Friday, October 4, 2019

Between the liens



I wear my emotions on my sleeves
I'm as transparent as it gets
What you see is what you get
Correct me if i'm wrong

Whence did I receive rationalizations galore of righteous indignation?
I got my foolish zeal from you
There I inherited my infatuation for justice

And my great pride?
My boldness in the face of evil?

My extraordinary self-confidence?

All from your example
My phobias come from her 
My pushiness from her
All empathy from her 
My pity from her
My cunning—all hers

Nobody knows as much as you though
She was severely mentally ill
You were completely and stubbornly sane
Her illness would manifest a complete manipulative two-faced bitch at calculated times
You were just a self-aggrandized asshole caring more about the prized stallion more than tony the pony

She received treatments for a time, and then adamantly refused because she was fucking crazy
You never received correction or ever accepted therapy though
Your excuse? 
You didn’t want to lose your kids

Your excuse?
There were no counselors Christian enough for you
Your excuse? 

Secular psychologists couldn’t or wouldn’t empathize with you
Her excuse? 

Does she even need one? 

She was sick
Her natural personality was triune
The frenzied wrath of a father, the fleeting wind-likeness of spirit, and passibility of the son all wound together in one flesh

She was fucked up
She was literally insane most of my life

But you? 

You’re a prized stallion
You’re a former athlete 
You’re a soldier and patriot
You’re sovereign and national
You’re a prophet, priest, and king
You’re a martyr, shepherd, preacher
You’re now a doctor, too

A man after God’s own heart
Look at what you built
Look at what you defended 
Behold what you have sustained 
Your career of presuppositionalist herem had much success
Like the late great Mr. Pink

Sipping communion at home until his dying day because no one was as prized as he was
No one sustained what he had
Not one soul on earth fought tyranny and built walls of estrangement as high as him
Praise Obama 
Remember that letter of her excommunication that my brother and I wrote? 

Me neither
I remember you writing the whole thing and telling us to lie for you to the session 
Remember how good at chemistry, and math, and history I was? 
Me neither

I didn’t have to be
You either left the answer key lying around or you were too busy building God's kingdom to follow through with love and attention
You left all that for an insane woman to take care of—absolutely brilliant

Why did I become an addict at age fifteen? 
She bought me cartons of cigarettes

Bribing me to steal from you

You modeled resentment and bitterness
You sculpted an image of war propheteering
You recited the grace of God's Law
You delivered the real goods nobody else would
You denounced all cowards for their pablum

Whose habits do you think contributed most?
Perhaps that's a false dichotomy?
The great irony of puritans is that they can’t r/e/a/d
The great tragedy: they insist they can

Because they know they’re clever
And they truly are
They wave their God-in-paperback around in ways that would still make John Knox proud

Upon the first blast of the trumpet
Against the monstrous regiment of women

She received the capital punishment you thought she deserved

To which is added
The contents of the second blast

You became sovereign and she became homeless

Death is right here—Be sober o soul, and read between the liens










Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Memory Eternal (my wings part two)



All day I played Wings Part Two on repeat
I didn’t want to hear anything else
Just tears poured out whenever I imagined
You were the light and the way they only read about
I didn’t start the day expecting it to become this way 
I left the post office and opened your purse
I hadn’t seen your face since I was nineteen
And now all I could see was your smile
I wish I had seen it in person since then
I remember it, but from too long ago
I wish I had just one more glance
Or better yet, one hug and kiss
And one for Alison, my angel, too
And one for Jadon, Eden, and Gaius
Or better yet, to spend a whole day with all of us together
To welcome you into my own home
To share a meal or two together
To hear your voice resound
To gaze at your smile next to me
To even cry together
I’m sure there would have been lots of tears
I would have been there holding you in my arms 
But I wasn’t ever given that chance
A son can dream, can’t he? 
I miss you so much
And yet I don’t even know the you in the driver’s license 
Other than what my teenage self last recollected
I’m so happy to have received your little notebook though
I immediately recalled your distinctive cursive handwriting 
It didn’t change a bit over the last two decades
Maybe my strong opinions about cursive need to change
And your faith in the Lord didn’t change either
I can imagine a certain someone still asking, “What faith?”
Forget about him
His faith only has a dozen followers
But yours has the hosts of heaven 
“Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord
To what end is it for you?
The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light
Read verses twenty one and twenty two
God himself is saying these verses!”
I didn’t want to read anything else
Just tears poured out whenever I considered
You were the light and the way they only read about
I couldn’t leave the post office 
I stayed parked far beyond my fifteen minute sign limit
Just weeping and praying
More weeping than praying though
Eventually I went to work and didn’t accomplish much
Because I was thinking about your smile and your cursive notes
What an incredible sight to behold
Such a sincere and childlike faith
Not even the most severe tempests of life could loosen your grip
“Hate the evil, and love the good
And establish judgment in the gate
It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph
The prudent shall keep silence in that time
For it is an evil time”
You held on to the very end through an evil time
Which began when he divorced you for another
I wasn’t in a good place to know any better at that time
So please forgive me
And recovery without you was much needed
But now that nearly two decades have passed
All I could recall from him was the mantra
You were to blame, not him
You ruined everything
He needed a secretary
You were demon possessed 
You were the problem
He needed a virtuous wife and never had one
You abandoned him
You were not merely ill
Because illness wasn’t a just enough ground for him
Yet from what the Sheriff mentioned over the phone
According to others in Aberdeen, you were still known to be mentally ill
And in ways just like I remember you being
But that simple, sincere smile of yours still catches me off guard
And your handwritten notes still overwhelm me 
You remained filled with the faith of a child all these years
“Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live
And so the Lord the God of hosts shall be with you”
Yet I had no way of knowing this sincere faith of yours all these years
Because you were nowhere to be found
You were remembered as the self proclaimed victim and martyr, abandoned and unloved
And no one taught us how to consider some validity to that
Tears just pour out because I now realize
You were the light and the way they only read about





















Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Anamnesis (my wings part one)




I remember my first thought being about a can of soup
Everything changed with my birth
Or was it a shot?
 The docs were oblivious and Merck never made a peep

I remember the sandwich bags
The drenched vivas
Flies in window sills
Roadkill and raindrops spreading disease

I remember a holy man driving our Sunday route ahead of us
Just to remove diabolical obstacles 
So we could make it on time
And spare us all your bitching and carwashing 

I remember covering my face from fumes 
The greasy plaid couch pillows
The lysol spraying
The chlorine cleansing

I remember the eyes closed
The wiping of faucets
The crossing a brass fluted transition
The holes you burned in carpets to save the kosmos

I remember the video games and chips and soda
The weight gain
The weight loss
The bitching about a brother stolen

I remember the money borrowed from dad's wallet
Traded for cartons of newports and camels
So you could look him in the eye
Saying truthfully it wasn't you

I remember the sleeping all day
The shopping
The hoarding
The careless starch flamethrower that looked "nice"

I remember which one were you that day
You'd leave randomly
You'd return randomly
You'd smirk and bitch and provoke

I remember it takes 45 minutes to microwave a frozen lasagna
You never prepared meals for us
Dad pressure cooked chicken and boiled brussel sprouts
Peace and quiet was at Boston Chicken

I remember you never really cleaned
You never educated
You never really cared
Until it was always too late

I remember the blinds closed in every room
During the missionary trip to South Africa
The pensive panic with little kids
Bitching back at you to let us pay our water bill

Which one of you cared afterward?
For years I wished one of you cared about me
I searched but never found her
She never tried to reach me either

It took decades to wish that one would find me
Had I been found within the last few years
We would have taken care of her
I wanted her to know them anyway

But it's not all bad news I'm remembering
I also remember that God became what we are
So that we could become what He is
Including every one of you, who was no guardian angel

Since God is the one who vindicates
Who is the one who condemns you now
If He who is risen knew you and loved you most
Sandwich bags and all











Thursday, September 5, 2019

For Cyril Methodius





O God of all spirits and of all flesh, Who have destroyed death, overcome the Devil, and given life to the world, grant, O Lord, to the soul of Your servant, Cyril Methodius, who has departed from this life, that he may rest in a place of light, in a place of happiness, in a place of peace, where there is no pain, no grief, no sighing. And since You are a gracious God and the Lover of Mankind, forgive him every sin he has committed by thought, word, or deed, for there is not a man who lives and does not sin: You alone are without sin, Your justice is everlasting, and Your word is true. You are the Resurrection and the Life and the Repose of Your departed servant, Cyril, O Christ our God, and we render glory to You, together with Your Eternal Father, and Your All-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

Amen.


May his memory be eternal. 








Loss of Face







O God, turn us around
And show your face
And we will be saved
Not from death
But from its sting
This madness of our own making
We see all around us
Crucifying them for teaching
Truths are reliabilities over time
Chasing false hopes
Of corpses rising from graves
And bones receiving flesh again
Of etherealities unto ages of ages
At the so-called end of time 
Of unspeakables and unfathomables 
Venting up and beyond distant galaxies
Of intellections and pneumaticities 
Merely interceding for us
Before the anointed appearance 
Certainly no skies had joined land yet
The first had to flee from his face
After the ascension
The aeons rushed 
Toward Armageddon
Toward Vindication 
The goal was festal sabbath 
No one was raised out of the dead ones
While Hades and Thanatos still held keys
To the gate of a bottomless pit 
And the lake was still a place yet to come
For those who refused to look upon your face
Over time we can rely upon the true hope of our past
That the Mount has been exalted above the plain
Death and Hell were tossed into perdition 
Their righteous dead already raised
This terra firma etherealized
The saints dwell amongst us
Turning us around 
Showing us your face
Saving us, O God




















Friday, August 16, 2019

Mother of Glory





Today the holy living ark of the living God, 
the one who carried her own Maker within herself, 
comes to her rest in the temple of the Lord not made by hands. 
David, her intercessor and God's, leaps for joy
the angles join in the dance
the archangels applaud
the virtues give praise
the principalities rejoice with them
the powers exult
the dominations delight
the thrones make festival
the cherubim sing their hymn
and the seraphim glorify God. 
They glorify Him in no negligible way, when they give glory to the mother of Glory. 

