Coffee and This.

Michael’s perspective:

She had left me with coffee and this: “The areas of greatest uncertainty are assigned to a God.” A whole lot more profound than her usual washed up “secular” bullshit she picked up along with her latte and vegan cranberry scones in Berkeley. It killed me that she could possibly be right. Marla Barstad hadn’t changed much since our time spent shackled together in honors high school courses side-by-side with genuine kiss-your-ass kind of looks spread across our faces. And I was comfortable with her dependability. Her new found Jesus catchphrase of seemingly token (or not token?) intellect actually had me thinking. New thinking, that is.

Searching this concept of a manifestation of some foreign, powerful…something that makes squeezing into my loafers every morning worth the while. Marla. The same girl who wore that little purple number to her first interview with Boeing to “make up for a lacking 3.7 undergrad accumulative” and actually got the second interview. The girl who called me on the phone crying when Christian Bale offed himself.

Is there fault in this? Not the joker crap, but this idea of a god we worship selectively? Is there possibly some sort of legitimate theology based on mankind’s unadulterated ineptitude? a lacking that most of our so perceived “alpha species” fails to recognize until one day they realize that their trust fund didn’t turn into a new heart after 40 years of sitting on it, and no, their wife probably isn’t actually going out for more groceries five times a week. And then all you’re left with is four-seasons-past Hugo Boss dress suit you have on, and your only slightly neglected dog named after some singer from the 60’s.

I’ve seen it before. Iv’e been there before… in a way. All of us. Marla. “I gave my pitiful life to the Lord, Michael.” How can I not feel patronized by my own lack of spiritual dogmatism? Or credence? But then, all I have known in life is uncertainty. Even now Marla has me in a cliche-vomiting frenzy. But, my dog’s name is Marvin… and she does have me thinking new. I mean, potentially what could I have been assigning to this god that I have always known does not exist?

Randy.

This is the plate

most of the time in the mornings.

Endowment…

Please forgive me.

He was a good ‘ol boy,

a boxer. She,

getting taller…

heads bump.

They weren’t made of stone,

but metal.

This is endowment.

During rehearsal

it still has the same meaning

to her as the man

in the gloves.

Approach and wait.

Upper cut. still.

Pulling back the years.

For it ages

his roadmap gloves.

It is never general though

years ago…

trails off.

seen it in the movies,

when they open the safe.

Check-off.

One. Two. Three. Four…

Pounding- what is not said.

Well, nothing is said.

Even ignoring the audience now.

The ring still stands.

And yet, when she was born,

his family was complete.

M.E.G.

Promise.

All that was asked for

was a fulfilled promise,

some other moral…

That is the concept behind it

they are categorically imperative.

The deadly depression scenario.

Deductive wisdom,

consequentialism,

outcome.

The consequence was a death.

Who started this whole thing?

People are listening-

it may not be entirely clear

they say it will

it will.

Eventually you will see

or more specifically

to our situation,

see moral.

Consequentialism,

outcome… but

the consequence left me.

Come and See.

We had our heritage slaughte
red
So that we might reci
eve
our inheritance.
They took us from the land
to let us d
own.
I will walk with bles
sing and sing.
I will walk with e
yes like pup
pets
that remain pul
led
up to the heavens.
Such meek clay w
ill
hold me d
own
and take my brea
the.
How can one sp
ring
towards a b
ride
so so pervasive.
Sift sift through
a man
a bride
a li
on.
a com
pass.
a rea
Son.
Walk a
way
now and h
old
to a plume.
A feat
her
of hope that b
rang a twig
that might ring
like a bell
if only e
yes
come out from
darkness.
im
merge
and de
feat
sepa
rating
walls that hang.
They have hung
like death be
fore.
Before we knew
breathe.
before he knew brea
the.
feet s
wing
that we might h
old
on to one a
lone.
No need
to debate rea
son.
Have reason and
take organ…
know th
at
we are fools.
Fools we w
ill
be and fools
we will break.
irrevocable
and un
sharing
will bring no
thing.
every
thing.
the people turned
to us?
fools.
all fools.
Share in the vessel m
embers.
a situati
on
fixed tight
to copse.
Hallelu
jah…
A
men.

