great week

Harvey S. Mozolak

the week is about to begin

the weather report indicates it will start

below freezing

deadly to early blossoms

so there will be no standing 

in the courtyard with palms 

for the mostly elderly crowd

although they would not complain

but there is no good in catching a chill

and dying before Friday

several neighbors are mowing

since the city is not far enough south

to have palms on the block

the scent of wet wounded grass

will have to do this eve 

which is the day already begun

collected in bags for the dump

children running in the last long shadows

with bats balls and bikes 

unaware that the king

is coming to town

that death 

from which they are carefully shielded

except for what is televised

and played as game from time to time

must be seen and embraced

braced like the fence against

the old dead tree on the corner

that marks the edge of the community

and secures it for the week end

thick stick 

Harvey S. Mozolak

a thick stick

planted among bedding materials

sprouts

a sparrow alights

to gather loose broken bark

and carry a splinter away

for it is spring

we are told he had no place

to lay his head

that even animals have holes and dens

nests and gathered pine

his straw stripped and scattered

in an urgent flight to Egypt

he did sleep in the house of Lazarus

and his sisters Mary and Martha

Lazarus who had slept in the grave

and awaked by the alarm of his name

called and heard while stone silent

deaf by death 

pillowed already in reeking rot

homeless he did recline at the meal

where his body and blood

given and shed were passed

that dark night of betrayal 

when his address was kissed 

like a mezuzah by Judas

Jesus the doorpost

and he had slept aboard 

the disciples’ ship in the tempest

as now he lay down 

on the two tree limbs

branchless boards 

keeled for killing 

mast-less and grounded

fitted with Roman ropes

awaiting the storm of our sin

filling his drowning lifted lungs

crying out for us 

to his Father

to prepare us room 

for harbored rest and to rejoice in rising

with God our home

bronzed belief

Harvey S. Mozolak

the sandals of our souls are sore

oh God

Hor was high, unbreathable

rocky and ripped our soles

and now the wild places

vultures, their wings

curtain our walk with curses

scrubby brown branches

and saw-edged bitter green stalks

grow only once in a while

can you see Moses

our hands have scabs from the sand

and thorns

our children scream when we touch them

and our wives shrink from our embrace

we drink our own sweat

and taste our weak tears

the what-is-this sticky stuff

that is to pass for bread

is detestable meal

too bony to roast

the bird broth

is thin and acrid

with nothing to float in it

except our fear

of jackal and lion

and the slithering stems of poison

we have begun to see

bitten the burning blackens the eyes

coppers the flesh

hot, fevered

the people die

so many

many

Moses

oh God hear him

unfang our failure

the curling fury of our ingratitude

wrapped about ourselves

Moses stripped a pole

of fruit and foliage

and coiled about it

bronze beaten to englory

adoration

angels’ antidotal food

our arms and hands like new limbs

and wings of perching seraphim

begged and held

to hope

God’s stake in the world

twisting a tourniquet of love

taking his only

breath and light

our venom

envelops and stops

the heart of heaven

so in its holy halt

we may live again

to trust

unseen the ending

and that beating

beyond belief

flower carol: rose

Harvey S. Mozolak

“lo how a rose”

is wilting

withering in the dry

sun blistering sky

life’s petals falling

blooming blood

this carol cast to die

flower carol: lily

Harvey S. Mozolak

bound in lifeless layers

pungent drying skin

sheathed and chambered

a bulb buried

among the stones of clay

lo how he arose

limp lipped lily 

to the Father’s face

sun embraced brightness

as the trumpet’s ribs 

brace and blossom

their gold stalked stamens 

note with filament and flower

the shout of song

“beyond all sadness”

Friday walk

Harvey S. Mozolak

dim and dark

followed by the sound 

of a single lark

I saw a man

take the form of a tree

then closer came

I could see it was not

he was the form of me

leafless shorn

sleeved by blood

and shod in iron nails

a lifeless plant 

unrooted both of earth

and light-branched heaven

kingdom change

Harvey S. Mozolak

thrice like thunder

bolted to the earth

the pale posting

of the hill

was his 

among evil’s claim of the land

forcefully fenced

by sharp-stemmed suffering 

spikes and spear

there his kingdom 

recaptures all in holiness

loosened life

left to descend among

funeral cloths and prayers 

whose only hope

is waiting 

faith as yet not folded

on the stone

among the first up

Harvey S. Mozolak

butter yellow cups 

on fluted saucers

the sun-yellowed

daff photo stills

are ready for spring

framing by the wood

of greening trees 

and flower ringed bushes

poems on John 3. 14-21

snakeroot

Harvey S. Mozolak

the cure

heaven taking the dose

of the poison itself

snake hunting

God went

pruning from a dry tree

a forked stick

like a tongue of flame

fired in the fangs

of a Friday sun

the darkening world

still bright

in the dimming eyes

of the lifted up

from his drained

dead bitten body

the medicine

meeting at night

Harvey S. Mozolak

not like carrying a placard

some large sign

in the screaming coliseum crowd

announcing he was present

to cheer the combat or the victor

rather he moved unseen

parting the folds

that held the drapes of darkness

deep shadows dimming all

between the buildings at night

hurrying like one

who changes the scenes

in a play

centering a well

with realistic rope

setting a stage table

with a cup of cold water

altering the placement of a propped tree

just before the characters enter

the rabbi came in shortly after he arrived

they spoke at length

of the dark entrance

into the world from the womb

and quicken birth

from God on high

the Lord standing

beside one of the timber supports

for the roof of the house concludes

“some things above

“are not seen well below”

