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Tuesday, February 28, 2006

 

Emerging assumptions

Brian McLaren writes this short article at Christianity Today to help Christians question their assumptions. It is a good read.

Once again he asks, What is the church?

In Who Can You Trust? Howard Butt wrestles with the same question. He writes,
We tend to think of the church in its institutional forms, of its buildings and organizations, of "the church gathered." What we experience far more, though, is "the church scattered"-out, seven days a week, in all the homes, restaurants, shops, schools, offices, and structures of our ordinary lives.


I love that.

I was talking with a friend of mine about the Greek work ekklesia that is often translated as "church." Sometimes "assembly." It gets even more complicated if you start reading the Septuigint. (Which I can't read.) So I look to commentaries written by men smarter than me.

According to Vine's Expository Dictionary ekklesia literally means "those called and gathered together." It was a political word from Greek society that described gatherings of people who met to discuss affairs of state.

How then can we talk about a gathered group scattered? Because we are gathered by our faith. We are gathered together by God himself, called out to a Kingdom not bound by location, geography, or even time.

I attend First Baptist Church Kerrville. So does C. S. Lewis. So does Johann Sebastian Bach. So does St. Augustine. So does Jesus Christ.

I also attend Oakhills Church in San Antonio. And Canterbury Cathedral. And the church as Colosse.

We meet every moment to worship God.

Every moment we are surrounded by this great cloud of saints.

HillCountryWriter Category: High Calling Thoughts
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Sunday, February 26, 2006

 

Carpenter's Class

We've spent the last two weeks talking about Spiritual Gifts. We read Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Timothy 4:14, and 2 Timothy 1:6, and we discussed the Greek words doron, doma, and charisma.

Consider Eugene Peterson's transliteration of Romans 12:1.
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Here's a little experiment: As you go about your activities this week, think about how you find yourself serving God in surprising ways. Then come back here and share them!

Here are my initial thoughts:
So often we expect to use our spiritual gifts to serve God through some Church activity or some open evangelistic effort. Of course, there is nothing wrong with serving God in these ways! But if we only expect to serve God through the institutional church or through direct evangelism, we are certainly limiting our opportunities to serve God. No doubt, He can use us without our knowledge, but then we may not know the full joy of serving Him.

What would it look like to truly become living sacrifices?

How can we honor God with our ordinary, everyday lives?

Friday, February 24, 2006

 

Editing is How You Transmit Your Message

The March 2006 Wired has an interview with director Michel Gondry. Gondry says this about editing:

"Editing is crucial, maybe even more creative than the actual shooting. Every time you juxtapose two images, you say something. Editing is how you transmit your message, even if the message is that there is no message. You can make someone look mean or nice with exactly the same footage."

Although he is talking about making movies, his comments apply to the written word. A good editor knows how to restructure ideas within the text, juxtaposing images and ideas with the flexibility of grammar to startle the reader.

Sometimes it is a matter of moving sentences. Sometimes it is adding space before a sentece with an extra paragraph break.

No doubt, editing is crucial. And fundamentally creative.

Editors unite!

HillCountryWriter Category: Publishing
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Thursday, February 23, 2006

 

Dog's Death

I was talking about this John Updike poem with a friend of mine from Dallas.

I always felt like a voyeuristic sicko for liking the poem so much. I don't normally go for catharsis. But this poem has come back to me time and time again. It's just devestating.

For the longest time I couldn't quite explain its power. Oh sure, the dog dies. But you know that in the title. And really a dog's death, while moving, shouldn't be so tremendously powerful.

Thinking about it this morning, I realized that the poem contains a metaphor for God's response to our sin. Like the dog, we are "too young to know much" but Christians are beginning to learn and to win. So many Christians fall into hypocrisy--because we have learned enough to hide our shame. People are quick to judge us for this. We want to sweep everything under the rug, we want sin to go away, not just to avoid the consequences, but to avoid the shame.

Here's the thing about Updike's poem. The man is touched by his dog's effort to hide its sin. And God is touched by ours. It is a beautiful beautiful poem.

And I understand Paul better in Romans 7 and 8. Read this Message translation from Biblegateway:
I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.



HillCountryWriter Category: Poetry
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Monday, February 20, 2006

 

Faith in the Workplace Newsletter

Here is the web version of our Faith In the Workplace E-Newsletter. Enjoy!

