We are goofy, unstylish, odd.
Most of us.

We drive the worst cars
      if we have cars.
We wear what fits,
we fit in, eventually,
      almost.

We eat what is put in front of us,
and find we relish it.

We speak with accents and stutters.
Sometimes we are not understood
even in the places we were born.

We are the weird redheaded cousins
to our families, the black sheep,
some of us, others the glowing saints,
      sometimes on the same day.
They think we’re clumsy, muddy,
tainted, pure, scrubbed, antiseptic.

We are placed on pedestals
or in the jumble closet,
depending on the mood and fashion.

But when there is an explosion
we run into the smoke
we run towards screaming
while others run away.

We compare scars sometimes
matching stab wounds in our backs,
some of us. Burns, scrapes, blisters,
bruises in all the same places.

We have beautiful feet though.
That’s what the old prophet said.

People who bring good news
have lovely feet.

So I bless your feet in Jesus Name.
      Every calloused toe,
      you explorers, you pioneers, you aliens,
      travelers with only one true home,
I bless your feet.

I bless your hands in Jesus Name.
      Your fingertips feel for the pulses
      of your worlds, finding, God willing,
      heads to touch, hands to squeeze,
      brothers and sisters to embrace.
I bless your hands.

I bless your lips in Jesus Name.
      You speak life, peace, healing.
      Fear is afraid of your voices
      because they are full of the Gospel,
      full of love.
I bless your lips.

I bless your hearts in Jesus Name.

      They are overgrown, overflowing,

      they hurt for foreigners, refugees,

      children, for the least stylish,

      the least influential,

      the least.

I bless your hearts.

Father

Watch how I do it
He says, watch
how to change a tire
      nuts all in the hubcap
make sure the parking
brake is on.

Watch how to shave
how to change
      the Ford’s oil
      a light bulb
      air conditioner filters

Watch how I do it,
how I
      love your mother
      help your sister
      out of a tree

      into the car
      into college

Watch how I do it,
      use a table saw,
      fingers away and safe.
      How I put on a band-aid,
      draw a face on it
      to make pain fade.

Watch me cry when you hurt
      Catch you, set you
      on your feet again and again and again,
      never tiring.

Watch me create the tree for my own cross,
      die for my loves,
      for you.

Watch, He said, how I do it.

Introduction to the song Good Good Father. From Matthew 11:28-30. 

Gratitude

There are no words,
Still we say thank you.

Thank you Father for everything.
For mashed potatoes, sour cream, chives.
For asparagus tips,
for the first bites of a chicken drumstick,
chicken curry
for Sriracha, Soy, Wasabi, Ranch.

For coffee, pressed strong and rich
and candy: kisses to Jolly Ranchers
You made sugar, then you made
minds to make sugar sing and tempt.

Thank you for being the God,
The Only God who suffers, who suffered,
The only God who knows
      what being us is.

And for meeting us
here in Spain,
on the hill,
in the trough.

You have been here, we smell you,
we feel you here, with us.

Thank You.

Where I’m From

I’m not from Castro Valley, 

California, the first place I lived

I only remember the smell of the church

nursery, orange juice and graham crackers.

I’m not from Portland,

Oregon where I accepted Jesus and killed 

motorcyclists on the street in front of our small 

house with the purple door. 

I killed them with a gun fashioned from a hole punch.

They alarmed my mother. She said

I should not shoot people with hole punches.

I’m not from San Jose,

Costa Rica where I built plastic car 

kits that came in cereal boxes.

My legs were run over by a car there,

a Volkswagen, but I was fine. I learned to skip

frisbees on the street with my father-

branded frisbees: Fanta, Sprite.

I’m not from Quito,

Ecuador where my life started, as far

as I am concerned. I turned six in the improbably

named Jipi Japa neighborhood 

across the street from the park and Teresa’s Store.

I turned ten at Kilometro Ocho, where I also turned

eighteen, having held a girl’s hand once, but

not having kissed one until fifteen days later.

I’m not from Pasadena,

California where the summer heat and haze

of the place hid the mountains.

I’m not from Castro Valley,

California where I slept nights while I didn’t

have any regrettable college exploits at all in Hayward

or San Leandro, Fremont or Berkeley.

I’m not from Quito,

Ecuador where I dumped a girl

rudely for another one, not a mistake as much as

a cruelty that, finally, I regret.

I’m not from Modesto,

California where I married Annie and filled a chair

at a church office for fifteen years. Emma

was born there and Lucy. Benjamin we adopted

because we could and we wanted him.

I’m not from Salida,

California where we slept during sixteen

months of support-raising before becoming missionaries to

I’m not from Pretoria,

South Africa. It’s as much home as anywhere. I love

birds here and beer and meat. I can hear my neighbor’s conversation

in Southern Sotho tonight he’s having a party and the men are drinking

beers in the back yard and comparing girlfriends. I don’t really know.

I don’t speak Sotho. I’m not from here.

Read in the TCK breakout session, 9 May, 2017.