Jacob after Peniel, a poem
Did anyone ever tell you
your limp was beautiful
or that it's going to be?
Other men stride into
rooms with all the raw
confidence and numb vigour of
bulls in China shops
(breaking more than
dinnerware with their
untried horns).
But those tender, stumbling
tentative steps of yours—
on healing legs and broken heart—
they tell a story
more beautiful than words:
of wrestling with the un-nameable
One,
clinging in darkness desperate
till he touched you—blessed
you on the hip—
and you walked away
transparent,
shining in the final knowledge
of who you are.
Did anyone ever tell you
the ungainly gait he
left you with
was beautiful?
They will.
The Roar of Heaven, a devotional thought
In Revelation 19:6, John the Seer is overhearing the praise of God in Heaven, and he says, “I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder, saying Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns.”
It’s a vivid image when you think about it. The loudest crowd I’ve ever been in was probably the time I saw team Canada play team Brazil in an exhibition soccer game in Edmonton. Canada only scored one goal against the Brazilians, but when they did the 20,000+ packed stadium erupted. It was exhilarating. Makes me wonder what the roar of the crowd in heaven really will be like when we hear it, when the literally billions of men, women and children who have put their faith in him roar in one voice with the praises of the Lamb.
Somehow, “the sound of many waters” seems like an understatement.
Labels: devotionals, revelation
Your Jonathan, My David, a song
Then I’d be your Jonathan:
I’d take off all the trappings
Of the glory I got on;
And I’d remove my armor
And I’d offer you my crown,
If you would be a David
To my lonely Jonathan.
And I would stand before you
Unclothed and unashamed
And I’d show you all my secrets
Just to hear you whispering my name
And if it meant I could no longer
Be my father’s son
Still I’d let you be my David
If I knew that I could be your Jonathan
Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
Than any brother could
There’s a water that is thicker
Than the purest drop of blood
There’s a love that is more wonderful
Than any I have known
So hold me to your heart my Holy David
And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
I swear that I will be…
And when the night is lonely
And the shadow’s running high
If I shot my bow into the dark
Would you swear to never leave my side
And when my journey stumbles
And I’ve fallen on my sword
If I swore to be your Jonathan
Would you swear with all your heart to be my Lord?
Cause there’s a friend who sticks closer
Than any brother could
There’s a water that is thicker
Than the purest drop of blood
There’s a love that is more wonderful
Than any I have known
So hold me to your heart my Holy David
And I swear that I will be your Jonathan
O I swear that I will be your Jonathan
I swear that I will be…
Labels: poetry, songwriting
celebration, a poem
for Walt Whitman
and I will celebrate with you,
am honoured to partake of this
your glorious noble design:
I will sing and I will dance and
share your cells, your ions, atoms,
fill my lungs with our biology.
and like you, madman, would I could
unveil the crystals of the snow,
or surge, an atom on the wind:
open wide the stained-glass gates of
morning dew drop on the grass, to
find within a silhouette of life.
and I shall be a pedagogue
of all humanity—a tear
of crystal on the face of joy:
I will sing and I will shout and
rend the morning air with razor
words, ephemeral, a vigil in the night.
and so this gift of language is
to celebrate, indicative
of inarticulate, our humanness:
we are but a passing of the
myst’ry breathed upon the soil of
earth—a blade of grass, a wisp of cloud.
and fire at dawn awakes the dome
of azure life, shall greet us as
we revel in our passing breath:
with bells and cymbals, tambourine,
the clamoring gift of language,
psalms to wake the dawn and fill our lives.
and ‘till the passing passes me,
and offers up His ions to
the next, I celebrate with you:
ripples of concentric joy, the
pebbles of our soul shattering
serene the glinting lake of life.
Labels: poetry
Thistle and Thorn, a poem
When I was just a little boy
My father taught me how to work with him
Breathing life out of the dust
Till my hands were bruised and torn.
Somehow his love redeemed the curse
Because just so long as he was there with me
I didn’t notice it was thistle
Or that they were his thorns.
And then when I was twenty-one
I waited tables for my schooling
Serving life in smoky rooms
Till the wee hours of the morn.
Somehow a joy redeemed the curse
Because with all the laughter we had there
I never guessed that was my thistle
Or that they were my—
thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
Watered by the sweat of my brow.
It isn’t much to give,
The simple work of simple hands
But what I have I give to you now.
And then a child was on the way
So I stood up in a classroom
Learning life out of my books
Till the lessons were well-worn.
