Dying with Simeon

Luke tells us the story of Simeon, an aging man who has spent his whole life waiting to see someone who will Rescue his people. He is in fact not only waiting for a Savior, but waiting to die. They are tied together for him.

“Any day now”
the voice has said
every day now
for as many years
as he has lines on his face.
Any day now,
more comfort
less anger
more peace
more space
more peace
please
mercy please.

“Not yet,” the day says,
neighborhood says
news says
his heart says
the Voice says.

“Not yet,”
Moses heard from a cloud
Elijah heard in the breeze
Eve heard through the trees
Hagar ran into by the springs.
Not yet,
The Voice would
shout whisper sing.
Just wait
and see.

He looks
til his eyes fade,
his strength wanes.

How long,
how long
must we wait?

“Not yet”
the Voice says.
“Breathe
another day.”

He wakes
rises
fails
fades.

“Not yet,”
the Voice says.
“Bless what you find
while you wait.”

Until
one day,
the Voice
of Not Yet
says
“Now.
Meet at our place.”

The steps are the same.
The sky is the same.
His weary legs
short breaths
bent back
same same same.
But after this long long wait
the voice of
Not Yet-Now
has a face.

In the Dirt with Eve

There’s a lot to talk about in those very first stories. I am far less interested in the science of them than the blank space of humanness in them. 

(Genesis 1-4)

She holds the dirt

Before she throws it on the first grave,

And marvels how different

a First feels from a Last.

The look of a garden for the first time

And on the last step out.

The first look into a son’s eyes

The last look of his face as they cover him.

It’s like she is only a beginning

And an End.

Counted among the first

to see rain fall

trees rise

to dip her toes into the river,

testing if it held.

to believe the lie,

“You are only what you are not.”

the first in a long line of us

who did not want to fall alone.

To have the whispering voice in her ear

become the thundering noise in the clouds.

To have the wide world in front of her

become the dream behind her.

To see her own flesh

as something to hide.

The first body to know a man

 make a man,

 teach a man to walk

to watch him walk away.

And now the first to bury a man

whose eyes looked like her own.

She is the first in a body

to know the pain of the Voice:

We cannot love away

The appetites of our children.

It is the first and last truth she holds:

You can only be the mother of life

If you are ready to be the mother of death.

You only gain what you are ready to lose.

And all of it is love.

Happy Hour with Noah

Noah’s story is so much darker than we give it credit for. If anybody has cause for trying to forget their life, it is Noah. Imagine watching God wipe out your world but keep you alive. Of course he ends up passed out naked in a field.

(Genesis 9)

He swears the first drink was quality control.

To make sure the new water-logged vines

held some of the old dry world flavor

enough to loosen his too-tight bones

He sips slowly

walks slower.

There is a fresh sweetness,

a flavor with no name

 yet.

He supposes that’s his job now too.

He pours the next drink and the one after that

to remember

a different old love with every sip,

the feel of soil he knew with young feet,

the smell of trees he turned into walls.

He wonders

how the same wood that once made his home

carried him so far away.

He looks down to see he’s already poured another.

He closes his eyes,

hears the Voice,

wondering if its new or an echo of life before,

calling out measurements and promises.

The phantom sound rings in his ears first, then guts.

Both an invite and a sentence

to live in a world where death floods life

though the Voice claims it’s the other way around.

The only thing he knows for sure

is the cup. It’s in his hand. And it’s empty.

One more, he calculates,

just enough to wipe away this strange new world

like the rain cleared out the one before.

He tries to recall their names,

those he knew by face and story,

the landscape of the first lost life.

Even the wicked can become the familiar.

By grace or drink,

they are a blur to him now.

He raises this glass to them still.

“To trial and error,” he slurs.

He feels the chill of the next drink

soaking his lips

throat

heart

wherever his soul is.

He decides to test his legs.

He stands and stumbles,

and considers himself.

“Why rescue this?”

The question no drink can drown.

“To the morning,” he whispers,

not sure he wants the Voice to ever answer back.

A Knife Fight with Isaac

This story is usually told as a story about Abe’s faithfulness and his willingness to lose his son if it’s what God wants. But I've never heard anything about what Isaac might have lost that day. From any angle, this story cuts. 

(Genesis 22)

Did Isaac ever forget
The day his dad’s face turned
From a welcome to a goodbye?
Abe had waited for him, longed for him,
Dreamed of him.
And now could barely stand to look at him.