his hand rubs the wood

a carpenter checking its grain

dryness and strength

reaching upward

in a sudden smooth motion

into the yoke at the top of the post

his hands lower grip and hold

an until now hidden small field snake

frightened awake coiling

gently he places the creature in the soil

at the edge of the garden

“it was where Moses placed it

“when he lifted up the seraph

“in the wandering places

“while traveling here to where we are

“where the Son of Man will also go up

“though more rudely and roughly lashed

“nail-bound to writhe

“the evil from all beyond the garden”

Nicodemus’ face leans forward

into the lamp’s light

his hands placed on the table

where a loaf of bread cools

near a sweating jug of wine

Jesus lifts Nicodemus’ hands

as they are held in open prayer

“believe in the light that is true

“where the whole world hangs

“in the giving”

Nicodemus rises

unsure whose is the exit

Mark 14. 43-72
Harvey S. Mozolak

the bar of judgment
has not only a hammer
but the judicial bench four nails
and the court guards
a spear and sponge
the condemned carries
an innocent verdict to all the earth
holy order, order, order
pounded fist and feet
shackled in heart-drained blood
for the disordering
caused by sin
stripped of robe
flung far from heaven's train of galaxies
and withheld angel armies
we gamble at his weakness
he who clothes the fleeing naked
in fear of hatred and power
and the devoted who hold each other
against the terrors of this world
he forms into family by faith
beneath his execution...
of forgiveness  

Thoughts as commentary for Lent 2 B   Year of St. Mark

Jesus I will follow ... in times of toppling temples

John 2. 13-22 
Pastors (and presumably others) sometimes find things in church buildings that they would just as soon not be there, maybe on a pew left behind by someone who had no respect for the sacred or perhaps on a bulletin board, left behind by someone who thought they could shroud opinion in the holy. Somehow the Sunday School photo-memory I have of this event includes the irate Christ using the cords on the backsides of the moneychangers themselves not only on the sheep and cattle. That may have more to do with remembrances of wooden-spoon theology in the home.

The Passover was near. This feast was a feast of the temporary, eaten on the run, heavenly house addresses written in blood that will stain but wash away, coats on, with staff in hand, backpacks in place, Nike's on the feet and done every year with food that will be consumed or burned.

And where did the cords come from ... the ties for animals, the velveteen roping like that used in banks and theaters to line up the crowds buying sheep ... the bathrobe sashes from a few left over shepherds from the Christmas pageant in Bethlehem? While both natures participate, is it more the divine or the human Jesus enraged or both? Or does the coinage of that question get you mad? In my private quest for new (and usually lesser and some better, should be suppressed) I AM's ... I am the good minority whip, a minority of one and only, destroyed.

Did the coin exchange involve Roman images impressed on their coinage that depicted their deities or Emperors-as god? Anything like finding a casino chip in the parish offering plate, which pile do you put it into the dime, nickel, quarter or where the silver dollars used to be? And who will sacrifice an hour to drive over and exchange deities.

It would interesting to compare and contrast the whipping of the Temple leeches and the whipping Christ receives at the hands of the guards in his passiontide. The Lord Christ has his battles and campaigns not against the legions or crowds but in the Temple, amid its cages, ropes, restraints and boxes of blood money. Jesus does not de-sword the centurion or whup up on the priests of Zeus and Diana but on those who sell holiness, hawk purity and trade in peace of soul in his own temple. And the legions and crowds, their front lines form at the cross where there appears little of value even to be given away.

Likewise one could balance the criticism of those who make the Father's house into a marketplace with the need, we often call relevancy, to take the Father's abiding into the marketplace. Should sacrifice be caged in the world of advertisement? Should offering be weighed by the standards of commerce? Should worship be ground for quick plattering and MacDonaldized tastes? Should we pray this Javelin pray hurled at heaven, “Houseclean how we temple you Lord?”

Watching the televised portrayal of the science fiction Dune series, I was reminded of a number of images that shadow in an often-antithetical fashion and allude to Christianity, namely that of Messiahship, the incarnation in the wormform, a prophet like the Baptist, the reversals of desert to garden back to desert. One of the oft-repeated litanies was the statement that ritual ruins. The Lenten Temple cleansings include some relatively benign customs like giving up chocolate, not forever of course and certainly not beyond the forty days and Sundays are not included, right? There are good and salutary cleansings like giving up smoking, especially if they go beyond forty l-ashes. But say, giving up all angry words. Somehow we know that probably there will be a number of failures within the forty to say nothing of the angry heart. The liturgy of the true Lent is written in wood, pain, piercing and that death that cleanses. "Destroy this temple .... " Is Good Friday in the bazaar, does the crucifixion take place at the bake sale?

