I see all the cyclists and all the runners
flying past while I walk the dog.
I think of all my running in past summers —
all the seasons, rain, snow and fog.
I have to give it time for my body to heal
and then once again a runner’s high I’ll feel.

The dictionary states of
solitude: a state or situation
in which you are alone usually
because you want to be. Now,
those of a spiritual bent see
this as all positive, but then
again there are those like the
Unabomber who like to live
alone and it would be quite
a stretch to say the Unabomb-
er lived that way because of
a spiritual quest and peace
of mind, so we have to qualify
spiritual solitude from creepy
solitude, the creepy one deny-
ing the deeply rooted social
nature of life as vs. one affirm-
ing the deeply rooted social
nature of life and seeking that
relationship with God without
distractions caused by the
social nature of life. Then
there is loneliness for which
I don’t need a dictionary de-
finition. Been there, done
that with people all around
and no one within shouting
distance. I vote for the
solitude advocated by the
mystics.

Well, you white, evangelical Christians, you profess to follow Jesus, but I don’t know what Jesus you mean.

It must be the triumphal Warrior Christ scheduled to return sometime and set things straight by casting all who don’t call him Lord and Savior into everlasting damnation. Wow, now there’s a gracious God.

By the way, you adherents of “individual salvation in Jesus Christ,” do you even know what the phrase “Lord and Savior” means? No, it doesn’t mean accept him and be saved from eternal punishment and be a doobee not a “don’t be” with Ozzie and Harriet middle-class values in this life.

Jesus followers started calling him Lord and Savior instead of Caesar who demanded to be called that. So, instead of a despot, demagogue being Lord and Savior, humble Jesus, from nowhere Nazareth became the Lord and Savior because his way was the way of peace, love, justice and mercy.

The Warrior Christ is the only kind of Jesus I can think you follow because you are all so gung-ho about following The Donald who is about as loving as the Warrior Christ you have conjured.

Meanwhile, a Franciscan monk writes, “Jesus, the new Job, experienced the worst suffering humanity could inflict: betrayal, unfair judgment, rejection, abandonment, torture, humiliation, and crucifixion,” but apparently this is not the kind of Jesus you can stomach.

Either that or you like the Hollywood hero who suffers and then avenges that suffering by obliterating all those who inflicted the damage — another variation of such an exceedingly gracious God. Not.

Might it be that resurrection means the Lamb wins with love giving all of us Christians the courage to suffer on behalf of all those who have experienced betrayal, unfair judgment, rejection, abandonment, torture, humiliation and crucifixion?

You know what I think your candidate, a demagogue and misogynist who would prohibit Muslims from entering the United States and kick out millions of Hispanics and who probably wouldn’t mind being addressed as Lord and Savior would call all those who practice self-sacrificial love? Losers. Can you hear him? Looosers.

What do I hear? In response to those followers feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting prisoners, the glorified Son of Man says, “Inherit the Realm prepared for you.”

That Realm is the Realm of Eternal Love to be experienced in the now not the realm of the one percenters who grab it all for themselves now and call all the rest of us looosers.

Since he injured
his knee,
in his dreams
he flies through
the air,
running on clouds.
It all seems
so ethereal,
so fair.
Upon waking,
he climbs and
descends stairs,
thankful for
a stem cell
transplant
that gives him
two healthy knees
and miles to jog
before he sleeps.
And so he leaps,
a little more like Phil
on the Master’s hill
than one with a
pole vaulter’s skill.
Hey, at seventy-one
it all just seems like
such fun.
Once again he is
on a fun run.

He just got off the phone
for the umpteenth time
and each and every
time
he heard the word,
“By the time
this call is over,
your service will
be working just fine.”
That’s local cable
company time,
which for the customer
is never, ever fine,
more like Twilight
Zone time.
He had called in route
to Arizona and was told
all would be fine
by the time
he arrived in that
Western state so fine.
The T.V. didn’t work but the
Wi-Fi did just fine.
So, they said, “Sorry,”
time and time and time
until he said, “Please don’t
say sorry one more time.”
“Sorry,” she said, “and we
will need to send a tech
guy out to your house to
make sure everything is
working just fine.”
“Fine, fine, fine” he
mumbled while hanging
up the phone and turning
to his wife, he asked,
“Is it happy hour time,
so I can have a glass or
two of fine wine? Oh,
hell, a few glasses from
the box will do just fine.”
His wife said, “Darling,
just think about the
weather and everything
will be just fine.”

