The Uneven

Even the holy seems to come out uneven.
At the close of communion, there is extra;
Not exactly God's abundance, but more than enough.
Bread ripped into fingertip bites;
Jesus leftover.
And I must take some of the blood also
To wash down the dry and crumbling body
And still speak out to the crowd.
It takes some Jesus to swallow Jesus;
More in the mouth to digest the sacrifice.
But not too much
Since the blood makes me light-headed
And sleepy.
So some of the wine remains to be poured into the ground.
And the earth communes also.
Who communes and consumes?
Who is fed?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Even the uneven is feast.

Here's a few more pictures to meditate on from the stained glass at Christ Church. See the post for March 13 for more a poem to help oil your spiritual wheels.

I led a short, quiet Lenten retreat this past Saturday called "Light in Lent." We looked at the light in the beautiful stained glass windows in Christ Church, Smithfield. Below is a poem about my experience with the light and the glass.

Stained glass.

Playful brokenness.

Impure glory.

Windows that do not allow us to see out

But call us within and beyond.

The reds in Jesus' robe don't match,

But drape in beauty.

The cobalt blue background around the pillars

Is so bold that the pillars themselves recede in weakness.

So many painted eyes looking, searching you,

As though you were a window too.

So many feet and toes to remind us of our humanness

And glory in our bodies.

The emerald leaves over there seem to move

On a distant breeze not of this world

Or with divine breath.

Light speaks, sings a symphony.

Word glows with emanating power.

Truth lies

Mysterious

In the communion

Of the broken

Glass.

Christmas, Day 5

It's the day of the FIIIIIVE GOOOLDEN RIIIIINGS, as the song goes. Here is my Christmas poem for 2011. Full of the song that sings in counterpoint and harmony with all the good and bad the world has in it.

Before the angels sang of glory or the shepherds heard the story

There was cold that night, the bone-chilling kind

That bites at nostrils and dries up eyes,

Yet the warm in the dark was as real;

An embodied enchantment,

Though there were no magic tricks,

Nor a chant to fall in midnight’s hollow ear.

Still the silent swirl of the stars harmonized

With the lullaby of soft silver shadows

From a half-waned moon.

There was counterpoint of chill and warm

And an infant still wet from the womb

Breathing fresh his sleep’s silent song.

Singing blood and cries and death

So soon come of blood and cries and birth;

A song just as strange as the warm in the chill.

Singing womb of the earth

Singing tomb left empty to sing its own song.

Singing divine poverty and holy love.

Singing peace.

Peace.

Peace.

I have seen the earth move . . .

I have seen the earth move.
I have watched it roll like the sea.
I know the earth can dance and jiggle
And also twist and rise up to meet the morning
Like a child jumping from sleep on her bed.

These are miracles.
Changes that stir both fear and awe.
And joy.
The rock and dirt we tread is alive
If we will look
And learn to dance with it
No longer just walking upon it
Like we have such important things to fix
And do
And prove.

Last week, the earth moved for me.
I lay in a crater blasted into me by divorce.
I could not see above the rim.
I could not scramble out but kept
Slipping back in and down.

But the earth shook among friends last week.
And the crater rose.
It rolled and danced and twisted
Even in the darkness of its center.

And there, where I could not see over the rim
I find myself among the clouds
Risen.
Not safe or certain,
But on holy ground.

This is Sinai, now,
And the bush burns.
This is Tabor.
And the ground is not all that has transfigured.
This is Golgatha,
And the love that dies will rise.
This is Isaiah’s holy mount where the feast of fat things
Ends all
And begins.

I have seen the earth move.

Fall Rain

The early autumn rains weep,
Drop with abandon from an unimagined height.
I wonder what they plunge to seek,
And if I can find there a way or a why.

What is it like to condense in the altitude's fog
And become weighty with true self
So that you slip from floating in the dark bog
And soar in the wind at gravity's honest bidding
Toward some final loss of self
That will be a sea -- or a puddle -- of new beginning.

Do not be fooled

The sea gives the impression of staying put.
Even as it broils in a storm, it appears to be that great thing
Deep and strong that will be there after the winds die.

But the sea is never the same.
The water that rolls in the wave today
Will current away tomorrow
Or evaporate into a cloud.
The rain will become the sea.
Leviathan will leap and splash it away.
And the littlest fish will swallow it whole.
The foam will seep into the sand
Only to be pulled out by the tide.

Today the water will look clear and blue in the sun.
Tomorrow it will chill into a grey-green soup.
And the weight of the moon will pull and relax between
And again.
Who can say it will not turn purple the day after that
Or phosphorescent?

The sea does not remain.
The water that splashes at your ankles
Has seen other shores.

Do not be fooled.
For nothing will remain.
The ways of the sea are
Beautiful and awful,
Changing and true.