Slow Tumbling

A Triad of Tankas An approaching stormThe sky fills with roiling cloudsWe wait for the rainInside I long for releaseMy body locked up withinThere is a slight windI can see the leaves movingThey can sense the changeI lift the glass to my lipsI drink and dream of cold rainRadar shows nothing But my app says rain will formI look up with hopeMy inner clouds will unwindOpen like an unclenched fist

I awake from an afternoon nap, still groggy, realizing that I was dreaming but no longer able to remember what the dream was about. Shadows of conversations and people linger in my mind but stay just out of reach. There is a sense of vertigo as if something is off kilter, that I am somehow missing something important. The nap settled my stomach, but now it is my mind that experiences the…

You were not put on this earth for yourself, contrary to the voices that urge you to accumulate, the choices to assimilate, to ingratiate, to gravitate to your reflection in store windows. The self-help industry (so called Christian publishers included, for you sheep who’ve been deluded) is simply another narcissistic ploy, oh joy, a top-down triangle Ponzi scheme (you catch my theme?) that…

This feels less like a list of resolutions than a marquee-map of my identity and desire: a radiant, hand-made 2027 filled not so much with tasks to accomplish as with the people, callings, loves, and practices that make my life feel alive. The bright red border and repeated golden lights give it the appearance of a theater sign, a carnival ride, or an illuminated road. It seems to announce the…

A Tale of Love Beyond the Tomb I went each evening to the tomb because the dead had no one else.It stood beyond the last lamps of the village, where the road narrowed into a path and the path, in time, surrendered itself to nettles, thorns, and the pale roots of ancient trees. There the hill rose like the back of some buried beast, and in its side, half-swallowed by ivy and weather, was the…

I returnedexpecting only stone.The same arch.The same hollow.The same bouquetbrowned at the edgeslike a prayerleft too longin the weather.I had learnedthe discipline of kneeling.I had learnedhow to make peacewith the wrong place.There is a strange holinessin returningto what cannot answer.There is a strange faithin speakingto silenceuntil silence becomesless empty.But this morning,at the foot of…

I thought the stone was final.I thought the name carved therewas the last wordthe earth would allow.I thought absencehad a kind of authority,as if an empty placecould speak with the voice of Godand say,No farther.But last night,beneath the monument,something moved.Not the dead.Not the lost.Not the boy exactly,nor the song,nor the face before sorrowtaught it its new expression.Something thinner…

There are places in mewhere I go to mournwhat is not there.An empty stone,a name without a body,a date without a doorway.The precious thing is buried elsewhere—in a house that no longer stands,in a field grown over strange weeds,in a voice I cannot quite recover,in the face of someonebefore disappointment taught themhow to look away.I bring flowersto the wrong place.Still, I come.Because memory…

On Art, Obscurity, and Faithful Release I am trying to understand the pressure within me. I do not think the problem is that I want to complete things. Completion is not wrong. It is good to finish. It is good to give form to what has been stirring within me. It is good to bring a story, a song, a piece of art, a sermon, a reflection, or a book to the point into the world outside of me. I also…

On the news yesterday morning there was a report of a man who had barricaded himself inside a store. The anchors spoke in measured voices. The camera hovered at a safe distance. Police cars flashed their blue and red prayers against the glass. Somewhere behind the locked doors, behind shelves and counters and the ordinary things people buy without thinking, there was a man afraid enough to turn…

Inhabiting the Word until the Word inhabits us Simple Contemplation is a way of reading Scripture not only with the mind, but with the whole person. It is especially suited to the Gospel stories of Jesus. Rather than standing outside the text as a distant observer, the reader prayerfully enters the scene, beholds Christ, listens, feels, notices, and allows the living Word to become present…

Salamander sees. The third letter more than one ocean many species, observation. People split three ways uneven slabs to slivers, sweet, sweat, swarm. Top down trickle tongue out up to the dribbling sky, thirsty. The beautiful ones suck the clouds dry clean wash twice, three times a day. Skin glow brillo golden gold silver green coin rain acid hot burn flesh, out tongue in quickly. Below earth…

A Tanka Sequence IIn the still morningyou open the window widebeside the table.A cool breeze stirs the orchid,cooling my cup of coffee.IIAcross from your light,I open the other pane.The air grows stronger.Leaves whisper into the roomlike all the things left unsaid.IIIBelow the hillside,a woodpecker drums the trees,red crest among leaves.A car passes on the road,then fades into the morning.IVThe…

Author’s Note: I have written haiku for many years. Heiwa Haiku has often been a spiritual practice for me. Recently I discovered tanka, another form of Japanese poetry, which, put simply, is haiku plus two additional lines. Haiku is generally written as three lines of 5-7-5 syllables respectively. Tanka uses the same format at the beginning and then adds two additional line of 7 syllables each.…

The church may be understood as God’s experiment in the world, not in the sense that God is uncertain about the outcome, but in the sense that the church is a living demonstration of what human community can become under the reign of God. It is not a controlled experiment carried out under ideal conditions. The church is formed from real people, with differences, wounds, gifts, failures,…

From Australia’s National Sorry Day Toward an International Day of Truth, Repentance, and Repair A PeaceGrooves Reflection There are words so overused that they risk becoming weightless. Sorry is one of them. We say it when we bump into someone in a hallway, when we answer an email too late, when we make an insignificant mistake. Yet there are times when sorry is not small at all. There are…