Repentance Begins on Your First Day

To the baby cradled in his mother’s arms,

Feel the warmth. Soak in the affection. Nurture your belonging in this beautiful world. Gaze in her eyes and receive her fierce devotion. This is your birthright. This moment is your true identity as beloved divine creation.

I dream for you a world where all others embrace you the same way your mother does now.
I dream for you a world where you may flourish in freedom of body, soul, and mind.
I dream for you a time and place where others may perceive your tender heart and your endless potential, just by the sight of you.

Even as your mother gazes upon you today, she is preparing for the talk. She will one day have to sit you down on the porch and speak to you about the world as it is. Her heart will twist and turn in her chest as she places a new identity over this first one – black male in America.

Temporary Time

20 days until we drove away from our home with belongings packed or stored.
28 days until Drew starts his fellowship.
40 days until I begin a new educational endeavor.
57 days until first-born enters kindergarten.
146 days until this baby boy is due to enter the world
391 days until all is returned home.

All the days feel exposed and vulnerable for their temporary status. To live in the temporary is to live exposed to time’s quick short-hand, the tick-tock sound ringing constantly in my ears. It keeps the beat as the counted moments go by.

32: Grounded and Ready to Receive

They had their ideas (a blanket fort, cupcakes, McDonalds) but I had my own. I desired the ~~simple~~ profound things of life to celebrate this 32nd year of mine – time to be a parent without rushing, breakfast for lunch, hugs whenever I wanted them, hands to hold and be held, random “I love yous,” a movie in the theater, and a baseball game complete with sticky hands, short bursts of conversation, and wonder-eyed boys.

But more than even all those things, I spent my day seeking to live the day grounded and able to receive. Continue reading

Why I Wake Early

Mary Oliver’s “Why I Wake Early” adapted for my own mornings.

Hello, quiet house.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it through the kitchen window
and under the closed doors
and onto still sleeping bodies
and into still small dreams, even, over the
soon-to-be noisy and relentless —

best preacher that ever was,
dear stillness, that just happens
to be here as well as almost gone,
to keep us from burning out,
to ease us back into life and its demands,
to hold us in the day’s infancy –
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

Doxology for the Last Day in the Office

“I believe that, rightly embraced, no more subversive or prophetic idiom can be uttered than the practice of doxology, which sets us before the reality of God, of God right at the center of a scene from which we presumed God had fled.”
– W. Brueggemann

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Praise God for the desk that held creation,
the chairs that harbored visitors,
the computers that carried me to world beyond,
the counters that held piles waiting (im)patiently.

Praise God for the bulletin board that carried old memories,
the walls that held wise words and heavy pieces of paper,
the faces that lined my “graduated classes” wall,
the basket of toys and crayons that entertained children.

Praise God for resources that filled bookshelves and window sills,
the windows that shared the cries and laughter of refugee children just outside,
the history compiled in one single office,
the notes scribbled on posters and dry-erase boards that focused my efforts.

Praise God for the door that led out to the community of co-workers,
the voices that rang out in solidarity of our shared heart for Highland,
the volunteers that sat just beyond and brought new life each day,
the bodies that came in our front doors seeking mercy.

Praise God for all the Love made flesh through
typing fingers, spoken words, wrestled thoughts,
looming deadlines, broken things, repairing hands.

Praise God all creatures here below,
present or gone, knowingly or unknowing.

Our song spills out the corner of Grinstead and Cherokee,
onto the sidewalks and the streets,
wafting heavenward as gift received and given back.

Dedicating a Natural Wonder

We didn’t always know that we would come to this time and place where we get to dedicate your life to God. We didn’t always know that we would be able to make promises to love you, teach you, comfort you, and strengthen you.

What we did know is that the human life is full of limitations. The human body, miraculous as it is, practices imperfection and demands extra care. Knowledge comes only in pieces. The future is always elusive. Our hands can only offer so much help when the wound is unreachable. Our prayers can only say the same petition for so long until time questions persistence.

Mother God

Mother God,

You are the original. You birthed the world through your very being, sending light and land, water and wonder, flesh and spirit into a whole new frontier. In the task of motherhood, we seek to imitate your original work – accepting the role of nurturing, caring for, and cultivating other beings entrusted to us.

On this day as the earthly role is celebrated, we remember all human mothers who follow your lead. For mothers willing to walk the journey, even in imperfection, we give thanks.

To Greet the Day as It Dawns

To greet the day as it dawns,
I calm the racing mind.
Cracked windows bring cool spring morning air
and bird’s symphony, alive and well.
Breathing bodies remain still in their beds
while the dog restlessly burrows in her bed.

The cards of my life have been thrown in the air,
I wait to see how they fall, and which of them remain.
But to greet the day as it dawns,
I am reminded of wholeness and its satisfaction –
the earth’s, the divine’s, and even, perhaps, mine.

Sing to me sweetly, birds of the morning,
and remind me who I already am.

To Hold the Future Within

Somewhere deep within me, life is growing. Distinct and separate it will one day be. But as for now, it is one with my life. That which I consume, it consumes. That which I enact, it joins me in participation. We are fused beings whose physical union is temporary but whose relational union is eternal.

The external world will be changed, just as any life brings effects to the people, earth, and time with which it lives. Brothers will shift in relationship as they seek to include another sibling. Parents will shift in patterns as four arms now care for three lives. Extended family will have one more to hold and to name.

Friends are being grown alongside this one, all school peers still in wombs around the city and beyond. Future teachers might not yet have found their callings. Future professors are college students with dreams and a lot of hard work ahead of them.

All will change. But for right now, I hold the change within. Continue reading

EASTER: Unreasonable Requests

John 20:1-18

God of the New Morning,

In the dark, after a long Lenten season, the Easter baskets on display for sleeping boys feels like whiplash.

Wasn’t Jesus’ body just taken down from the cross? The lanterns, torches, and weapons. The betrayal. The aching final breath. I do not blame the disciples who remain in locked rooms this morning. Hope feels foolish after a night like that.

Stop my attempts to understand and simply speak my name.

Into the locked rooms, you go (as you always do). Let the skeptical receive your persistent presence. Let them hear your unreasonable requests – see, hear, receive, GO, rejoice, preach, testify, live without fear.

Wholeness and forgiveness may seem foolish. But as the morning rises, they are all that my heart yearns to be true.

In the name of the One whose return from death means everything,

Amen

pause.give.thanks

the practice of paying attention