Can a boy forget
The time his dad took him up a beautiful mountain
With no intention of bringing him down?

Or did this day live between them
As a word they couldn’t say?

“Remember that time…”
Isaac might say,
“when the life and blood that pulsed through you
became a weapon formed against me?”

Did Isaac spend his life
With a part of his self
Still on the mountain?
Checking the shadows for
A threat or a savior?
Did he flinch
At knives
Or love?

More of us know
Than say out loud
What it’s like when someone we love
Carries us somewhere
And we can’t come back.

They lay you down
hoping the fear might kill you first.

And all your life
Your hands feel tied.
But you don’t say the word.

Parting Seas with Jochebed

In Exodus 2, when the mother of Moses has to defy the orders of the king to hide her son, and then send him down the river, she has no idea how the rest of the story goes. She doesn’t know she might get him back momentarily, or that he’ll end up changing the world, or that the seas will someday obey him. She just lets him go down the river.

According to the math of the king,
the world had enough of one kind of person.
Enough to say,
“If you were born with this kind of blood
running through this kind of skin,
the eyes of this kind of mother,
the smile of this kind of father,
if you were born on that side of the river,
Your parents should just throw you in.”

But when she made that kind of a person,
cradled that kind of a person,
nursed that kind of a person,
called “Good” that kind of a person,
she knew she had to hide that kind of a person.

If she could love him for enough days,
whisper enough words
to bury the truth
under his skin,
to set his heart
to the beat of hers,
Maybe the river would not sink him,
but carry him.

She cannot yet see — 
the angels will rise from the fire,
the serpent will strike from the staff,
the plagues will fall from the sky,
salvation will pass by her kind.

She does not yet know
how a king
can fall from a throne
or how a sea can rise
to become a road
for weary and battered feet.

All she knows is the wrenching,
the feel of the water, like poison,
she hopes can make him free,
even while her own life
is shackled
to the mother she imagined she would be.

Lying with Rahab

Rahab’s story is first told in Joshua 2 when she helps spies survey the land they will eventually conquer. It’s retold in Hebrews 11 as an act of great faith. I’m sure “the prostitute” is still attached to her name to remind readers how God redeems all kind of folk. But I wish other titles could be attached to her name too. 

It’s hard to say if lying was a habit

or just her way to stay alive,

part of her life’s trick,

make it look easy to survive.

“They went thataway,”

she says while they too lie in wait.

“you can probably catch them,”

she adds, just like they wanted her to say.

Everyone in town had a house

where they could stay

but it was the lie right off her tongue,

the one that brought home her pay,

that brought these spies of Promise

to put their trust in her that day.

“I am worth

what they leave on the dresser,”

she lies to herself,

in the recently emptied room.

“You can’t hurt me,”

she lies to the men

as if her body,

and theirs,

are empty too.

“For the right price,

I will hold all your secrets,”

she lies

to the neighbors,

miscalculating

what one body can carry.

“I would help you break this city

brick by brick,

and light the match

to burn down what stands,

take all its gold and silver

to bankroll God’s plans,

break my own body

if it’s what the Voice commands,

but spare the ones I love,

whose lives are held up by my hands.”

Her tongue finally let go

Of the truth

her life protects.

Call her Rahab. Only add “the Prostitute.”

Tell the lie down the line.

Leave out Rahab “the daughter”

whose truth kept her loves alive.

Watching with Anna

 Luke 2 says there was a woman who spent day and night in the temple, for her whole life, just watching and waiting for anything that looked new. And then finally, she got to see. 

She can’t remember the last time
she had a better place to be.

“Night and day” the story goes,
she waits
in a temple, of all the places,
Silence is her bread,
prayer is her water.

She stays, all these years,
in the measured and marked space,
the only room,
they have decided,
where a God might meet a woman,
widow to a long-ago lost man,
daughter to a long-ago lost father,
member of a long-ago lost tribe,

who still believes there might be
something worth seeing.

She keeps watch,
looking for a new life
to match the old descriptions,
of what a life can be,
Something like a tree,
they wrote.
Somehow exactly like,
yet nothing like,
A king.

Others come and go
presuming there is nothing left to see.
“if there is anything new,”
they say,
“it will have to come to me.”

But she is still waiting.
Still watching.
Still listening.
Still hoping.
She is
Still.