Somehow his call redeemed the curse
Because with all the lives that I touched there
I didn’t know that was my thistle
Or that those were my—
Thistle and thorns, thistle and thorns
Watered by the sweat of my brow
It isn’t much to give,
The simple work of simple hands
But what I have I give to you now.
Now child, you’re almost all grown up
And the world's spread out before you:
Will you build or will you heal?
What feats will you perform?
O, let his love redeem the curse
And just so long as it is done for him
He’ll make sure they’re never thistles
And they won’t just come up thorns.
The Fallen Robin's Nest, a poem
Tightly-wound wisps
Of winter-gathered grass
Wrapped warmly round
A bright blue brood of eggs—
Or so I must assume.
The eggs are long since gone,
Their delicate cradle clattered
To the sidewalk far below
(By what calamity
Or for what sacred purpose
I may never know).
Did he who kept his holy vigil
Over half a million plague-wrung final breaths
Also watch this humbly-feathered bower as it fell—
Does he see it now,
Discarded there in the streaming runnels
Of an early spring rain?
So I must assume,
Assuming that the primal passion
Of a mother fluttering home
To find no chicks remain that she might
Gather together beneath her brooding wing—
That it must also sting
With His, for ours,
Knowing that our best laid plans
Do not gang aft agley
But for a holy reason.
Come Out of Her, O My People, a devotional thought
In Revelation 18 we come across St. John's agonized account of the fall of the “City of Babylon” (18:1-3), which is depicted as a "great prostitute" riding a "seven-headed beast with a blasphemous name." As best as I can tell, the "Adulterous Queen of Babylon" is a cipher for the City of Rome, the capital of the Empire in John’s day. And in the apocalyptic vision of Revelation, the Roman Empire is itself is symbolic of any and all “empire-building projects” that set themselves up in opposition to the Reign of God, the way the Roman Empire had done in John's day.
This a deeper thought than you could unpack in a short devotional, maybe, but after reading through the long list of the “luxuries of Babylon” we find in Revelation 18—the gold, silver, precious stones, food, spices, horses, chariots and fine clothing—all of which are “in one hour laid waste!” (18:17)—it left me wondering. John seems convinced that there is a spiritual reality, lurking behind all that wealth and its accumulation—a reality that would leave you trembling if you could see it plainly—a reality best envisioned as a promiscuous queen riding a death-spewing chimera, intoxicating the nations with her corruption (18:7).
That’s what was really on display when your average Roman strolled down to market and bought or sold on any given day in the Roman Empire. And, like I say, it leaves me wondering: what spiritual realities lurk behind the social structures that we take for granted in prosperous, brightly-lit modern day Canada— the political, economic, or technological "powers" that we have to do with—and as Christians, are we as in tune to them, as John was in his day?
Labels: revelation
David, a poem
Every sermon about King David
That I’ve ever heard
Explaining how we might have emulated
Him in his quest for the heart of the Lord,
Has chastened us to dwell upon
His faithful oath to Jonathan,
His five smooth stones before the warrior of Gath
Even the day he spied on Ms. Uriah in the bath—
Think about his contrite heart, they said,
When all was brought to light—
The pious things we know he did
To set things right.
And yet: for the life of me I can’t recall
A preacher ever asking us to mimic all
The severed hands he piled on
The bloody ground by the pool of Hebron
Or all the rows of murdered Moabites
He measured out the day he won the fight.
And even worse, no mention of
His constant wrestling for a holy word
That might express his yearning love
For the goodness he had tasted in the Lord—
The bitter agony it took to show it,
His burning heart’s desire to be a warrior-poet.
Labels: poetry
Sleeping in the Rain, a poem
There is a thrilling something
And yet so soothing
About nestling down to sleep
In the rain beneath a tent flap,
Knowing it will keep
You safe and dry,
And yet the steady slap
And patter at the fly
Assuring you how very fragile
The whole arrangement is.
If only we could keep that grace
When all the tents are put away
To learn to measure out our days,
Embracing our fragility
With the same unlikely peace
And with such perfect ease.
Labels: poetry
Pain, a poem
With what trembling did aching Job
Stand before the whirlwind,
Hand across his gaping mouth
To render his complaint?
He tried—Lord knows how hard he tried—
To slip away unrecognized,
To nurse his humble agony
And play the wounded saint.
But no one who has dared to speak
To you about the world’s hurts
Can drop the thing so easily,
Once lifted in lament.
You summon us to take our stand
And state our case with girded hearts
Then hold us till you’ve heard us out
And all the pain is spent.