Democracy Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course . Tomorrow is another day . I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here,... Read more
The fashionable sort are figuring out what the folks did wrong back in the day. Given now, I prefer to think of what we have lost and might regain as we also prize what we have gained and should not lose. I think of men and women who will not be the subject of books, but are remembered in the Lamb’s Book of Life. These were people who worked regular jobs, but were leaders in God’s Kingdom. They might have... Read more
I was not very good at laundry and so I put bleach stains on my best shirt. They were light blotches, but I had a plan. Using a Sharpie, I colored in the blotches and the shirt was not at all as good as new, but passable for a time. There was always the Sharpie to try again. So the cultural memory of certain events can come out of the wash not quite as we would wish. They mostly are... Read more
Wonder Early blue evening. Lights ain’t come on yet. Looky yonder! They come on now!* Oh. This is short. We can read the words again. Surely there is time to read this poem again. The lights went out in Houston during an ice storm last week. The American City of the Twenty-First Century, a global energy center, went dark. This was unnaturally natural. Houston lights are creations. God made man and man made Houston. That sums up the fullness of... Read more
“Mistakes were made.” That is the passive voiced apology that is no apology. People make mistakes. Human mistakes do not generally drop from the heavens like the rain. People make them, people in systems go along with them, and those people are accountable for them. How can we avoid mistakes? Sometimes general rules help: hanging out with people who torture puppies for fun is a bad idea. This almost always will hold up in practice. The danger is thinking that... Read more
A dream can be deferred, but not forever. You can go a good bit longer, if you have hope. You can defer your desire, if you can still dream that good will come. Hope only helps when there is a decent reason to think the dream can live, that history can become mythic, even for a moment. If a dream keeps getting pushed off, promising moments remain unfulfilling, then hope fades. A sage once said: 12Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but... Read more
Be good! Hard to argue with this command, it being good to be good and all. Too often, however, the pursed lipped, censorious, humorless person with power, commands us to be good to avoid talking about where they compromise with the powerful. The Stalinist in the 1930’s is eager to condemn the Czarist, but not so happy to talk about the Ukraine. They know the New York Times will cover for them as will Christian professors. Who will believe that... Read more
Consider the power of language to liberate or brutalize. We can all learn from one of America’s greatest poets: Langston Hughes. Uncle Tom Within—The beaten pride. Without—The grinning face, The low, obsequious, Double bow, The sly and servile grace Of one the white folks Long ago Taught well To know his Place. Language does not, cannot, always mean what the dictionary says. A word may seem servile, but within, coded for other people to hear, the speaker is still... Read more
Hatred is two-way bad. The worst of hatred is the damage done to the hated, but the hater also reaps evil. Christians must seek justice. We may wage war and must use the police power to protect from evil. We can never hate. One reason the state exists is to remove hatred, private revenge, from justice and also allow for mercy. Justice and mercy are much needed just now, but then they are always needed just now. A traditional Christian... Read more
Final Curve When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.* “We are,” I thought, “recovering from Harvey.” Proud of Houston and of our community, I thought we were turning the corner and then friends in China began to talk of a virus. “We are,” I thought, “turning the corner on this pandemic.” And then the snow began and the water stopped, we did our best,... Read more
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