The Internet Monk Archives

The Impious Pastor

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Jericho Books (2013)

* * *

Note: You won’t find Nadia Bolz-Weber’s new book at your local LifeWay Store. If anyone at LifeWay received a copy, I’m sure the reviewer didn’t make it past the cover shot of Nadia, with her impressive (intimidating?) tats, before tossing the book in the trash. If, by chance, someone there actually opened the book, the first word in the first sentence (“Shit…”) would have sealed the verdict:

This is not a safe book.

It is a book about resurrection, however, and a book that realistically portrays those raised from the dead as folks with dirt still under their fingernails. Nadia Bolz-Weber says that her book is about:

…the development of my faith, the expression of my faith, and the community of my faith. And it is the story of how I have experienced this Jesus thing to be true. How the Christian faith, while wildly misrepresented in so much of American culture, is really about death and resurrection. It’s about how God continues to reach into the graves we dig for ourselves and pull us out, giving us new life, in ways both dramatic and small. This faith helped me get sober, and it helped me (is helping me) forgive the fundamentalism of my Church of Christ upbringing, and it helps me not always have to be right.

One look at Nadia, and you might not imagine she grew up in the Church of Christ, a child from a conservative Christian family. She suffered from Graves’ disease, which gave her a “bug-eyed” appearance and caused her enormous relational pain as a child and young teen. Though the church continued to welcome her, she considered the rest of their fundamentalisms unbearable. She began to drink and do drugs in her late teens and college years, and hanging out with others who were doing the same. She found out, through hard experience, that “a community based on the idea that everyone hates rules is, in the end, just as disappointing and oppressive as a community based on the ability to follow rules.” Still, she began to fantasize about herself as one of those people who would die a “rock-and-roll early death.” Then a friend had enough courage to speak the truth to her and she sought sobriety.

Getting sober never felt like I had pulled myself up by my own spiritual bootstraps. It felt instead like I was on one path toward destruction and God pulled me off of it by the scruff of my collar, me hopelessly kicking and flailing and saying, “Screw you. I’ll take the destruction please.” God looked at tiny, little red-faced me and said, “that’s adorable,” and then plunked me down on an entirely different path.

She became part of a “rowing team” of people in AA trying to kick booze and drugs and deal with mental illness and all manner of dysfunction. One of them, a comedian friend, ended up hanging himself and the others asked Nadia, who had by that time returned to religious practice, to officiate the funeral. And that, she says, is how she was called into ministry. Giving her friend’s eulogy, she realized maybe she was supposed to be a pastor for folks like these.

It’s not that I felt pious and nurturing. It’s that there, in that underground room filled with the smell of stale beer and bad jokes, I looked around and saw more pain and questions and loss than anyone, including myself, knew what to do with. And I saw God. …God, among the cynics and alcoholics and queers.

Continue reading “The Impious Pastor”

Winning The War, Part V—“You Shall Receive Power”

“But you are to be given power when the Holy Spirit has come to you. You will be witnesses to me, not only in Jerusalem, not only throughout Judea, not only in Samaria, but to the very ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (Phillips)

At that time, indeed, the Church seems to have moved in a cloud of wonders, as if the exact pattern of the Glory was for a while discerned…, as if the Paraclete had brought Heaven out, the languages and habits of Heaven seemed, for a few years, a few decades, to hover within the Church after a manner hardly realized since except occasionally and individually. There was, as it were, a Liturgy of the Holy Ghost after the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Body, a true liturgy with a Real Presence and a communion.

Charles Williams, The Descent Of The Dove

There was absolutely no one in sight. The ground over which we walked was as void of life as if it dropped from the surface of the moon. This was one of the driest deserts on Earth, receiving less than four milliliters of rain annually. Actually, there was life. Tiny little finch-like birds shadowed our progress, although what they lived on was a mystery to me. I saw no plant life.

The path ahead of us differed from the terrain on either side of us only in that there were no large rocks in it. My companion told me it was a road, but who travelled on it was as absent as the finches’ food. We were on an evangelistic sortie from one of the Mercy Ships operated by a large short-term missions agency. I was the pack mule for his sketchboard and tracts and his translator, and Jim was, well, it was difficult to say just what Jim was.

He had converted to Christ from general mid-twentieth century Mammon-worship about twenty years earlier and his wife had taken umbrage to his new orientation. She sued for a divorce (this was before no-fault), but I don’t think she got one. By the time I met Jim they had been separated twenty years. I heard that Jim decided he wanted to wait for his wife to come to faith and as long as she took, he was willing to wait. In the meantime, he would spread the Gospel. He wasn’t a member of the agency I was enrolled with. He was more of a hitchhiker with them. He had a devoted group of friends who raised his support and met his modest needs. He didn’t mingle with the rest of the ship’s company, but spent all of his time praying and reading the Bible.