Temple spring-cleaning is an interesting phenomenon. The Scriptures call our bodies the temples of the Holy Spirit. The whole world, universe, is the templing for God. We frequently speak like we can eradicate evil, that a concentrated or even consecrated attack against evil will quell it. What if the New Testament temple is larger than Solomon's or either one thereafter? We must demonize our enemies to make them sweepable. Politically we use the term "evil" with a facile ease. Evil finds its own way to level, to seep, and to leak out, often among what we deem good and necessary. Do we think for a minute that the bazaar tables were never again brought back to the consecrated courtyards? There was probably an Easter sale the next week or something like it.

This is not normally thought of a stewardship text but it is. Stewardship texts normally indicate what to do with money, this one speaks of what not to do with the goods of wealth, of how we offer and of the holiness of oblation. The temple walls will come down and the offering will take in all creation freed.

These are times of toppling temples, some overtly religious and others owned by our cultural and societal gods.

"Zeal for the Father's house," consumes Jesus. This house is the vine, the vineyard, the people, and the world that consumes Jesus. A new temple is being built, one that David could not even envision much less Solomon build. The foundations were laid in Mary's womb and the wood beams will be erected on the Jerusalem hillside somewhere near the city dump. 

Christ cleaned the Temple of its unclean, unholy mammon, animal dung, advertising voices and shouts of sales, the worship space was now wholly God's and then he was crucified in one of the dirtiest of Jerusalem places… the garbage dump shaped like a decayed skull.

Psalm 19 
"Cleanse me from my secret faults." There are small shrines we erect to hide our commerce in sin. 

1 Corinthians 1. 18-25 The stumbling block, the foolishness, the expensive sneakers, running shoes, dark mirror-polished wing tips or combat boots that that walk the way of death ... it is easy to trip on the loose shoelaces of holiness. In the presence of God, our temples are covered in weakness and our naked feet touch the earth from which we were formed.



An Evening Prayer Lord God you pull your glory over us as the darkness spreads from the horizon to the heavens. Help us to sleep in your praise and wake in your adoration. In Jesus, AMEN



Seasonal Prayer As Lent deepens and the dying becomes dense, untwist and unbarb all obstacles to prayer, through Jesus. AMEN

 

Lent 2 B Year of St. Mark

cleansing
Harvey S. Mozolak

no intruder 
but the Son
in his Father’s house
he seeks 
the temple shops
stalls where confession
ends in the penance of pigeons
contrition in the attrition of herds of cattle
and sheep heard bleating payment blood
the coins stacked in columns
silver thin and vineless
will make change
not in those who enter
to burn and bow
to pray with pretense
muttering of mercy and ablutions
but in God’s wealth
become a poverty which consumes
the riches of worship whipped
after fluttering and fleeing animals
across the back of his anointed body
the thorn-stemmed templed 
roped and dragged 
toward destruction

and then beyond 
toward the home of heaven
where nothing is sold
for all has already been bought
for the Father by his Son



Exodus 20. 1-17

written before stone
Harvey S. Mozolak

law of the land
and pull of the tide
so the sun might swirl
palm fronds their green
swaying in the wet wind
a ripe fruit 
that drops decays
and seeds a new stem
ten words 
of gravity
growth and light
touching God’s ordering
of creation’s reach
never beyond
where the breath within
has been the living
ever tablet of the heart



John 2. 13-22

cleansing body
Harvey S. Mozolak

a body not for sale
his near Passover
on the way up to Jerusalem
God’s civic thumbprint
in the flesh of earth
connecting heaven’s pulse
to the human hemorrhage
he the lamb
the ox for slaughter
wealth exchanging
turning the tables 
of all treasured economies
dove that flutters alights
and signs of abated wrath
draining gone
as he walks among the colonnades
rebuilding how we awe



John 2. 13-22

speaking of his body
Harvey S.Mozolak

qodes haqqodasim

the stain
not of cattle blood
tracked sheep dung
pigeon-whitened feathers
coins passed from greasy hands
palms barely wiped 
of infant back sides
but the mar and mark
of scuffling feet 
dragging the lamb
deeper into the temple
with whips 
that scourge heaven 
and scour an earth
under construction 
splinted by fracture
and limbed by severance
as the holiest healing place

sanctum sanctorum 



John 2. 13-22 

spring cleaning 
Harvey S. Mozolak

the attraction of the city 
Jerusalem the marketplace 
of a piece of God 
selling where there is meant 
only the giving and receiving 
making money 
templed where love is the great exchange 
here the smell of rising prayer 
was to attract and alter 
at the navel of the unseen 
sacred scar of the once connected 

his own body 
destroyed by the God-hawking 
of cattle 
sheep and doves 
the caged for sacrifice 
are borne to the air 
no longer needed 
Christ so consumed 
for the Father's altar 
that no other table will do 
but to begin the three day 
destruction 
in the cleansing peace of God 

sold 
the broken bag of silver coins 
spilt on the floor 
soiled 
a bloody whip driving him out 
beyond the holy curtain and protecting wall 
overturned we flutter free 
to rest and nest 
on the housing wood 
branches that burn in the Friday sun 
new center of the universe

less than a minute ago