 

Consuming God?

This reply from Taylor Burton-Edwards on 'Our of Ur.' He suggests we reclaim consumerism through the eucharist.

Here are his words:

"So far I've seen here a lot of conversation starters around preaching (either as instruction/feeding, or evangelism) and some reference to "eating."

"I suppose my question might be to what degree the panelists might see worship centered around the Eucharist (Word and Table) as both formational and counter-cultural for us and the world around us.

"Why? Consumer culture-- and even much "generational theory"-- is ultimately the product of marketing-- a strategy which has effectively retribalized us all into different "interest groups" that both describe us, and as we own them for ourselves, actually do tend to separate and segregate us from one another. Eucharist is all about the big table, where none of those old or neo-tribal differences separate us any more, and where preaching is about preparing us to eat there, and having eaten to take what we've encountered to live out in and confront the world. At that table we do not eat much, but in what we do eat, we find more than enough-- nothing less than the grace and power and presence of Jesus Christ.

"Eucharistic consumerism, then... what do they (and y'all) think of that?"


Sunday, February 19, 2006

 

Yea! Faith in the Workplace!

Hey, Faith in the Workplace our joint site with Christianity Today went up last week! Check it out . . . and consider subscribing to the email if you want to hear from us every two weeks.

I'll post a link to the web version of email tomorrow.

If I think about it.

Friday, February 17, 2006

 

Some Questions for Ur

Marshall Shelley posted this interesting discussion about "Preaching to Consumers" on Out of Ur.

She asked for questions. Here's mine.

Consumerism is so entrenched in our society, sometimes I find my church approaching God and worship as just another product or service. We consume God. We consume each other, even.

Can there be such a thing as healthy consumerism in our relationship with God and His Church? How can we approach Jesus with pure hearts, setting aside our ulterior motives?


Thursday, February 16, 2006

 

About Ruth and Boaz

So "The Best Kind of Morning" is based on the story of Ruth and Boaz. Forgive my flubbing details about farmwork. I have never worked on a farm. Nor do I know any farmers.

The climax of the story is based on Ruth 3:7-14.

According to some of the commentaries I read, I have taken some liberties by making the scene sensual. Nelson in particular claimed there was nothing sensual about what Ruth did. It was tradition for the time.

Why did she leave before anyone would notice? Why did he tell his workers not to say anything?

Nelson claims Boaz knows her actions could have been misinterpreted. Hmmm. But it was tradition at the time for her to do this since he was next of kin? Hmmm. Sounds like Christians afraid of sensuality to me.

Especially since the same commentaries comment on Isaiah 6. The winged creatures cover their faces and their feet with their wings. They aren't really covering their feet, the commentaries point out. "Feet" in Jewish literature was a euphemism for guess what? genitalia.

Remember what Ruth uncovered? Boaz's feet. Hmmm. She slept at his feet all night, in fact. Hmmm.

I'm sure Nelson Commentaries are right. I'm just a sicko.

 

A Valentine's Story

The Best Kind of Morning

I'm not anything special, but I know what I like. It's what's kept me single so long, I suppose. Up at four most mornings when there's work to be done. I grab my coffee and my cap, the keys to my truck.

You know the best kind of morning? Clear skies and stars everywhere. Usually means the day's gonna be hot. But I had this chart of the sky when I was a kid—called the Map of Heaven—so I know some of their names. Polaris and Orion. The Seven Sisters. And Venus comes up blue and steady, not twinkling like the rest. Wind sounds like an ocean blowing over my fields and I can smell the harvest waiting for me to pick up some workers.

I hire immigrants like everyone else round here—'cept I speak Spanish to them. Or I try to. You should see their eyes when I call five men over to my truck and tell them what I pay. Real money for real work—that's what I learned from my dad.

So one day we're finishing up—I got a couple guys spreading fresh hay for the horses, another guy's hosing down the combine—and I see my Aunt Naomi who I ain't seen in years. Walking down the highway. Looking like she's been walking on that highway a long time.

She's got a friend with her. And both them girls covered in so much red dirt they look like maybe they're made from the stuff. I guess me and my men don't look so much different after working the fields all day.

"Bo," my aunt said. "You are a sight. Come hug my neck."