I was “volunteered” to go out with Jim because I spoke Spanish and was young and strong enough to carry his baggage. Most people were a little afraid of Jim because he had a disconcerting manner about him. The only way I can explain it is how less dedicated employees feel about hanging with the guy in the shop who really takes his employer’s interests to his heart, except that the employer was Jesus.

Continue reading “Winning The War, Part V—“You Shall Receive Power””

On Being God

I would like to take a few of the days allotted to me to write (you would think being the owner and publisher of this site I would have more control over these things, wouldn’t you?) about my journey out of the evangelical world I have lived in for more than 40 years. This is my journey; I am not saying anyone else will ever come to the same conclusions as I have. I simply want to provide a few snapshots of my journey out of evangelicalism. If you identify yourself as an evangelical, this is in no way meant to say you need to leave or that anything you are doing is wrong. But I am asking you that, as you journey with me, you look at your own motives and desires. If you feel led to leave evangelicalism, don’t get mad at me.

I was teaching high school in Ohio in the mid-90s when two of my students approached me.

“Mr. Dunn, we want to go see the Rolling Stones in St. Louis, but our parents won’t let us go unless we have an adult go with us. You’re the closest thing to an adult we know, so will you go with us? We’ll buy your ticket and pay for all the gas. All you have to do is go with us.”

I thought about it for two, maybe three seconds before saying Yes. Hey, I was all about furthering their education any way I could.

So on a Friday afternoon, right after the final bell sounded, we hopped in a Ford Bronco and drove to St. Louis. I really didn’t know what to expect from the show. I had never been a huge Stones fan, but I expected them to put on a good show. I was wrong. They put on the most incredible show I could ever imagine. As I sat (and stood) watching Mick and Keef rip through song after song, I just kept thinking, “Why do we Christians try to out-entertain the world?” Didn’t we have a message that could stand on its own without all the hype?

Continue reading “On Being God”

A Domestic Terror Act We Must Never Forget

MCNAIR ROBERTSON COLLINS WESLEY — Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young black girls and wounded twenty-two other children. You can read a heart-rending description of the morning’s events HERE.

This act of domestic terrorism, designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who were calling for an end to segregation, took place just two weeks after Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in Washington and two months before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In addition to the blood shed at the church, two other black youths in Birmingham were killed on that same day, one by a policeman and another by two white youths.

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was an eight-year old girl in Birmingham in 1963. In a recent interview, she reflected on that Sunday’s disturbing events:

My dad’s church was only about two miles from 16th Street Baptist Church, and so it was like the ground shook. And for kids in Birmingham my age, I was eight, it was — how could these people hate us so much?

In yesterday’s New York Times, an editorial on “Birmingham Sunday” mentioned an important fact about what life and prevailing opinion was like in Birmingham at that point in history:

…the civil rights struggle was not simply a victory of good over evil, of the righteous defeating the Klansmen who gave “Bombingham” its bloody reputation. The struggle was good against “normal” — against the segregation that was seen as the natural order of things, buttressed by government, tradition and the law. In this, Dr. King and his allies were the radicals.

This bombing galvanized that burgeoning civil rights movement, as Jon Meachem notes in a piece for Time:

The attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church was an act of terrorism that stands as one of the great turning points in American history. Together with the March on Washington in August, the September murder of the four little girls opened the way for Lyndon Johnson’s successful push for civil rights legislation in 1964, in the aftermath of the November assassination of President Kennedy.

Eight thousand people attended a funeral service for three of the four girls, but no city officials came. Dr. Martin Luther King preached; his message was called: “Eulogy for the Martyred Children” —

…They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity. And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.

And so my friends, they did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah) The holy Scripture says, “A little child shall lead them.” (Oh yeah) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Yeah) from the low road of man’s inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah, Yes) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham (Yeah) to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future. Indeed this tragic event may cause the white South to come to terms with its conscience. (Yeah)

And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here, that in spite of the darkness of this hour (Yeah Well), we must not despair. (Yeah, Well) We must not become bitter (Yeah, That’s right), nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah, Yes) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.

In Meachem’s article, he notes that Birmingham has come a long way since that terrible morning in 1963. William Bell, a fourteen year old African-American member of the church who heard the blast at his home and rushed with his family to the scene, is now mayor of the city. He credits the sacrifice of those girls as a catalyst, prompting changes that eventually allowed him to serve as Birmingham’s leader.

jesus window And the Christian people who suffered violence and loss that day have learned to forgive. Sarah Collins Rudolph, sister of Addie Mae Collins, has said:

At first, I was angry. I was very angry when I was younger. Later along in my life, I knew that I had to forgive these people because God forgave me of my sins. Holding hate on the inside, it only keeps you sick and angry, and so I just had to forgive those men.

