Stories of People Past and Present

In the early morning hours there are several books here on my desk.  There's the Bible, Conversations with God, the Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Confessions of a Guilty Bystander, The Death of Expertise, Spare the Kids, Reconciliation Reconsidered, and many others including Bioethics, Medical Family Therapy, and God of the Oppressed. It is a wide ranging collection of printed material.

The one that stands out today is Pete Daniel's Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights. I'll review this book later. Here's one for now.  It is an academic and historical perspective against which the stories I have heard can be compared.

With those books as prompts, these words came to mind:

                                   Stories of People Past and Present

Tuesday is here.
Is it just another day?
What happened to Monday?
I thought it was here to stay.

Wednesday will come tomorrow

That is surely for real.
What will be done that day
Or is it for someone to steal?

There are many we have met,

Their stories fill our souls.
We must tell the truth
Much is still left untold.

She is a hero,

She has survived some painful ordeals.
She tells us the truth about life
Even though it’s been more than unreal.

He is a legend

Over there in the southeast
I learned more than I can tell you
For him life was a big old beast.

His single wide sits way out there

On a lonely lane of sandy loam.
He still mourns for his wife who died
He’s alone in his place called home.

All that they wanted

Was to raise that corn and wheat
When the USDA came a knockin’
They knew they’d be hard to beat.

It takes all manner of folk

To fight this ugly war
Righteousness stands on the hills
Looking on from a far.

“Pay day some day”

I heard that old farmer say.
While the old keep getting older
They still pray for a brand new day.

Not many of them prevailed

In the courts across the land.
The thieves made off into the night
Leaving the farmers with an empty hand.

They put their faith in God

Their belief in America was right
The law may be color blind,
Their land was stole in the darkness of the night.

They appeared very resolved,

Strong and determined they stood
Until the auctioneer’s gavel sounded
They’d lost their land for good.

There is no doubt to me

That this system is still unfair,
Except for those who look like me
We get more than our rightful share.

We long for that day down the road

When the system turns around,
He’ll be judged by his character
And not because he’s brown.

 

Living in the Post-Tomb Days

These words were written on Monday morning following Resurrection morning.  Just a free flowing set of ideas that attempted to follow the Biblical narrative into this space and place called life in April, 2017.  The big question for me is how we can make a difference in this world as we live in the post-tomb days.  Surely our efforts are empowered as we live in this time and place.

Monday is here, the first Monday after the resurrection
The women were there first
And the men came
And then He appeared to them all.

The two on the road to Emmaus an amazing story they told

All hunkered down in fear lest they have harm come to them
And then Jesus came
And stood in their midst.

The one doubted at least out loud with words

The others shrunk back in fear
Their doubts as big as day
And Jesus showed them his scars.

Scars in sight and eating food same as they

What to do now that it was the light of day.
The charge they felt to be in his presence
What to do next they could not say.

The scene by the lake all of them out fishing

The long night had produced nothing but wishing
On the shore, coals ablaze fish and fish awaited
Through the water like a knife and the count up to 153 their hunger abated.

Do you love me with sacrifice

You know I love you brotherly
Do you love with sacrifice
You know I love you brotherly
Do you love me brotherly
You know I love you brotherly.

Forgiven and all is forgotten

Changed and charged living in the post-tomb days
What of it what of them what of us what of the world
What of forgiveness what of justice.

Yes, living in the post-tomb days.

No post-tomb blues here.
Living in the post-tomb joys.
Ready to trouble the waters of the world.

Ready to change Jim Crow hearts

Ready to make a brand new start
Ready to raise the roof and raise the hands
Ready to tell the story all across the land
Ready to get back my soul from sadness and grief
Ready to own my place oh what sweet relief.

He is risen and the day is young
Righteousness calls me
Till my time has come.
Gonna make some racket
Gonna sing some songs
Gonna love my Jesus
Till my singin’s done.

 Hallelujah

The tomb didn’t hold Him
Glory
The path seems clear
Hallelujah
The world is sad
Glory
Good news will make us glad.

I Am Guilty

I have borrowed a phrase from Thomas Merton's book and shaped it into these words. The context of this poem is that of the days between Jesus' entry into the city and the resurrection. I wonder how many were bystanders during that fateful week? I also wonder how we are impacted when we stand on the sidelines while horrific things are happening in front of us whether those are disenfranchised people here in our country, children in another country, or back in the days of Jim Crow South. There could be many applications.

