You Order the Days, and We Are Willfully Blind

You order the days, the seasons,

You provide all of the reasons

For living beneath this sun

Toward you we all do run

(Sometimes)

And long to be with you

While upon the ground the dew

Still glistens and shines in the morning light

While all the world and all in it seem right.

(Where we live)

We all know, O Heavenly Father,

That some of your children are cruel and do not bother

To make things right and good and warm 

Especially for those who have received much harm.

(We are willfully blind)

Our sisters and brothers are still oppressed

By the oppressors still obsessed

With the best seats of honor and fame

Giving pretend glory to your name

(Our biases intact)

While the poor and the broken

Are seen by the world as a mere token

Of those that you long ago said

Would be with us always, even when we lay our heads

(Out in the margins they)

Upon the clean sheets and pillow cases

Of those of us who are higher than other races

Claiming that which we did not earn

Clutching that for which people yearn

(We do sleep well)

To be loved, honored, and respected

To feel stomachs full and no one neglected

While we trod upon this earthly sod

Until we face our eternal God.

(Forgive us if You please)

A Poem for the Virus and Us

The sun is rising in the east

What will this day bring

Taming of the lonely beast

This thing we call fear of such we sing.

We live in a house made not of clay

Told within them we must stay

Go out for only the common good

Is that plainly understood.

This virus it seems

Does not respect anyone’s dreams

Age rank or bank account

We all are vulnerable as the numbers mount.

Faith in God absolutely yes

Trust in science and do what's best

Not an either/or at this time of life

Play it safe rebuff the strife.

Going to the store

Buy that food

Hoarding not 'cause there'll be more

Living for the common good. 

Think of the old and the young

Those whose races have just begun

Those whose time is drawing near

Live life well without much fear.

Later the sun will set in the west

Praying for all to find that rest

To live in that holy space

Defined by love and sweet sweet grace.

Reflections on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has taken on a new complexion this year for those who live at our house. That would be Buddy, Charla, and me. To say that gratitude fills the air would be an understatement. While Charla is the go-to person for getting things done, I am the go-to person for pondering things. She tolerates and most times engages me around things that are deeply meaningful to us both.
At the top of the gratitude list would be Charla. Her "let's just get the job done" mentality has been more than evident for a long time. She drove Shoun and me from Denison, Texas, to Huntsville, AL with stops along the way to interview farmers. That was a lot of hours and a lot of miles. Then, from June 19 until now, she has been faithfully taking care of me. Lest that sound like something goofy, she has been the one who managed the doctor schedule, cleaned out ports, woke up with me during the night, and sat with me and grieved and wept, wondering when wellness would be amongst us again.
She, Buddy, me, and recovery have organized our lives since June 19 around illness. Long ago and far away, I would engage students, especially in the course, Special Topics in Family Therapy, or whatever it was called, in the notion of how illnesses become the organizing principle for families. They tell us what to do, when to do it, how to do it. So, five and a half months later, I am saying thank you to her for keeping me sane, for taking care of me when I could not take care of myself, and nurturing our relationship along the way. As we gently tell illness and surgeries to step back, that we can now handle things, I am simply overwhelmed with thankfulness for her.
On another note, I am thankful for my cancer diagnoses, cancer of the kidney and small cell lymphacytic lymphomena, because they remind me that nobody died and made me king of the universe. I find myself identifying with those who struggle with cancer and with those who are cancer survivors and those who do not know if nor when it will read its ugly head again. I am thankful to a God who heals and who is there with us in the healing. I am thankful to a God who loves, even when healing is not in the cards. I do not know how it is decided who gets well and who gets sick and transitions to the other life. All I know that God is present in the ER and the OR with all of us regardless of the outcome. I am thankful for the marvels of modern medicine. Without MRIs, CT scans, robotic surgical techniques, and those who make those things work, I would have less time on this earth than I actually have now.
No, I do not know how God and modern medicine dance. I am grateful for an attending Father, and I am grateful for attending physicians and their fellows.
In a few minutes five of our grandchildren will burst through the door. Two will travel an hour and a half to get here. Their parents and youngest brother will stay home and nurse their viruses. I am grateful for a son who knows that I do not need what they have. The youngest three will come through the front door. Buddy will greet them as he always does. The oldest grandson is already here. He came in last night and is asleep in the guest bedroom. I am thankful for all seven of them. I want to grow old and to watch them grow up.
I am grateful for an organization, its leaders, and its mission to make the world a better place for those who are farming while Black. BFAA invited Charla and me into its midst in 2005 and we have been there ever since. Gary Grant and his family invited us in and we have become family with them and they with us. I am grateful to be able to write, develop, and advocate for African American farmers. I am grateful for Shoun Hill as we have partnered and developed the documentary of those courageous 15 farmers who faced down the USDA and DOJ back in the late '90s. I am thankful for African American farmers and their families across this country who have trusted me with their stories. I recognize the fact that it's people who look like me who work in positions of power who have harmed them at times irreparably. They trusted me anyway. That trust will be evident when you see the documentary.
My heart weeps for those who died in this battle long before they saw justice arrive at their doorsteps. May God have mercy on their souls and may they rest in power. I am thankful for those hundreds of people who have contributed to the BFAA cause, focused on the documentary. Your support and friendship, frankly, blew me away.
I am thankful for my church, imperfect as it is, and its people who desire to serve the Lord in this region known as Texoma. I long for some things with my fellowship that may not happen in my lifetime.
I am thankful for friends who keep me honest, for other friends who join me in political, social, and justice-oriented things. That fellowship of head and heart keeps my mind moving, my agenda sharpened, and my faith strong.
And, finally, I am grateful for those follow me on Facebook and on this blog. Your encouragement in doing so moves my heart and inspires me to write more.