One odd occurrence in the event that many noted: in the only stained glass window at 16th St. Baptist Church not destroyed by the explosion, the face of Jesus was blown out while the rest of the glass remained intact. Surely he had withdrawn his face at this heinous act — a face streaked with tears! One can only imagine the anguish of him who said of those who trouble little ones: “It would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and be drowned in the bottom of the lake” (Matt. 18:6, CEB).

We who have survived since 1963 have seen some good come of this evil, but we must not forget the cost. Four children, their families, and a community of people gathering to worship God through the Prince of Peace suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of men who served as agents of evil that day. Though we attempt to forgive and though we take solace in the overcoming power of the Almighty, the faces of four young girls still haunt us and their lament reverberates wherever injustice continues:

My eyes are worn out from weeping; my stomach is churning.
My insides are poured on the ground because the daughter of my people is shattered,
because children and babies are fainting in the city streets.

…The children that I nurtured, that I raised myself, my enemy finished them off.

– Lamentations 2:11, 22

The Homily

Is anyone thirsty?
Come and drink—
even if you have no money!
Come, take your choice of wine or milk—
it’s all free!

(Isaiah 55:1, NLT)

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, NIV)

There is a scene in C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle that has angered many readers of the Chronicles of Narnia. It is the tale of Emeth, a loyal follower of the god Tash. At the end of times, those who have been faithful to Aslan are gathered on the outskirts of their new land, heeding the call to go “further up and further in” when they come upon Emeth sitting under a tree. Emeth told them of his meeting Aslan, who did not condemn him, but welcomed him. Was it true then, asked Emeth, that Aslan and Tash were one in the same?

The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, “It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which those has done to him, for I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him.”

The reason this passage upsets so many is that it seems to be saying that one can get into Heaven without having to join the Christian club. What is the Christian club? It is the club many believe one has to belong to in order to get a seat at the banquet table in Heaven. We join by holding to certain beliefs, saying certain things, and doing certain activities. We are kept out of the club by failing to hold to the rules. The president of the club, God (or our version of God), keeps people out of the club for not following the rules. The rules were put in place in order to keep out the riff-raff. Riff-raff like Emeth, who worshiped the false god Tash. How could Lewis let him into Aslan’s land?

Could it be that God is more interested in finding ways to let us in to Heaven than in keeping us out?

Could it be that he really does look at our hearts more than our outward actions?

Could it be that joining the Christian club is not what gives us a ticket to the wedding feast?

Please do not misunderstand me. Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man or woman comes to the Father but by him. But have we made it more difficult to follow Jesus than it needs to be? Are we guilty of working to keep people out rather than finding ways to bring them in?

There is a common word in our scriptures this morning. A word that I believe summarizes the Gospel call.

Come.

Isaiah calls to those who are hungry and thirsty to come and dine. Don’t worry about money. You can’t buy this food or drink. All you can do is receive. Jesus calls those who worn out by life to come. He promises rest just for coming to him.

If Jesus doesn’t place any other requirement on us, why should we?

You’re a sinner? Great. Jesus came to call sinners. You’re a loser? Very good. Jesus is the Great Shepherd who goes in search of the sheep who is lost. You don’t go to church? You don’t read Christian novels or listen to “family safe” radio or vote the right way? None of those things are what give you entrance into the Great Feast. It is only your hunger and thirst that makes you worthy of eating the heavenly fare.

I have volunteered at a kitchen in downtown Tulsa that provides meals for those in need. As the doors are opened, the man in charge says, “You don’t have to be homeless to eat here, just hungry.”

The Good News is simply this: Come. Those who are hungry, Come. Those who are thirsty, Come. Those who are weary, Come. Those who have strayed, Come. Those who, like Emeth, think their allegiance elsewhere will keep you out, Come.

And if that makes you angry, Come.

Let us pray.

Saturday Ramblings 9.14.13

Greetings, iMonks. Welcome to our weekly gathering here at the iMonastery where we pick up the pieces that were left over from a busy week. Well, we assume you had a busy week. We did a lot of lying around, arguing over who was to wash and who was to dry. In the end, our Mother Superior and First Lady, Denise, decided that we would just use paper plates from now on. Now we just have to decide who will erase them when we are done eating. As we discuss this, what say we ramble?

What a shock! Some are actually using the crisis in Syria to sell their ideas—and books—on the End Times. We’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?

