The preacher/writer wrote
that the more you get,
the more you have,
and the more you
give away in love,
the more you are.
In America, we admire
those who get and have
regardless of the
reality that, more than
likely, they aren’t that
much except an unrealized
Child of God, which if
realized, is everything.
We give lip service to
Jesus who said it is more
blessed to give than to receive
but we don’t believe
that we will be blessed,
because blessedness for us
means getting more stuff
even if we remain, inside, not much
except an unrealized Child of
God, which, if realized,
is everything.

Years ago, a man heard a minister
protest the use of the word
“wretch” in the hymn “Amazing
Grace” — the minister contending
that God doesn’t make wretches.
The man questioned in his mind,
what about simply becoming
wretched on one’s own?
Sunday, the same man sang
“Amazing Grace” in worship
and the redacted hymn substituted
the word “one” for wretch. The
man thinks about the wretched-
ness appearing and the omen of
more and greater wretchedness
in the wake of the recent president-
ial election and thinks about how
wretched people can act to the point
of having to be called wretched
for all their wretched behavior —
guilt for their behavior and shame
for being that wretched. The
composer of the hymn was captain
and slave trader on a ship trans-
porting slaves from Africa to the
New World before he was convicted
of sin and embraced by grace and
was bold enough to call himself a
wretch and work for the end of
slavery. And the man thought,
If we are all just “ones” and
in no way wretches, we have nothing
to be sorry about, nor for which
to ask forgiveness and if none of
us needs forgiveness and the grace
of salvation from wretchedness, well
then, wretchedness wins.

Democrats are the nicest folks
on the face of the earth.
When elected to office they
kiss the babies shortly after birth.
They smile in the face of opposition
and congratulate all opposing positions.
They tuck their tails and run
and ask, “Isn’t this just so much fun?”
Meanwhile, the Republicans go for blood
and have done so since the Great Flood.
They couldn’t care less about protocol
and tell just about everybody to go to hell.
They fight and scrape and get things undone
along the Beltline meaning Washington.
Wouldn’t you love to ignite some fire
under the butts of the Democrats
and raise the consternation and ire
of all those smug, former Dixiecrats,
harboring resentment about losing
the Civil War
and, soon to be minority whites,
calling for a racial war?
Well, let’s hope the Dems to the occasion will rise
and catch the Republicans and Tea Party
followers by surprise
and effect legislation to save the planet,
women’s and LGBT rights.
Wouldn’t you just love that kind of fight —
the fight to see our precious Republic
rising to new and greater heights?

The condo is up for sale. Two properties
two-thousand miles apart are a lot to

manage. We’re thinking of letting the
bicycles go even though they are 1980’s

vintage, European racing bikes with
glorious, chrome-moly, lugged frames,

a plush geometrical configuration for com-
fort and Campagnolo Record components.

They carry all the things from years past
— relationships, loves won and lost,

sorrows, successes, superficial ideas,
deep thoughts, regrets, gratitude, small

selves, big, achy-breaky hearts — on
vintage Brooks leather saddles, broken

in over many years to just the right
combination of softness and stiffness

to carry all that, as the bikes race up
and down the streets and bike paths.

Is there hope for an eleventh hour reprieve —
a chance that votes of conscience would be received
on the December day of the Presidential election?
There’s mounting evidence of foreign
tampering to sway
the election a particular way,
any way but an honest, legal way.
Has there been an unholy collusion
to create confusion
masquerading as the clarion call
to make America great again
when it is probably only for one family’s
and a few foreign countries’ personal gain?
Scared, white people have been duped, again;
racial tensions rise
and increased hate crimes
are no surprise
in the wake
of an election as fake
as the slogan to make America great —
again,
which is simply code for
let’s take America back again
to a time when whites securely were in control
and women and minorities
were given a subservient role
and LGBT’s were told to crawl back in their hole.
Pray for an eleventh hour reprieve
before the great nation of America
goes back and back on human rights
and the great, inclusive American rainbow coalition
proves an experience so brief
and the country is plunged into deep grief.

A rash of poems that had to be written
crossed my desk today
of death, burial and decay,
all from different sources
but perhaps from similar forces —
artistic responses to immediate courses
of human folly
ushering in a deep,
profound melancholy
penned with hope that things
at some point might ameliorate
but with knowledge that courses
often end in destruction and hate.
It isn’t fate, write the poets,
though such courses recur and persist.
Poets’ words will keep pointing
in spite of often being dismissed.
It is the vocation they cannot resist,
and so, a rash of poems was written
and crossed my desk today.

He sat in the silence
looking across the divide.
He listened to his breathing.
He saw the person on
the other side of the divide
who sat in the silence
looking across at him.
He heard the other person’s
breathing
as the other person heard
his breathing
and in the silence, they
smiled.

The post truth seems, oh, so strong.
Post truths are told all day long.
Some say people lie a hundred times a day.
“No. They are just post truths,” others say,
especially those who would rob us blind.
Thank goodness, Lincoln said,
“You can’t fool all the people all the time.”

He stood in the driveway
looking at all the white
feathers on the ground
wondering what animal
got the poor little bird
when a downy feather
floated down in front of
him. He looked up into
the olive tree, squinted
and saw a peregrine
falcon staring down at
him with a Cheshire
grin on his face — er
beak, er beaks don’t
smile, but the man
could see a downy,
white feather fluttering
in the beak and he was
sure the falcon was
smiling inside along
with peregrine pride.

In times of great stress
I find I wish to regress
to the pomp and circumstance
of things including
clerical dress.
The clerical collar
always made me feel calmer
and gave me an identity
to relieve my lack of serenity.
While now I’m retired
and think I’m quite tired
of things disconcerting,
it wouldn’t take long
for me to do some rehearsing
and stand before the congregation
and signal my elation
at my fear’s cessation.
But that would be all for me
and not for the Lord of Eternity,
so I suppose I shall remain retired
in my state of existential uncertainty.