M.E.G.

Re-Write.

More than dive, pull-rip, fine.

Point-of-comatose, thrive.

Wink this way to live, to die.

take hand-held-hand, but also drive

water well to water only lives

and offer a token heart-shaken knife.

Don’t, say, stray at night light signs

but hold, hold, say “how?” to my guise.

Go flee, rip-tear, toss, walk and decide.

Take one battle lantern, ringing only at this night.

Heritage stroke to calm, pull, give as die.

Dye to hold the motion calm into darkness’ light.

Box unfold those tokens into cold delight.

I wanted shoppers dreaming, wanting fickle time

for forty years of removing hat to tithe

over and over make my burden pinch, call, might

Holy, Holy, cry, cry, cry to wash in the myre.

My! that his/her love… but love is just desire?

Fractured circle shapes fall out of the lyre

while sinking, folding tunes pull one to the fire.

Indulgence gives and carries up the wires,

but songs that play short clang only for one denier.

Save such lust and tug! measly tight-rope crier!

Drink that holy cry instead to avoid the fire.

For Hope tops, lifts, upholds all that is the one Designer.

M.E.G.

Up The Hill and Behind The Truck.

So we were driving up the hill to have one of the nicest dinners I would have while in the Philippines. It was going to be up on the top of a hill with a beautiful view to the coast over the towns that led to it. on the way up we passed two unfortunate men on a motorcylce. We were nine in a truck, five in the bed of the truck.

We park. Get out. A few of us are taking the things form the truck bed and putting them in the cab to be safe and we hear POW POW POW POW. Now, my first thought, and the first thought of quite a few of us was “Oh… fireworks!” This is somewhat comical in retrospesct. Some of us even went out further into the open parking lot to get a better view of the sky. Nothing. POW POW POW.

It was then that some of us noticed the small metal objects rushing through the night air. I never knew that when you see bullets at night you can kind of see the air moving out of its way. Unfortunately I noticed this because I had such an up close and personal view of the event. The sharp high pitched sound of bullets wizzing by at head level just 5 and 10 feet away was all too movie-like. Also, the long term Worker we were with is fluent in Tagolog and informed us a man had just yelled “help me, I’ve been shot!”. .. And the nine of us ducked and covered behind the truck.

Now, thinking that we would possibly need to escape and drive away safely all nine of us shoved ourselves into the cab of the truck. Again, in retrospect this was pretty laughable too since we are all sizeable Europeans and Americans with one Filipina.

This, I would say, was the most frightening part because I could not see out of the windows but my Austrian friend could. While we prayed out loud, she updated us on the men walking around the back of our truck hunched over and holding things. Not my favorite thing to hear about while my head was pressed up against the window. By that point to gunfire had ceased and we decided out of the car and into the restaurant was wiser.

As soon as we are out of the truck cab the manager of the restaurant is there ushering us in “Come in, come in… nothing is wrong everything fine! just a little despute outisde… no guns in here!”        HA!

None the less we went into the safe restaurant and though some were still a bit shaken we proceeded to order. And that was that. When we asked what had happened we learned that the men we had passed on a moto on the drive up the hill ahd a man waiting for them to shoot at them in order to settle a personal vendetta. The man hunched, walking around our car was the man who had been shot in the arm. The shooter had run and was being pursued.

The whole experience was a testament of how Good good our God is. If we had been two minutes earlier we would have been in the line of fire and if we had been two minutes later than we were we would have been in the line of fire. Every day on my trip i felt completely protected because our God is Gooooood.

And that is my story to keep you reading. Hope you enjoyed!

Current song: Stacks   by    Bon Iver