Editing Job

Carl Dennis

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees 

To let his opponent, Satan, 

Torment our hero merely to prove 

What omniscience must know already: 

That Job's devotion isn't dependent 

On his prosperity. And how foolish of God 

If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong, 

Will agree to forego his spite against creation 

For even a minute.

I'd keep the part where Job disdains 

His friends' assumption that somehow 

He must be to blame for his suffering, 

And the part where he makes a moving appeal 

To God for an explanation. 

I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade 

About might and majesty versus weakness.

The issue is justice. Is our hero 

Impertinent for expecting his god 

To practice justice as well as preach it, 

For assuming the definition of justice 

That holds on earth holds as well above? 

Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis 

For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom, 

If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.

Let Job be allowed to complain 

About his treatment as long as he wants to, 

For months, for decades,

And in this way secure his place forever 

In the hearts of all who believe 

That suffering shouldn't be silent, 

That grievances ought to be aired completely, 

Whether heard or not.

As for the end, if it's meant to suggest 

That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too. 

Or else I suggest at least adding a passage 

Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions, 

Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving 

To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty 

To have assumed that Job's new family, 

New wife and children and servants, 

Would be an ample substitute for the old.

I Cry

Tupac Shakur

Sometimes when I'm alone

I Cry, 

Cause I am on my own.

The tears I cry are bitter and warm.

They flow with life but take no form

I Cry because my heart is torn.

I find it difficult to carry on. 

If I had an ear to confide in, 

I would cry among my treasured friend, 

but who do you know that stops that long, 

to help another carry on.

The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.

Then to stop and see what makes one cry, 

so painful and sad. 

And sometimes...

I Cry 

and no one cares about why. 

A Plankless Job

Luke 6:39-42

Lord,

With this plank

I only see drones

not doves.

With this plank

I only see darkness

instead of light.

With this plank

I only see 

what I want to see.

And now

You want

to remove it.

Just so I can

see things 

the way You do.

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light 

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water ski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

End of the Line

Luke 15:25-30

I

followed the rules,

did what I was told

and what do You do?

Where

in the rule book

is this

behavior forgiven?

Even more,

where

in the rule book

is this

behavior celebrated?

And even though

You insist

this is what 

Love does

to those who return

to Graceland

(in spite of the rule book)

there is

no way

I will 

enter this house.

That Business is Our Life

Luke 18:9-14

“We fear the publican’s acceptance 

because we know precisely what it means. 

It means that we will never be free 

until we are dead 

to the whole business 

of justifying ourselves. 

But since that business is our life,  

that means not until we are dead.”

--Robert Farrar Capon

To a Child Dancing in the Wind W.B. Yeats

I

DANCE there upon the shore;  

What need have you to care  

For wind or water’s roar?  

And tumble out your hair  

That the salt drops have wet;         

Being young you have not known  

The fool’s triumph, nor yet  

Love lost as soon as won,  

Nor the best labourer dead  

And all the sheaves to bind.  

What need have you to dread  

The monstrous crying of wind?  

  

II

Has no one said those daring  

Kind eyes should be more learn’d?  

Or warned you how despairing  

The moths are when they are burned,  

I could have warned you, but you are young,  

So we speak a different tongue.  

  

O you will take whatever’s offered  

And dream that all the world’s a friend,  

Suffer as your mother suffered,  

Be as broken in the end.  

But I am old and you are young,  

And I speak a barbarous tongue.

A Drinking Song

WINE comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That's all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh. 

William Butler Yeats

Forty Years Later

(After the fall)

It is my prayer,

 it is my longing,

 that we may pass

 from this life together--

a longing which shall never perish from the earth, 

but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, 

until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first,

 it is my prayer that it shall be I;

 for he is strong, I am weak,

 I am not so necessary to him

 as he is to me --

life without him would not be life; 

how could I endure it? 

This prayer is also immortal, 

and will not cease from being offered up 

while my race continues. 

I am the first wife; 

and in the last wife 

I shall be repeated.

Mark Twain

To Jesus on Easter By Vassar Miller

You see the universe, as I see daylight,

opening to your heart

like fingers of a little child uncurling.

It lies to you no more than wood to blade,

nor will you tell me lies.

Only fools or cowards lie. And you are neither.

Not that I comprehend You, who are simpler

than all our words about you,

and deeper. They drop around you like dead leaves.

Yet I can trust you. You resembling me—

two eyes, two hands, two feet,

fives senses and no more—will cup my being,

spilling toward nothingness, within your palm.

And when the last bridge breaks,

I shall walk on the bright span of your breath.

Was that You?

Was that you,

that gentle wind in the trees that sway,

the wind that cools the shadows

on a steamy summer day?

Was that your breath, a soothing message from you

that moves the grains of wheat.

The devil has breath too,

and when it comes it breaks

the tall trees in two,

it rips and rages, destroying the old,

makes nothing new.

Father, thank you for your breath

that relieves us from the summer heat.

From A Year of Prayers by Jack Bartlett

The Prodigal Clippings

Can angels experience regret?

I’m thinking specifically of the

fallen ones, the ones herded up

and driven over the edge of the

clouds because of their mutiny?

Do you think one or two or three

of them might’ve enjoyed it for

a season, because c’mon it is fun

for a while, but then missed the

comfort of foursquare and pearl?

I bet they were welcomed home

with feasting and singing but I

believe there was also a price of

return: the prodigal clippings.

But, you say, what about grace?

Well, I say, ask them, they know,

for they are the angels of mercy.

John Blase

Putting it All Together

Many in our culture

regard youth as good

and old age as bad.

But is this true?

In the sage, youth and age are married.

Wisdom and folly each been lived fully.

Innocence and experience now support one another.

Action and rest follow each other easily.

Life and death have become inseparable.

The sage has experienced all opposites

and lets them come and go

without clinging or fretting.

Therefore the sage can talk without lecturing,

act without worrying about results,

and live in contentment with all events.

The first part of our life

was spent separating things into categories:

good and bad,

like and dislike,

me and you,

us and them.

Now it is time to put all the pieces back together

into a seamless whole. 

The Sage's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for the Second Half of Life 

by William Martin

Hurry

We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store

and the gas station and the green market and

Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, hurry,

as she runs along two or three steps behind me

her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?

To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her,

"Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry—

you walk ahead of me. You be the mother."

"Hurry up," she says, over her shoulder, looking

back at me, laughing. "Hurry up now darling," she says,

"hurry, hurry," taking the house keys from my hands.

**Marie Howe

Lessons in the Afterlife

Luke 13:24 / Luke 14:1-14 

Lord,

after we get through

the narrow door,

save us from

the temptation

of charging forward

in Your banquet hall.

Let us remember

that rushing 

doesn't work 

in a place

where the last

are served first.

Selection from Sirach 3

Humility

My child, 

be humble 

in everything you do, 

and 

people will appreciate it 

more than gifts. 

The greater you become, 

the more humble 

you should be; 

then the Lord 

will be pleased 

with you. 

The Lord's power is great, 

and he is honored 

by those who are humble. 

Don't try to understand things

that are too hard for you, 

or investigate matters 

that are beyond your power to know. 

Concentrate on the Law, 

which has been given to you. 

You do not need to know 

about things 

which the Lord has not revealed, 

so don't concern yourself with them. 

After all, 

what has been shown to you 

is beyond human power to understand. 

Many people have been misled 

by their own opinions; 

their wrong ideas have warped their judgment.

The More Loving One

by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well 

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least 

We have to dread from man or beast. 

How should we like it were stars to burn 

With a passion for us we could not return? 

If equal affection cannot be, 

Let the more loving one be me. 

Admirer as I think I am 

Of stars that do not give a damn, 

I cannot, now I see them, say 

I missed one terribly all day. 

Were all stars to disappear or die, 

I should learn to look at an empty sky 

And feel its total dark sublime, 

Though this might take me a little time. 

The Little Monk and the Samurai: A Zen Parable

A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk.

"Monk!"

He barked, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience.

"Teach me about heaven and hell!"

The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain,

"Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn't teach you about anything. 
You're dumb. 
You're dirty. 

You're a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. 

Get out of my sight. I can't stand you."

The samurai got furious. He shook, red in the face, speechless with rage. 

He pulled out his sword, and prepared to slay the monk.

Looking straight into the samurai's eyes, the monk said softly,

"That's hell."

The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk 

who had risked his life to show him hell! 

He put down his sword and fell to his knees, filled with gratitude.

The monk said softly,

"And that's heaven."

To the Holy Spirit

O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,

Who in necessity and in bounty wait,

Whose truth is both light and dark, mute though spoken,

By Thy wide Grace show me Thy narrow gate.

Wendell Berry

SUNDAY SERMON BLUES

Mark 8:21

If Jesus preached this Sabbath,

Would He:

Ask his Father to disable all the smart phones

while He spoke?

Wait in silence

until all hearts were turned toward Him?

And after He spoke

would He ask

as He did of His followers,

"Do you understand what I have told you?"

And we nod our heads,

knowing we missed the kickoff

of the Cowboys game

or 

silently

cursing we will be behind 

the Baptists

at the cafeteria. 

Bomb (rosalarian.com)

Grass

Carl Sandburg

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. 

Shovel them under and let me work--

          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:

          What place is this?

          Where are we now?

          I am the grass.

          Let me work. 

These poems, she said,

Robert Bringhurst

These poems, these poems,

these poems, she said, are poems

with no love in them. These are the poems of a man   
who would leave his wife and child because   
they made noise in his study. These are the poems   
of a man who would murder his mother to claim   
the inheritance. These are the poems of a man   
like Plato, she said, meaning something I did not   
comprehend but which nevertheless
offended me. These are the poems of a man
who would rather sleep with himself than with women,   
she said. These are the poems of a man
with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’s   
hands, woven of water and logic
and hunger, with no strand of love in them. These   
poems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeant   
as elm leaves, which if they love, love only   
the wide blue sky and the air and the idea
of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,   
and not a beginning. Love means love
of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.   
These poems, she said....
                                       You are, he said,
beautiful.
                That is not love, she said rightly.

The Does' Prayer

The does, as the hour grows late,

med-it-ate;

med-it-nine;

med-i-ten;

med-eleven;

med-twelve;

mednight!

The does, as the hour grows late,

meditate.

They fold their little toesies,

the doesies.

Christian Morgenstern 

 translation by Max Knight