Repenting of a Common Sin

All that ever Is and Was
Knelt down before us
Rolled Himself up, broke His own back
Slit His wrists and bled out wine

And we stand before that sacrifice
And fight over what meanings are rightly found
In the mystery
So if the wine stops flowing
If the wheat stops flowering
If our ribs stick out
And our mouths go parched
Who can we blame but ourselves?

The bounty of the universe
Lay down before us, broken so we could be one
Bleeding so we could have peace
And we traded theology for grace
And a fistfight for our wedding bed.

Thus the whisper comes, "Repent"

The Wind blows through the Wheat
It shakes my knees
And i am awestruck, hungry
Before these mysteries.

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love,
luke

Kitsune facing the Sun

Go down to the river
Just before dawn
The water stirs
A crane flies
Through rising mist

The river does not lie
The river runs straight
between the boundaries of the banks
Weaving like the crane
Working life into the earth

The river runs down to the sea
Spills its song into the waves
Wastes its life
Nourishing
What is never sated
Filling
What is never filled

But the fox on the bank is a liar
But not a thief
A trickster
Who might devour children
But only as a joke
If a pun could be made

The mists rise
The crane flies
The river runs to the sea
And dies
And the fox lies beside the river
Pondering the next deception.

But after sudden sunrise
When the mists scatter
And the crane cries
The river runs on (but no longer dies)
And the fox turns away
Before the light
His seven tails shining briefly
Before he descends to the den
From which, one day
He will never rise.

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love,
luke

The death of the small gods

He took the god down to the river
Thinking it might drown
He took it by the horns
Shore off it's beard
Ripped off it's ears
Broke it and buried it on the bank

And one day that bank washed away
The rotten god washed to the endless sea
A year of jubilee was declared
"Free," The birds sang, "free, free, free."

And as i leave
The river goes on flowing unseeing
The trees go on growing unhearing
(but singing with the birds)
And the god's small voice stilled
And unheard.

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love,
luke

Exitus, Reditus, and Stasis

Christ did not shake the dust from His feet
Upon ascension
It clings to Him still
Though He walks now in heaven
That inglorious stink
Goes with Him.
Suspending his form
Cruciform between
The realms of Spirit and dust.

Christ did not shake the dust from His feet
Upon leaving Eden
In the loins of Adam and the belly of Eve
The seed remained housed in
Vessels of clay,
Grace laying wait.

And so we, banished from Eden
And not yet ascended
We, frail children clothed in ashes
Housed in dust,
When we again
Are in the presence
We will see that we never left
And that He never left us.

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love,
luke

For the kids at Regent (a meditation on James 1:26 and 27)

This is for the kids at Regent, and seminarians across the world. We few who care, who debate with passion the important issues. Who are complimentarian or egalitarian. Who know and care about words like supralapsarianism and ecumenism. Who think Calvin was bastion of orthodoxy (or heresy). Who study for the ministry in hallowed halls of the academy instead of on the streets of the downtown east side. This is for me. And by the grace of God it will be the last thing of its kind that i write for many months.

I must confess i grow weary. It is so easy to be drawn into debate. It is so easy to passionately believe that these things matter. I confess that i am both the origin and perpetuation of so much useless discussion regarding women in ministry, homosexual marriage, predestination, and ecclesial unity. But ministry, love, salvation, and unity do not happen because of my debates. They certainly do not happen because of my all too frequent vitriol or venom. And i confess that i am weary even as i perpetuate the discussion, even as i rehash old ideas that aren't my own to counter old ideas that are not the property of my interlocutors. We identify ourselves as Calvinist, Egalitarian, Pro-Family, Protestant (yet Ecumenical). But i wonder, are we really just fools? Do we forsake the gospel when we get wrapped up in ideas about our faith when the substance of religion that is pure and undefiled is this: "to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

Doctrine is important; i'm sure Jesus cares about homosexuals, and even about whether or not they should marry. And i have definite opinions on that topic (which may or may not be shared by Jesus). But that is not the substance of my faith, and until i can meet non-Christians who, when finding i am studying for the ministry, do not first ask me about homosexuality, women's issues, abortion, or George Bush perhaps i should be focusing on the important things like showing the world a pure and undefiled religion. We have been drawn into debates, debates about important things, debates that really do inform people's lives. But if we go one verse before James' definition of pure religion we read this damning line: "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless."

So i confess, i have lived with an unbridled tongue, and have done violence against Christ's gospel because of it. I can no longer speak authoritatively about anything because my religion is all to often worthless. So i will keep my opinions, but i will keep them to myself, at least until my tongue is bridled and the substance of my religion is not debate, but love. I don't know if this applies to you, but i think this semester might be a good time for me to practice silence.

love,
luke

Soil

I.

We are waiting for this soil to be lifted up
We creatures of earth
Toes like roots,
We are trees,
Cursing those who hang their love on us

II.

We are waiting for this
Soil to be lifted up
The seed has entered field
But how long the days
Between
Plow time and harvest
April and October
We think of what is coming
And what will be.

III.

We are waiting for
This soil to be lifted up
But how hard the sacrifice of the sickle
The sacrifice of the fruit tree
That sanctified earth
Every mother's agony in bringing life through birth
That furrowed bleeding brow plowed through
Hanging off of our misshapen branches
The fruit of all our labor rotting in a tomb

IV.

We are waiting
For this soil to be lifted up
For the earth to rise heavenward
Or for heaven to come to earth
And for all of us
The stuff of this world
To be as seeds and grains of wheat
Becoming what we always were
And yet still are yet to be.

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love,
luke

The End

Full stop.
The world drops into God's lap
He turns it around slowly
Considering

There is a sequence to time
That is a mystery of Christ
The mind of God wrapping up itself
Like we who try to understand amoebas
Finding it difficult
We find our downward limit
Until a greater greatness exceeds it.

And this mysterious Sequence
Leaves me here,
At another limit
And another end
I whisper: "Kiss me Christ"
I scream: "Come quickly"
And i know somehow that these days are last
That what comes after
Will always be distant from what came before
That as in Bethlehem
(though smaller than even that blessed smallness)
That we are now after and before
That you are the last one i would ever want
Preceding the First only in time.
A strange mystery of life.

Full stop.
The world is a drop of water on your eyelash,
A yearning embrace slowly ending
Turning
Towards the last things
And what i pray will be
A poem showing what will come
When the First at last returns to us.

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love,
luke