Category Archives: Poetry

Doubting Thomas

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Thomas “the doubter” – Thomas “the Twin” – is my favorite Apostle. He is I. I am he.

Why do I love Thomas?  He’s slow to believe. There are many doubts, too much conflicting evidence that begs the questions. The questions come easily. The answers come harder and are few. “Unless I see the nail prints in his hands and place my own hand where the soldier’s sword had pierced his side,” said Thomas to the too credulous others in the Upper Room, “I will not believe.”

This Holy Thursday “I believe. Lord, help my unbelief.”

Poem “THOMAS THE TWIN” – Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 4, 2012

To be a twin is to prove every day

How seeing is not believing.  And so,

Of course, I doubted when my friends would say

Many had seen the Lord.  I said, “If so,

A finger in his nail-pierced hand or where

Sword cut his side will prove he lives for sure.”

Then Jesus came into the room and said

He would let me touch him!  My doubt then was

Overcome by his presence.  And he said

Many would be blessed who believed he was

Alive without the benefit of sight…

Seeing may not lead us into the light.

Tonight, Holy Thursday, at 7:00 p.m. Shepherd of the Hill we will gather around the Lord’s Table. Ruth Janousek has drawn us at the Table.

God's Table at Shepherd of the Hill

God's Table at Shepherd of the Hill

Following the simplest Service of Holy Communion, the church will be darkened, lit only by candles held by individual worshiper representing the light of faith. As the Gospel narratives are read aloud … with long silences between them…the candles will be blown out, one by one, as the worshipers recognize ourselves in the story of the betrayal, denial, and flight of the Jesus’ closest friends and followers. It’s an ancient service called Tenebrae, the service of light and shadow.  By the end of the readings, the room will be dark. The only light will be from the Christ candle – the light of God’s faithful mercy and grace that cannot be extinguished.

“Easter Morning”

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Steve Shoemaker

It’s Monday of Holy Week. I’m walking with Jesus as best I can toward the cross and  toward the celebration of Easter. This year I’m walking with members of the congregation who are  suffering, in great pain, sick, dying people, trying the best I can to be with them fully in ways that, by the grace of God, might help. This is not head stuff. It’s heart stuff. I get tangled in my head too often. I open the morning email. There’s this double acrostic poem from my old friend Steve Shoemaker, the 6’8″ and shrinking Ph.D. kite-flyer theologian and poet. Thank you, Steve.EASTER MORNING

Either Jesus really did rise or

All his followers made up the worst

Series of lies in history…  Poor

Thomas certainly was right to doubt

Even after hearing tales:  what four

Reached the tomb (or five?)  Who saw him first?

 

Matthew says two women, Mark says three;

Or was it just one, as said by John?

Reports of what eye-witnesses can see

Never can be trusted.  Luke said one

In the road joined two who could not see–

Not until he broke the bread…  No one

Got the story straight! Conspiracy?

 

Even grade school kids could do as well.

And Luke throws in Peter saw him too–

Somewhere unreported…  Who could tell

That this jumble of accounts could do

Enough to give faith and hope to all.

Resurrection?  Who could think it true?

 

Maybe just the simple:  those whose eyes

Open to the light through grief, through tears…

Reminded of love, of truth, of grace…

Needing to be fed, hands out for bread…

Inspired by the scriptures, in whose head

Grow visions:  life can come from the dead.

I’m adding this visual: “Disciples John and Peter on their way to the tomb”:

Disciples John and Peter Run to the Tomb

Burnand, Eugène, 1850-1921. Disciples John and Peter on their way to the tomb on Easter morning, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55038 [retrieved April 2, 2012].

Steve and I would love to hear your reflections and responses to Steve’s poem or Burnand’s painting. Thanks for coming by.

What You Cannot Have (A List)

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What You Cannot Have (A List). This insightful piece, by the same poet who wrote “The List” (posted here several days ago, was in my email inbox this morning. I quickly posted a comment on Bluebird’s blog. This writer is REALLY good. After last night, I needed this more than my morning coffee. As I said on the blog, “A bluebird just flew by my window(s program).” Whoever you are, Bluebird, thanks for flying by, and…thanks for this delicious cookie.

Verse for Today

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One:  God, remind me of my neighbor,

take away my pride.

Two:  God, remind me of my power,

don’t let me run and hide.

– Steve Shoemaker, sent this morning, March 26, 2012

Sermon: “Blogging on the Cross”

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Sermon, Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church, Chaska, MN March 18, 2012.

Click HERE for the YouTube re-broadcast.

Global Thaw

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Mid-March

Minnesota

Gentle rain

Global thaw

Mid-March

Madness

This morning it was hot enough to fry and egg on the pavement… in Minnesota.

Anyone else think the absense of climate change/global warming/global thawing from the national spotlight on the way to a national election is madness?

Just asking.

The Surrogate Voice

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Some moments last a lifetime.

