Turning the other cheek,
Or in other words, Letting the enemy win the war, Take the spoil, And leave you poor, Puts you in the proper place To receive the spirit of humility. Whereas winning the war breeds pride, And those puffed up with pride grow fat and weak, And sooner or later they start losing, Not just with outward ememies, But with the inward battle For unseen things. But not so with those Who turn the other cheek. They already know their weakness. It is their constant companion. And in it, they grow strong in faith, For faith is the only way they can survive. And armed with faith and humility, They win an inward battle That lends itself To perfect strength And stamina in suffering. And you can write this down: That those who suffer the longest always win.
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In the absence of the ones you love,
Imagine that the strangers you meet are them. Love deep into the foreign one And it will seep into the very ones You miss and cannot see. Corporations and kingdoms,
Democracies and fascist regimes, For all their pomp and pretension, In the end, are temporary. They have a beginning, And they have an end. But family is eternal. It is the bedrock of existence. And the family of God is the only order Without beginning and without end. Just think about it, What are you When all else is stripped away, But a child of God, So that your deepest definition Is in relation to a Heavenly Parent. It is the ultimate identity, And it is the only authority That transcends The grave. I am surprised that the Spirit of Christ
Is not a part of any cause that I can find Except the family. It doesn’t seem To take part in debates Of doctrine. It doesn’t argue. It doesn’t try to prove itself at all. In fact, it is most often found In the unsolicited praise Of those that it inhabits. And when those who have it Try to describe relationships in its context, They inevitably are cast back upon descriptions of the family, Father, son, mother, daughter, sister, brother, These are our closest approximations To the love that we’ve found in Him And in those in whom he dwells. And isn’t that a surprise, That in Him we find a family, And in the family, at its best, We find something of Him. There is a kingdom of peace.
Its banners waft in the wind. But there is no earthly power That has found the peace within. Their heart is bent on anger. Their will is set to win. And until they forsake winning, They’ll war and war again Until it works a cleansing A change from deep within, And then, Oh then, When men are free From the need to war, to win, Will the unseen peaceful kingdom Come to Earth again. I bang the pots.
I stir the bushes. Fly away. Fly away. Take to the sky, you little birds. Take to the heavens, you big birds. Don’t stay long! I say, Just long enough to leave your curse upon them, Or in other words, your blessing, The blessing of the ruin that you took early, The one that they’ll find late which they’ll find out Is the key to their deliverance. But whatever you do, move on. Don’t stay long, lest you take sides in the coming battle, The last and most senseless battle of them all When the earthbound folk will kill For the sake of killing. You don’t yet know How anger can clip your wings And wet your feathers. And drown you In a cause That you’ll regret long, long, after they are gone. And it’s coming soon. It’s coming soon. But not for those Who can still fly away and keep on flying, Not for those who keep on moving out Of the life that was expected And into the voice That points the way To the Unseen Holy Place. I love to work with people.
And I live my life mostly by my gut And prefer to deal with people who do the same. But it becomes impossible to do that when organizations get too large. And so I have finally stopped shadowing their thresholds. Because if I must fill out papers before we look eye to eye, I am not interested. If you need to ask me a set of questions that you’ve written down, I’m not interested. If you don’t know at a glance, And if I don’t know at a glance That it’s right, I’m not interested. The Corporation has had its day.
There comes a great de-centralization through chaos. And in its wake will flourish The private enterprise, And laughter, Sweet, childlike merry-making, As the little ones chant and sing upon its grave. And we will do business with each other once again When the great Leviathan crashes to the earth And the children of the kingdom Feast upon its ashes. I live and keep on living.
I move and keep on moving. And it suits me fine. It suits me fine. I knew an old man who lived by the ocean. And he said that once, years ago, It made its way into his house. And so the old man and his neighbors Pushed it back. They pushed it back. With rock and sand and a crew of engineers, They pushed the ocean back. Can you imagine that?! And the man lived in a little shack. For that, they pushed the ocean back! Because they could not keep on moving with the tide. They could not keep on living with the seasons. And I realized as he told me the story, That we were very different. I would have moved on, I thought. I would have moved on without a thought. And trusted that an unseen hand had better plans. Yes, an unseen hand has better plans. If we can only see them For what they are. The sun sets upon the sacred valley.
