Take Me Back (Winter Days)

Take me back to winter days

spent by the front bay window

with nothing to do but

watch the snow

Falling…

Falling…

Falling…

from the welkin of heaven.

Ah! There I am:

kneeling on the couch.

Pressing my forehead

against the icy glass,

fogging it with my breath

as birds flit back and forth

from branch to feeder, back again,

dodging flakes as if by magic.

I come again

to my mother’s voice

singing through the storm.

To dripping scarves and mittens

drying on iron vents.

To the smell of oatmeal cookies

baking in the oven.

To the taste of buoyant marshmallows

softly vanishing in hot chocolate.

To the serenity of a child’s home

marinating in sheltering love.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

After the Rain

I walk the trail in the aftermath

of a drenching rain.

Young trees laden with water,

thankful for their recent baptism,

bow in reverence.

Their slick leaves and slender branches

emit a happy glow,

as their roots drink deeply

of the glorious flood.

Would that I could be so grateful

for the simple blessing of rain

and bend myself in surrender

To the giver of sun, wind, and water.

But I grow old and stubborn.

Thick of branch.

My trunk rigid and inflexible

in the curious belief

that by standing tall

I grow beyond the need to bow.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Apokatastasis

I sit on the porch recovering

from an illness that left me flat.

Before me are two maple trees

resplendent in their autumn hues:

yellow, copper, gold, and scarlet.

A north wind blows, brisk and gusty.

It shakes the leaves, makes them shiver,

breaks the tenuous grip of dying stems,

sends them twirling, swirling to the ground.

The tree on the right is nearly bare,

while it’s soulmate clings to summer memories.

One thing is sure: eventually,

the last leaves will loosen their hold,

leaving their parents grim and barren.

Earth will grow cold then, and drab.

The view from the porch, bleak, until

the spring, when comes resurrection.

And so I think, this is the way of things.

The last leaf falls, and life begins again.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

A Day at the Beach

Headlong I breach the crashing wall

of water.

Soft. Pliant. Pierceable.

Yet substantial. Strong.

A contradiction?

It whips my body sideward,

this ocean.

I rise in the nick of time

to be concussed again.

Once. Twice. Relentlessly.

Delight! At each crashing.

Holy sea!

The sun smiles at us both:

Sentient fool, knowing nature.

Both the made and the Maker.

For that is what this is.

This game.

Each wave a touch of grace.

Each dive a warm acceptance

of Divinity’s gift.

And as I roll within

this caress,

I feel Love’s joy arise,

carrying me deeper

to who I’ve always been.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Tethered

I am tethered to you, Holy One.

I take the rope and pull it taut,

drawn by the allure of your presence,

as cautiously, hand by hand,

I tug myself shoreward.

It is not you I pull toward me.

It is I, who drift away, who returns.

Slowly then, I drag myself to you.

Almost there…now, we touch.

Quickly, before tide sweeps me back,

I leap from my deck to your moorings.

It is an odd sensation,

this cessation of sway,

this certain, solid ground,

after rocking so long upon the waves.

Closing my eyes, I feel your breath,

as gentle and familiar,

as the wind upon the sea.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

If I Heard a Voice…

‘My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me’ – John 10:27 NLT

If I heard a voice telling me to sacrifice a lamb to God, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, whose death on the cross put an end to such practices once and for all (Hebrews 10:1-18).

If I heard a voice telling me to employ violence against anyone, friend or foe, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who strictly commands his followers to drop their swords (Matthew 26:52).

If I heard a voice telling me to remove the alien from my community, insisting he or she doesn’t belong there, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who commands his followers to welcome the stranger as if they were welcoming him (Matthew 25:35; 40).

If I heard a voice telling me to take the means of procuring food from the poor, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who commands his followers to feed the hungry (Matthew 14:16; 25:35; 40)

If I heard a voice telling me to take away the ability of the poor to access healthcare, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who sends his followers into the world to heal the sick and hurting (Matthew 10:8).

If I heard a voice telling me that it was okay to harm children, or to consider their deaths ‘collateral damage,’ I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who took little children in his arms and blessed them (Mark 10:16).

If I heard a voice telling me to ravage the environment for the sake of profit, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who made all things and died so that his creation would one day be restored (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Romans 8:22).

If I heard a voice telling me to hate my enemies, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who commands his followers to love their enemies (Matthew 5:44).

If I heard a voice telling me to seize political power and wield it to force my will upon those beneath me, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who rejected that very temptation and calls his followers to do the same (Matthew 4:8-10; Luke 6:40; Matthew 20:25-28).

If I heard a voice telling me to accumulate money and possessions beyond my needs, thereby neglecting my responsibilities to help others, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus because he specifically said such behavior ends in judgment (Luke 16:19-31).