I wasn't in no condition to be hugging necks, but I figure Aunt Naomi wasn't neither. So I took my stink over there and picked her up off the ground, you know, squeezing one of those bear hugs that feels good to give even if I worry sometimes I might bruise a person. But Aunt Naomi's got plenty of padding to protect her. She's no feather weight.

"Put me down, you crazy farmer," she said. So I did. And we all stood for a bit. The sun went behind a cloud, and you could see the outline of it all around us as it passed by. It brought a cool breeze to my sweaty face.

"Bo," my aunt said. "This here was Mal's wife."

Something about a dirty face is that a person's eyes shine out. And this girl's eyes were almost black, but a kind of black that made you hold your breath, like black diamonds.

"A pleasure," I said and kinda nodded my head at her. "I'm Bo."

"I know," she said. "I'm Rihana."

Even with all that dirt I could tell that Mal had done good.

"Dad worked with her folks 'til him and Mal and Kyle got in the wreck. She's from the city, you 'member. Was a Muslim. An Arab. Now she's just an Arab."

Folks around here would talk about that, I knew, unless I talked first. I wouldn't say nothing about the wreck, though. Some things I don't talk about.

"Gotta take my men back," I told them. "You two gonna ride in the cab with me."

It was no question they'd stay. I ain't the kind of man what sends two ladies off down the road again. Specially a blood relative.

Would you believe the next couple of weeks? Naomi's girl worked right along side my men. Rihana. Naomi said her name means "sweet basil." I still hired five men all that harvest, but I paid Ree, too. "Y'all let her do a little bit of work," I told them. They knew I'd pay them the same. And they all liked her.

Any man out here would, you know. We're none of us special like I said. Me least of all except that I own the fields. Got my land to work. Got the ranch house. Always perfectly willing to share it all if someone were interested. But I hadn't gone out looking or nothing.

I had my doubts about Ree at first, but she laid those to rest for sure one night. No, no, it wasn't like you're thinking. Now, come on. She's not like that.

But I admit, it was a little startling. I was sleeping in my bed, you know. Probably snoring enough to shake the windows. And she snuck into my room. Aunt Naomi put her up to it, I figure. Lord, I'm glad I showered that night because next thing I know she's pulled the covers down and is rubbing my feet. And kissing them real soft so I didn't know what to do at all except just lay there.

I guess other men are used to being woke up in the middle of the night by a beautiful woman, but not me. I couldn't hardly breathe. I didn't want to. I couldn't grab the sheets because she'd pulled them down and I could feel a breeze blowing in through the window on my chest and down my legs. It was a cold night, but her hands were warm on my feet. And I could smell some kind of perfume spice or something.

I mean, what would you do? Different parts of me wanted all sorts of things. I knew I wasn't dreaming, but it didn't seem like Ree, you know. Like I said, she's not like that.

"Who are you?" I finally asked her.

She stretched out next to me in the bed and whispered her name. I could feel her breath against my cheek, and I could see her eyes shining in the dark. She said, "Take me into your house."

I would, of course. God. You know I would have right then that night? Assuming that's what she really wanted. Assuming I wasn't just her last ditch option. I could barely make out her shape in the bed next to me, but I could feel her weight on the mattress. Making me tilt toward her just a little bit.

"God, Ree," I said. "For you I'll do anything." I turned toward her on the bed and reached out a hand to her lips. She drew a quick breath. "I'll do anything you want. If you're sure you want me. There's other men in this town who've noticed, you know. I'm not the only one can see past your skin. I'm not the only one with land."

She kissed my hand and held it to her breast. Whatever she was wearing—Lord, we could've got ourselves in trouble that night except I knew Naomi was down the hall. Even still I pulled her to me.

"Don't leave me," she said and finally finally kissed me. I wasn't going anywhere. And I held her so tight she couldn't go anywhere either.

Next morning, she makes me coffee and meets me outside.

Clear skies and stars everywhere.

Wind sounds like an ocean blowing through the fields.

And we can smell the harvest waiting. You know.

Lord God. The best kind of morning.

HillCountryWriter Category: Drama
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Thursday, February 09, 2006

 

The Cross Shop

I like to dabble in drama. Here's a skit I wrote for our drama ministry at First Baptist Kerrville. It's a variation on an old idea, but the script might save someone the trouble of writing their own or buying one. Feel free to use it if you are looking for scripts. Just post a comment here to let me know how it goes.