Chicago Seven - Dale Hartwig in red shirt

My friend Dale has Parkinson’s. He has boarded a train in Michigan (he’s now in a long-term care center there) to be with “The Chicago Seven” – the seven former classmates who gather annually at McCormick Theological Seminary. This year, Dale’s speech is hard to comprehend. He is reduced to listening. Death and dying are sitting at the table.At the morning reflection and round-table sharing, Dale is sitting to my right. When his turn comes, we look at Dale. There is an awkward silence. He hands me something. He wants me to read aloud what he’s written. I read his words aloud.

Gordon C. Stewart  – written in thanksgiving for the Chicago Gathering, 2004:

“THE SURROGATE VOICE”

The surrogate voice reads on,

the author sits and sobs

wrenching tears from primal depth:

from some abyss of joy or nothingness…or both.

The author’s sighs and piercing sobs

arrest routine,

invoke a hush,

dumb-found the wordy room.

He cannot speak,

his Parkinsons’ tongue tied,

his voice is mute, in solitude confined,

all but sobs too deep for words.

Another now becomes his  voice

offering aloud in a dummy’s voice

the muted contribution

in poetic verse the ventriloquist’s voice has penned.

The abyss of muted isolation ope’d,

his words, re-voiced aloud,

hush the seven to sacred silence,  all…

except from him, their author.

Whence comes this primal cry:

From depths of deep despair and death,

from loneliness, or depths of joy

We do not know.

The surrogate voice reads on

through author’s signs and sobs,

through his uncertain gasps for air

and our uncertain care.

The iron prison gates – the guards

of his despair – unlock and open out

to turn his tears from prison’s hole

to tears of comrade joy.

His word is spoken, his voice is heard,

a word expressed

in depth and Primal Blessing,

pardoned from the voiceless hell.

The stone rolls back,

rolls back, rolls back,

from the brother’s prison’s tomb,

the chains of sadness snap and break!

At one, at one, we Seven stand,

in Primal Silence before the open tomb,

as tears of loss, of gain, of tongues released

re-Voice unbroken chords of brotherhood.

 All moments are sacred. Some last a lifetime.

She Could Give a Kiss

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Morning reflections composed today by my friend Steve Shoemaker

She Could  Give a Kiss

She could give a kiss

and not have less to share.

He could take a kiss

and still have more to give.

She could have a child

and still have time for him.

He could be a child

and run away from her.

–  Steve Shoemaker, 03.21.12

Your Dear Eyes

 Your dear eyes…

Macular Degeneration,

what a multi-syllabic curse.

Hazel:   sometimes blue,

sometimes green, birthing

children’s eyes of blue and gold…

Flashing with indignation,

pensive, wise, creative, wary–

yes, windows to a good soul.

Let us see all that we can see

while we can.  Travel, taste, hear,

feel and, yes, smell what is good

around the world.  All of us

are fading into dust:  some of us

receive a warning–fair or unfair.

– Steve Shoemaker 03.21.12

 

“And the Word became flesh….” and words.

Little Steve at Sheldon Jackson Church, Colorado

Sometimes it comes in a poet’s words. The flesh it comes in is all shapes and sizes. Here’s a photo of Steve (6’8” and shrinking) standing behind a historic pulpit at Sheldon Jackson Church in Colorado. Sheldon was a bit shorter. Who says ministers don’t have a sense of humor!LEAVE A COMMENT on Steve’s poems. He, I, and others would love to know what you think. Or, in today’s butchered English, “Me and him” look forward to seeing/hearing the words YOU share.

The List

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“You have ca… You have can.. cancer. But we think it’s treatable.”

I read The List early this morning, the day after hearing a doctor tell a wonderful older couple the news. The full bone scan tells a different story. It can be treated with radiation, but at what price for an old man already writhing in unbearable pain? My friend has been on “the list” once before 20 years ago. Now he’s back on it, this time for good. He’s a strong man, but not that strong, not immortal, not invulnerable. The treatment will not stop it this time. Morphine and lots of love will see him through until he’s off the list for good.

My step-daughter, Katherine, was placed on “the list” at age 30. She was exited the list at 34. Her ashes are on the mantel now. Her courage, her buoyancy, her steadfast refusal to let being on “the list” define her, her compassion for the doctors and nurses who “treated” her with surgery, chemo, more surgery, radiation, lasers, and morphine, and for us, the members of the family to whom she brought so much delight, have left us with so much more than what’s left on the mantel.

I’ll post a piece written during the third year of Katherine being on “the list” later today. Look for “It’s raining; it’s pouring.”

For now, share your stories with a comment here, or go to Courteney Bluebird’s blog and comment there. All of her work is remarkable and worth the visit.

Sometimes I feel blue

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Purple-yellow iris (Kay Stewart photography). Poem by you know who.

Purple-Yellow Iris

Sometimes I feel all blue

Sad      Sorry      Down

Like the Blues

A Rhapsody in Blue

 

Sometimes

When the Blues

Begin to play in me,

It happens –

 

Blue bursts into purple

Leaping into joy

And a burst of sun-burst yellow

Comes crashing through the blues

I feel all clean

All wet    All  up

Like a hymn

An ode to purple-yellow joy