Today the sacred dove, 
the pure and innocent soul who was also purified by the Holy Spirit, 
has flown from the ark 
(I mean from that body which received God and is the source of our life)
and she has found a place of rest for her feet, 
flying up to the intelligible world 
and pitching her tent in the spotless land of our heritage on high. 

Today the Eden of the new Adam welcomes the spiritual paradise 
where our condemnation has been cancelled, 
where the tree of life is planted, 
where our nakedness is clothed again. 
For we are no longer naked and exposed, 
lacking the radiance of the divine image 
and stripped of the abundant favor of the Spirit.
We need no longer tell the story of that tragic, ancient nakedness, saying, 
"I have taken off my tunic, and how shall I put it on again?"1
For in this paradise the serpent has no means of entry, 
that serpent whose false promise of divinization led us to a covetousness 
that made us the equal only of irrational beasts. 
The only Son of God, 
who is God and of the same substance as the Father, 
formed himself into a human being from this virgin, 
from this pure soil.
And so I, who am human, am made divine. 
I, who am mortal, have now become immortal, 
and have stripped off my tunic of skin. 
For I have taken off corruption, 
and put on the robe of divinity. 

Today the immaculate Virgin, 
who never involved herself in earthly passions 
but was nourished on heavenly thoughts, 
did not return to earth. 
Being truly a living heaven, 
she now dwells in the tents of heaven. 
For who could err in calling her heaven, 
unless one were to say, and say rightly, 
that she has been lifted even above heaven in her incomparable privileges? 
For the maker and preserver of heaven 
and of everything in and beyond this universe, 
the craftsman of all that has been made, 
visible and invisible, 
He who has no place, 
because He is the place of all other beings 
(if, indeed, place is defined as what contains the things within it) 
He has created a child in her, 
of His own power and without human seed, 
and has revealed her as the spacious treasure-house of that Divinity that fills all things, 
alone and uncircumscribed. 
He has gathered Himself up completely in her, 
without suffering diminution, 
yet He remains wholly beyond her, 
abiding in Himself as His incomprehensible home. 

***

Let the heavens rejoice now, 
and the angels applaud! 
Let the earth be glad now, 
and all men and women leap for joy! 

Let the air ring out now with happy song, 
and let the black night lay aside its gloomy, unbecoming cloak of darkness, 
to imitate the bright radiance of day in sparkles of flame!

For the living city of the Lord God of hosts is lifted up, 
and kings bring a priceless gift from the temple of the Lord, 
the wonder of Zion, 
to the Jerusalem on high 
who is free and is their mother: 
those who were appointed by Christ as rulers of all the earth, the Apostles, 
escort to heaven the ever-virgin mother of God!2









1. Canticles 5:3
2. An excerpt from a homily by St John of Damascus, on the Dormition of Mary


Monday, August 5, 2019

Thabor and Hermon Rejoice at Your Name





Today things that cannot be heard are heard by human ears; for the visible human being is attested to be Son of God: unique, beloved, of the same substance. 
The witness cannot deceive, the proclamation is true; for the very Father who got him utters the proclamation himself. 
Let David stand as witness, and strike the lyre of the Spirit that speaks God's words. 
Let him sing the message now, more clearly and precisely, which the foresaw of old, as from a great distance, with purified eyes: the coming of the Word of God to us in flesh, as something yet to be, when he said, "Thabor and Hermon will shout for joy in your name."1
For this is the name above every name,2 over which Thabor and Hermon rejoice! 
This is my Son, the Beloved!3  
This is cause of rejoicing for all creation, this is a prize for humanity, a boast that will never be taken away! 
For the one to whom this witness is borne is a human being, even if he is not merely this! 
O joy, bestowed on us beyond all imagining! 
O blessedness here, beyond hope! 
O gifts of God, overcoming our desires! 
O graces, not given simply in response to modest demands! 
O generous giver, who have made a supernatural magnificence your own! 
O grace, befitting not so much the receiver as the giver! 
O mysterious covenants! 
O you who grant power and take on weakness! 
O you who reveal the human being as eternal, in that the eternal one begins to exist bodily as a creature! 
For if the human person is divinized, in that God is humanized, and the one God himself is revealed as also human, then the same individual, being human, is eternal in divinity, yet still, being God, begins to live in his humanity. 

-- St John of Damascus, Excerpt from a homily in celebration of the Transfiguration of the Lord






1.  Psalm 88:13
2.  Philippians 2:9
3.  Matthew 17:5