Sanctification

Sometimes you simply can't help offending people. It is clumsiness, of course, not wickedness. When wickedness offends, there is a need for apology, repentance, sanctification. When clumsiness offends, what is there to do? Who is there to blame? Nothing. No one. For example, let us say you do not have a car. So you walk to church or class or your job interview on this unnaturally hot day, (you cannot help the weather) and you stink. There is nothing for it. You have offended without doing anything wrong. And there is nothing you can do. And you are not to blame - despite all the looks of surprised disgust you receive as you pass by. Or, let us say you do have a car, but something happens to your headlights. You end up on Orangethorpe, just off the 57, calling your father and fiddling with every knob and nozzle you can find from the doorknob to the glove compartment, but alas! the lights will not glow. In fact, the only light for the darkness seems to be the harsh glare of your brights - which will not stay on without you holding the turn stem tight against the wheel and not letting go. Yes, the entire distance from Fullerton to Long Beach. (If you have not caught on that this second and last example was my own experience only half an hour ago, you are not quite savvy with my literary ways.) I know I was obnoxious. Annoying. Bright like an alarm clock at four in the morning. But there was no other way.

I wrote a poem once that had something to do with this, among other things. It is a reminder to look up even in the midst of tripping. I will post it here:

Crossing Main Street, I speak in tongues.

I am not trying to be edgy

in an anaesthetized America--

My body loves the Lord.

When I work, I do little but point to the left

or the right. Still,

the sanctifying Spirit

does not keep me from making mistakes.

I suffer the anger of others

who must suffer me

and cover my errors.

Though he was sad,

the Lord was not angry on the cross.

But what can you ask of man?

My thoughts are sometimes filled with tears

because systems are corrupt,

and I wear the clothes of hungry children.

but I will not be a cynic, oh no.

I will laugh with the sunrise

though you think me a child,

I will cry with the evening news,

though you call me overly sensitive.

This is how I walk on water--

it's the only way I know:

barebacked and open-armed.