows in November

and being prepared to start earlier

will keep you from missing the bus.

Luckily, I did not have to run on ice,

another cliché altogether.

Going to the Well in the Middle of One Hot Day

2011-11-20T16:22:00.001-08:00

Going to the Well in the Middle of One Hot Day

a mediation on a question about the purpose of a SundayNight Bible Study

You ask how, on our emerald

and blue ball, I would direct

the coming of God, fearing

if we are doing right. I know

the temptation. Just gather under

a name and wait to see what happens,

while for others, home watching

a football dances on TV? Really,

that’s it? Better, let us go

out and conquer for the Kingdom.

Pull out the sword and cut the ear

of those who do not hear.

Dance upon the waters

through faith and trust of the message,

less we fall into the murky sea.

Adventures in the cross, yes,

but patiently pounding the book,

timid in talking about timing and tempo

in our prayers of pows, wows and hows?

Again, that’s it? Sitting in stillness

of the darkness of a random Sunday

night? What would Jesus think?

Feathering the threads

of our individual lives

into a joint blanket, what’s the use

when so many are crippled?

When so many need to be lowered

from the roof to meet the God

incarnate they so desperately need. Feed

the hungry. Yes,

God is with us when two

or more, but Martha knows the work

still needs to be done. Come,

and follow, 153 Sundays

and what will we know?

So, I stop and sound

your question to the wind.

What is the use?

I know the terrible secrete.

It blows in the upper floors,

His question, “Do your love me?”

leads to life, the unknowable risks

and at times to an upside down

death on a cross.

Not Another Telemarketer

2011-11-18T09:39:00.001-08:00

Dime Day Doubts

When the history of world is written in blank verse,

as all true history is inscribed in iambic pentameter,

the main roll will go the ghosts of telemarketers,

telling your to buy the telegraphed past you’ve strive

to forgot, and who show up when you make love

to your wife or when you are playing pick up basketball,

or even at dinner. They will have to take three nos

before they leave, any less and their supervisors write

them up for lack of efforts. They will burnish all their

techniques of the trade, tone deaf fears of step-fathers'

murdering fathers, of dark Dane days of indecision

and keeping you in their world. They will do anything

to keep you in your past. "Leave me alone," you shout

and they still appear, and appear and appear. You son

will be on stage as a pilgrim, black hat doubling

his size, and you will be wanting to hang up

on the persistent past pestering you with problems

of the seven year old you were. Then, on follow up calls,

pointing you guilty for not paying attention to you child’s

part in second grade play of Thanksgiving.

Why, you think, do we lack a National Registry of No

Calls for the ghosts of Telemarketers.

I Read Mine On My Ipad

2011-11-17T05:30:00.001-08:00

I Read Mine On My Ipad

Codices, then a technological advance

of the young, were leather, vellum

and papyrus butterflies fluttering

in the wind throughout the Roman

world. Compact and carried by Jews,

missionaries and faithful slaves,

these first bound books became

the pollination for the destruction

of the Trinity of the Roman

Gods of their Golden Age:

success, wealth and fame.

The Limitations of Local

2011-11-16T06:24:00.001-08:00

The Limitations of Local

Chanterelles, yellow chandeliers in the wild,

have the look of brains as the butter

and balsamic vinegar sizzle on a new coat

of flavor. While we hunted for them

in the shadows of the Grand Traverse, we

found alpine strawberries smaller then the nail

on my ring finger. I recall the taste of the wild

mushrooms with shallots, clams, and linguini

to girls in Los Angles who thought the Milky

Way was a candy bar and never seen the spray

of stars. Of course, they were appalled we used

can clams and not fresh out of their beloved ocean.

History Repeating Persistent Patterns

2011-11-14T20:43:00.001-08:00

History Repeating Persistent Patterns

Most of us will miss our rightful place

in the Book of History. If we do achieve its ink,

probability proclaims we merely will be

an endnote, a footnote, or a nameless allusion.

Few get a headline, let alone a chapter. Some,

fed on the illusions of exceptionalism, self-love

and been told since birth that they are

extraordinary, discover this truth as a tragedy.

Yet, to go missing from the Book of Life

tasting the acrimonious sourdough straight

out of the hundreds of degree heat or popping open

a petite syrah colored like the purple of Ceasar’s

robe, yellows or reds our green leafs in preparation

for falling. But, is distracting our future offspring

from their dreams of importance really a requiem

of suffering? I mean I remember when I started

school, age six with coke bottle glasses, I want to them all

to like me. Strange, I can’t recall any of their names.

The Interlocking Chains of Command

2011-11-14T05:20:00.001-08:00

The Interlocking Chains of Command

When a bird is no longer in flight

he dreams of worms to eat. Might

he fantasize of freedom’s glide and glaze

of flying? We humans speculate. But

for the bird, the air is just a means

for finding food. Dinner—not escape.

What, then, do the worms dream

as they pick our bones white?

Poetry, Nobel, the stream of life

2011-11-13T16:01:00.001-08:00

I have not been posting as I have been pushing in getting a book of poems. I am going to see if I can write a poem a day for the whole of 2112, and think that there is nothing like the present to build the muscles to write. When I heard that Tomas Transtormer won the Nobel prize for his poems, I was affected. Twenty years ago in my writing program in Texas, he was a visiting poet, and very few people went to hear him, then a unknown poet from Sweden. I remember how intrigued by hm I was. He thought in metaphor and tried to capture the flow of life in his quiet poems. He is the first Nobel writer I have touch with a handshake. Now, I look to turn my poems as a testament to life, finding voice for the quiet moments that make living, but seem to be neglected in the course of biography and story. Below is a poem about going out with a group of young fathers and fathers to be from my small group from our church.

Church Boys’ Night of Beer, Fun and Football

On the table, all the buffalo wings left: one.

And the battered wheels of onions

the diameter and color of a grapefruit left: one.

Of the flatbread, the latest craze, baked with pieces

of shredded Romano and Parmesan left: one.

Though its tomato, olive oil and sweet basil dip

long gone into the tummies of the young

fathers of preschoolers. Fear of appearing

gluttonous to each other left this plethora of ones.

“Bonding” what a strange way of putting it,

as if stuck by together by Gorilla glue or black

duct tape binding us into a group in front

of a big screen. Hittites, who now only exist

in others’ accounts and archeological digs, would

use just one word to say hello and goodbye

that translates from their dead language into,

“Be alive.”

The Power of With

2011-09-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, there are libraries full of books promising the secrets of life, the how to guides, and books that even try to make scripture into a tool of manipulation. Click your heals three times, close your eyes and tell the universe your heart’s desire. Pray the right prayer to God. The universe or God, white wand in hand, grants you your desires because you wanted it so bad. While fantasy is fun, this is not of the book I am writing. Within analysis you will not find answers to fulfilling your desires for a dream job, getting people to liking you, getting stuff, getting more stuff or getting fame or even getting success.

It may happen. It may not.

These are unimportant in the long course of our lives.

I speak of smaller things. I speak of bigger things. The good life, the honest life, the real life transcends time. Love transcends time. Jobs, reputation, wealth, fame, and even success are all limited by time. Chasing them is like chasing moving water with a wholly cup. A little may find your lips, but only enough to keep you thirsty. Going from success to success leaves you wanting, empty and frustrated without relationship or love. Think about the time you accomplished a great success, made the winning basket, got the applause. Why did it leave you empty so quickly after? Real living fills you with living water, quenching your thirst. Think back to a connecting to another, a great heart to heart talk, seeing you son or daughter walking for the first time, overwhelmed by the beauty of ocean line. Imagine.

Imagine that the worth of yourself and others is not measured by stuff, status or success. Imagine the worth of a life coming from your connection to others, to God, to your life, irrespective of your circumstances. Where prayer, ceasing to be a tool of wanting, births you into unknown adventures. A life of memories worth having.

I will not promise here of mysterious keys to life, hidden truths, or magical potions. That’s left for others. The key to the good life is simple and full of suffering. It is also fills us with joy. I will just share my experiences on being with others. Use what you can for yourself. Toss out what you want or doesn’t work for you.

Nor will you find anything new. Yes, I will share techniques to listen better. Yes, I will share ancient and orthodox Christian theology. That is what I have studied and have my degree in. I will also share what I have learned from the world of science. With the discovery of mirror neurons, the ancient truth of living a life of love makes the highest life has been confirmed by modern science. We are hardwired to be with each other.

With one a simple word, I will the hope is that we can reclaim the power of love. A word so common we ignore it, a word that is at the center of Immanuel, at the center of the divine, at the center of love without pretensions and without lies. Follow.

What we speak about here is joy, passion, and love. What speak about is a simply word “with.” A contemplation on such a small and common a word might look like a waste of time, and effort that a quick search of the dictionary or Google search settle any question on the meaning and practice of the word. But think back when you have connected with another, eye to eye, face to face, and for a moment time disappeared. Why did you connect with them? Was it that you were with them? Did you, for a moment, transcend yourself and found yourself carried away with another human to a different place than your normal life? Yet, paradoxically, you also maintain your own self. If fact you experienced your self at a heighten state. The theologian Martin Buber named such a being with another, I-Thou. He was right saying that the I of being with another is different from the I that is apart from the world. The I that can be with another is the real I. The I that touches God.

Remember such an experience. Think of a space and time when something came over you. Maybe a sense of beauty overwhelmed you. Whether it was nature or animal that you found yourself changed, even if just a little while. It could have been a song, music, art, painting or film that carried you away only the place of a heighten you. Wouldn’t these experiences be worthy of meditation, or at least a pause for reflection?

Could we repeat such events? Or at least be more open to them?

Stay with me, though. Yes, “with” is just a preposition; a word used a million times a day without thought. Defining a word can do one of two things either give one a greater understanding of the word or dismiss it. The word “with” does two important things. First it places one in relationship to whatever one is with. Second, it maintains our own boundaries in the relationship. To have no boundaries with the other means being adsorbed by the other. Obsession is not love.