And when this child,
This Brand New,
This Old Tree,
This Close-up Redeemer
Who had been her Far-off Dream-
When this child is close,
she knows she was right
to show up every day
and wait:

“I have seen something worth it,” she says.

And with the beautiful brown child-God-eyes on her,
she hears a Voice she knows,

“In you Anna,
I have seen something worth it.”

Making Promises with Ruth

When Ruth’s husband dies, she clings to her mother-in-law and makes a grand promise about staying by her side. It’s a promise we understand. And a promise that’s harder than we know to keep.

If
(scratch that)
when
the ship breaks,
the only way
your body knows
to stay above the water
is to hold on
to any spare piece
of what once was whole.

As if the holding
can stop now
what it couldn’t stop before.
As if the next crash
can be kept out to sea.
As if tight enough hands
never have to dig another grave.

She forgets she knows
how hearts stop,
eyes close,
ships sink.
We are made to fall apart
and we are made
by what we make of that.

Somewhere she knows
but she forgets,
and makes the promise
any way
to go where the other goes
to stay where the other stays
to love who the other loves
and pray to whomever the other prays.
Even to die where the other dies
to stay right behind her
all the way into the dark ocean tides.

You try this
when you believe
there is no such thing
as a safe distance.

This is what you promise
when you are the one breaking.

Let the Voice itself
tell it to your face.
Let the Voice say out loud
or in the waves,
“There is nothing you hold
that won’t be lost.
Some day, I will take
your very own hands.”

Somewhere she knows.
The only promise
we can keep
is to let go
next to each other.

Taking a Bath with Bathsheba

Bathsheba has often been treated as little more than a prop in the narrative of David’s temptation, downfall, and renewal. Surely she had a story of her own to hold and tell, even if she was only one who would listen. 

(2 Samuel 11–12)

She wants, no, needs to make sure the water covers her.
She runs it through her hands first
holds it, watches it move, and pours it
over her legs.
Then her hips, her belly, her chest.
She holds it to her face, pausing before she soaks her eyes and mouth.
The soap smells like her favorite tree from a field she used to know.
She treats the water like her only hope.
To clean off the secrets her body holds,
And the shame she worries is her new skin.

It all started with a bath like this.
She was preparing her body to welcome her husband home
To make a place of peace in the days of war.
She didn’t know someone was watching.
She’s heard people talk like she knew.
If she knew, she wonders, would she have moved faster
Or slower?
If she knew
her hands held her husband’s life,
how would she have moved them?
If she knew
her breasts would nurse a child
she would bury at her feet,
Would she have covered them?

She counts on her soapy fingers
what she has lost.
One — A marriage — lost to lust and war.
Two — a child — lost to sickness and wrath.
Three — four — five — her heart, mind, soul — lost to a king.
And now, this body, lost to carry and birth again.

And for just this moment, she moves like it belongs to her.
She is filled with a wisdom
she wishes she could wash away.

Staying Up with Shepherds

This piece is inspired by my Shetland Sheepdog who has taught me a great deal about what it must mean to feel responsible for other creatures. 

When your whole job
is to wait up all night
and watch for danger
to suspect every shadow you see
every sound you hear
to treat every move
as a possible threat
to what is yours to defend and protect,

of course,
of course,
your first response
to a sudden light
in a dark field
is fear.

Because you can’t know

right away
that what you’re seeing
hearing
feeling
has been in motion
since the very first darkness
and the first break of day.

You have to take it in slowly:
The one who turned dust into sons and daughters
who filled the world with mountains and flowers
and the music
of lions roaring and grasshoppers hopping
has moved heaven to earth just to make sure
you notice how the lilies sway.

it takes a while
for the news
to become
the good news.

After years of silence
and a very long wait,
peace is here.

Hope is here

joy is here

Love is here
with a brand new name.

And that you
who feels at home in the night
who sees glory and stands terrified,

you

who stands ready for every fight

are invited along for the ride.

Letting go with the Fishermen

Mark’s account of the life of Jesus is the most caffeinated version. It’s worth slowing down the moment when he invited fishermen to let go even though it was against all of their training. 

His only job is to hold on.

To hold on as the seas try to wrestle

his hands away from his daily bread.

To hold on through the storm
they never saw coming

or leaving.

To hold on as his sea legs

remember they were made for land.

To hold on so tight

it’s as if the nets are holding him.

He holds on even as he sleeps,

until the waves swallow the nets

and he wakes

to his empty hands

racing heart

and he remembers,

the nets are still his

for another day.