If I heard a voice telling me to demean another person, or class of persons, because they were in some way different than me, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, who loves and treats everyone with respect, and calls his followers to do the same (see, well, the Gospels).

If I heard a voice telling me to ignore oppression, or side with the oppressor, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus, whose mission is to set the oppressed free, scatter the proud, and topple tyrants from their thrones (Luke 1:51-53).

If I heard a voice telling me to do any of these things, I would know this was not the voice of Jesus.

Why then, do so many Christians heed such voices?

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Postscript – I don’t know of any Christians who sacrifice lambs these days. But as for the rest…

Isaiah 45:3

Come away with me

to a space that is holy

and hidden,

tucked away in the dark.

You won’t find it on a map,

save that marked upon

the interiority of your soul.

Still yourself,

and I will take you there.

I will meet you in the silence.

I will show you riches

a bustling world can never know.

But you will know

that I am more than fantasy,

so much more than what

they make me out to be.

I am with those who struggle,

with those who long for rest.

I am always.

And always,

I call you by name.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Cadence

The forest has a cadence all its own.

It neither cares to meet expectations

nor fit anyone’s set of rules

governing how it should grow.

It’s citizens reach for the heavens

in whatever way suits them,

twisting this way and that,

chasing sun and rain,

spreading branch and root

with rhyme and rhythm

unique to their souls.

No two forests are the same.

One does not copy another’s meter

or ponder whose is the better landscape.

Each writes their own music as if to say,

‘Dance, if you will, or not.

It’s all the same to me.’

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

El Roi

A woman sits amidst the wreckage

of a building ravaged by American bombs. 

In her arms she holds the lifeless body of her son,

who mere days before played in the streets of the city. 

A rain falls from a grey sky as his head lurches back into her lap. 

The rain is nothing compared to her tears, which will not, cannot stop.

She remembers her ancestor, how she left

with her son, carrying nothing but a satchel of bread,

a skin of water, and a promise from a God she named El Roi:

‘The God who sees.’   The promise was that He would always see,

her, her son, and their descendants, be they as numerous as the stars. 

And she thinks, as her son’s eyes

loll backwards in their dead sockets,

and the tears that will not, cannot stop,

cascade from her dark eyes, that God is surely blind. 

Accuse her not, dear Christian,

from the comfort of your pleasant pew,

whilst ignoring the very genocide we pay for. 

The blindness is not hers.  Nor is it God’s. It is ours. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

The captioned image is a detail of Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert by Frederick Goodall, 1867.

See, Genesis 16; 17:20; 21:8-21; and 25:12-18

The Dark

When did we learn to be afraid of the dark?

Was it in our nascent days, as newborn eyes

slowly opened to a world full of light

that illuminated so many things we could not name

as we learned what faces were, and found one or two

we could trust, only to have those faces suddenly

disappear in darkness as the light, suddenly taken,

plunged us into distress that could only be assuaged

when the faces reappeared in a resurgence of light?

The faces tried to help of course, and out of love

gave us small lights that burned through the night

or else little glowworms that eradicated darkness

at our touch.  Or else rushed at the sound of our cries,

turned on the big lights, and held us as they whispered,

‘There, there, everything will be alright.’

And so, we learned that light was safe, and darkness –  

something to be feared, cast off, avoided at all costs. 

All of this is understandable, of course.

For the dark can be filled with terror, something

we learn more fully as we grow to discover

the existence of wild creatures, criminals, and worse.

As stories of evil found in darkness become more

than just stories, and teach us that we were right

to be afraid of the things we could not name

which are now all the more terrible for the naming. 

But the dark is more than this, is it not? 

It is beauty.  Grace.  Stillness.  Silence. 

‘Large and full of wonders,’  Dunsany said.

It is the place where moon gardens bloom,

where stars find space and power to shine.

It is where the Aye-Aye creeps to life

and nature shows a side we seldom see. 

It is where lovers so often meet,

and life itself is blessedly conceived. 

Was it not out of darkness that earth came to be?

Did not God create the darkness and the light? 

And were we not, before we learned to fear,

safe and secure in the dark of the womb,

where we were ‘fearfully and wonderfully made?’   

Jesus knew darkness.  Indeed, he ran toward it. 

Both the darkness of the skies and the darkness

of the hearts of men.  The darkness of his slowing

breath.  The darkness of his coming death. 

A darkness embraced of his own free will.

‘Into your hands, Father, I enter the darkness.’

His body would lay in darkness for three days, he said.

Yet even at this he did not shirk.  Knowing, unlike us,

that there was no reason to be afraid of the dark. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent