My Mother Asks You to Vote

She’s a ghost, of course, so she sees
Israel this Tuesday, the US next week,

She was born in Crookston, Minnesota,
before the Armistice,
before women’s suffrage.
She remembered the Charleston
and too may wars,
the Great Depression, New Deal,
assassination of JFK, stealing of elections.

She went in a wheelchair that last time
eyesight gone, hands shaking, head high,
ninety-three years old,

At the polls the ballot was read to her,
in a booth, line by line,
and she responded
voice tremulous but clear so
the circles of her choices were marked.

She died in an October
before a midterm election,
and dictated to me what she wanted
for her obituary.
One of the things was a request
that, instead of flowers, donations or cards,
those who would miss her
would honor her memory by voting
in the weeks to come.

I was glad she never knew the newspaper
charged us three hundred dollars
for a “political message” … really, guys?

I did promise her she’d make a difference
in her family and others,
in a few weeks and many years
from those dying days
by reminding people to cast a ballot.

I was thinking about you.

Taking down the power tower

They are taking down the tower,
piece by piece
that carries the power lines,
and working carefully for weeks.

The lines run next door to my home
on the border between Maine towns,
Kittery and Eliot,
and we watch them carefully
doing this hard work,
without even one blackout.

I hope the people of my country
can learn from these workers
how to take down our nation’s
great power tower
piece by piece, vote by vote.

For we are all next door
to a structure badly broken,
and this is our job

to secure the power needed by all,
and keep our light from going out.

The importance of holding on … or ‘consider the walker’ parable

I’m on that life-interfering
knee-replacement journey
and still at home for physical therapy
before the month of outpatient visits begin,
and the physical therapist, sees me
let go of the walker
to grab my phone and silence it,

and she says this …
“You’re strong enough to walk, you know.
Don’t worry — you won’t fall now,
but, even so, don’t let go the walker,
because your mind will teach
such a fear of wobbling,
that you will continue stiff legged,
knee-lock walking,
using stiff-strength to get you there.

It’s the walker that helps you learn
bent-knee walking,
the stronger, life-long gait,
while your wounded knee heals.”

How true it is that letting go
the embarrassing need for a ‘walker’
tempts me to be satisfied
with clumping-through life,
rather than holding on to help offered
on the way to
my own beautiful stride,

Of course, a walker is often constructed
of much more than metal, wheels,
and a bag to carry things –
(really important ones … but probably not)

and comes with many different names –
counselor, AA meeting, pastor, book, drop-in center,
psychiatrist, mentor, teacher, friends,

to help us trust walking forward
letting the stiff leg go, bending the knee.

(with thanks to Taylor)

Photo by Rollz International on Pexels.com

A shared post from Mark Saline

Mark’s reflection on his friend’s action and hope that it is the model for so many others!

WHEN MEN CRADLE A man of power and prestige began a quiet revolution by dropping pulpit and preaching to cradle a baby… Then I.C.E. dropped masks to cradle immigrants… Soldiers dropped guns to cradle enemies… Politicians dropped lies to cradle truth… The rich dropped wealth to cradle the poor… Racists dropped hate to cradle neighbors… The strong dropped power to cradle the weak… The tribe dropped fear to cradle strangers…The erudite dropped ideas to cradle flesh… Developers dropped expansion to cradle enviroment… Capitalists dropped profit to cradle creatures… Tech Bros dropped A.I. to cradle Emotional Inteligence… Religion dropped other worlds to cradle this world… The world healed one man at a time until all men dropped everything and cradled babies, and women lifted everything and cradled it as a child… The cradle of civilization forms when men, rather than take up arms against different others, takes them into their arms… ‘He’s got the whole wide world in his hands.’

(Rev. Kevin Bates, dad & friend)

Prayer for Pope Leo Recovering from Surgery

Gentle Healer, we pray your easing, tender presence
with the man known to all the world as Pope Leo,
to family and friends as Robert Francis,
and to you as Beloved Child.

Ease his pain and anxiety,
guide medical and personal staff
to be observant and gentle and pushy,
wrap his lungs in healing.

Bless this time for him
to let go great responsibilities
so that his body mends,
to ask for more time as needed,
expecting that request to be treated
as wisdom, not an alarm-bell,
and help him make an offering to you
of the anxiety the word “cancer”
brings to everyone,
once and then several more times,
as needed.

