Rare but intense are the
Truly, truly moments,
When I fix my eyes on
Him, scary but then not,
And realize that I have
Moved into the kingdom
With my tent,
But only an inch or two
Within the walls.
I am still trading with
The outside for books
And herbs
And under-the-wall water sources.
Jesus says, yes, moving
Further in requires you to
Carry a cross. But it is
Truly, truly
A cross of participation,
One that suits you to the
Water and words and herbs
Of this place where
Nothing dies
Nothing ends
Nothing fails
Nothing runs out,
And all your language must change
To speak of its essence,
Its life overriding the only-death
That you were born to bear.
Further and further in
Deeper and deeper in
The vastness is still only suggested
And eternity is pure water and
So, I unpeg my tent in
The shadow of the outskirts
And skip and run toward
The Mountain.

Show and Tell. Remember?
You are 5
And already you know better
Than to lay your real heart
Before the scrutiny of
Toddler sophisticates.
So you bring your third-best
Butterfly habitat, slightly filmed,
Hatch won’t quite close.
And as for the ‘Tell’ part,
You woodenly say,
“It’s mine. And I like it.”
Show and Tell, safe.

Lord, let me not be
Show and Tell safe
With my first-best,
My heart treasure.
Give me a chance
Today 
To lay it out wide and
Invite scrutiny and
Tell and tell and tell.

And should a toddler sophisticate
Laugh,
Or bite back,
Let me hear, underneath the scorn,
The miracle they are longing for,
The beauty from the vile,
The butterfly possibility.

And let me Show and Tell!
~
Meditation on John 1