And the clouds light up with color As the cool rolls in off fields of green. The smell of earth. The sound of bees. The mountains looking down In loving, purple, rocky grey. And I alone with the silence, No outlet, but to write Here on this page, No pallet, No colors, No music. Just the words, the gratitude, that rolls Through my brain and down my slippery fingers Onto the emptiness of the barren page. Sacred little cumulous clouds
And almost stormclouds Grace the holy valley. And I am lost in the fields. The tractors drive by. And the driver’s wave. But nobody cares That I live here. I do not move Except When absolutely necessary. And the longer I rest here in silence The more I am healed. The more I’m healed. I close my eyes and see waving fields
Of the most golden grain I’ve ever seen, As if the sunlight is caught up and inbetween The stalks of grain, and as if it glows itself. And through the field runs a telephone line, Post, post post. And I am lost in the bright yellow. I came upon a Blue Heron today.
It landed in an irrigation ditch And hid behind a clump of grass. I slowly moved up on it and it flew away, But not far, a hundred paces down the ditch. Incredible, a Blue Heron in the irrigation ditch, And he’s staring back at me as if to say, “Hello, old friend.” And I could swear That I remember him from long ago, Long before our names were written down, When the morning colors of creation shone Upon the hearts of all created things. “Hello, old friend,” I say. “So good to know you once again, So grateful for the visit, So beautiful the friendship long forgotten, And how precious the unexpected, chance, reunion.” It is surprising to me that wherever you go, you can hear birds.
And they live their lives without a grocery store. They are wild, and yet, they are among us. And yet we are a world away When it comes to things like faith. Still, they condescend to grace us with the song Of simple trust. Always. Always. It chirps. It’s there in almost every outside moment And passes through every cracked And open window, A constant reminder That no one need fret unseen tomorrows. And yet, how infrequently we listen! Why is Christ so compelling?
Because nobody is keeping the law. We appeal to the law all the time When things go really bad. We insist that THOSE people are wrong And that we need to get back to moral absolutes. But that’s not what we really mean Or what we really want. And when we look close enough, We discover that our choices beguile us. We, each of us, have swallowed the culture’s poison. We all are dead or dying by degrees Unless we’re not. And there is the very case for Christ - In the fact that some of those Who do no measure up Are actually alive, Alive to His very voice That whispers out of darkness unto life. And you know them when you meet them. They are those who have found a King Unseen. They are those who wait and listen and obey To spite their imperfection. Be still and wait upon the unheard voice to speak.
The world is running to the banner of MORE While the children of Silence Wait peacefully listening Around the standard Of ENOUGH. Value what you have.
What does that mean? I don’t know. But I see that there are Two spirits that rise up in me. One thinks that something’s lacking And that we must go out and find it. The other, and it is by far the quietest, Says that we have enough. The first would spend our means On nets to catch the two birds in the bush While the last would forsake such dreams For the one we already have. Say OK to the still small voice.
And say no to the loud voices and the rush. The night is still dark
And the generator running And you are there in the darkness Reconsidering, perhaps, the truth that is your life. And miles away, the light is still on as I sit here waiting up for you. There is a razor's edge between telling the truth and being kind.
God help me to walk the razor’s edge. On the night when the Great Hurricane blew,
I came down to the bay to find you wailing inconsolably, And knowing that there was nothing I could do but love you, I grabbed the rope and held you fast As the storm pushed you further out to sea. It pushed and pushed And I tried with all my might. But the storm was pushing you out of sight. And the wind blew, and the lightning flashed, And the rain beat down upon me relentlessly. But still, I held fast the chord upon the end of which was you Even though God only knew if you were there. And the rope tore at my hands. And the darkness of the night crept in as if To promise I had lost you in the night. But still I held you fast. I held long after the storm had passed. And the people walked along the bay and laughed As if to mock the man who stood there. And the years rolled on Until finally they stopped noticing. And the summer sun baked down upon me And dried me out and cracked my skin until I was no more than a dead statue to most. And they wondered at the unplaqued monument. Some brought roses, and the city Erected a little rod iron fence. And the years rolled on Till now, finally, I see you coming back, A little dot upon the horizon. And I wonder if you'll recognize me. Or will you see the stone, the figurine, The thing that you were told I am. But I promise there is life beneath the crusty shell. Just come and breathe upon me, And the scent of your essence Will bring me back to life. For it's you that I've been waiting for all along. I used to insist upon only glory stories for my life,
But that was when I claimed it for myself. I now realize that there are no unimportant tales In God’s great saga. Our successes and our failures Each serve up invaluable lessons For those who watch from veiled portals Waiting their turn to play a part. My mistakes are precious to me now.
Thank God they were allowed. There are ways in which I still have not been tempted.
But I do not worry about that. He has seen me through My yesterdays. And I trust him with tomorrow. |
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