every booth of four
is filled with one
in this place today
he drinks coffee
while she sinks
and another thinks
about the three
not there
in this place today
and
who would want it
any other way

what light
must shine
on the far side
of this robin’s egg sky
to paint my world 
beautiful blue
enough brilliant bright
that even living in a shell
can be a place of grace

maybe when the words
“let there be light”
swung out from the great emptiness
they were sung
with a depth of longing
that has yet to be matched
the start of some dystopian symphony
that comes to crashing crescendo
and an end that says –
every dark valley was worth
the great peak that you’ll be carried to
in the end

is it exile
if he walks into the desert
of his own accord

and if the words he sings
about the honeyed community
are salt water across a cut tongue
does he believe

is the puppet alive
by virtue of the hands
that pull the soul’s strings
or
does life flow through
to the ones outside
not stopping along the way
to spark a little light
behind the dull clay eyes

maybe he’s just the tin can
at the end of an eternal cord
feeling vibrations of another world
flowing through to this one
leaving him empty all the same

what is night
that we cannot lose it
in a blinding leap toward light?

what is dark
that it cannot be pushed away
by enflamed hearts stripped and stark?

these are but shades
pulled apart by lovers’ hands
torn down like so many paper palisades

what if i am mist
an evening fog
afraid of the dawn
and burning away
in the morning sun

old golden world
is turning to ash beneath our fearful feet
we are naked without even sackcloth
to fend off this bright wombless cold
were we born too soon for this?
set adrift, untethered from our very lives
we chewed through the umbilical
to fall away
fallfallfallfall
into this empty abyss
while the everloving arms – they reach down
to lift us up again…should we take hold

“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” – Matthew 21:12-13

Jesus entered the temple and found something that stood against the holiness of God. He responded and then what? He moved on.

I find this very interesting.

Jesus notices something that needs correction and this is the response:

Step 1: State clearly what is wrong and why?
Step 2: Move on

He does not create or advocate the funding of lobby groups to remain at the temple and continue flipping tables. He does not stay and flip the table again after it is righted, which it almost certainly was. He does not spend the rest of his ministry condemning this particular sin, over and against the other kinds of brokenness throughout Israel.

He moves on…as if something more important were at stake.

Do we do this?

I wonder if we, as followers of Christ, are allowing ourselves to be distracted from the point of Christ (salvation for all creation) by getting bogged down in the continuous condemnation of others.

It is as if we cannot leave the temple. We enter the temple to worship God and find something we believe is dishonouring and than we never leave…we stay continuous flipping tables forever while the mission to the world is never accomplished.

Do we even enter the temple?

I think it is interesting that Christ’s primary admonitions were against the leaders and teachers of the people of God and those who operated the house of worship.

Christ flipped tables in the house of God…outside of that house he dined with prostitutes, drunks and all collection of sordid humanity. We seem to have reversed this…we often go into the world and flip tables while sharing our dinner with the holy community.

Something is wrong…are we being distracted from delivering the gospel and getting lost in condemnation? I wonder.

to write is to shit
shit words before the world
it’s a byproduct of consumption
leading to conspicuous expulsion
(you are what you eat)
at times however
a glint will catch the eye
and if you’re willing to get your hands dirty
you’ll find you’ve swallowed gold
at one point or another

as the world pulls pulls pulls
sleep in my ever-stretching arms
just rest against the beat
and i will make sure that if there are walls
at least we’ll have a window
on a world that burns itself alive
and eats its own young