I Would Have Set Them Straight

    The brothers of Goliath, you say? Yeah. I remember them. I fought in the Philistine wars with our shepherd king. I was barely out of short pants myself, but I was there with my bow and my sling, ready to take on the entire Philistine army myself. No sissy stuff. I was there to bring them down.

    There was Lahmi, who ate bread even as he fought his way across the valley, a loaf of rye as big as your head in one hand and a spear as tall as you in the other.

    And Isbi-Benob – the man from Nob. What a nob! He wore a bright new sword and thought he could kill the warrior, David. As if.

    And the other one… what was his name? The one with twenty-four digits. Twelve fingers and twelve toes. Six on each hand and foot? No. It was eight and four apiece. Strange, I tell you. And where did he find shoes for those feet? 

    And Goliath? Goliath. Well, you know the story that David went out with his sling and a few river stones. But I was there when the battle broke out at Gob in the western foothills of Judah. I watched Elhanan bring down Goliath. Man, what a crash when he hit the ground.

    People talk about David like he did it all alone. But some of us were there, and we remember how it really went. Funny how the scribes write it down one way. Funny how memory writes it down another. They should have just asked me. I would have set them straight.

1 Chronicles 20:4-8, 2 Samuel 12:15-22

Unsatisfied Unsettled

    Say nothing for those who see nothing
    concealed, suppressed trauma
    and unchecked philosophy

    The grinding, ruthless race
    of unsatisfied winner takes all
    the plots of violent hearts
    and lies of mischievous mouths

    We are conditioned by a lifetime of storms
    taught the ambitions of greed and malice
    brought up to believe this is the way

    But watch without envy
    and wait without impatience

    There is no future here, no reward, no hope
    the unsettled glow behind his eyes
    will flicker into darkness.

Proverbs 24:19-20

A Song of Ascent

    Look at me. I’m not so much.
    Not haughty, not proud.
    Not setting my sights above my stars.

    Except when I do.

    Then it’s all the small vandalism vanities
    hidden from the greater public
    behind the mask of an absurd person
    and my outsized ego banging
    on the walls of my little life.

    Let me be quiet and go away.
    He must increase.

Psalm 131

This Was No Mystery

    We have, in this last hour, this latest hour of perpetual crisis, one conflict after another, come to realize that we have not escaped, cannot escape the horrors of our own making. We are reluctant to go outside. There are NRON QSR lighter than airships hovering over abandoned apartments. Cameras mounted at the intersection to record suspicious loitering. Looking for people and cars out of place. Significance surveillance determines the meaning of our interactions.

    Opened seals and broken deals. A suffering trumpet. Dividing the times and polarizing the populace. We are the prime recipients of a collective malicious ignorance. The little horn spy has an effective vision. The vibration in my heel is an implanted tracking device.

    Observed by reporters. Reported to the police. Uniformed antagonism and the eyes of a man speaking lies. Changing the times. Redrawing the map to reframe his ego without any of the finer virtues of kindness, gentleness, and mercy.

    Why do you marvel? This was no mystery. It wasn’t a matter of inaccurate predictive history. We saw it coming. You’ve heard that the Antichrist is coming. But he’s already here. Now. With many varied reflections. A third of the country has followed a third of the stars swept out of heaven. We called it out. Hoping for the world to calm down. Look! Look! Look!

    But we were shouted down.

1 John 2:18

I Still Have Some Livin' To Do

    I wrote this song on Thursday as I was out carrying the mail. I sang it as I wrote it. Or I wrote it as I sang it. Either way this is how it came out. I sang it at church this morning. 

    The song is at the 15-minute mark in this video of our church service. 

I Still Have Some Livin’ To Do

His mercies are new every morning
but my morning glories haven’t bloomed.
It feels like the whole world’s dying
while I still have some livin’ to do.

There are butterflies in the garden
orange and pink, golden wings.
They scatter and fly away on the breeze
and I’m left alone to sing.

Grace, Lord, grace and love,
goodness to start the day.
Faith, hope and charity,
our strength along the way.

I hear dogs barking at strangers
and sirens screaming down the road,
if I know my brother’s struggling
let me help to shoulder the load.

My heart will keep on beating.
My feet will keep on the way.
I won’t stop though I stumble,
soon the night gives way to the day.

Grace, Lord, grace and love,
goodness to start the day.
Faith, hope and charity,
our strength along the way.

His mercies are new every morning
but my morning glories never bloomed.
It feels like the whole world’s dying
but I still have some livin’ to do.