And then there are those who are attempting to hasten the end times on their own. At least, hastening their own end. I would think that there may not be a real cause for a retirement plan when you are a snake handling pastor.

And then there is the one-man Westboro Baptist Church, Terry Jones, who attempted to burn copies of the Quran, one copy for each person killed in the Twin Towers on 9-11. All in the name of Christian love, of course. He was arrested. No need to discuss.

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The Journey Continues

Editor’s note: I met Erick as a co-worker in a company where very few self-identified as Christians. Erick however did. It can be a difficult journey in our part of Canada. Here is the latest installment in Erick’s story published this week. He blogs at: Sempiternal Being. He has given me permission to share this segment with the community that is Internet Monk.

How does his story resonate with your own? Are there similar experiences that you have had that you think would be helpful to the conversation? Your thoughts are welcome. We will be returning next week with another excerpt from Michael Spencer’s book: Reconsider Jesus

The Journey Continues

By Erick Gaudreau

Where to start?

Well let’s see. It’s been quite some time since I’ve sat down to really blog. And, I guess there are a few reasons for that.

Firstly, I’ve been busy. It was a lot easier to sit down and write when I was laid off work and had a lot of free time on my hands.

Secondly, I’ve struggled with where to go with this. At the beginning I had a lot of readers encouraging me in my journey in faith – towards God. And well truth be told, I’ve probably moved further away from God than towards him. As a result of that, I’ve kind of felt like maybe I’ve failed those that have been reading along. But, this is my journey and my walk, you may not agree with it, you may not understand it, but it’s my walk and my journey.

Truth be told, in the last year-and-a-bit I’ve come to question Christianity as a whole and as a result question the deity that is “God”. I’m not atheist and would probably consider myself more along the lines of an agnostic. But even that doesn’t seem to cover it. I believe that there is some sort of higher power, a god, who and what that is I don’t know. Truthfully, no one does. Every faith and belief on this planet has a god or higher power, some have many. How do you know which one is right? You don’t. You live your life according to the tenets of that faith and die in the belief that on the other side you will receive the appropriate reward for your faith.

What if they are all right? Or, what if you’re wrong? Then what?

You see the truth is, I think faith and religion (this is to describe faiths as a whole and not the “relationship” that people have with their god) works for some. It’s a set of rules and guidelines in which to live our lives. If you follow this set of rules and accept these things than you’re living a good and right life and will reap your reward in the afterlife. It’s a tool that people use to get through trials and turmoil. Some people use it as a means to become “whole”.

Well, I am seriously questioning it all. You see, I’ve experienced “supernatural” things that I can’t explain, so in my upbringing as a Christian these would be considered divine, maybe even miracles. But, when I’ve prayed and petitioned God for His intervention, healing and deliverance in other areas I got nothing. And, I’ve heard all kinds of answers as to why God “can’t” do it or that it’s a process and it takes time. “Well, God can’t change you or fix that all at once, you wouldn’t be able to cope.” Really? I call bullshit! If God created the universe in 7 days, then I’m sure he can fix our little problems. And, if we are talking about the God of the Bible then how you do explain the lepers that his son healed, or the paraplegic man, or the blind people, and let’s not forget about the dead that were raised. I’m sure that must have screwed up their lives, or afterlife, a bit. So, why is it “ok” to fix their lives but that doesn’t work in today’s day?

Another one that I don’t get it, how we determine what is sin and what isn’t sin. There are sins that are spoken of in the Bible that are commonly practiced among Christians today and yet other sins are still huge taboos and faux pas. And, depending on your religion within the Christian faith the sins are different. So, where do you draw the line? Is everything in the Old Testament no longer valid and the New Testament is the new rule book? Or is it a combination of both? Seriously I don’t even know where to start.

I know that “religion” is a creation of man. Well isn’t the Bible a book written by men? So, how do we know that they got it right? One guy has a “vision” and all of sudden BAM pork and shrimp is ok to eat. Hold on, wasn’t that a sin in the Old Testament? So, what’s right? Do these rules change? And who decides that they change? How come that guy was right and ok to change the “law”? Can sins change today?

So, if you’ve made it this far you’ll see that my journey has taken a different path then where it seemed to be heading. In summation, I think I believe that there is more than likely a higher power, a god. I’m just not sure that I buy into Christianity and the Bible anymore. I guess my faith just isn’t there.

iMonk Classic: Christian without the Adjectives

Classic iMonk Post
By Michael Spencer
From September 11, 2008

I have been reading a novel, and the protagonist is an Italian immigrant, and Catholic. At the end of a long introductory description, it simply said, “…he was a Christian.”

