Why are you
weeping?
The mystery and
longing of this morning
revealed and
unrecognized, misunderstood
“if you have
taken him...”
Ordinary
extraordinary from the grave
reach out but do
not grasp
further on further
into mystery
truly risen into
unsettled perfection
flesh and wonder
spirit rise
Why are you
weeping?
The mystery and
longing of this day
now named and
recognized, realized
“I have seen the
Lord.”
(John 20:11-18)
How can I celebrate
the resurrection when Iran is under bombs?
When Venezuela is
being plundered?
When Gaza is little
but rubble?
When Ukraine is
burning?
When citizens are
shot in the street?
When immigrant
children are ripped from the arms of their mothers?
I don’t know. I
don’t know.
But he is risen.
Indeed.
Yesterday’s
jagged thunder and lightning fled but the wind remained, and it was
cruel. I tried to find my way to the tomb and to silence from
unnecessary words.
Stumbling down
broken steps
through susurrant
pines
and buildings with
blackout security precautions
and private
property cameras.
I heard screaming
ambulance sirens
on hidden highways.
I smelled
marijuana.
I walked by braying
dogs at cemetery gates and death and Hades followed.
I tried to find my
way to the tomb and to silence.
Good Friday and the
world has slipped from time. I spent the day walking in the wind and
in the rain. Walking late and overtime in the cold.
They took charge of
Jesus, and carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the
skull. Look into the dust of it. The scent and tang of earth upon the
air. Dust to dust.
“Happy Easter!”
someone shouted from their porch as I passed. Golgotha.
Why do they…? Why
do I…? But prove all things by the strength of love. This love.
Digged deep and love laid low.
“He is risen!”
I replied but it was too early. And there was no one there where they
crucified him.
(John19:17-18)
Here's a low-fi recording of a goofy little song I wrote as I was out and about the past couple of days. I hope you'll like it.
You’ll go to war
with everyone, you’re ready to invade
bombing schools and
burning mosques is how this game is played.
Burn the oil, blot
out the sun make it darker everyday
it’s the end of
time, the final reel and Jesus is on his way.
Take advice from
fools and cross against the lights
you’re just a
graveyard bully who’s pickin’ another fight.
You deliberately
misunderstand the doctrine that you claim
Everything you
touch turns into another round of shame
Yeehaw for the
GOP
for God and
country.
Yeehaw for the
GOP
Ain’t that
somethin’
Fox News lovin’
modern Know
Nothin’s
God’s Own
Party, yessiree.
You don’t want
the immigrant, the woman, or the gays
You only want the
schools where the teachers bow to pray
Dismiss the
prophets, malign the mystics these books you’ll never read
ignorance is the
way to your nationalistic creed.
Lincoln’s
party has devolved from what it used to be
I
remember how you sang, “Let us die to set men free.”
Building
prisons, camps, and jails, and all of them for profit,
Deregulation
is your way to bigger bank deposits.
Yeehaw for the
GOP
for God and
country.
Yeehaw for the
GOP
Ain’t that
somethin’
Fox News lovin’
modern Know
Nothin’s
God’s Own
Party, yessiree.
Jesus ain’t
no Democrat, I know this to be true
but how could
anyone see the Lord above when they look at you?
Mister Rodgers was
a Republican, a man I could respect.
If more of you were
more like him, I’d hug and kiss your necks.
Yeehaw for the
GOP
for God and
country.
Yeehaw for the
GOP
Ain’t that
somethin’
Fox News lovin’
modern Know
Nothin’s
God’s Own
Party, yessiree.
Please. Hear me.
We are captives of a brutal peace. Another spectacle made of blood,
suffering another forceful assault. Anther succession of mortal
explosions and the corporeal fire that burns even the air. A proud
legacy of street-level violence. Machine gun mounted motorbikes and
government guns on pickup trucks flying vulgar presidential banners
fire into the gathered crowds. Public protester executions.
Beheadings and gauntlets. Gassing socialists with illegal chemicals.
Hacked thousands flee as refugees.
There is an inequitable Armageddon at the door – the imbalance of
munitions and humiliations over hunger and rotting sickness. We’ve
scuttled past the strong war warnings to push the clock forward –
the symbol of our destruction.
We are traded for betrayal. And the same fate for many undefined
sins against the state and houses of dynamite. Times of trouble such
as never was such a wasteland. Repeated. Desperate rejections of this
regime. We are begging in waves. The blood of ten thousand. The day
after and again repeated. The fallout of chaotic response.
The artillery ambitions and strategies of the resource savages –
those who buy and sell the world beneath and cap the sky above have
brokered evil in this place. Millions of tons of debris, the rubble
of ruined lives and unexploded ordnance. We know the wickedness of
their weapons. We know the vanity of their lives. We are nothing but
physical potential forces to be added up, accounted. The ledger of
our lives allows only a little fight. The military turned in and the
open energy of our vitality transferred out.
All military economies are thus. No neighborly peace, no negotiated
truce behind locked doors. Savage battle is how things are done here
in the crucible of war. Exploitation and salted earth. No cease fire
for bitter arguments. Cold blood despots make sick peace jokes. The
catastrophe of intimidation power. Normal procedures are followed for
murder – in secret, unacknowledged or publicly documented. Either
way there should be no flesh saved.
We are besieged. This is the plain and forecasted truth with dangers
exposed. The infrastructure of invasion turned inward. All choke
points secured. Cut off by simultaneous offenders. It is an open
secret. The poisonous promotions of violence and horror. It’s a
game to them. “Shooter, shoot her!” comes a faceless command from
the demons of common criminality and civil battery.
From the ramparts of history, we’ve been raised – to live and die
within the walls of a conquered city, but we are silenced in this
day. Four years already and three years more. And then? Our desperate
signals sent out, stand up nation to nation. Land or sea. Still there
is no response and the days are unshortened.
Please. You know the answer.