Eggs and Scorpions

I am full of things I cannot say. I am traumatized at the empty tomb.

Now I can answer the singer of the spiritual:
Yes, I was there when they crucified my Lord.
I took his hand.
I nailed it to the board.
I even lay with him inside the tomb.
A cooling, fooling, lifeless, wifeless groom.
But then somebody rolled the stone away.
I panicked at the sight -- alone at day!

The women at the tomb are either the greatest messengers the world has ever seen, or the world's most notorious lunatics.
What? Must it be one or the other?

How terrifying it is to worship a God who is there by being not-there.

This year for Easter -- no eggs for me. I have asked for scorpions, and I shall have them.

God, be silent. Do not speak. You are so cold. Your voice would be like a rush of ice water down the neck, freezing the spine. God, be still. Do not touch me. It would mean paralysis. God, leave me alone. Do not love me. Why do you love me? It will be my annihilation.

It is not the cross that gets me. It is the empty tomb. Not the cross, but resurrection. I do not see a risen Christ in the empty tomb. I see a shadow. God is in the shadow, and God is the shadow. Christ is in the abyss. Mark, that minimalist and psychologist, saw it best.

It is no mere stone that covers the tomb of Jesus. It is a heart. A heart of stone? No, this is a body of stone. And God is the sun, burning cracks into this fine firm heaviness. God will not send the fire. The fire dwells within the petrified body. God will turn this rock into fire and leave nothing but fine glassy sand to be carried ruthlessly into the ecstatic air. Oh, that Pentecost might come very soon and consume every poor charcoal soul!

Mary of Magdala, forgive me. I have scoffed at you and all your daughters. You rouse within me intensely conflicted emotions: awe and ingratitude; desire and revulsion; respect and jealousy. Please accept my confession and grant me pardon.

I believe God is alive, fearfully alive. The presence/absence of the empty tomb makes me question how alive I am -- that is, whether I am truly alive in God. The anxiety lies in doubts about my own presence. Where Jesus has gone, do I dare to follow? Not only to the cross, but also beyond crucifixion?

There is something terrifying about a God who is capable of bringing new life out of death. That kind of God is more than love.

I am full of things I cannot say. I am traumatized at the empty tomb.

Grand Canyon

The man and woman
Smiling at the Grand Canyon
Ring the empty gulf

From the bright plateau
A dread animal's echo
Barking for water

Plummets the canyon
A metallic wave scrapes rock
Two billion years thick

The couple covers
With geologies of uplift
The ancient gorge

The animal sees
The cascading passion
Of breath and running rain

In the dry abyss
Where earth forever swallows
Everybody thirsts.

Behind the Light

All that we blessed has now been broken
We shared the love that shares the pain
It was a picture-perfect world that floated off
Our fingers into air

Here I stand and do no other
All my life I have remained
But now I see you run, embrace the prodigal
And consecrate despair

Mother, O Father,
Why don't you see me grieve
O Mother, Father,
I won't come back if I leave

I've waited for nothing
I waited, but one is one
I'm running behind the light.

What I wrote, has been written
By many hands across the page
Maybe you can burn the book and wash the wall
You can't unmake the word

Mother, O Father,
God was not God for me
O Mother, Father,
God is still haunting me

I've waited for nothing
I waited, but one is one
I'm running behind the light.

Fool in the Rain

Ten billion crystals of ice in the sky
The lowly and lucky, they fled to get dry
Some of the sainted turned their face to the storm
To trample the dragon and spit on the worm
They conquered the city with spirit and art
Then one deserted -- the peace fell apart
The cancerous cell, the weakest link in the chain
Betrayed he was nothing but a fool in the rain.

A man at roadside said "I'm gonna die"
The fool looked at him and said "You're telling a lie"
Repeating his sentence the man spoke his breadth
An eclipse in his eye, a sting in his breath
He shuffled his feet, he glared two more times
The poor have a right to judge the rich for their crimes
Wade in the water, but don't be so vain
To trouble the water like a fool in the rain.

The money is running out, no time on his hands
Living on credit, no supplies, no demands
He's breaking away from the rats in the race
The living is easy when you're standing in place
It seems to be simple, it seems to be true
But sooner and sooner the debts will come due
When he comes a-beggin' for his soul to regain
Don't spend all your pity on a fool in the rain.

Beatrices teased him at the top of the hill
He married Lucinda, adultered with Lil
So many women in the eye of his mind
And so many more that his heart left behind
They wish him no ill, in fact they wish him all right
None of them knew him, but someone else might
They're waiting for daylight to break on his pain
You can't see the tears of a fool in the rain.

He's telling you something as true as he knows
We all take an error as far as it goes
Staring at dead ends, most will turn on their track
When he is ended, he brings the end back
All his adventures are sideshows for God
Spoiling the children and sparing the rod
Now take it on faith -- you've heard the refrain --
Don't get in the way of a fool in the rain.

Unknown Friends

Tonight
There is no one, no one
Within a hundred thousand miles
Or a hundred years of here
That I want to be with
But you

And I
Fear the cold empty rain
Flying on the black winds, pressing
Me forward away from a home
Less than I fear a word
A name

A face
With a cry and lightning
Tumbling into my bosom
To dig the pit of my desire
And bid me to fill it
Alone

With all
The dirty unknown friends
Of God. Oh, invisible Love!
Why, when I beg one friend for me,
Would you send myriads
Like these?

Riddles and Blessings

"The beauty that will save the world is the love that shares the pain." That is the kind of wisdom I don't dare speak. That is the kind of wisdom most people never have the authority to speak. Those who do, they do not need to utter such words. They speak the wisdom with their lives. They die young, or alone, and most likely forgotten. But they die in God.

When God comes to your assistance, it is not only your prayers that have been answered, but also countless other prayers prior to, concurrent with, and beyond your moment of deliverance. Think about how the answers to your prayers are delivered. Then remember this: your greatest and most ordinary calling is to be someone else's answered prayers.

Christians are not gravediggers. They are not mountaineers, either. Primarily, they are farmers.

Your pain is not a delusion, but your illusions magnify it.

Talking is not a cure, but conversation is a healer.

Say what you mean. Let even your riddles be straightforward.

Let us be clear that blessings are not always clear. Your happiness is not proof of blessing. Vindications do not guarantee blessing, either. Sometimes all you have is a weary feeling in the calm of night.

Do not resist when fatigue draws you down. When boredom bears down, fight like the devil.

You are poor -- of this, at least, you are certain. Rejoice in this blessing.

Your uncertainties are also blessed. You are rich.

After Contrition

Were these last words,
Upon the final wrest of light from night,
I pray they treated not of the temptation;
Fumbled not, thickly, through the faults;
Nor settled guiltily, as a paraffinic film, onto faithful ears.
Eyes sense too poor to see the stain
And lips profane much more the alleged sight.
Now, silently, please send me into the earth
God gave to his own, and put your thoughts aside
With love and sense beneath the good black light.

August 9, 2000