Monday

Mornings. Black, bitter,
chemical awareness cut
with cream and sugar.

Culture Before Compassion

The line snakes away into the distance as she systematically moves through the candidates. Name. Age. Religious affiliation.

Christian?
- No.
Next!
Christian?
- No.
Next!
Christian?
- Yes.
Catholic?
- Yes.
Next!

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage*, but here, before the earth is swept clean, to live in the world with one of the world is intolerable dissonance.

Christian?
- Mormon.
Next!

Beyond her selection table rests a man - a fixture of the park bench. He greets each rejected candidate by name inviting them to join him. He asks about their interests, hopes and dreams. Laughs in their joys and cries at their sorrows.

In hopes of a title to balance her yoke, she has missed the point.

*Matthew 22:30

nightfall

oxygen molecules
under the memory of a sun bleached sky
caress my skin
exposed to these sunkissed fingers tingerd with dew
I am ten years old again
begging for one more round of hide-and-go-seek tag before bed
summer has arrived

Capitalist Zen

Do you ever feel the need for a late night trip to a 24 hour box store, the desire to lose yourself aimlessly in the maze of attractive consumerism? Maybe it's summer boredom setting in or the slight insanity of insomnia but the mundane linoleum floors beckon. When everything is dark outside they hold the promise of painful brightness. Under the track lighting the fluorescent glow slowly bleaches your soul: empty, numb, indifferent. This incapacity to feel is what you wanted all along but as it settles into your bones a frantic hum takes hold behind your eyes. A hum that promises everything will be ok if we just buy something. And it works.

Are we running from God or trying to buy our way back?

Waiting

"Wait in line
'Till your time
Ticking clock
Everyone stop
Everyone's saying different things to me"


- In the Waiting Line (Zero7)

Book Review

I'm reading this book about relationships. It's pretty good as far as our contemporary scale for print media goes. It has a lot of violence and sex. The characters range from kings and generals to prostitutes and extortionists. Basically it's pretty epic. In the first chapter there's this scientist who gets together with his friends and decides to build a bio-dome. They put these test tube babies inside to see if they can influence the maturation process. The Scientist creates some rules for the children to guide their development. Everything seems to be going well until, with the help of an outside source, the children take a drug that turns them instantly into fully developed adults. The experiment is ruined. The Scientist, despite his love for his two creations, evicts them from the bio-dome and sets them loose in the real world. End of story? That's not how good literature works. We now have conflict to drive the plot. The two creations, forgetting all about the scientist, get some procreative passion on and as a result of their vaguely incestuous tryst a cycle of violence is born – literally. So we have unrequited love, implied incest, and an intergenerational cycle of violence and that's just the beginning. All in all it's an excellent read that leads to pretty satisfying conclusion but I'd be giving away the best part if I told you what happened. My advice? Pick up a Bible and find out for yourself.

Somewhere 'In Between'

I remeber
crustless sandwiches
of honey and butter
cut into squares
washed down with
H to O -
"the nectar of the gods"

I was restless -

then -

for my feet to touch the floor

rather than dangling,

two unruly sticks,
over the edge of the stool.

Feet firmly planted
I now seek out high stools
attempting to recapture
the precarious feeling of 'in between';
savoring the sweetness of the imediate
yet eager for the future.

A Lament for the 21st Century

The experience of two worlds, not colliding, but melting into one another on a windy Tuesday afternoon crawls across my skin – a black shadow whispering words I have not heard in a long time. Today is disconcerting to say the least, I feel watched. Like the lyrics in that song “that’s me in the spotlight/ losing my religion” I am lost. I stiffen at the assurance that God is not here. Near the highway, watching cars to the ambient chords of Zero7, I am alone. Why? “Because faith is a gift I do not have today.” My lament is not “God, O God, why have you forsaken me?”, but “the body of Christ has been diagnosed with cancer and is attacking its own cells! What went wrong?!” We fear the world, we fear each other, and we fear God. To quote Star Wars “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.” My skin prickles as the whispers continue, growing in conviction and strength, declaring that God is religion and the failure of one consequently entails the demise of the other. To resolve the immaterial with the material begs Descartes’’ historic riddle, yet, despite my inability to grasp how spirit can affect matter I find an uncomfortable phrase heavy on my lips – uncomfortable in the label that it carries. Awkwardly I whisper “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave me alone.” Silence, and then the shadow lifts. Niggling doubts attempt to explain away my sudden release as the psychological placebo of a coping mechanism. I am scattered and unsure. However, “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" (John 9:25)