There has to be a sense of compassion to love or it sinks to obsession.

Compassion simply means being with another’s passion. Communicate simply means sharing language with another. Common simply means being with duty. Community simply means with unity. The word “with’ gets to the heart of living, of loving, and finding joy. Learning to be with another will lead to a full life. “With’ teach us the heart of God. Emmanuel simply means God with us.

The prefix “com,” etymology tells us, comes a word that means “with.” Com be with me in my exploration.

Silly Thing Called Love

2011-09-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

How come we sound so trite and superficial when we speak about love? The jokes of seeing life as a Cumbia sing alongs by the campfire with endless supplies of smores come one’s way as way of shutting up any talk of love. The dream of love seems more a fantasy or a tool of manipulation. Do this because I love you.

Saying we should love one another and that we should try to be with one another makes us play a marble game of rolling eyes. The cat eyes shoot out any seriousness talk of love from the circle of life. Love, connection and community seems more of a kid’s game before we lose our innocence and reality takes all of our marbles. Love makes for good movies and pipe dreams, but if one really tries to be with another, well, understand that disappointment will bully us into reality. People disappoint. People hurt each other. Being with another poses real dangers. If we are to be with another in authentic way, we have to know the thorns along the path.

Yes, one of the dangers of advocating being with people tends to down play the opposite. It seems that connecting with others should be a slam-dunk when compared to being disconnected. Being alone drives our loneliness and angst. Yet, the truth is that most of us are disconnected from each other. Even in our closest relationships, especially in our closest, most of will disconnect by a variety of ways such as manipulation, pretense of being alright, stonewalling, and so many others. Then years pass and we wake to realize that we have wasted our relationships. The protective shell becomes carbon fiber strong as we age and then we realize that there are very few, if any, people that we really close to. Our children never call, feel guilty when they are with us and cry at our funeral. They never know how weak we felt as we held on their first day of life, until they hold their own. The pattern repeats.

Of course, I am saying nothing new. This is as old as humanity itself. Our fear of connecting and love, our wanting to be over others instead of with others defines the structure of our history. Disconnecting from others out of fear or out of control protects us from the dangers of being with others.

Disconnection is about protecting ourselves. In the older psychosocial stereotypes, being disconnected protects our ego. Yet, protecting the ego sounds a bit selfish and really does not capture the very real threat to us in opening ourselves to love. Jesus, as incarnate love, ended on a cross. If God opens into vulnerability and suffers a cruel death, what hope is there for us? We all have a cross moment of loving only to suffer.

The first memory I have is of a beating I had at the hands of my father. I refuse to eat spinach and got black and blue. I use to think this is sad and it was rare. While it still sad, in most people I know, their first memories are profound moments of disappointment. The scramble of the four year old to protect himself and understand the pain of being bad for not eating spinach and the betrayal of a father’s love, became a large facet of my personality. The first moment, not the last, of being disappointed in love shades my interactions with others except when love breaks through the protection.

We call opening ourselves up to love, being vulnerable, and vulnerable means the possibility of real hurt. This threat does present a possibility of real pain. People know this and that is the reason vulnerability is a risk. While calling the pull to disconnection an egotism, we down play the threat that being with another does posses. Going down a double diamond run thrills us we do risk blowing out a knee. God understood this problem as when Jesus opened up to others, he was strung on a cross. Opening up to love does open ourselves to love, and to suffering. The pull toward disconnection moves us toward safety. We also move toward a non-living existence filled with frustration.

Since, we need to connect with others by disconnecting we slowly starve like a anorexic. The next solution we try to disconnect from some and connect with others. We call this trust. If we can trust another then we can open up. The problem with this is that how do we find people we trust? Most of us are very bad at placing trust. Also, all of will break trust. Second withhumans being are all weak as we are, we fail to realize that at one point we will all break trust and everyone in our lives will disappoint us. We retreat into our disconnected safety. The dance of life.

What to do? Before we risk we have to know the dangers. There will be crosses, but there will resurrections. Say yes to life means being with others; being with others will mean pain. Being with others also means joy, love and caring. Can’t have one with out the other. Dr. Brene Brown remind us that when we numb, we numb the good along with the bad emotion. I will go further, when we protect ourselves from hurt, we also shield ourselves from love. We need love. There is no way around it; being with others in a real way will bring love and suffering. While this sounds daunting, remember disconnecting from others will only bring numbness and ultimately only suffering. The best option remains the risk of being with the others humans we share life with.

High Heat and Cooking Chicken Stir-fry

2011-09-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

I knew his eyes, worn out like thrift store laundry. I had worn those eyes before, hospital eyes of a powerless parent. the heat was just starting to work on chicken, soy sauce, hosin and fresh cut veggies. He looked at me, part of a church group serving dinner to parents weary from the hospital, with mistrust. The wok sounded like fast falling rain. All he wanted was some hot food and to collapse into his bed at the Ronald McDonald House. The last thing he needed was a bunch of do-gooders wanting his attention or his applause for providing dinner. His son was battling cancer that had already taken half his son’s leg. His face wore wrinkles of leave-me-alone. I understood his wariness. I had been nailed to the same cross of sick child’s parent.

The wok needed stirring. The wood spoon already had worn on the side from use. I looked at his eyes and saw a reflection two thousand or hundreds of thousands of years old. I saw my reflection. I wore a similar look at another Ronald McDonald House not long before.

My son, right after turning one, had to go through seven hour brain and skull surgery to fix a genetic fault that left his brain pushing out his eye. I knew the fatigue that comes doing nothing but being at the hospital, the fatigue that comes from worry over the fear of death, not mine, but my son. Powerlessness describes what it means to be human, but we, parents of the kingdom of sick children, have gotten good at hiding this fact. My son’s biology had taught me this truth. I remember how my son looked after the operation, like a plump blueberry. Five days later, he was playing peek-a-poo. The wonders of my son ring like a mystery.

After we came home, I felt the need to be with others going through the same pain. We met with our church and after some convincing we added a night of serving dinner at our local Ronald McDonald house. We, my wife and I, went to serve out of my being with my own weakness; the others went out love for my family. o

Since being a citizen of the Kingdom of sick children isolates parents, we were there to be with others. I wanted my church to offer an ear and a presence. We were not there simply to do for others, but to be with one another. We were transformed by the experience, but not without struggle.

The first few times we went to serve dinner, I found a problem. People want to help, and they found it easy to do for others. Being with another, opening up to a pain they were powerless to solve was something they had trouble with. They wanted to cook the hot meal, served with a smile, but they wanted to wait to eat and eat among themselves. The path of a waiter, professionalism, makes for a childhood fort easy to defend, a good way to avoid being with another. Protecting our weakness makes us easy cowards. I wanted them to eat with the parents, being with the parents and give the parents a place to put their story.

Cooking Mac and Cheese was easier. Hearing a story and being powerless to changed the outcome of the children left the church crew uncomfortable. The risk of love can be a double diamond ski run, daunting and relentless. Understandable, they feared.

The first night we grilled brats and burgers. When the food came out, I went to call my wife to see how our son was doing. I came back to the crew was eating in the kitchen waiting to clean up, and the parents out at the tables. I scattered the crew out to sit with the worried parents, to enter into the Kingdom of sick children.

Hearing their stories of babies the size coke cans, stories of cancer, stories of mysterious aliments both scared the group and made them come alive. Being with another even in their pain, transforms us making love possible. We slowly learned to share our own stories. Most of church helpers had stories of hurting children in the hospital, or pains to relate to. The families needed people to walk with them. Only by leading with our own stories could we learn to pray with them. Miracle of miracles, we soon broke the barriers and became united as one community. Then the next month and new people, and we would have relearning to breakdown the barriers, which keep us from being with each other.

So, I had gotten good at recognizing those eyes of mistrust, those hospital eyes. When I saw his eyes, I remember the days of praying at the hospital, doing nothing but looking at my son. I remember hating people call us brave, of saying that children were resilient, of listening between the words of doctors looking for clues to the fate of my son. Yes, I understood the temptation to punch some do-gooder in the mouth for wanting credit for serving some hot food. I could read the stirring of his mind, mixing with the high heat of the moment.

“I hated those long days of doing nothing at the hospital. It’s exhausting.” I said to him. I started the process of pouring the chicken stir-fry into a serving dish. His eye change and he recognized a fellow citizen of the Kingdom of sick children. We have our own language.

“Yeah, they sucks.” He answered. “What was wrong with you kid?”

We exchanged stories, the currency of love. I said I could not fathom what it was like to have a teenage son lose half his right leg. He said thanks. He said that the boy was getting good on his crutches. We prayed and then parted. I had to finish the stir-fried chicken I was cooking. Food is important. For a moment we were with each other. For a moment our burdens were shared.

Later, my now two year toddler almost tripped his sixteen year old. His son, indeed, was quick and agile with his crutches. My son was singing the wheels on the bus, when he tried to hold the missing leg. I apologized for my son’s action. He said to think nothing of it. Two sons, two fathers painted the scene. Somehow love revealed something. Somehow love prayed for us when we couldn’t. The flavors mixed as I knew, and the dinner was tasty.*

*This is the second part of my exploration of the power of with. I will post something about the power of with for the 30 days.

The Question of the good life

2011-09-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Thegood life! Yes, imagine a life fill with adventure. Imagine living as lifereveals its newness in the present, each moment having the potential of meetinganother human beyond fear, and with a deeper connection to others. Could webegin to live again? It seems like a dream, but it is possible? Living withpower, each moment meeting our own lives as it unfolds! Many books offer abetter you, I know. The heart of the self-help industrial complex is a promiseof three things: being smarter, being healthier, being influential. Oncesmarter, healthier, or influential, then one will have a better life. Butscience and most religious text claim that the quality of our lives depends onour relationship. Most of the self-help aims at improving our branding and packaging.There lies a disconnect between the better self and relationship.

