God's Good Gifts

Don't forget that
To walk the sandy shores
of the Kingdom
To catch the dust scattered by the sandals
of Christ

Is to relinquish
the dreams and the ads and the liturgies
that teach Death

Is to embrace
the wisdom and the mysteries and the other
who breathe Life

Is to understand
that God's good gifts are always
Restless
in the hands of the receiver
until they are given away
Again and again

For those hands must be kept Open
to receive
to repent
to listen
to bow
to forgive
to bear a
Cross
We will never have to carry

For how can we receive
the Kingdom
For how can we taste
the Christ
without first forgetting
without first denying
without first receiving
without first befriending
without first selling
All that we have
in great joy
for that abandoned and overgrown lot
down the block

And so
Christ's poverty is our lavish inheritance
a Kingdom passed down to its enemies
We steal what was never rightfully ours
and we begin to understand 
the blessing of the meek
when they turn their cheek

At long last
we stumble into Abram's star-gaze
we, his descendants, like the sand shores
trampled, uncomfortable, discarded
a blessing to all
in brokenness