Echoes and Stars

1. Been reading about David. And I’ve told my students and anyone listening that we do not read the OT stories with all those crazy characters to learn about how to live on this great big earth they also walked on. We read the OT to see Jesus before he could be seen. But that’s only part true. Because he walked on the same earth they did. And we walk on the same earth. And if we see him in them, then we are catching even more glimpses of how to live outside those four gospels we love so much. Maybe we can get the same dust on our feet.

2. I bet the elder brother always wore a tie.

3. I often feel what I can only call “treasuring” (not in the Matthew 6 sense) books and music. It’s a longing for what I already have. Something to be held onto tight. Things to be handed down. Kept alive. Cared for. That transmission of creativity within those things that are bigger than their physical existence is something large. Bigger than myself though I can hold them in my hand.

4. I don’t know anything about injecting disinfectant. But I know injecting the newsmen into your veins is bad. Bad mojo. It’ll get in your heart and eat all the joy away. Chew it up. You gotta detox from that poison. Get it out of you. Call poison control and tell them you drank too much news and ate the beautiful things of this world but they were sprinkled with the poison of nonstop news. They will think you are crazy. The world will think you are crazy. But that is only because while they are listening to you they are drinking it in too.

5. I got a neighbor that cuts his yard every few days like it’s a monster he has to feed or it will rear up and take over. I hope it’s a dragon.

6. I’ve read five books about Bob Dylan and listened to countless albums of his during these weeks of contemplation and rest and I still do not feel like I know the man. But I know much more about myself and this world and the next. And you too.

7. When Christian institutions make decisions without considering the realities of God and his kingdom rule, the gospel is just PR. Spin. Optics. Sold out of the back of a horse-cart like snake-oil.

8. During this weird world event when everyone has a wild opinion on what to do and not do, it’s okay to say, “I don’t know,” and then just go along your merry way and be nice to people as much as you can. Forgiveness helps too.

9. Laughter creates worlds previously unknown.

10. “In the Middle”

In the middle of pandemic Spring
I started Jane Kenyon’s poems
at the end, which is really how
we get to know everyone we want to know.

We start at the end and then work
our way backwards to the beginning.
And then we realize later we were
in the middle all along the way.