Imagine,a chance encounter, unexpectantly, becomes a place of where love, the fullnessof live, reveals itself. Can we live life as we did as children, with eachmoment full of hope, with each moment full of joy and passion, with mystery anddiscovery? Could we, despite the many years our calendars have flipped, befriendlife again? Yes, live despite our cynicism. Somehow it has to do with love, wethink. It seems worrying about ourpackaging and branding works against our living a life of love, vulnerabilityand passion. How can love flourish if we always have an eye on the mirror?

Yes,it sounds like a dream, to live a life of love. Strangely, it has to do with afour letter word. Remember love experienced before we became jaded by real life,before we developed walls of protection, before becoming adults. Yes, we canimagine, but is it possible beyond wishes or the lose of innocence? Lovetranscending our narcissism. Lovebeyond accepting and to the higher mountain of affirming. Living like a beloveddaughter or son at each moment seems like a dream of those unaware. The problemarises with the word love which has been load with trouble; it has beenpoisoned by being a tool of selling; it has been stretched beyond meaning intothe meaningless mush of bland sounding pop music, a catchy tune we hum to ourown annoyance. Greeting cards have stained “love” dark making it hard to seethe orginal. Could there be another word?

Can love regain itspower? There must be another word to draw us back the world we lost whileyoung, when she work Many times we know what we want ot say and then we lack the words to say it. My wif, when she wasworking on her dissertation, work look up and ask for a phrase or word because she was struck. I would ask her what she wanted to say, and the words would pore out of her. I think of this as I introduce the word I spent time understanding, and once understood, it changed the experience of my like for the better. It's a word that gets at the heart of both my faith and love. The word is the simple prepositon, with. *

* this the start of sharing of about a book I am working on. I will share my investigations, scientific, theologically, personally and philosophical about the power of a simple four letter word. The word is so used without thought that most of ignore it, and yet as I have grown to understand it; it is at the heart of what it means to be alive and as I said in this post to living the good life.

And so another 30 day challenge ends

2011-09-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

Today, as I calculated is the end of my second 30 day challenge to write a poem. This one focused on writing love poems. My mind has been thinking what will be my next 30 day challenge. I have taken a couple of days off before staring the the next challenge and will do so. The next challenge will be working out the ideas for the book I am working on. The theme of the book is the power of living face to face as expressed by the simple word with. In the mean while tell me what you think about the last of my 30 pays of poems on love. I will continue to write love poems and read them and wlll post them periodically.

Love Lives

Drink from the spout of being with you.

Everyday the level rises and we continue,

beyond the sickness of our son, beyond the minor

and major setbacks. Drained at the night’s fall,

the glass refills with joy, with your business

in cleaning our house, with helping our son’s

vision, patching him even as he hates it. Yes,

I love in the middle of life, rather than

the fantasy of plucking out of time like

picking a silk rose that has all of the delicacy

of reality and none of the life. Life means

I fight glaucoma and you suffer a bad back.

Yes, we drain the glass. Yes, it refills. Miracle.

Tone Deaf Sonnet

2011-09-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tone Deaf Sonnet

To posses denies the truth of time. To measure

a human on the content of what his stuff, no matter,

the content of the stuff fools the mind into thinking

of permanence. Life moves on and we lose the things

that make us. This is why we tend to want our love

to never change. Yet, Time continues to bring

in the tide and take away. Our new computer devours

itself in a short while and becomes obsolete. We lose

our things, our strength, our eyes, but God remains.

That which we can never posses—love, God, passion,
Freedom—these are what survive us. Being possessed

by them gives u life. Soon, we will celebrate ten years

together and the clocks ticks on our parting by death.

Each day becomes irreplaceable because of your love.

After When Boy Wins Girl

2011-09-11T20:32:00.001-07:00

After When Boy Wins Girl

Love, as hunting for genes, commands

the use of words like new weapon systems.

The delicate painting of an egg, hands

steady like an autumn boat on the Russian

river carrying chardonnay grapes

to a new home of oak in hopes of crafting

a balanced with hints of apple wine, takes

presence each day. Flaws form the stem

in which the blossoming branches flow

out. Fertilize the ground and with daily

water and sun does the work, with daily

being the key. The paint on the point

of bush grades the egg-white surface

with lines, cities, saints, memories,

turn into gifts for Eastetide. The pysanka

produces awe, but it takes sore eyes,

cramping hands. Love steals time,

and after we said “I do.” Love caused

to the real patterns to emerge.

Turtledoves All the Way Down

2011-09-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Turtle doves All the Way Down

The door opens after the bell is rung.

They say that love hits us like a left

roundhouse, as if love makes the head

ring. Weddings, are the work of

the temporarily delusional, or more

to the point, ar they common answer

the ring to living life? The latter

goes up and up without a stable

foundation.

Love Poem Moderating Creeley, Robert That Is

2011-09-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

Love Poem Moderating Creeley, Robert That Is

I walk miles

to keep the fat

at bay. The ocean

lies hundreds

of miles west

on a road. To you,

I speak in riddles

out of finding the sparkle

of facets. Water

mixes with salt

in my body and pours

from small holes

in my skin. You are

found among our flowers

clearing the space

of weeds. And men,

who live close by,

sand a new deck

and soon will be

staining. Glass windows

break with a rock

thrown out of summer

boredom. Done with

work, on the way

home, I make

my way past the teen-

agers. Ancients spoke

of love in parables

that were like secret

boxes boy love to hide

stuff. By feathers

shed to make room

for new ones, I

walk by and on

to home. Go.

Drought cracks the Earth

2011-09-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

Drought cracks the Earth

On hot days I miss you as you

work in dirt of our garden. I

work from before the sunrise

at a desk with glimmering images.

Virtual images in two dimensions

while my third, you, carfully

harvest the carrots in our backyard.

Summer moves to fall, and I fail

to find the red tomatoes on the vine.

Best, they say, to pick them green

and let the brown bag ripen them.

You work by playing with our son,

the two of you sing. Peppers continue

to get big, and I punch out.

Soon, I join the singing.

A Prophet Speaks in Helium

2011-09-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

A Prophet Speaks in Helium

The clown on the bus today was proud

of how he rushed in getting ready and

made it. By hand, the woman attempts

to ignore him with a gesture of a false cough.

He, having none of it, speaks with an air

tank next to his side, which use to blow up

balloons that he makes into animals

for kids he has come to loath even

as they provide for his livelihood.

Yes, he woke with only eight minutes

before the time the bus was due to pass.

Forgo shower. Forgo hygiene, who cares

about the odor that children will smell..

Rush the yellow, blue, green and red

checkered vest and matching pants,

and out the door. The life of a lonely

clown and I think about our meeting

and how I almost missed you with my

rushing to beat the clock. I wonder

what it would have been like love

did not push me out the door. You

dance with me and if I did come

at the time of the bus, would to be

a smelly lonely clown boring those

next to me? You wake with to the giggles

sounds of our young boy with your hair

and my nose. I am grateful, so very grateful.

9-11 poem and rememberance

2011-09-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Time Between 9/11 And 9/17

-to the ten year anniversary of meeting my wife 9/17/01

In the flood of 9/11 remembrances,

I have to speak about my love.

We met on the Monday after

history was suppose to change us.

The War to end all Wars, which did

not stop war, left our nature unchanged,

As did Hitler, Auschwitz and Stalingrad.

Our long nature’s lust and longing

for both violence and love remained.

Touched, perhaps, left us with a moment

of stillness to contemplate our horror,

until the moment of blood lust

and vengeance brought us back

to reality of the next war, bombs away.

Swords into plow shears, when? Love goes

down as a dream of water-downed fools.

But, I met you, six days after. Hope

pored from your shy ways. We danced.

You still own the blue fleece vest you wore

that beautiful bleak day willed with wonder

And fear. Many have died since we met.

The river of blood still gushes from the Dam

that broke us. Yet, God still rises from the cross.

And I wake each morning with you by my side.

A Trinity of Questions about Love

2011-09-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

A Trinity of Questions about Love

The wiffle ball curves

by placing the fingers

in the right location

at the moment of release.

What doe that tell us

about the nature of love?

A river changes its direction

only with an influx of a

massive amount of counter

waters point the other way.

What doe that tell us

about the nature of love?

Typing increases dramatically

when the letter keys are felt

and not hunted by the eye

looking for the right key.

What doe that tell us

about the nature of love?

The choice

2011-09-04T22:09:00.001-07:00

The Grand Failure of Achiles

Achilles, as he wacked the weak,

was fond of claiming destiny and fate.

“There was nothing to do,” he would

clamour, “It was for glory and meant to be.

So, do me a favor and die like a man.”

Prophecy, his thinking went, sent him

on his way of sending others

into flooding river of violent deaths.

But the prophecy, like all prophecy,

gave him a choice, glory standing

on mount of corpses or a quiet

life with wife and child. He choose

blood liberated from the body,

the with calm circulation within.

It takes more courage to live

a common life of love without applause

Love moving in a thousand moments

without notice like ripening cherry

tomatoes. I chose another route.

The night move toward the fair

2011-09-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

Spokane’s Pig Out in the Park Frames Love

The Music—free. The food—fried.

The chid—wild. Yet, the music

of you voice played off the festival

of thousands. A bit of pizza, some

ice cream, and the toddlers tasting

for the first time, spin sugar in the shape

of summer clouds. Cotton Candy.

Love tells stories.

The Eyes’ Waterbug Movement

2011-09-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

The Eyes’ Waterbug Movement

The passing glimpse

of your thighs sends me back

to moment of our first contact.

You lips spoke

about the strangeness of the movie

that we kept one eye toward.

My one eye keen

on small glances in the darken

cinema toward my companion, you.

I caught your hair

in the sideview. Your turned and

smiled, Your lips open to receive

buttered popcorn.

The way you sat in the chair

in the dark movie house turned,

My head burning

from our first date. I imagine the tone

of you skin beneath your jeans.

Bad Exegesis

2011-09-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

Bad Exegesis

The young preacher, with the habit

of claiming absolute authority

of the Bible when supports his world view

except the bits about the poor

or in this case the Song of Songs,

delivered a sermon on love with his chest out.

He, dressed in an ultrahip pink shirt

and with blond highlights in his manure

tea brown hair, spoke about the Hebrew

love poems as if he was a teenage boy

fed on firecrackers, junior high talk

of expanding body parts, and newest cars.

Love of Solomon was something to snicker

at like mucus on one’s hand. He counciled

that men should love their wives

as a sail catches wind, because it directed

a strong marriage through the turbulent

waters of modern life and it was a Christian

duty. It was what men do in between

the truly man things of riding jeeps,

having adventure or hunting with other men.

Love lead to strong children and is the spinach

part of marriage.

Sad,

he does not feel the panting

deer, or the taste of pomegrante.

He reads poetry as rules and misses

the beauty. I remember the touch

of my wife that burned a trail

in the existence. Solomon

does not give advice to keep

a marriage strong; he sings,

yes, sings of the passion that over-

takes him in the moments in the Garden.

which overwhelms us. Why has

love become a joke or an occasion

for irony?

Love,

Come away, my beloved,
and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag
on the spice-laden mountains.

Taking The Cup

2011-08-31T21:13:00.000-07:00

Taking The Cup

Love

only comes into being

after it has been aged

in a medium toasted oak

barrel for years and then

bottled into dark glass

with real cork. Prior

to this, it is but a dream

with a clean finish

with an imbalance

of tannins. Skins

to young make love

with a tart finish in the back

of the jaw. Tears mellow out

and complete thevinatge

allowing it to be serve

at communion.

Invention and Necessity

2011-08-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

Invention and Necessity

You, the first time we danced the mambo,

you, in a new faux faded pale pink print, bought

for the occasion from a store the caters

to poor hip grad students like us, were

incandescent beyond any filiment

or tungsten that Edison could dream

of. What should we speak about the coming

and goings of delicate spins and steps.

The internal metronome of beats

shape loves movement. I learn more

about the proper execution of steps. Our hips,

back and forth through the darken room,

kept beat to the one, two, three four, one...

Others around us, more accomplished,

but not us, move with one eye toward

the audience. But I, I look at our feet,

at the moves recently learned, sweeping

hands meeting, of shoes lifting

form the centripetal forces that turned

us about and centered our pivot point.

Then cumbia played and we raced

at fast as heated hearts on a treadmill.

The water on the table for the serious

dancers. The pity we felt for the others

on the make. Suddenly, and for first time

even after a hundred an fifty-three

years of reading them, I understood the love

poems of Neruda. Seven years later

our son was born of that night.

Cooked At A Different Temperatures

2011-08-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

Cooked At A Different Temperatures

The topic of love has been left

to the dark yellow hit machines

of the popular movie making magic

and muscle bound music of a marketing

moose going down the street asking

for what everyone wants to hear. We

speak into his left antler that, for all

purposes, looks like an ancient ear. He chews

on the data and hums the same old

six chords of girl meets boy,

boy meets girl or the loss of one

or the other. Where are the women?

And the men? Are you game, the moose

says. But imagine if the only food

worth eating was malted milk shake

of bubble gum. Would it be worth

the cavities? The body needs

more that the occasional nod to youth.

This is why I sing of my wife.

The slowly rolled sushi has to be

cut into six pieces. Six degrees

of finding the delight in avocado

mixing with crab and jasmine rice

and wrapped tightly. And what of

the roasted meat with its own juices

which simmer in the daily making

of a life together. The drama

of love goes beyond a large

animal meandering down the street.

I mean to celebrate the moments

after yes, and Ido and it has

been ten years, really, wow

that was fast. Thereis more

to love than being game. Like

the time we went to Germany

and tour the Castles of the Mad

King of Bavariam the same Disney

Flattened like corn masa

on the griddle making for easy

on the palette tortillas. Read Galway

Kinnell into a night of caressing.

The table is being set, the movie

is finished its mass run of theaters,

and the moose’s music melody

too simple. Well, let us be

an us in our praying bones.

Halo 2 Be Thy Name

2011-08-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

Halo 2 Be Thy Name

Today, I write a love poem

about the history of love

poems, both remembered and the greater

majority, forgotten. I do so as an answer to young

girl in love for the first time, pleading

with the boy to stop the electronic

make believe for just a moment

and notice. Notice her and notice his life,

unvirtualized, passing into dust. Flesh aches.

She wants him to notice her eyes

as I did with my wife's, her developing

into a woman. From her breast cries out

the need to find the treasure forgotten

but no one noticed. Her eyes find

the ancient tears of warriors

looking their way back to what once

was. She longs to be filled

with words trying to contain

the uncontainable. Only in the trying

can the sonnets give voice like

a peanut butter to a three year olds.

The first person shooter aims

not for her, but at a covenant

with make believe. He will

not turn aside form his controller

(from a world unalive to his godlike fantasies)

until her eyes are directed else where,
tragedy of possibilities.

Once, my wife was that little girl.

Waiting around for words

to be brought in those cheap

gift bags for the dollar store.

I, fed on Neruda, the Brownings,

Shakespeare, Miloz , and ...you get

the point, came to her, who suffers

from heartburn, with spicy words

of my own creation. Now,

ten years later, my words still

burn on a grill, tossed in a green

chile sauce and she stays despite

the occasional tummy ache.

The Lifecycles of Love

2011-08-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

The Lifecycles of Love

The morning stroll with the child in red jogger

shakes with water forced from sprinklers.

We walk on and our son, who has your strawberry

tinged hair, squeals about the red toy car

he imagines large. The roads teem with garage

sale traffic. People looking to buy a deal and others

selling for space. We continue on the sidewalk.

We mixed our genes into the boy that points

the motorcycle passing with grak, grak, grak.

We nail our selves to lack of sleep and explaining

the world to a growing boy. And yet, love

expressed in gratitude gives life to our morning.

Memory invades. Last spring, we visited a elderly couple

dying, he of cancer, and she of parkinson’s disease

and now a broken heart. He went ahead, as most men.

The day of the visit, and our soon to be two year old

dances and sings ba ba black sheep...one for the boy

who lives down the lane. Lace and I pray for healing,

for gratitude, for love they kept until the end.

The grafting of lives together diverts bees

to a fruit becoming flower. Then we continue walking

in the direction of home.

The Market Falls

2011-08-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Small Drama ofShort Term Debt

Watermelon woman, touched by dirt,

Drink up the heat as a quiet dream.

I leave you each morning, a thousand

Deaths, as you sleep. Did you wake

In a rush as the buzz or the child

Sounded, or in the calm of seeping

Tea? I drink coffee on a city bus.

The sun pushes the a liquid metal

Measuring temperature and I am cold

from air conditioned, compressed, Condensed

liquefied, and finally evaporated

in a marvel of modern man. You and my

son play in the spray of hose water.

Short distant love pains my weekdays.

How my feet ache from sitting under

A desk too far away from my life. Walk

now and wait in the wake of a morning

without without work. The dream

of spitting watermelon seeds, black

and pure presses down on me, and the pull

of paychecks cuts too much time.

Memories Madelienes and Pomegranates

2011-08-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

A Literary landmark, Marcel Proust invokes a lost world early in Swann's Way out of a pastry dip in tea. Food and wine, bread and juice, even the smallest of taste can summon a world out of nothing. Food embeds in our stories. Taste, smell, texture all apply both to that comes into our mouths and to the stories we tell about our love. Eat a madeleine, and Marcel starts on a journey of memory and passion. I eat a madeleine and I journey to Proust's Combray, mediating on the little boy waiting for his Mother's good night kiss that will never come.

Memory, meaning and food also stays at the heart of the Lord's Supper. Taste the wine and remember the blood. Once, as an elder of my Presbyterian church, I grew tried of the cheap communion wine. I resolved to use a better wine for the real presence of God. Kenwood Jack London Zinfandel with its deep blood red color and earthy taste from London families Beauty Ranch fit my need for a better communion wine. A split of the wine could last two weeks worth of communion, except on High Holy Days like Easter and Christmas, which only a full size bottle would cover. The first Easter we switch, there was a request for seconds, and I am still uncertain if it was sincere or a joke, though asking for seconds from the source of life seems to be fitting. Food became part of the story.

My wife and I met in Pasadena and though Pasadena still exists, the Pasadena of our early love is far gone. Though, the right food, avocado, pomegranate, Pad Thai and suddenly that world reappears. These markers are as important as telling the story. One of my aims in writing my love poems is Proustian in making our live story live. I notice how many couples move on without making the telling of their love story part of their life, and as such many forget the food that mark their courtship. Sad. The telling and remembering of the story is the best way of keeping love in a relationship. I know there are many books and articles touting how to spice a marriage. I found that the telling of the unique love story is better than any spicing up by some paint by the numbers ritual. Below is a love poem which I attempt remember the pomegranates that my wife and I shared. Ah the taste of pomegranate ...

Wine from water

Jesus resisted with claims of timing,

Before submitting to his Jewish mom.

Love and weddings to move even God.

I remember the hidden avocados growing

in the backyard of the intention Christian

home I was living while at seminary.

The sudden song of King Solomon,

and do you remember our night stroll

and the discovery of a lone pomegranate

begging to be eaten? You, the calmer

mind, prevailed and we left it touched

but still hanging on the tree

of the grounds of an old mansion

turn museum. Remember the two store

bought large pomegranates, before the utility

of health and a marketing company transform

them into supermarket superfood, split open

on the old wood dinning room table covered

with lace, the hundreds of juice covered seeds,

creating the proustian habit of a forging

a forgotten world from delectable elegance.