A self-professed nerdy, numbers
wonk, the Gov never ever in-
dicated he was interested in
anything but the bottom line

and now he wants to get to
the bottom of the scandal.
Scandal? He was only trying
to save dollars, millions and

millions of dollars in deeply
depressed communities
throughout the state that, in
his view, knew nothing about

bottom lines. Because the
hapless residents were at
the bottom of any measure-
able socio-economic line,

the Gov in his own inimitably
paternalistic style, which
some might say smacked of
racial overtones, in as much

as all the communities target-
ed for takeover by fiat were
vast majority minority, said
condescendingly that this is

all good medicine for you.
And then he just knew he would
save one community more money
than it had seen in eons and

he would be proclaimed the
Economic, Savior, Nerdy, Wonk
King. The poor unfortunate
souls hooked up to another

city’s water line. Oh, my,
what profligate, foolish children
they be, so simple and so in
need of the Gov’s bottom line

and all with bottled water free.
Except it all went wrong, so
very wrong, for months and
months wrong with lead poison-

ing babies’ brains and apparent-
ly, the Gov knew it but kept
to his bottom line which he
just knew would be proven

right and true because it
was just water under the
bridge or over the dam, so
to speak until finally, when

all the lead in the water hit
the proverbial fan, the Gov
took a courageous stand and
simply stood there and said

in his little, nerdy voice,
sorry, man. Sorry? Gov, that
simply won’t do. These are
human lives and shouldn’t be

a mere bottom line to you.

The reconstituted, revised, redacted,
reconstructed, redefined, renegady,
roguish Ronald Reagan is the really
fine imaginary hero of the sad-sack
six vying for the nomination to run
for president and run the country…
right into the ground with trickle
down. And George Washington
chopped down the cherry tree and
could not tell a lie and Honest Abe
walked three miles on an Illinois
two-track to return six cents in
change and Sarah endorses The
Donald and the only reality in this
reality show is that son Track got
busted back home for brawling,
allegedly manhandling his favorite
squeeze and packin’ heat while drunk.
The whole thing just makes you feel
all warm and cozy and proud as punch
doesn’t it?

He views videos that
get passed around by
old, white people about
how wonderful life was

in the 50’s and 60’s
and, by inference, how
lousy things are today
now that old whites are

losing all their power
and influence and, of
course, he gets caught
up in the memories;

that’s part of the prop-
aganda but he wants to
help pave the way but
doesn’t want to be in

the way. He stayed at a
motel in a west suburb
of Chicago, a motel
frequented mostly by

blacks. Police were
called in the morning
and in the evening, too —
squad cars, sirens, flash-

ing blue and red lights
and cops everywhere. He
wants to help pave the
way but he doesn’t want

to be in the way. He
stayed at a motel in a
north suburb of St.
Louis, frequented mostly

by blacks. Fire-fighters
and police were called
when a fire-alarm was pull-
ed. Flashing red and blue

lights, sirens, fire
fighters and cops were
everywhere. This isn’t
his life story; he has

good memories of vaca-
tions in motels around
America but he doesn’t
want to get in the way

and he doesn’t want to
be in the way. He doesn’t
want to stay where police
are called out for domes-

tic disturbances any old
time of day at motels
along the way and he
doesn’t want to stay

where fire fighters and
police are called out for
false alarms or any alarms.
He wants peace and quiet

on his way across country,
but he doesn’t want to
get in the way and he
doesn’t want to be in the

way. He wants to stand
for the way of civil
rights and human rights
and get out-of-the-way

of the advance of civil
rights and human rights
and help make way for
a new day for blacks

and browns and yellows
and please don’t forget
the reds, and he will
get out-of-the-way and

do what he can to pave
the way for a bright,
new just day, but at the
same time, he doesn’t want

to be in the way, in the way
of the police and the fire
fighters and any violence
that may come that way.

Why, oh, why did you leave
Eva? When you hit that high
note in “Over the Rainbow”
and carry it out to infinity,
I cry. You call to the heavens
and I call with you, “Why, oh,
why?” You were so young when
you died; how did you know?
I know you knew; I could hear
it in your voice — the voice of
a she-wolf crying in the wild-
erness and when I hear your
protest, your stance, the de-
mand, the call to eternal account,
Job’s protest, I lift my hands
in protest and affirmation. Yes!
I only wish you had stayed for
many more years instead of
flying over that rainbow leav-
ing me to sing your last line,
“Why oh, why, can’t I?”

The writer of the book on a now neglected poet wrote
that the poet “was doing the work of keeping her name
and her work in front of her peers; she was extremely
well-known at the time. She did it for the…the prestige
and the control….” I thought we looked to poets for
the truth. Wouldn’t you think that if we are to look to
poets for truth that we would find those who embody
great character and integrity like the great truth teller
Jesus? We don’t expect truth tellers to be vain and
controlling like the now neglected poet, but it simply
may be that there are but two truths — one, a
great gift doesn’t always come in the nicest
wrapping; two, the wrapping may offer a gift of
its own — sad as that may be.