Now for some reason this struck me. It’s not that I’m enamored with the word. I’m on record as saying we might have good reason to give it a break, considering all the confusion and distortion that accompanies it.

But what actually got my attention was this: in the context of Roman Catholicism, you could simply say this man was a Christian, and that summarized a great deal without further explanation. He believed. He confessed. He communed. He prayed. He loved his family. He knew his calling. He tried to live the Christian life. He was a Christian.

And in this novel, that worked.

You are now allowed to say, “He starting to go Catholic,” because it seems to me that if this book were about a typical evangelical, we would soon have to start piling on the adjectives and hauling out the unique experience stories.

Saying the character was a “Christian,” would say very little about an evangelical protagonist. He would have to have a denominational label, of course. And he would need some descriptors like “a great Christian,” or “a zealous Christian,” or “a man who wanted to change the world for God,” or “a man who believed God was calling him to preach to his neighbors.” He would have to have a unique experience of God, one that was captivating and unique.

In the evangelical version of the story, the Christian would have to be closer to the front of the stage, with his or her own personal mission and story prominently described.

It would be unlikely that “the Faith” would be the solid fact on which his life would be lived. It’s more likely “the Experience” would be taking the reader along for an ever changing ride.

I know that there are Catholics with adjectives, too. I’m sure I’m guilty of a good bit of hyperbole, but I won’t give this up completely.

I think we are too much the stars of the story. It’s God’s story. It’s the Gospel that is the story.

Our stories — our testimonies, our experiences — can’t come to center stage. They can’t upstage Jesus and the Gospel.

You’ve heard it before. Yes, Paul gives his testimony when asked to do so, but does Paul ever make his story the largest story being told? Can anyone imagine Peter and the apostles going out on Pentecost to tell their own experiences.

I think our experiences are the coffee after the main program. The show is Jesus and the Gospel. Our experiences and all those adjectives need to get out of the way, and Jesus needs to be clearly seen.

Not as someone in our story, but as the one who gives us a story to be part of at all.

Losing The War, Part IV: Identifying The Real War

If we are not involved in the Syrian Civil War by the time this essay percolates to the top of the IMonk rotation, I believe it will have been partly due to the fervent prayers of my wife. She came home from the gymnasium weeping and speaking in tongues aloud. She is an intransigent Pentecostal and we know that if she is in a state where she doesn’t care who knows it, something is wrong.

We don’t have cable or broadcast TV. Our media diet is Netflix, pirated Korean dramas, and the nightly Univision news broadcast. My wife enjoys going to the gymnasium because she can watch either Fox News or CNN, depending on which machine she uses. This particular night, she was deeply disturbed by something she had seen on CNN. There were pictures of Syrian children laid out in the street after an attack, followed by a war room scene where a middle-aged to elderly woman was directing a number of generals as to where the US should strike in Syria.

The woman was not Hillary Clinton, Condolezza Rice, nor Nancy Pelosi. My wife knows all the Usual Suspects, and she says it wasn’t anybody she recognized.

By now, I was braced for a rehash of whatever propaganda CNN was spooning out. From the sound of my wife’s report, pictures of dead children followed by a video promising resolute US action, it sounded like CNN was gunning to build support for US military action in that unfortunate land. I should have given my wife more credit than to swallow any propaganda whole, though.

“That women had the Devil’s face”, she said, and the diabolism was so apparent to her that it provoked an outburst of Pentecostal manifestation usually reserved for major family crises. “That woman will cause more dead children,” my wife continued, “not fewer. She was a cold-hearted bitch that one [Era una seca fria esa], moving her hands over a map of Syria, showing the generals where they should strike.” My daughter and I got her calmed down, and we prayed together for President Obama, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Assad, President Putin, Premier Li Keqiang, and, of course, Syria’s nearly two million Christians, as well as her Muslims, Jews, and Druzes.

Continue reading “Losing The War, Part IV: Identifying The Real War”

The Wolf At The Door

We little pigs build – Walls

of straw or sticks,

or of sheetrock and two-by-fours,

block us in and the wolf out.

The door is so frail

A barrier between us and it.

The wolf blows and

straw scatters, sticks split.

Even the brick house crumbles,

brought down, if not by wind,

then by earthquake

or tender vines.

A disaster, but

we will build ourselves

another house.

How many of us pause, though,

as we scamper through the woods

toward our new subdivision,

to glimpse the beauty of the wolf

loping toward us through the mysterious trees?

How many of us perceive,

for a moment,

the golden eyes of otherness, wild

and fierce and lovely? –

before we slam our doors,

flop down in front of screens tuned

to the Discovery Channel,

and congratulate ourselves on

our safe return to real life.