The taste of pomegranates tinged

by your breath, having the color

of your hair. Nip at the tip of the fruit,

then seam opens out the chambers like

from a human heart, and the slow

pulling lose botany’s bounty and the sharing

of the tart sweetness. How it move God,

like the Spanish wedding dress you grace

our “I do” with. The time has come,

the fiesta continues, fathers, sons, mothers

and lovers.

Love cycles

2011-08-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

Waters Like Eyelids

Let us come to the well

again. Water falls from

darkness of the sky and flows

underground to feed

aquifer we tap into for drink

we need. Love continues

the path from air to earth

to us and so forth. Lace

moves through lawn,

thinning out the carrots,

part of the garden we planeted

this spring. They grow large

from the water, sun, earth mix

they have flourished under.

Her hands strong, firm

and soft gently brushes

dirt off and hands the sweet

orange vegetable to the waiting

hands of our son. Hold

this moment, I think.

But soon love moves

past us in it cycle

of return.

The Fear that knows my name

2011-08-23T13:35:00.001-07:00

Fearing What theDoctor Finds

The glimmer of health, what we pray for,
Runs in the mind, but be with another
For years and it solidifies into a table.
Doctors, hospitals, the unknown ailments,
These are but dishes served with the whole
Of meal. How does one spot love in a CAT
Scan? Time spins the table and the perspective
Changes. Young lover want to scalpel feeling
From time, from the narrative arc, and pray
It remains unchanged like a marble statue,
Platonic and cold. But blood moves and my love
Feels pains and consults with a doctor. Fear
Cuddles by a pink blanket like a brown recluse.
The wine in the glass on the table has the after-
Taste of worry.

Love poem on Moonlight

2011-08-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

The Good Night Kiss

The weary bones show life.

The night clock ticks it countdown

to a buzz, signaling the beginning.

The end of the night, and we

are still growing together. Moonlight

covers the nakedness of bathing

in the midnight shine of the fullness

of a shared bed. Strange,

I work tomorrow.

The Eternal, Gaddafi, and Living Words

2011-08-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Below is my poem for yesterday. I finished it yesterday, but could not post it as my home internet connection was not working. How much are we tied to technology? I think sometimes we have to learn to dance with technology and know when technology's shoes step on our toes and when we step on technology's toes. Many Luddites see technology as the greatest evil, and the technophiles see nothing but glory. The truth of technology may be along the spectrum of these two poles, or more likely its value or evil may be beyond either. Under technology, we still remain human both in our glory and in our foibles. Technology may give me the ability to connect with someone on the other side of the world, but it does not make me kind or rude to that person.

Today, billions watch on TV as Muammar Gaddafi plays the last notes of his Shakespearean tragedy (comedy?). Many others will pull up footage of the last bits of his history online. But will they make of the man and his country? Technology may tempts us into being an audience to life, rather than living into to our being. Poetry, now, written on the glimmer of digital generated screens, or ancient, written on pounded out animal skins or pith of the papyrus plant, seeks to capture the shimmer of being alive. Poetry makes both a wall and friends with death; love spins the words alive. Unlike the pull toward being audience, poetry pulls us into being alive as we read the poem. This is why scripture is written primarily in verse. It calls us to live the words as we read them.

Most people with an internet connection can read the below poem. No amount of technology will give me power as to how the readers (providing there are readers...it is poetry after all... darn those high school teachers of verse) will interpret the below poem. Will they read God and ignore or judge the poem?

Soon, as the gunfire cools, the rebels will have to attempt the harder task than overthrowing a tyrant, building a calm country where peace opens out to make daily life just that ordinary and filled with marriages, births, and the wonder of the mundane.

Do This, As IRemember You

The Greek isambiguous, it could mean that either Jesus asks us to remember him in the LordSupper or it can mean, Jesus remembers us. God remembering us,there is something profound to ponder in realizing the creator of this vast universe remember us in this small act even whenwe forget what is important. - Dr. Lace Williams, Theologian and my wife.

To pass the day

with my love,

you, ordinary

and a day closer

to becoming dirt, reminds me

of ancient Hebrew. You say

we are living dirt, and I

say star stuff and we

are both

right. Now,

we live into a blended mix

of matter. What

will become of this

day we shared?

Pushed into a box

in the garage part

of memory. Lost. Love

makes time

still. Time moves.

Only God lives

each moment

in the same instant.

God holds each

forgotten day

in a challis,

slowly drank to a harmonious

music. Minutes broken

into two. God

remembers the whole

of love even

as we lose

the timeframes

of stars.

The Hot days of August

2011-08-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

If Octoberfest is in September, What about August

August sun moved others to revolution,

I am filled with your stillness. You dance

in the quiet silence and heated afternoon.

We journey into the dark mountains

for fruit. The drive overdrives with the constant

chatter of wordless conversation. You,

in search of purple globes that mix sweetness

with tang, speak love with your mind

working through the switch back road..

We talk without words in our language

we developed in the ten years since

our September meeting, 9/17/01.

August, times of changes and the anticipation

of school starting. The summer travels

of neighborhood kids riding scooters, coming over

to play with our son, riding their pink

electric truck. Our little development

shouts with the energy of bored children

both missing and dreading the classrooms.

You mingle with the others and speak

of the happenings around the close

by houses. We sit in chairs and beers

in hand watching the blades of grass

and different philosophy of mowing.

August, the moon, a name my son has

masters, sits in full light. The lemonade

stands, now fifty cents, sits empty. The sprinklers

beg for heads to wet. The tomatoes are

yellowing from green in preparation for red.

Suddenly, I remember the first kiss on Monroe

street in Pasadena. Long ago, but still

the taste lingers in the heat of our August.

Love poem on the Ache of Missing Life

2011-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

The Ache of My Imagination

-a love poem

Lace, holding our son in the mirror,

wait.

I walk, sweat for the summer my only

sojourner

and company, until the sounds of giddy

laughter

greets me. The ritual of a ten thousand

years,

much like the kiss and the meals I have

cooked

for you and you me. I cross the weather

stripping

just place to save energy and keep us

cool.

My son, prompted by your excitement,

jumps.

To be home, the moment to be forgotten

within

the long process of time, repeated many

stories

Created and told, but it here our prodigy

powers

the life we live. You are the woman

born

millions of time in my imagination,

poor

as it is to hold onto the wonder of our

love.

Time and Love

2011-08-18T16:31:00.000-07:00

Time and Love

The game of love by boys playing games of measurements,

A, B, C, D cups and 7, 8, 9, 10, hold little interest. Love

in the act of live, the very act of my living differs frombeing

in love, frozen to the changes within time.

I sing of you, even as you fight a cold, even as time

crinkles our skin, as a pack with life, not as a tool ofseduction.

Songs walk around, and introduce you to their friends,

an elderly couple that was so lovely in their day. Our day

will pass, but always I remember your gyration citing

my imagination as you washed our dishes the third

time me met. Your back to me as your hand wiped

and your body move to a beat of promise. Baby born

later, fulfilling the call to reproduce has your spirit

and my nose. Your nose filled by a battle with a virus,

and I preaching to a half empty room. These days

pass the hidden nights of stolen kisses live in our love.

I take a different measurement, beyond expectation.

Let us filled the night beyond the imagination of boys.

The act of my being gyrates to the motion of your breath.

Blending Time Together

2011-08-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

Blending Time Together

Forgive the forgotten kiss. Forgive being

late. Forgive the misspoken, misunderstood

word. Love expands as the eyes widen.

Midlife love learns beyond the expectation

of the singular taste of all oranges. Peel

one and the flavor stays unique onto itself.

Blending a bath gives uniformity. You

are different each day, peeled away,

and sectioned into slices. Yet,

the intensity of juice arrives in days,

months, years and decades. Time built

on the tiniest of yeses that fashion forgiveness

out of the moments of pulp. We build,

beyond an alter or petal or pedestal,

a love that knows names and skins and flesh

of the everyday. Each act of forgiveness,

yours and mind, combine us further,

revealing a clean finish in the mouth.

Each day a new peel, a new taste.

Each year a blending of revealed taste.

Each decade, a river flows us together.

Think about water.

Notes on Love and Cardo

2011-08-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

Notes on Love and Cardo

The heart must be pushed
to be healthy. A morning’s sweat
with blood moving to its own
beat removes layers of prepackaged fat.

My wife
cleans the mucus collecting
on our two year old’s eye,
a quick and confident sweep.

A friend announces
his wife is trading him in.
His despair fills our home
with his why, which and where.

Why declare war
on time? I tear a peace
of bread off and, with an arc
of gesture, dip it red.

The vision
of our sonmust be stimulated, so
the strong eye is darkenedand the weak
forced into the light.

Poetry fashions a seeing
of world. Art and market of our buying
and selling builds an alter
to dissatisfaction. Choose.

Carefully laid out are two cups,
one of new, better and improved,
The other made of unfiltered
wine and easily spoils.

Four hours a day,
A patch pushes his seeing
and his struggling pupil.
Will it be enough? Unanswerable.

Muscles grow sore
And strong from hard work.
Life grows sore and strong
From hard work. Death stills.

The heart must be pushed to be healthy.
A morning’s sweatwith blood moving
to its ownbeat removes layers of
prepackaged fat. Enough?

Love Poem 2 - 30 days Challenge

2011-08-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Differences

To be in love flattens

out the curves

of a woman’s details.

Yesterday, the mountain

light reflected red

off the berries. We look for the star

at the center filled huckleberries,

the sign of being able to eat

them. Gathering among the bees

our skin shimmers with a concation created

to ward off their stingers. The signs

of bear are around us. Time moves

and soon comes the hour of calculating

the amount of berries picked. Ritual,

generations long, of who has the most,

the largest, the sweetest. Our son,

too young still, waits for us

with his grandmother. Love

follows the curve of the dips in time.