Unholy Mess We Are

Dear Lord,

I’d like to chat with you,

If you have the time

For some things are on my mind,

And you are the right one to talk to.

My prayers to you come out as a lament

While friends of mine seem pretty thrilled

To see those actions and their hopes fulfilled

While me and mine just feel pretty spent.

We are an unholy mess

As I look around at this place

And I hang my head in disgrace

But I love this place I must confess.

Jewish people slaughtered when they met

Worship on their minds and hearts

They unknowingly would depart

Before that holy day would set.

Guy with a gun sought entrance into a church

Door was locked to the black church so he gunned down

Two black people while making very little sound

Except that gun burping away leaving us all in an unholy lurch.

And then that killer down in the south

Made all those bombs and sent them out

To people who’d been attacked by the one running about

Spewing hatred from his wide-open mouth.

Still people coming up from other places

Looking for asylum from pain and destruction

Hope in their hearts and their fear of abduction

Walking the long path with weary worn faces.

While still a thousand long miles from here

The man in the White House sends military down to the border

Just a week from the election, no small order

But we know what is behind his very thin veneer.

It’s all a big unholy political stunt

To arouse his base and inflame the fury

Of people of his ilk will not face any jury

While we worry and pray and bear the brunt.

Some of us keep on hoping and praying

That the man with the power will see his wrongs

Repent of his narcissism but we’ve waited too long

To see any hope of change, you know what I’m saying.

Compassion is lost across this fertile land

Incivility reigns and is seen all day and night

Just watch FOX NEWS, CNN, or MSNBC for the sight

Of people hurting people and kindness banned.

We have chosen up sides to the left and the right

And some in the middle cling to hope

That some ray of sensibilities will help us cope

When our long, long days turned into the night of nights.

We’re going to polls in large numbers as we pray

Then election day is here for all of us to anticipate

That change will come that we can all create

With our children in mind and work for a brighter day.

Lord,

I know that you hear

And that you are near

Though you are above the fray

And that is why we hope and pray.

Amen

Dear Lord, Thanks

Dear Lord:

Hear our prayer for rest and peace,

From all our strivings, Lord, to cease.

For food to eat and joy to share

To hang with those for whom we really care.

We thank you.

For travel way off to foreign fields

To see our grandson play a game that yields

Him joy and fun

While on the run

For travel way off to foreign fields
To see our grandson play and sing
Makes our hearts ring
When he strums that thing.

We thank you.

For Easter Sunday and all of its gain

To chase our dream and enjoy the rain

To see the babies grow each day

To love their parents along the way.

We thank you.

For the promises that this day brings

To laugh and cry and pray and sing

To read and write and search it out

To find the truth and with a shout

Say once more

We thank you.

Amen

Your Face: A Few Thoughts in Response to Psalm 27

Your face is what I want to see

Your face will tell me what there is to know

Your face will inform and shape

Your face will rob me of my comfort.

So

I see your face

I look into your eyes

I feel your gaze

I long to stay here.

And

Your gaze is piercing

Your eyes are frightening

Your vision of me is revealing

Your hopes for me are disarming.

My eyesight is blurry

My vision is skewed

My perspectives are defective

My views are awry and misshapen.

When

You see me looking at you

You know if I want to remain here

You sense my doubts and fears

You hear my feeble cries.

As

I wilt beneath your gaze

I face my lingering doubts

I have deceived myself

I only think I want to see.

Yet

My delusions are comfortable

My placement of people and things are predictable

My blind spots are truth

My assumptions are reality.

Still

I want to see

I want to see more than objects

I want to see what you want me to see

I want to feel my blindness disappear.

My life is in your hands

My vision has been blinded

My world has been shaped by what I will not see

My surrender will lead me to see as you see.

I long to see your face

I long to be in your presence

I want more than anything to see your children

I desire more than I can say to overcome my own blindness.

You know what I do not know

I know that you know what I need

My life will not be the same

You remove my blindness.

I see

I see

I see

I am blind no more

To people of color

To women

To immigrants

To the poor

To the homeless

To LGBTQ

To the young

To those outside my social group

To those physically disabled

To those emotionally challenged 

Hopefully

Is my prayer