THE CROSS SHOP

Running Time: approximately 4 minutes

(SHOPKEEPER enters with JESUS and sets up the shop, crosses of various sizes including at least one full sized cross. SHOPKEEPER dusts his shop and whistles or hums “I Am Thine, O Lord.” JESUS stands quietly with the crosses and perhaps hums along quietly. SHOPKEEPER turns back on audience to dust the big cross, while SHOPKEEPER faces the back, FIRST CUSTOMER enters. FIRST CUSTOMER clears throat and rings bell to interrupt)

SHOPKEEPER: How can I help you today?

FIRST CUSTOMER (embarrassed): I’m looking for a cross.

SHOPKEEPER: Then you have come to the right place. This is the Cross Shop!

(There is an uncomfortable silence while the SHOPKEEPER waits for the FIRST CUSTOMER to talk.)

FIRST CUSTOMER (less certain): I don’t, um, have a cross right now.

SHOPKEEPER: You didn’t lose it did you?

FIRST CUSTOMER (nonplussed): No, I don’t think so. I mean, I grew up going to church, but I don’t seem to have a cross anymore. (Pauses.) Maybe I never had one.

SHOPKEEPER: I see, I see. Well, I’ve got just the thing for you. (SHOPKEEPER walks to JESUS and the large cross.)

FIRST CUSTOMER: No, no, no. I couldn’t possibly— That’s much too big. Don’t you think?

SHOPKEEPER: It’s big, alright.

FIRST CUSTOMER: I just lost my job, and my whole life is sort of messed up right now. That’s partly why I’m here . . . just looking for a little cross, you know. Something to wear maybe?

SHOPKEEPER (nodding and finishing his thought): And keep close to your heart. I have just the thing. (SHOPKEEPER produces a gold cross on a chain.)

FIRST CUSTOMER: That is perfect. I can wear it under my shirt, so no one will—you know.

SHOPKEEPER (sadly): I understand.

FIRST CUSTOMER: Can’t wear my heart on my sleeve.

SHOPKEEPER: Why not?

FIRST CUSTOMER (ignoring him and getting out his wallet): How much do I owe you?

SHOPKEEPER (resigned): The price is on the tag.

JESUS: I’ll get it for you.

FIRST CUSTOMER: Excuse me?

JESUS: Let me pay for this.

FIRST CUSTOMER (pays the SHOPKEEPER, speaking to JESUS): Do I know you?

JESUS: You can’t pay for everything.

FIRST CUSTOMER: Well, I bought the cross didn’t I? (FIRST CUSTOMER leaves)

JESUS (waits until FIRST CUSTOMER has left): No. You didn’t.

SHOPKEEPER: He bought a cross.

JESUS: But not a Savior.

(SECOND CUSTOMER enters.)

SHOPKEEPER (hopeful): How may I help you?

SECOND CUSTOMER: I’m looking for a cross.

SHOPKEEPER: Then you have come to the right place. This is the Cross Shop!

SECOND CUSTOMER: For my kids, you know.

SHOPKEEPER: Can’t raise kids without a cross.

SECOND CUSTOMER (picking up a soft pillow cross): This one is nice and (lays her head against it) so soft.

SHOPKEEPER: The cross can bring you peace.

SECOND CUSTOMER (half-serious): The Lord knows I need that!

JESUS (nodding): You do.

SECOND CUSTOMER (serious): The clothes kids wear these days. The things they say to you. (Quietly) My oldest is in serious trouble.

JESUS: I know.

SECOND CUSTOMER (upset): I don’t know what to do anymore. (Composing herself with a sigh.) A nice soft cross like this might fix everything.

SHOPKEEPER: How many kids do you have?

SECOND CUSTOMER (nonchalant): I don’t need one for each kid. That would be too expensive. (Pulling money from her purse.) Just this one will do.

JESUS: I’ll get it for you.

SECOND CUSTOMER: Excuse me?

JESUS: Let me pay for it.

SECOND CUSTOMER (pays the SHOPKEEPER, speaking to JESUS): Do I know you?

JESUS: You can’t pay for everything.

SECOND CUSTOMER: (Considers his offer.) That’s awful sweet of you, Mister, but I can’t accept a random gift like that from a stranger.

SHOPKEEPER (to JESUS): He’s not a stranger.