Slowly, the first season’s berries

are ripening, late. We are approaching

our tenth winter together. Time together,

the defining act, though I remember

when I speculated on your inventory

beyond the cotton. When I held

you and try to follow the salsa steps.

So, we drink water after our buckets

are full, knowing that our son

loves the nickel sized rose fruit

we have picked. Love dwells

in the details in our time. Love

and to be in love,

the differences.

Love, Another Challlenge

2011-08-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

I finished my 30 days of poems and now I am starting to a new 30 days of poems. What l learn in the first 30 days I will write later. It did connect me to all those years of writer workshops and my love of poetics and the theory of writing poems. The new 3 days I will be writing love poems. Love poems explores not feelings, love is beyond feelings, but our deepest connection to another and ultimately God. Enjoy the poem below.

The Junction of Two Brooks NearBooth Lake

At the start of the hike,

a large elevation gain, then

a field flowing with flames

of blue columbines,

and the trail travels toward thehorseshoe water-

fall.

Booth Falls, a hike popular withtourists,

was, for me, a two mile stroll forgetting my heart up

and keeping my fat down. The lakelays five more

miles higher, and takes fortitude tocontinue up the trail.

Ten years I lived there, ten

years gone,

myColorado,

which I share

with you in memories

and in the promises of future. Thewhitewater rafting

of my past wants you to create afuture moments.

Booth Falls,

ghost towns of failed dreams,

the fourteen thousand feet high Mount

of Holy Cross,

these I have visited

knowing your are alive,

though not your

name, not your eyes, nor yourhistory of the Bitter

Root Range or your pickinghuckleberries.

This,

our love,

the intermingling of stories

to birth a new story, our story.Chasing

the cascading words

over the cliff of history;

the splash of narrative, of mixing friends,

this is the bed

of our love carving

through the granite,

fourteen thousand years old or older. I remember

once

being alone

in the Dotsero Volcano Valley

filled with worthless diamonds.Break

the cool lava open

and the sparkle

of low grade polished carbon shine.

I want to take the slide into thecenter of Dotsero’s

dormant volcano with you, to breakoff a bit

of my past as a gift. I want thegift of your

origins. The dark mystery ofblending

love.

An Exile Discovers Home

2011-08-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer suffer disgrace.” I told them that the hand of God had been gracious upon me, and that the king had spoken to me. So they said, “Lets start building!” So, they committed themselves to the common good. -Nehemiah 2.17-18 (NRSV)

It was so little to ask for.

Disillusioned, Joel wondered why.

He served his God in service as a missionary. He built homes, hospitals and orphanages. He lived through wars and helped refugees find found and dignity. After all those years, was it too much to expect a little in return? Mysteries are all around us; we are simply blind to them. I saw Joel unwrapped more of the Gospel’s mystery for me. He and his wife dedicated over twenty-five years to the African mission fields. The raised their children in a country of leaping African tribesmen. Whey they returned home from their self-imposed exile, they found God fashioned them into faithful people by years of living out the Gospel, feeding the hungry and making peace. Theirs was a faith not of ideas common to their countrymen, but one forged in blood mixed with tears, laughter, joy and most of all sweat.

The problem was that the prime of their lives, where most their friends and neighbors use to buy houses, build equity, create careers, and save for retirement, was spent living in huts, building schools and helping people who could never return the favor. Coming back to the US in their early fifties gave them little time to catch up. They came back with undervalued skills like peacemaking, digging wells, and building houses without modern equipment. They both worked entry-level jobs. She worked as an academic advisor at a seminary. He worked as part-time chaplain at three different hospitals. They were making do with what was in front of them without complaining.

So, when after a few years, one of the hospitals had an opening for a full time director of chaplains with benefits, he thought his prayer had been answered. If Joel got the position, they could even think of buying a home, and forget living in an apartment. They could help grandchildren through college. The position went to someone fresh out graduate school. His spirit fell. He would serve under a younger manager. He felt like an exile in what he thought was his home. When he shared his struggles in our prayer group, his eyes filled with tears of fear, rage and frustration. It was not fair, and his cry was not of a spoiled child, but truly from a place of unfairness.

Then came a wonder and a miracle.“Exile” the word Nehemiah knew intimately. Even after he and his people return to Jerusalem, the city was broken and they had to start again. It was hard times rebuilding as rebuilding always is. God remained with them comforting, coaxing, and compelling the returned exiles on their mission. Their faith carried them. Jerusalem returned to glory from their river of sweat. The common work reunited a nation. It was the same faith Joel showed as he composed himself within a deep silence after his outburst. A peace descended on him. In a quiet voice, he said that he would support his new manager. He would make sure she would be a success despite his disappointment.

Love was too important to sacrifice on the cross of regret. When we asked him why? He said that he knew that no matter what God would take care of his family. The new manager had committed no crime against him, and to hold his frustration over her would be unchristian. Love has no room for regret. God may not give him everything he wants, but God provided more than enough.“I may never own a house. Yet, I have seen children-soldiers guilty over murders and massacres redeemed into peacemakers. I know God has used my life. What could be greater?”

We all find at one point in our lives that we are returning exiles just like Nehemiah. We return to what was our home, and we hope to make that place home again. I learn this in my own journey in asking why my son has to suffer through his medical situation. It, too, is unfair. But, God's joy is always with us. When he palays the joy is unbearably beautiful. We rebuild his home, knowing we can not shelter him from suffering, but can only give him our love, presence and attention. The rebuilding process will be demanding, but like Joel and Nehemiah, we may find out that our real home rests in the loving squeeze and embrace of God.

Echoes of Life in the Morning

2011-08-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

Echoes of Life in the Morning

The down daily dose of sunshine gives us time
of heat and play. Father, son, and love mix
today. The red wagon, with no white chickens
beside it, runs on concrete, runs on grass,
runs with a boy of two riding and singing .
Summertime and the living loafs among
the blades of grass, assuming the whole
of importance. The dreams of the past and future
fade in moments only footnoted with cameras,
and videos. Even a skinned knee, with blood
and the shedding of tears, adds to the glory
of living in eternal presences. Prayer
moves in time in parallel, occurring but
not touching. I kiss my son’s wounds,
and we heal.

The Three Fold Attitude of Man

2011-08-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

Since promising to write 30 days of poems, I have found myself returning to beloved old friends: Pablo Neruda, Czeslaw Milosz and last night Denise Levertov.. I read some of her essays in poetics and some of her poems. Levertov, more the others, taught me how write poetry. I remember meeting her for the first time after winning a poetry contest at UTEP. I got to attend the reception for her after her reading. Her poetics, especially her ideas about organic form, have influenced me .Her attitude of loving life as it occurs and be grateful of the moments with the living God have equally had a profound impact on my life. Drinking her words is like searching a fine wine for the complex layers of flavors.

The Three Fold Attitude of Man

Who will speak for today? Both sets
                                                        are united
in their hatred of today. One group,
let us color them
                         Red,
speaks about the past
                                 and the need,
the longing, the pain of returning
to the glories of what was. Though they have never
been there. The past is where they can place
their current disgust
for life as they find it. The other group,
let us spray paint them
                                  Blue,
with equal hate of what is now, look to the glories
of the future. Theirs is the limited imagination
of what could be that will emerge from the darkness
of their grandfathers and great grandfathers, though

they use ignorant rather than great when looking
at the past. The agree with the Reds in hating
life lived now. They, despite the reality of life,
offer their lives to the Goddess progress. But what of waking
to the morning sun, the present son and life of the moment.

What of:
              my child running through the fountain
with other children, what of
Meals shared with friends,
and the suffering over losing love?
What of the pain from building muscle,
what of the gentle curves
Of peaches,
of cherries,
of my love in the light of twilight?
I smell of her and she of I,
like the love of loves, the song of songs.
What of the world
given us as a gift
to be grateful for,
and our daily bread.

Yes, both red and blue are
                                         united
                                                   in their using
of their imaginations
to avoid life, to negate their and other's lives. Sardines packed
in a tin of ideas, and soaked in an spilled oil of mutual stagnation.
Sad, and ooh, what they miss.

A Lump of Sugar Dissolves in Water

2011-08-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

What makes a subject difficult to understand — if it is significant, important — is not that some special instruction about abstruse things is necessary to understand it. Rather it is the contrast between the understanding of the subject and what most people want to see. Because of this the very things that are most obvious can become the most difficult to understand. What has to be overcome is not difficulty of the intellect but of the will. -Ludwig Wittgenstein

I was young, ten or maybe I had yet to reach double digits. Anyway, my family was going on a trip. Imagine. I imagine how I must have been as a boy. It’s hard to imagine myself as a boy. I can only imagine myself as I have always been passing through boyhood. My hair, seven cowlick strong, gave me the appearance of a porcupine in a blender.Today in the morning without the gels and struggles, it still has the the echo of that boyhood look.

I remember the morning of trip the way others remember the details when they meet love in the face of another. Living in the desert, the color was normally an earth tone copper. My part of El Paso smelled like a combination of unwashed socks and rotten eggs. A local smelter’s tall spire would spew out this flavor for us to enjoy.

I had that feeling kids usually start to have at that age when you notice the world was larger than your family. Hints about a larger context began to invade my world. Poverty lived just across the river in Mexico. I was just getting around to becoming aware of it. We could look down on neighborhoods filled with the cardboard and scrap metal roof shanty houses as we passed them on I-10.

The University of Texas at El Paso was above the road on top of a mountain on right side. Down below past the river and over border there were ten thousands poor Mexicans scrapping out enough for their daily tortillas, corn of course. I wonder how many cabernet-drinking professors were there at the top of the mountain looking at the other nation below. The common complaint of academics being an ivory tower too separated from the daily struggle to commune with real life was more than a metaphor for my hometown. It was geography.

