Help me find a place
where no one knows my name.
But they have a fine selection of delectable distractions
that will give me the warmth of faith,
but not its sting.
And when they see the cracks
in the artificial edifice
of perfection I’ve constructed…
I can easily re-locate.
To another place
where the chinks in my armor
don’t make me vulnerable to another.
But the Other can’t pierce either
when I’ve hurried and busied and plotted
What my life is to be
rather than embrace what it is
and what he has written.
Let me find a place
where the pews are newly polished
and the smiles freshly varnished
So that I can blame the hypocrisy on another
rather than reckon with my masquerade
of buttoned up theology
and hushed harboring of loves unknown.
Give me a place
where I can write a check
and check out when the Cross calls me out
where my following is measured
and not abandoned
nets of certainty
While fish leap in a tattered boat
because reckless abandon is the call…
Not a refined remonstrance of recollection
of past foibles and fakery.
Sell me a place
that offers all the amenities of devotion
according to my timetable…
leaving my understanding superficial
and my experience wanting…
For the deep place my soul longs for
is found in the Displacement
In the Cut
and in the Harboring
In the Embarrassment
and in the Nakedness
In the Shame
and in the Discovery
So that a warm, beating heart can be given
as the stitches mend from the cold, hard
removal of self and similitude
of the riches I traded my soul for.
But sell me that space
I can show up and be counted
and the people feel familiar because
they’re all peculiarly similar.
But I am not a hater!
because I claim a love that never waivers
…until you want to sit at my table.
Oh. I love the poor and sinner
but I don’t know their names.
I write a check to the shelter
but I’ve never clothed their backs.
Yeah. I dabble in things my eyes
ought to be plucked out for
But that was just hyperbole
to make a point
that’s now dulled by my hedging.
Was it hyperbole to father Abraham
to leave the country he loved to an unknown land?
Or to Moses to merely speak to the rock
not to see the Land of Promise?
Or to Gideon to march against thousands
with a hundred lapping losers?
Or to David to wait for the Lord
while Saul breathed out arrows?
Or to John to be beheaded?
Or to Levi to leave his booth?
Or to the Sons to leave their nets?
Or to Judas to leave his moneybags?
Or to Paul to leave his religion?
Or to the Couple to not hold back
their own land profit?
Or to the Martyrs who died not denying
their sojourn land?
I’ve got all my parts
primmed and preened.
But my soul is scattered
disintegrated
cut off from the Vine
that’s relegated to an orchard…
That I’ll never visit.