I like words. Sometimes my words get in the way of my ideas. When that happens, I write a poem to put everything in its place, like soldiers at parade rest. And sometimes the ideas get in the way of the words, and I write in prose, which is more like soldiers in a live-fire exercise. (I also believe military metaphors are a necessary evil, and someday I'll learn to think without them.)
Anyway, you'll soon learn that this blog has nothing to do with rollercoasters. The title is taken from the following poem -- the result of words getting in the way of an idea.
Lifting Sodom
Then
he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry,
and I shall speak only this once;
suppose ten are found there?” And He said,
“I will not destroy it on account of
the ten.”
—
Genesis 18:32,
NASB
I
would love the poor and downcast
with
upside-down rollercoaster joy,
split
the cicada-shell skins
of
all financial institutions,
command
every phone, pad and pod
to
clap and sing hosannas
at
the sidewalk-slap of Christ’s sandals.
Yet
in my fluorescent-flickered office
I
am a scientific wonder,
lacking
mass and velocity
yet
malleable and chronometric,
knowing
I may produce no light
but
the grindstone friction spark
of
my family’s sanctification.
But
give me a personal Abraham
to
bargain with the Lord of Hosts,
and
Christ will multiply my righteousness
with
His thumb upon the scale,
lifting
Sodom toward New Jerusalem,
curing
the salt-pillar legacy of Lot
with
grace beyond brimstone and angels.