I am a guilty bystander
            Inching along on the fringes
            Hoping not to be seen or
            Pulled into the fray.

I am a guilty bystander

            As he rides up the narrow street
            On top of a donkey as we yell and
            Holler as if a king has come to town

I am a guilty bystander

            As he teaches in the Temple area
            People listening and arguing
            As he comes and goes into the night.

 I am a guilty bystander

            Pain I do not want to feel
            And at a distance I can
            Intellectualize and depersonalize.

I am a guilty bystander

            Feeling the crowd nudge against me
            Sensing our detachment and voyeurism
            While someone is suffering.

I am a guilty bystander

            My hands are clean of fault
            No stain upon my detached heart
            Watching the spectacle from afar.

I am a guilty bystander

            And watching I will stay
            While blood flows down and
            Pools on the hillside or into the street.

Yes, I am a guilty bystander
            On the roads of Jerusalem
            In the woods during that lynching
            While those children died.

I am a guilty bystander
            And someday sooner or later
            I’ll see the error of my way
            And the truth will crash in on me.

And then what?

 

Frail Body and A Little Hope

Got one body
            That I live inside
            And it’s still growing older
            But is feeling fine.

I feel my lungs

            Way down to my toes
            Wheeze when I breathe
            And I go real slow.

I feel my lungs

            Doing their thing
            Gotta breathe some more
            Though I cannot sing.

I feel my legs

            They are getting old
            One day I’ll walk
            Those streets of gold.

I look at my head

            Hair’s getting thin
            My big old ears
            Growin’ again and again.

I look at my face

            Those wrinkles here to stay
            Must have been laughing
            At the start of day.

I look at my mind

            Though it can’t be seen
            Some things are real important
            If you know what I mean.

This body ain’t made

            To last real long
            It’ll only last
            Till that very last song.

Then a new body I’ll have

            To replace this one
            What’ll it look like
            When it’s said and done.

Gonna keep on walkin’

            I’m not finished yet
            Gonna love family and friends
            Till the evening sun sets.

Gonna work for justice

            Just as long as I’m able
            Write, speak, and teach
            Tryin’ to level the table.

Then home we’ll go

            To the one we’ve never seen
            Where people’ll be sweet
            And they won’t be mean.

Amen!

Glory! Glory! 
Hallelujah!
Amen!

 

Woe Unto Us: A Lament

Children magical and joyful
Reflections of their parents’ deepest desires
Their own little images reflecting
The glory of the maker of heaven and earth.

Across the globe, children created in the images of their parents

And the Lord of heaven and earth
Objects of war and victims of greed and
Broken humanity and its terror toward one another.

Magic in the garden one day and

Images of gasps for breath the next.
Whose children are they and to whom do they belong
If not to their parents and their country and the world
Then to whom?

In this world you’ll have trouble but

Be encouraged for I have overcome the world
Are the words of the risen Lord.
The world is troubled and we are troubled
And our troubles boil over and trouble others who are troubled.

So we drop another bomb on the ones responsible

But they knew it was coming.
The world is all inflamed even more so than before.
Who is to blame and who is to be the defender of the
Fatherless and the children and the widows.

Children. Dead children. Pictures horrify and offend.

Casualties of war. Leaders poisoning their own.
Children left on the shores of our country unable
To cross over into peace and opportunity.
Who cares for those kids and who will care for the deceased and who
Will care for their parents.

And when will wars end and who will end them

And how many soldiers will have to die and how
Many families will suffer losses unspeakable.
 
When will bombs create peace.
When will explosions bring about harmony.
When will war stop war.
When will death stop death.

The irony is unspeakable.

The contradictions have no words.
The joys for those parents and grandparents,
And the unspeakable grief for those.

Where is the justice and righteousness its kin?

Where is anguish of those children and our own?
Those children matter so let’s start a war.
These children matter, and who will fight for them?

I am a father. I am a grandfather.

I have a family. My sons have families.
Someday my sons’ children will have families.
What of them. Do their lives matter.
Whose lives matter and whose lives don’t.
Who gets to decide.

Who will send the next bomb?

Who will unleash the next gas bomb.
Whose children and grandchildren will suffocate.
Whose children and grandchildren will thrive.
Who gets to decide?

Woe unto us who care not for the children.