His hands were made by a line of fathers

whose hands held on too.

Who drew the catch of the day

out of the water and into the fire,

into the bellies of those they love,

into the markets of their neighbors,

into the blood and bones of their city,

so the sea sloshed around and in them

from the nets he held.

He held the nets

like he might someday hold a child

like he had once held

the hand of his mother

and of his first love

with a gentleness

disguised as strength.

His whole life was in this holding.

His grip formed from the past,

his way to the future.

Ever present.

“Hold on.”

His whole life in his own hands.

“Hold on against the pull

of wild waters you can’t control.”

Until the voice invites him

 To

 Let

 go.

And his hands loosen

And the nets drop.

He tries for the rest of his days

to wrap his hands around

the voice,

some days as close and clear as his own

some days as far and mysterious

as the other side of the sea.

Always moving, never caught.

Standing Trial with the Caught Woman

The old law called for both participants in adultery to face a trial by peers with stones in their hands. In John 8, a text with its own complicated story, we meet a woman who stands trial alone, at least for the time being. Nothing stays old. 

Her body is the only evidence
to survive the crime
for which she now stands trial.

She is certain they can see
the trace of his hands
on her skin,
the smell of his breath
on her face,
the sound of his voice
on her mind

He is somewhere else
gathering his clothes,
straightening his tie perhaps.
A quick escape,
a turned away face,
gave him the grace
of an escape
without any trace
of her
imprinted
on him.

She stands disordered.
Disheveled.
Discovered,
before a crowd of stones
meant to Order her,
Destroy her,
Cover her.

None of their hands are ready for this
Trial By Each Other.
But they hold on
to their convictions
while she clenches her hands
to hold on
to whatever is left
of herself.

Until one body,
with only his hands
where the weapons could be,
gets closer to the ground,

writes in the dirt,
like One who has written
mysteries, curses, graces,
into the dust before.

Words strong enough
to loosen their grip
and wring the judgment
from their fists,
to drop the death
they can barely wait to throw her way.
Words soft enough
to start her walking
where she is free,
with people who call her by name.

Words lost to the breeze
or the well-traveled road
of too many of our feet.

Words we will never get to read
until we too,

write love and life
down in the dirt,
where the trial by each other
sticks and stones towards another,
the death of our sister to save the face of our brother,

used to be.

Speaking Up with Mary Magdalene

John 20

She knows before you do
all the reasons she should stay quiet.

No one will believe a woman who used to dance with demons.
A woman who used to dance.
A woman who used to.
A woman who used.
A woman.

It’s hardly a secret
when they’re talking about you
All the whispers in the world
sound a lot like shouting.

How will they ever hear her
over their idea of her?
She’s heard all the voices
but her own

She knows from watching him
how words can kill
and death can take you by force
a day at a time
a breath at a time.

They will likely say:
“She sees things that aren’t there,”

But He said:
“Let go of what isn’t yours to hold.”

And when you know
before anyone else:
The clothes that covered death
are folded and in their place,

When you know:
life is on the move
and everyone might miss it.

When you know,
because the grave
in you
is now a temple,

You clear your throat,
find your voice,
and tell anyone who will listen,

“Love is on his feet again.”

Visiting the Tomb with Joseph

There’s no story of Joseph

returning to the tomb

but I would

if I was him.

I would run my hands over

the stone I cut

marveling at the world’s

first used tomb.

I would make sure

my memory was real--

yes, I did clean his wounds.

Yes, I did set his face

and close his eyes

because he couldn’t.

Yes, his hands,

once alive enough to hold oceans

and heal daughters

were just as cold and solid

as the walls around them.

Yes, I covered him with cloth,

wrapping up the future

we imagined

of a world where he was king

and we were all royalty.

Yes, I had washed his feet

and wondered how/if

they had truly walked across the sea.

Yes, I searched

for any traces of love left

through the damage anger left.

Yes, I, too

would be slow to see

the story had changed,

to see the twist of life,

having stayed so long

with the body of death.

If I brought the grave

to the story,

if I sat in the dark

with the God gone cold,

if I closed the door

on the broken body,

How

could I too rise and move

toss aside the burying clothes

kick away the immovable stones

test and try my tick-tocking heart

to return to the wild world

knowing it breaks us apart?

How could I follow

the risen out

having spent my life

preparing for the way in?

Joseph never tells.

He never carves it in stone.

Probably too busy dancing.