I wondered what their life was like as we drove past the poor people of valley on the left. I wondered what the poor thought of when they looked up and saw UTEP with its exotic buildings modeled after the Himalayan country of Bhutan. My family was driving to visit Carlsbad Caverns, just as we always did when we had out of town guests. My memory betrays me as to their identity. I have forgotten them. I remember sitting in the back of the family car, a Datsun B210 with a red, white and blue top. I kept quite as we pass the poor; I was lost in my imagination. We then headed into the desert, leaving the border city behind us as we headed to a big hole in the ground, as my stepfather called the Caverns.

The week before our trip, it rained the whole week. It was desert rain, hard and loud. The kind of thumping rain that starts by making small craters inthe tan dust. The dirt of the land fought the pounding water, and as the days went on, it yielded and accepted the gift. I had never seen such rain in my desert. The El Paso had problems with flooding simply because exotic nature of so much water in the desert.

I remember learning in Seminary how living water was another term in first century Palestine for moving water? El Paso became streets filled with living water racing to an unknown ocean. As I remember, the water was fast living water, moving quickly enough to create whitewater on some of the steeper streets. We kids love it and the adults were annoyed. I remember so many water adventures throughout that week. My parent’s car flooded crossing the downtown bridge from Mexico. The irrigation ditch behind our backyard filled with water and crawdads. Later, it would sprout wild aspargus with a wild nut flavor that spoiled for me commerical aspargus.

The sound of the rain echoed in my head throughout the week. The normally trickle that was the Rio Grande become a real river. During most of the year, the Rio Grande was the butt of so many jokes. So dammed and controlled the Rio Grande normally lacked even enough water to earn the name of brook or stream. That week, though, it filled to the top of its banks and beyond. There reports of flooding. There were warnings on TV about getting to close to the river, lest it swept you under.

Then the water stopped, and it had brought life to our desert. The air tasted of new life. After a great rain, it always smelled like the first day of creation. El Paso long ago was ancient rain forest. The week’s worth of water brought the ten thousand year old memory of what it once was back if only for a short time. The desert erupted into a temporary jungle.

I remember the drive to caverns, seeing the bloom only living water can produce. My parents woke us early to get in the road. My sister, Blanca convinced my parents that she was old enough to stay home by herself. I had no such luck, so I went for the God only knows how many umpteenth time to Carlsbad. I am glad I went. On the drive, the morning light seemed to filter through a stain glass window. The rain revealed a hidden life.

What was unusually reddish brown bloomed into a pallet of contrasting green hues. I had never been with so much beauty before. The slopes up to the shear cliffs of El Captain were alive with vegetation I had never seen before. The flowers I never knew of exploded on to the Franklin mountain range in colors of reds, yellows, and even blues. Desert recalled it past life as mist rich soil teeming with new animals and plants aching to be found and named. I was still foolish enough to think I could find new names for such beauty. I could hear the moan of ancient seeds cracking their hundred if not thousand year old husks and stretching out new roots into a waiting earth. We stop a couple of times just to take it all in.

Some people stop to try to own the beauty with camera. I am grateful my family forgot the family instant Polaroid camera. We just stopped and were silent with the new life the living water brought. Something was different about this childhood memory than what I normally rememer.

Usually, my alcoholic stepfather was a large green metal file cabinet at the center of my memories. His stories were that file cabinet with those ugly rounded edges so solid that it would take three or four lifetimes to move from them from the center of my childhood recollection. He was the star of my childhood with exploits of passing out during Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easters. Except on this morning of living desert, the beauty of creation revealing itself push everything aside with a deep sense of joy. Beauty made me alive. I believe here within the new beauty brought by the living water of the week before I began to speak with God. I know that here is where I began to listen to the divine.

With out knowing it, I was beginning to quit being an atheist that day. I quit feeling that God had abandoned me. It took many years for the seed to take root ... but life moves to the rush of water.

In the Valley of the Bones

2011-08-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

In the Valley of the Bones

The town has left before we arrived.
All that was left, like empty pillow cases,
Was the hole where once stood concrete veils
That rose to the sky. Now, all that is left
Is the sadness of love forgone. I bend
At the hip and pick a bit of earth and it
Hour glasses through my palm, like a crumpling
Gothic Cathedral. My mind turns into a stone
Gargoyle weeping at the desert. Once this land
Was a grand ocean, then a forest, then mountain,
Then a valley, then a city on a hill. Now, the desert
Claims it. The granite stone under my feet
Encase the history and we have forgotten to tell
The tale. We climb back down, and then continue
To live our soon forgotten narrative, waiting for the voice
Of the prophet to speak the words to our bones.
Speak God, speak. We await your Word.

Quitting the Cardboard Life

2011-08-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

I remember my cousin's wedding in Las Vegas. I remember being on a plane heading to Las Vegas. Close by is a man who wears the uniform of a motorcycle rebel: black leather pants, green beret worn backwards, a sleeveless black leather vest, and big fu Manchu beard that highlights his ruddy weathered skin. He flips with his graying brown hair like a woman on the make, and a declares life good and his need to party.and getting drunk. True to his rebellious stance he orders two beers for himself and two for the sun-beaten woman with him. His motto “Its not the destination, it’s the journey” broadcast from a patch on the back his vest, turning his back into a meaningless billboard. He declares his intent to take sin city for all its money and to party for the whole weekend. He wants to be rich, and do things his own way.

What I find is that “his own way” such a cliché. He’s a perfect P T Barum sucker and complete unaware of being a sucker. He strives to be a bad boy, flaunting authority, but he fully conforms to the “bad boy” role created for him completely out of the Harley Davis marketing department. While he would like to think of himself as a rebel who makes his own way, his real existence comes from powers wanting to sell him an image. He has sold his soul for this total prepackaged image. He will lose money in Vegas. He and is girl will go to a show or two. He will drink to excess, and in the end declare his time in Vegas was baddest time ever, and only give vague descriptions punctuated by What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas slogan. Life moves past him.

What makes a rebel? a yell? a stance? a uniform?

I think about the impressionists who lost in their battle with the academic painters. The impressionist wanted art to express life. The academic paints where about technique and history. Most of the Academic paintings played with an idealized history of France, and wanted to glorify the French republic’s self created image. Their paintings were lifeless even in the beauty. The impressionist revolted against the lifelessness in painting. They wanted to express life through their use of light and color. In the contest between the two, it would seem a foregone conclusion, the impressionist should win, even though the academics had the structural advantage of controlling the institutions of art. The life in their paintings would win over the lifelessness of the academics. Indeed, history claims that the impressionists won the day and art followed them. But the impressionists, like rebels that would follow them, really lost. In their reaction to being rejected, they created a persona of the rebel. Lost was the original impulse to capture life. The role of the rebel won over the wonder and the urge to capture the massiveness of life.The post impressionist history of art is full of artists that journeyed to Paris to play the role of starving artist rebel. The impressionist impulse to encounter life became a template to follow, a role to play and avoid the act of living.

The urge to explore and capture life will put one at odds with the world that wants simple answers. The betrayal of humanity happens in the instant, when forced into a prepackage of a role without incarnating into living being. We are all husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. Each of us see the world differently and there is no need to buy into a cutout of life. To forge out a life is to quite the expected role and live into life as it is. This does not mean a habitual breaking of conventions, like the motorcycle rebel, because today's rebels are tomorrow's conformists like the guy heading toward his prepackaged Vegas trip. Being alive, noticing the world around you, the earth you walk on, this will put one at odds with a world were image is king.

I have also felt the temptation to live into a preformed image. Being the good kid, or being the rebel poet. Yet, to find the good life or to be a poet is to awake to the world and see it new everyday. To pray and be transformed in the moment of prayer, to be open in being with another, these are scary and will lead to suffering as well of joy. Quitting playing the prefab roles takes courage. Sometimes I have this courage. Other times the courage is beyond me. I have learn to quit being the know it all guy, and being open to the grand mystery.

Martin Buber's I and Thou gives a view a humanity which has to modes of living. One in which the world and all that is in it, other human beings, mountains, and the rest, are seen as objects to be experience, manipulated, and controlled. The other is the world of relating to the world, open to be transformed in the moment of encounter with life, the other, and the scared. In one mode, to see the world as objects, has to simplify life. To live in the world of objects is both necessary and not evil, but only living in that world dries us out. Only be those moments of living in relationship are we fully alive. Living in relationship means the willingness to give up our beloved forms of existing each time love presents itself in the beauty of a landscape, the eyes of another, or when the world becomes an expression of the Divine. Life happens in the quitting of expectations.

Radioactive Greed Dragon Shallows the City on the Hill

2011-08-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

I mined my journal to get ideas for today's poem. In the section I read form the wandering mensch of my mind, I considered the the claim about the value of greed by Milton Freidman. It was later satirized by Michael Douglas's portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. (Ivan Boesky delivered a speech that echoed Friedman's thoughts.) Many have taken the idea of the virtues of Greed and Competition as Gospel, but without critical thinking. Have our advances in sciences, technology and agriculture been due to greed. I think of Norman Borlaug. Did he accomplish all he did, leading the green revolution, out of greed. Clearly not. Nor did Einstein. Jack Kilby, no. Yet just those three have effected life far more and any of the current Goldman Sachs executives. In fact in you can combine all of the achievements Goldman Sachs executives and multiply by a billion (everything Goldman touches in measured in billion) and they do not have as much positive influences of either Jack Kilby or Norman Borlaug. Neither of the later two are household names like Donald Trump, but both will continue to influence the world long after the Trumps of the world are long forgotten. And they were not driven by competition or greed. With Dr. Borlaug, he was motivated by compassion for poor Mexican farmers. Jack Kilby was driven by curiosity to invent the computer chip. Both compassion and curiosity have lead to more innovation than greed. Should we, then, cultivate discovery, compassion and wonder? I believe so, and the evidence is clearly on the side of cultivating a culture of classic virtues and reject the glorification of greed.