Surround him with the wings of angels,
the guidance of saints,
and caregivers who insist on his rest,
and shut the door on a nosy world.
amen

Gratitude from the United States on Canadian Thanksgiving

God, we are grateful to our neighbors,
for maple syrup … that is equally delicious as ours
for poutine which helps us try new things,
but mostly for still being kind and welcoming
when we visit as tourists
in spite of our leadership behaving
with a complete absence of neighborliness.

We are humorously grateful to Canada
for helping us feel better
about our own winter weather.

We are deeply grateful to Canada
for the welcoming of immigrants
rather than hunting them,
for efforts to be a bilingual country,
and repent the terrible history
of the treatment of indigenous people,
when our leadership lets go
of all of these initiatives.

We are grateful for Gander,
we are always grateful for Gander.

Amen

Who is My Neighbor?

It must be either a joke or a threat
when the President of the United States
calls out two cities for destruction …

and there’s so much to love in San Diego,
two hundred sixty-six days of sunshine,
trolleys and the Embarcadero,
Zoo and Natural History Museum,
my favorite making sandcastles
with kids at Coranado Beach
then eating California Burritos
with French fries on the inside,

and so much sweetness in Los Angeles
Dodgers games and the Observatory,
silly tourist-gawking
at the sidewalk of the stars,
and the Great Wall Mural’s art,
and most of all the Cathedral,
Our Lady of the Angels
where the Tilma of St. Juan Diego
always makes me believe again
that there are miracles.

There are so many children
and teenagers, wise and foolish adults,
elders with stories to tell,
in every city, not to speak of
homes and schools and, well, traffic jams,
dreams and hopes, and the jostling
of the heritage of many places.

The words are never funny;
the political threats are always a crime.

The second knee replacement (Improv on Philippians 2)

It’s been a while since the right limb
could bend at the name of Jesus,
or anyone else –
meet the challenge to clamber
over rocks on a hillside
hike with teenagers,
come level with the sharp cry
of a small child’s skinned knee
or discovery of an ant,

satisfy the longing to gather
a handful of sand at the beach
and let it run through my fingers,
remembering someone
whose life just slid like grains
into the sweet saltiness of the ocean.

I remember the first replacement
and what a novice I was at pain,
a million times resisting
the common sense of asking for help.

But what kind of mind does Paul suggest
I am supposed to bring to this?
Perhaps one that slips into arthroplasty
as part of a pilgrimage to confessing
the truest Name of all –

and then bends willingly … simply
to a hill walk,
a child’s call of fear and joy,
the gathering of handfuls of love for people,
both those I know well
and those I may never meet,

mixed with many
necessarily unexpected holy kneelings.

The Road to the Hill Along the River, Aotearoa

A couple for Autumn

Autumn version of Morning Has Broken (tune, Bunessan)

Morning has broken, like the first morning.
Geese have awoken, distant but heard.
Praise for the winging, praise for the morning,
Praise for life springing fresh from the Word.

Sweet is the autumn, golden before us
As the bright leaves fall, from the dark trees.
Praise for the beauty of the rich harvest,
Praise for God’s whispers on the cool breeze.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the evening.
Dawn sky and sunset — palette of play.
Praise with our rising, praise with our resting;
God’s hope and blessing for every day.

On lying awake in the autumn

I hear a truck start, cough,
roll over uneven pavement.
It crunches acorns,
shifts into another gear
and tires swish on wet pavement.

There is wind and I can tell
that the leaves are red, not green —
they are thick, brittle, castanet,
ready to let go and fall.

The insomnia of spring
is full of early morning birdsong
the subtle opening of earth
to the thrust of bulbs.

Now only the high distant honkings
punctuate the pilgrimage of geese.
In their wake are many
thin sighing sounds,
the settling in
of the last late squirrel,
a chipmunk’s hasty flight
from its small wild fears
through corn stalks, around pumpkins
not yet chosen from the vine.

The fingers of darkness are stronger –
it will take a long time
before they set the morning free.

An argument for World Communion Sunday

(I find that this year, I am writing the same words (OK never quite the same, you know, but the same feeling as a year ago at this time:)

“It’s gotten out of date,” someone said,
this custom of mid-twentieth century.

On the contrary, I reply,
after listening to my country’s current leader
slamming the entire United Nations,
praising the destruction
of the environment
for the world’s grandchildren,
boasting of incarcerating
those who most need welcome

and starting a war
that makes no sense, but violence,
and more poverty,
helped less, at home,

sharing Communion across national borders
seems like the least we can do,
hoping against all logic,
that a weeping world
would ever want to break Bread
and share a Cup with us.