My Love, My Glory

You're shivering in a pile 
Of people, sick from a toasted neck 
While you hit each clot on the chalky ground
And your tightened pupils wince.
Are you wearing a shirt? You've forgotten but
It doesn't matter to the infected, seething stripe,
The soldier’s decoration for your lonely spine
That folds over like the moon,
Its best hope for company. 

Your neighbor leans on you, dropping one of many
Heads that tumble into your space but you don't 
Care. Memory's in replay as you see your brothers and
Children slammed onto a cart, 
Metal, splinters, rust and all.
Couldn't they have led us quietly? 
Quietly to the moon? 
No, forgive them, forgive them. 
I don't think they know what they’re doing. 

A neighbor’s ribs land in your forehead
With every jerk of this monster, this truck as
You dream of a boy, alone and symmetrical.
Are his eyes begging for another candy 
Or to sleep without another seething stripe?
He's beaten at three years and snaps to planks below.
You open your eyes. You cannot watch. 
But now imagine this isn't you nor your brother nor
Your children but the soldier who bruised your body. 

I help you piece together the crumbs of 
My heart as that soldier thrashes before you.
You see him within my gift to you, a prism of hope,
Look at him, and lead him to your execution line. 
A church of brothers and children 
Reach for your hand that has dried up like
A raisin in the sun before 
The guns that stain your blood 
And mine.

An anchor that holds you here, 
Tearing at my core.
I weep for your seething stripe, your charred neck,
The carving of your skull, 
And the murder of your family.
I weep for the boy, the soldier that was beaten in 
A burning land that pierced my feet. 
You just don't see that my body is 
Bruised and nailed beyond a holy veil. 

An Arboreal Healing

I watch the surgery you perform

On my skinny Maple tree,
The only one in a full canopy over
Oak Street that droops its branches far enough
To reach the Mercedes cruising toward town;
The only one that gulps and gorges but
Snaps its limbs for fear of overeating as
Juice slides up and down her roots
And cautiously sprays from her throat;
The only one who ages an inch
Under the weight of two flirting squirrels,
Acrobats in that wealthy town's air,
And burps from their every landing punch.
The car’s driver, that debased dog,
Lets his fumes flare up into her lungs
Of innocence while the money slopped on
Clothes of five-year old children
Gives her the stomach of a first time sailor.
The anesthesia wears off and I look
Up to her arms traced in streetlight
As newborn leaves still float to my sidewalk
And I yell at you in your goofy blue socks—
You didn't make her better! But you watch
Me as I see her sigh out oxygen of shame

And then I learn no doctor’s tools release the

Tightened skin of a bulimic—

At least until she sees him face to face.   

50 Shades of Grey : Response

I'm a Christian and can avoid certain culturally mocked viewpoints with very little difficulty at all. After all, I wouldn't want to be labeled as a pompous idiot trying to enforce my ideas on the whole world. But there comes a point where 'culture' becomes so unhinged from rational, moral sanity, that something must be done. 50 Shades of Grey is a massively drooled over novel about a young, innocent, and apparently intellectual girl who becomes involved in a sexual and violent relationship with an older man. It is now being made into a major motion picture on Valentines Day, of course, when we celebrate sex and the most uncomfortably alluring desires of the flesh. Not. Valentines Day is a day to celebrate love, a feeling only higher beings can possess that has solely to do with sacrifice not obsession and self-gratification.

If you've found yourself to be one among many people who are engrossed in this book or merely have heard of it and feel unsure of how to respond, I'd ask you to take time to dwell on some of these questions.

• Does anything in you feel like you're doing something wrong when you read this book or watch this movie? If so, don't avoid it -- let it fester.

• Do you want to be treated like an individual with a thinking, respectable mind and character? If so, don't watch this film. You're advocating the development of a certain way of thinking.

• Would you want your daughter to be? Mother? Sister? Cousin? Friend?

• Do you think that sexual abuse is okay? There may be consent in certain abuse situations (although that's another topic and could be debated as brainwashing) but even the participating in a movie like this encourages the exploitation of human beings. Don't forget that human trafficking is real globally and in the States.

• Do you think that eating disorders are okay? Many of these come from struggling with body image which relates directly (even if subconsciously) to the media. A film or book like 50 Shades of Grey tells women that their worth is in their sex appeal -- their body -- their image. 

• Do you think you are not mentally affected by watching excessive promiscuity? 

• Even if this film is not damaging, how is it a positive use of preciously God-given time?

• How would you feel watching this film with Jesus?

• How else but in practical ways are the servants of Christ to separate themselves from culture?

• Do you take Scripture at its word in your life or only when it feels good to follow?

• Love is sacrifice: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

• Think on what is pure: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

• The role of men is to lead and provide for their families as opposed to taking from women physically: But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8).

Christ came to cleanse us from sin, to heal us from impurity, and to help us flee from lust. He has given us himself, his Spirit, and I beg you to hold tight to him for the limited span of your life and to pray for one another that we may be aware of our desperate need for Christ.