SECOND CUSTOMER: Look, I have to pay for this myself. (SECOND CUSTOMER leaves.)

SHOPKEEPER: They all want to pay for themselves.

JESUS (sadly): But they can’t . . .

(SHOPKEEPER starts humming/whistling “I Am Thine, O Lord” again. THIRD CUSTOMER enters extremely distraught. He ignores the SHOPKEEPER and immediately goes to the foot of the large cross to kneel before JESUS. JESUS motions for SHOPKEEPER to stop humming/whistling.)

THIRD CUSTOMER: I did it again, Lord. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I hate the things I do, but I can’t seem to stop doing them. Please, Lord. Please. Help me.

JESUS (kneeling next to the man): How can I help you?

THIRD CUSTOMER: I don’t know. I guess, I’m looking for the cross.

SHOPKEEPER: Then you’ve come to the right place!

THIRD CUSTOMER: You don’t understand. I’ve lost everything.

JESUS: I’ll get it for you.

THIRD CUSTOMER: I can’t ask you to pay for this.

JESUS: I know, but I’ve done it just the same.

THIRD CUSTOMER: You’ve already bought it?

JESUS: I knew you were coming.

(THIRD CUSTOMER struggles to pick up the cross.)

JESUS: I’ll even help you carry it.

THIRD CUSTOMER: How far?

JESUS: As far as you need.

THIRD CUSTOMER (needing to be upfront): Do you know what I’ve done?

JESUS: I do.

THIRD CUSTOMER (considers this): Together, then?

JESUS: Together.

(JESUS and THIRD CUSTOMER exit together carrying the large cross.)

SHOPKEEPER (singing and packing up his “store”):
Draw me nearer, nearer blessèd Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessèd Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

(Choir / Congregation sings Fanny Crosby’s 1875 hymn,”I Am Thine, O Lord.”)

HillCountryWriter Category: Drama
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Shep's Question

Shep posted a good question in response to Hill Country Writer: Keep "Out of Ur"!

He asks, “So is God glorified in questions or answers, or questions and answers?”

I wonder. Can Shep’s question alone glorify God? Or does it need an answer from me?

Seriously, I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon. It’s a sort of variation on the chicken and the egg debate, I think.

I’d say we can glorify God with questions or answers . . . or games or lessons or stories or movies or kisses or baked goods or any number of things. Often in various combinations. (Stories and baked goods are my favorite.)

I’d say we can glorify God with questions or answers as long as our motives and attitudes are pure.

I’d say we can glorify God with question or answers . . . because God Himself is the Answer. To paraphrase John Eldridge in Waking the Dead, God is the meaning of life. Any honest question will lead to Him.

Everyone who points to God brings Him glory if they do so with a right heart.

Everything that points to God potentially brings Him glory if the audience/reader has a right heart.

My dad asked me if there was an example in the Bible of someone who glorified God through questions.

I thought of Job. God glorifies Himself through questions. He tells Job, “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me” (Job 38:3; 40:7).

My first thought about Job was this: God doesn’t provide any answers because he doesn’t have to. Job and his friends know the answer. And so do we.

While that sounds cool, it’s not quite right. God asks questions and demands answers from Job. So Job’s answer is part of God’s glory in this case.

But that’s not quite right either. Am I to assume that God somehow needed Job’s answer to receive glory? Definitely not! All glory belongs to him and returns to him.

Here’s another way of asking Shep’s question: Do we dishonor God through questions or answers, or through questions and answers?

Again, I think the answer is both. We can dishonor God with good questions. (It goes without saying that evil questions dishonor Him). But we can also dishonor God with answers.

Isn’t that what the Pharisees did? They were whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones. Death and emptiness wrapped up in all the right answers.

Right answers don’t mean anything unless we offer them in love and humility to bring honor and glory to the Word, the Answer Himself. Right questions don’t mean anything unless we ask them in love and humility to bring honor and glory to the Word, the Answer Himself.

In God alone is all meaning and truth--whether that truth comes through questions or answers. Or both.

HillCountryWriter Category: Blogging
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Friday, February 03, 2006

 

The Best Job in the World

I thought I had the best job in the world, but then I realized this guy does. Bizarre.