Soliloquy to Wonder

To compete or not to compete, that is what to consider.
Whether it is right to claim that game theory, with its winners
and losers, captures the human reality completely, or
does taking up wonder, awe, and adventure creates
the ocean of discovery. The two oppose each other.
To compete, to compete, to compete and sleep red
in the tooth for the blood of fools weaker than you.
Their heartache, the thousands of losers, claiming moeny
not theirs. But here is the rub, those who create do so
from a love sweet as a poets description of the female
topography,. The ridges and plains of innovation comes
less from the fierce but the joy of Ah Ha. Yes, give pause.
The creative coil, the human struggle against death, gives
us a perchance to dream. Competing makes a calamity
of long short life, winners alone at the top, and losers lusting
after with resentment over what could have been. Yet,
think. The creators, Picasso, Borlaug Einstein, and Jack Kilby,
create and don't compete. Drive by wonder and not
the glories of swords. Yes, those who compete might win.
But remember all their sins. The light bulb was not theirs.
The the feeding of the hungry is not theirs. The creation
of the computer chip is not theirs. Overpriced cars, Champagne,
and the vampire squid of greed such the life of anything
that smells of money. Yes, that is the competitors accomplishment.
Love, wonder, and awe are beyond their small minds.

Rejoices in My Portion

2011-08-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

Wisdom has become a little used word. Knowledge on the other hand has become king. Our game shows reward for knowing things and then equating this knowledge with intelligence. The how to genre is one of the largest in the internet and bookstores. Yet, the art of living, the stock and trade of wisdom, goes ignored. We move to the new and improved and burn with the titillation of opening packaging or the dust of antiques as the prime mover for our lives. Meanwhile, our lives slip past us as if we were sound asleep. The attitude of life is elsewhere burns in us like charcoaled hotdogs and blacken all beef patties. What do? Cheap sentimentality? Hallmark lives of easy TV answers makes for a shoddy plastic bandaid to canyon wide wound. Maybe Wisdom wanders homeless on the streets looking for the next fix because we have lost love. Love, held hostage to the marketplace, needs to be lived into and once bronzed into an idea to be sold on discount, becomes lifeless and while it retains the form of beauty, it blends all its color into a shiny orange metal. To live is to live face ti face, and risk being changed by the encounter. Happy are those that live in courage.

Below is hymn for my 30 to what St Paul talk about as the secret of being happy in having little and having wealth.

Waters of Learning

-a love poem for my wife

Despise no man and deem nothing impossible; for there is no man who does not have his day and there is no thing that does not have its place. –Pirkei Avot

We live in the summer our love. The flowers

faded into fruit, young and green. The heat

makes for a cool Pinot sipped in the overhang where

breeze and shade dominate. The grill,

gritty from use, crackles with the next meat.

Friends, who live in the houses close to us,

sharing their children with ours. The lawn fills out,

and worms turn the soil, making the ground alive.

The golden Sauternes of memories adds

the intense taste of noble rot to the exchange

of stories. The cool mist of spring makes the drink

golden life a French country side in autumn.

Our boys and girls will turn into

men and woman together as we wrinkle.

Yes, in the ignored middle of life reclines

in circle layers, counting down the years: nine,

eight, seven, six and so on. We search

for Roman poets to reveal the truth. Some see our

lives as Hell, as if Hell were other people. No. Love

in the middle, like love in the beginning

and the end transforms the pain. Compassion

marks the middle. We still dance as our son

laughs. Gratitude. Yes, love says thank you.

Being, and Time and Nothingness

2011-08-01T18:57:00.001-07:00

Being, and Time and Nothingness

Splash in the sprinklers for the sun shines high in the sky.
The wind shudders the poplar leafs. The kids of the neighborhood
fly around on bikes, on scooters, on skateboards. The Ice
cream truck play it mechanical siren call of relief through sugar.
Adventures of suburbia, the dreams of World War II vets and survivors
of the depression. Now, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren
chart their lives in the pattern of slip and slides, backyard swings sets,
lawns needing mowing and weed and feed once a season. The scorn
of those that live in cites for suburbia is sport and a name tag worn
with pride at dinner parties. The pretense of French Philosophy skimmed
for the names to be spoken with pride and accusations of being so
post-modern and not enough. I have lived my life here in the dreams
of those weary of suffering. Dasin, the whole of life is holsitic and any bit
one can see the whole, even the bit scorn by others. My son plays
in our front lawn. A piece a land that has my name really
adds a dimension to the string theory, curling tight into the structure
of being. Somehow my son stay delighted with life, a better answer
than any over single malt scotch.

Twelve Baskets Full

2011-07-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

Twelve Baskets Full

Today, I preached.
The day was a watermelon, sweet and made
to cool the heat. Seeds spit into fertile soil
of being alive. The word of the Lord
came upon me like a bee searching
for orange lilies. The text I worked
was two, Paul wishing his people
would return to the lord to point
of having himself accursed by God
and Jesus feeding the five thousand.
Such compassion. All compassion
is like a chef emptying his pantry
for a meal he will not intend to eat, only
to be invited after the first course. Again,
it is a minivan drive by a man longing
to drive the convertible at home
in his garage. Again, compassion
empties itself like a paper cup of coffee
consumed by a doughnut maker
at 2:00 am in the morning. Then I
prayed for a man with caner,
his wife looking at through the glass
of wonder and fear. Then, I talk
with others. Then, I pushed my
two year old in red jogger home, stopping
at park for a bit, stopping to raid
Cherry tree. My son was asleep
as we got home. He remained
asleep as I gently placed him in the crib.
Then, a voice said, "See, you shall call nations
that you do not know, and nations
that do not know you shall run to you, because
of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you."
Amen

Poem

2011-07-30T12:54:00.001-07:00

Small Poem

My love is gone,
gone for just two days,
two days with my being with our son.
Our son woke in terror,
in terror he cried out,
cried out for Mama.
Mama hikes the mountains,
the mountains of her childhood.
Childhood filled with huckleberries,
huckleberries tart and sweet,
sweet with juice, juices
her friendship with Sarah.
Sarah, who knows my wife before me.
Before me spreads out my life,
my life with my love, my love
longing in the mountains
for the largest berries.

So Football retuns while Iron Mike doesn't

2011-07-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Ballad of Iron Mike

Then they returned, those men of muscle
and chemicals, to do battle for our pleasure.
Fast men of crashes, their stadiums filled
with colored jersey uniforms. Hated and loved,
they feel the sore of Mondays, when
the toll of destruction for cheers and curses
goes to the bone. They know they will soon
be wadded up and pitched into the heap
of has beens once their bodies give out.
Best to focus on the next play, the next
pass. They are cut open with daggers
of numbers. Others’ fantasy football
is their real pain. Never enough, like
when Mike Webster, the anchor of a center,
finished sacrificing his brain cells
for the joy of over gorged Steeler fans,
their jello bellies flapping in the wind,
he could only find sleep by shocking,
tazer in hand, his dying brain. They
found him dead, the game had killed
him. But by the then, new players
were blowing the brains on Sunday
afternoons, and no one noticed.
No one cared.

Debt Ceiling Debate and Human Nature poem 22

2011-07-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

Poem 22

Debt Ceiling Debate and Human Nature

Death, knowable and friendly,
really rejects the title of con man.
Our pretence lies to us with a small
thought which sooths. “I never
knew it was coming.” Double cheese
burgers lead to weaken hearts, and
then the fat dies, falls down mowing,
or trying to keep up with his children
and we are shocked. We calm
the funeral with a claim of coming
out of the blue and no one expected it.

Take the driver that weaves in and out.
The driver who thinks intimacy applies
to man made metal traveling past
the speed limit. After the cash and the baby
dies, the driver claims remorse
and sorrow over the accident that
no one could have seen coming, and
denying blame, cries out to the cruel
fates. Yes, the tragedy of man cries
ignorance of the cliff. The young girl
pregnant, and both parties shocked
by what happened. Yet, death does
appear unannounced. The signs
are not a deep puzzle. Your mother
was right about eating veggies.

Today, the dance continues.
The puffed up blow fishes,
Poisonous and popular will shout
Out pride like prized mucus, then
The days will follow and the shrugged
Shoulders and point at each other,
And saying the answer as common
As ugly.

And If I Go Blind- day 21

2011-07-27T12:07:00.000-07:00

The eyes are the soul of the person goes a common and ridiculous saying. I think about it as my only good eye-the other blind since birth-and the doctor I just saw say the pressure of my Glaucoma has inched up.Now more drops and another possible laser surgery. My thoughts as I walk away from her office was how beautiful the colors were. If I go blind, then memory of the world's visual beauty will be all I have. I start to hunt and store like never before. Everything around me was so radiant, like a sun dried dog licking water out of a tin bowl. I could not get enough. My eyesight maybe be slowly squeezed into darkness, but I will live each sight as the gift that it is. The world exists to be seen, felt, touched, heard and tasted. I will see until ... The poem, part of the 30 days of poetry, below is my ode to how my Glaucoma awoke me to the sights of the world.

Ode to my stubborn Glaucoma

My pressure, after lasers and drops,

returned. The doctor gave a choice

more drops or more intense light

shot into my eye. Walking

from her office, I saw the red

of red lilies, various cars and trucks

in shades of a new rainbow.

I remembered my son's smile

as I left in the morning. Today,

I learned that losing makes

the wine sweeter. The cross

leads to live. I may be blind

one day, but my eye will

be a hunter until then. My

memories of the geography

of my love, the sight of paintings

we have hanging in our living-

room, the color of my wife's

eye, al this I must hunt down

as sight is a sweet peach
picked before consumed to be

part of my flicker of being.