The Hood

The Hood

Infant Jesus reflected eyes
A black man longing for childhood
Long lost. Memories germinize
By carols, candle light, the hood
Echoes tiny brown wrapped babies

Dozens of them, mewling WIC checks
And soy formula. Lectures from
Minimum wage outfitted clerks
Shame shepherds in good will costume
Into moody silence. Now skies

Open finally realize,
The father of all fatherhood.

The Need for a King

A friend of mine was discouraged because he wasn't as "nice" as other pastors. He had experienced some difficulties in several of the jobs he had in the process of starting out in the ministry and was feeling like he could never be seen as a good pastor. I told him that he was a warrior, a term and image that is often used by scripture to describe God and His people. Warriors are not known for being "nice." They are known for determination, for pursuit, for great skill in the techniques of battle. They are know for getting bruised and bloodied, for coming home with their armor dented and dirty, for the desire to go out and fight again. There is a great scene in the movie "Blackhawk Down." Where after all of the bloodshed, destruction and loss of American lives, one of the soldiers who has been their a while, grabs his pack and weapons and heads back out into the chaos of the city, because that is what he does. He is a warrior.

Dreadlocks

Dreadlocks, chaos to control
Chaos. Disorder upon disheveled?
Truthfully, chaos imposed
On finely tuned DNA protein,
Dancing well measured
Rhythm. Can humanity really
Improve upon nature and
Nature’s God? Or is it simply
The vanity of valiant effort,
That helps us sleep at the end
Of a scarlet day?

In 1995 Susan Sarrandon played the real life character Sister Helen Prejean who begins to minister to death row inmate, in Dead Man Walking, also starring Sean Penn as the hardened criminal, rapist and murderer Matthew Poncelet. As she ministers to Matthew she is deeply criticized by one of the victims father and so she also visits the victims family weeping with them through their anger and pain. Out of this she is able to help Matthew face the reality and responsibility for his actions. As the time for the execution nears, Sister Helen helps Poncelet come to terms with the crime he committed, and the inmate finally accepts responsibility. A flashback reveals the cruel and senseless murders. He had intended to taunt the families of his victims with his last words, but instead he offers an apology and dies with a sense of dignity.

This is exactly how God’s love is meant to work in our lives. It is not an escape from reality but an entrance into it. It is not a shirking of responsibility but a deep grasping of it.

At one point in the movie Sister moves toward Matthew and says,

Sister Helen Prejean: You are a son of God.
Matthew Poncelet: [in tears] Thank you. I've never been called a son of God before.
[laughs slightly]
Matthew Poncelet: I've been called a son of a you-know-what plenty of times, but I've never been called a son of God.

The gift

He was one of those people you try to avoid. Needy, lonely, talkative, solicitive, always wanting to be hugged, and always smelling of cigs and sweat. He found that religious people would humor him with all of these things because they were too polite, and too afraid of looking unreligious to do otherwise. He seemed oblivious to their hypocrisy. Either that or he simply didn’t care since it was a way for him to gain the attention he needed and wanted.

He had a low IQ and a high need for adrenaline, a lethal combination. He almost drank and drove himself to death in his early 20’s and when I came to know him He was in his early 30’s with a young daughter he was trying to raise on his own, and looking much more like 60. He lost his teeth from drinking and poor personal hygiene. He had lost more jobs than teeth in the course of his young life, and was barely holding on to the one he presently had, a sand blaster for a company that made cattle feeders.

I was the new young pastor, naïve about life and eager to carry out the gospel a combination lethal to a reasonable man’s spiritual welfare. I was determined to love Romaine with everything I had. I took him to work when his truck, almost as worn as he was could not get up and go, which was often. He was always running out of money for groceries, for light bills, for gasoline, for clothes, you name it I paid for it, not the church mind you. They had given up long ago.

One of my personal rules is to not be the first to let go in a hug with someone. Romaine took that commitment right to the very edge of my endurance. He would lock me in his sweaty, smelly fierce embrace clutching me for way past that period of time deemed socially acceptable. I would grit my teeth, grip back, and hold my breath for as long as I possibly could. I was determined to somehow love this unlovely man as best as I possibly could.

One of the things I tried to do was to find someway to give him something without him asking, which was, well, impossible because he was always asking. Then one day came an opportunity. He had a birthday and hadn’t asked for anything. So I bought a birthday card and slipped $20 bucks inside. Never heard back from him at least not right away and not directly. He not only had poor hygiene he wasn’t too current on etiquette. Then I heard from an indirect source, a sort of homeless woman who was trying to freeload into his life offering him a warm spot in the bed for a roof over her head, a very usual and understandable arrangement in those circles. But she told me he had refused her offer. When I asked her why. She said that he told her that I wouldn’t want him to do it.

She had told him why should that matter. I didn’t really care about him. I was just doing my job as a pastor that was it. But he got a determined glint in his eye, and told her that she was a liar. He does too care. He marched over to the mantle in his apartment where a few cards were stacked from his birthday and pulled out a particular one. Hanging out the end was a twenty dollar bill. If he doesn’t care then why did he give me this? And he was right. Who can argue with grace.

Although we demand all kinds of things from God and often complain that He doesn’t love us. Who can argue with the fact that he gave us His son unsolicited. Now that is a gift of grace.

I've discovered it is too easy to be angry, not that such a discovery is unusual. There are just so many things wrong with the world and so many frustrations in life. It is easy to be angry at bills I can't pay, people I can't control, cars I can't fix and the list goes endlessly on.

Today I wish to stop pursuing the path of anger and move forward. Ok so yesterday didn't turn out the way I had hoped. So what. Today is a new day and I'm ready to do what I can today.

In the words of George Herbert:

Yet take thy way ; for sure thy way is best :
Stretch or contract me thy poor debter :
This is but tuning of my breast,
To make the music better.

Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,
Thy hands made both, and I am there.
Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place ev’ry where.

Cleaning up Messes

My father-in-law called me a few days ago and asked me what I was doing. "On my way to clean up a mess." I replied. "I feel like I'm just a big diaper. That's my job in life--to be a big diaper." So let me start by listing the advantages of being a big diaper.

1. At least I start out white and clean.
2. I'm very absorbent. I have to be.
3. Some people are offended by my job, but I'm easily washable.
4. I help keep the world a little cleaner and less smelly.
5. I get to work mostly with the very immature young, & the incontinent old.
6. At the end of the day I just throw myself in the wash machine.

I'm thankful that I have a wash machine to throw myself into. Its called "Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow." No matter how messed up or down and dirty I get, there is always Jesus at the end of the day to wash me out.