Be sure to scroll down so you can see the list of movies he's worked on and the "talent" he used in each.

http://home.earthlink.net/~skutcher/films.htm

Thursday, February 02, 2006

 

Christians Could Never Write Reviews Like This

The New York Times Magazine published a review of The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis. It is her sixth book, published by Little, Brown, and Company (i.e. not by a Christian Book Association press). Award-winning writer Lucy Ellmann wrote the rather bizarre review which included rants like the following:

"THE good news is this isn't another memoir about dieting. The "thin place" isn't Kathryn Davis's gym but a term devised by Celtic Christians to describe a location or state of mind in which the physical and spiritual worlds meet. I should declare immediately that I resent and fear Christianity, not only for its sexism and incitement of violence but for its deadening effect on the imagination. That said, Davis's imagination, religiously inspired or not, seems to be in fine working order, if at times a little aimless. . . .

"The plot ultimately relies on two strangers, one with a ponytail, the other bald, who stab people and take money from the church . . . Nonetheless, [the author] has done something great here, something heathen, anarchic, democratic. She has given everyone and every thing a voice: animals, plants, children, coma patients, even the earth itself."

Award winning writer or not, this kind of political rhetoric just doesn't belong in a book review. I'm not suggesting Lucy Ellmann only review books she agrees with politically and spiritually--­unless that is the only way she can avoid preaching.

I'm left of center myself, but this is just hypocrisy. Can you imagine the outcry if Christians wrote reviews for mainstream media skewering Islam or Wiccan with this kind of ruthless and arbitrary condescension?

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

 

Keep "Out of Ur"!

This is a bit hot, leaving my ears red when I proof it, so I didn't post it at Out of Ur. Still, I wanted it to be available:

Growing up in a conservative denomination, I was told over and over not to ask questions. "Put your hand down," the teachers might have said. "We don't want to hear from you."

If the blog Out of Ur looks ugly sometimes, it is only because God's Church looks ugly sometimes. Canceling the blog will not accomplish anything—except to silence some Christians with real questions.

It won't be the first time no one wants to hear what they have to say.

Still, I understand blogs like Out of Ur can be intense. They aren't for everyone. (Mel Gibson's Passion was intense. It wasn’t for everyone either.)

God's Church is full of dynamic variety—and I am more comfortable in some parts of His Church than in others. In fact, God Himself is full of dynamic variety we call the Trinity. And frankly, I am more comfortable with some parts of God than others.

My comfort level is not a moral issue, though. It is an issue of taste.

If God isn't glorified when you read Out of Ur, don't read it. But please don't presume that God can't be glorified when other people read it.

I find great encouragement in the variety of voices here. Please don't silence them.

HillCountryWriter Category: Blogging
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Hill Country Achilles

Every now and then I like to pretend I can write poetry. Writing poetry feels like playing chess. I know the official rules, but then some punk kid comes along and just spanks my most diligent efforts. It's like there's some code I just don't quite get.

But I continue to train on my chess program (for what purpose??) and pen some short pretentious, self-conscious lyrics.

Now that I've broken every rule of self-degradation I warned my students about . . .

HILL COUNTRY ACHILLES

Your pulse beats blood against this pillow
each night, the sound in your ears
like footfalls through fresh snow tracking
back to a time in Texas when it fell
just frozen enough for you to step out
and catalogue the memory of weather.
Cold can be beautiful when it falls evenly,
but most winters uneven chills cool porches
not doors, freeze begonias not grass.
Mornings frost fences and shingles,
while warm afternoons catch you all
flushing until you unzip thick coats
and wonder if memory serves up lies
like pie. Meringue could cover your town
beneath peaks that brown in the oven.
If you slice out wedges for guests,
they’ll ask for the recipe. Just smile.
Take their plate, all crumbs and sugar
splotches too shallow for forks.
The truth is you won’t remember how
you made that fluffy white. It couldn’t be
snow. Perhaps the puffed petals of winter
flowers, roses grown to tall green stems
in glass houses? Some blood is white,
you’ve heard. The kind that fights
where you hurt and swell, like the time
your ankle twisted on an old cedar branch.
You spent a day on your back. Your foot
on a pillow higher than the heart
that mattered, that pumped so much blood
your foot filled the shoe like sausage,
and you untied laces cursing. But
the cool cotton case met your heel,
turned memory to hope for summer
nights when cicadas pray, “Sleep tight.”

HillCountryWriter Category: Poetry
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