A Pastor’s Ode to Cigars

Few things in the world can impart such delight

At the dawning of danger or the onset of night

Than to take but an hour of unbothered rest

In prayerful repose being holy smoke blessed.

I am but a man, a most simple creature,

A loving husband and also a preacher.

No braggart you’d find, should you care to search,

but the humblest of servants in the humblest church. 

When problems beset me, when troubles grow deep

I find happy solace in the one vice I keep:

Diversions? They fail me! Nothing thus far

Can deliver my soul as a well-made cigar.

Pining for kapnismological bliss

I fire the match with a scratch and a hiss

greeting the foot with an encouragement of flame

and sucking the butt without shyness or shame

A vermillion medallion—a cherry of coal

Seeps up the shank, consuming the scroll.

Nicotine cognac pours over my lips

I drink the dark cordial in sweet, smoky sips.

Brown is this brush with which I repair

To paint silver smoke on the day’s troubled air.

Flakey gray ash like baklava sweet

Hangs on the end like a babe on a teat.

In the Bible, Ezekiel consumed a scroll—

A sheaf of divine leaves painstakingly rolled—

Is it of no less account that I am inspired

By a scroll of leaves impeccably fired?

But here is my wife, now poking my shoulder—

I needed this quiet, but hadn’t I told her?  

Fondly I look at my glowering wife

but how can I tell this—the love of my life

That smoking brings wisdom to preacherly tasks?

With arms hitched akimbo she scoldingly asks:

How dare you sit there and ponder the Word

While sucking that smoldering, Dominican turd?” 

“Remember your calling—your parishoners come first!”

(It looked as though veins on her forehead might burst)

“And what of the neighbors? What would they think

To see you enveloped by Satanic stink?! 

I know, just as sinners will run from their bath 

The gentler of answers will turn away wrath

So I offer a sweetly, self-controlled smile

And fashion a riposte bereft of all guile:

Ah, blessed woman—fair daughter of Eve

This smoke only augments your beauty, believe!

And as I blow a kiss towards this woman I’ve wed

A silvery nimbus encircles her head.

My dear, sweet Medusa!  Delight of my eyes!

Your halo holds stars as a web catches flies.

And as she fires fresh, acrimonious quips

I take smoky sips from the leaves on my lips.

And just when I fear that my cool may be blown,

My prayers are all answered; she leaves me alone.

This cross that I bear I must shoulder with style

And carry the bag yet another long mile.

Her words, though they bite, fall short of appall,

I deign to consider them anything at all—

Ignored or deflected, dismissed as a joke—

Anything to get me back to my smoke.

As Ahab had Moby and Arthur his chalice,

Freud had his Cuban-rolled, smokable phallus

Barth sucked brisagos, JFK—panatellas,

Churchills by Churchill and other great fellas.

Show me the great mind unbasted by smoke

and I’ll show you a soon-to-be wannabe joke

So light up! Light up either pipe or cigar

Even cigarettes (if you don’t mind the tar).

Yet as all good things must come to their ends,

From beautiful lovers to the dearest of friends,

I too must conclude this most blessed hour

For my Presidente has reached the end of his power

As he did yesterday, and the day yet before

I’m left yet awearied by troubles and more.

These friendships are fickle, and quickly burn out

And my faith in cigar smoke wafts into doubt.

All but conspire to turn my fair cash

from a sweet green wad to smoldering ash.

And now as I enter my own house within

I’ll suffer new charges of reeking of sin.

But one kiss and a wash, and I shall be clean—

The judgements are short-lived, just blights in between

Otherwise broad fields of love and delight

Which spread out their wings in the coolness of night.

Ah, happy marriage!  Oh lavish of praise!

A prayer in pure thanks I honestly raise

To the One who brings light into every dark

And brings to full flame each heavenly spark.

Like the spark from a match that lights a cigar

Bringing light to the lost like an unfailing star! 

A cigar, like a praise, can eclipse present sorrow…

Perhaps a double-corona tomorrow.

The Fuller/Princeton Conundrum

As a Princeton Seminary grad, I have for many years attended the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors’ Conference, founded and dominated by Fuller Seminary graduates. This was written for our gatherings.

Our self-vaunting prattle should well make you all

sick-to-death of our prideful B.S.

So in protection of the conference call

I add a couple more reasons to hate PTS.

You Fullerites welcomed us, which we did not deserve

(though we do tend to score at the top of the curve)

The brotherly-sisterly love that you’ve shown

is better than words—and by it, we’ve grown.

Wonder, you might, at this mistake you have made—

Too late! You’ve already welcomed us in!

Your peace/unity/purity Pasadena parade

is become a syncretistic soiré of sin.

Your beer-pizza lovefeasts are now badly stained

by east coast effetes sipping dainty tea cups.

Are you angered to see this—your favorite domain

invaded by Princetonian, pink, preppy pups?

In rage you may well hiss and spit

While we will run much cooler.

If you way we’re all full of . . . it

Well we’ll say, “You’re just Fuller!”

Oh, I apologize if you feel as though

you’re good name has been daunted

but our bantering can only grow

where pride has been so vaunted.

So the Devil Satan would ply such slime

to try and draw in yet another sucker

only one name fits this fallen angel of crime

(A line even I here I dare not to rhyme).

Alma Mater by whatever name merits accolades upon her

So rather than this fruitless game, let’s outdo in showing honor!

We know well of the differences—the contrasts in climes

That LA and New York do contextually create

Let’s count it to conditioning—environments and times—

And seek that all seminarial prides should abate

As we repent, so forgive— sister/brothers

As to our new life together, let’s not be shy

As to that whatever differentiates us from others

Let us overlook—and as coastals be bi.

So come, let all be of one mind, and speak as of one accord

Leave childish banter behind, and together serve our one Lord.

Let us go then, you and I—with stars spread out against the sky

Like listless presbyters after their lunch

In search of strong coffee for the afternoon crunch

We’ll listen to speakers as they come and go

writing of things they less-than-half know

We’ll snatch up their pearls—each to each

Look at them later to see if they’ll preach.

We’ll browse the shops of downtown “Saint Cross”

Charge up our cards and suffer the loss,

Chow pizza in Felton and laugh after hours

And bedazzle our friends with our preacherly powers

Hear horrors from others, replete in appall

That make us feel better for our present call

We’ll take our fill of the pine-filtered air

Breathe some deep sighs and abandon all care

We grow old, we grow old.

Our bellies have over our trousers rolled,

Richard Dawkins would worship the Morning Star

To see that coffee spoons have measured so far.

But 45 years is but a grain of sand

on that infinite beach where we all hope to stand

A hundred times that is even less than a drip

in the cup of Christ from which we shall sip

“Sip” did I say? No, that’s a mistake!

We’ll drink to the dregs enough for a lake

to honor our host: the infinite Son,

and know that the meal is merely begun.

This meal we’ve a million times badly rehearsed

which we, through our own bickering, most nearly cursed.

Then marveling together, we’ll each sit up in our seat,

to see the Lord Jesus, finally eat.

For Karl Barth, etc.  WCPPC 2018

He is the very picture of the pious intellectual:

critically-realistic, dialectic-theological,

dogmatic to a virtue, dogmatic to a fault—

the substance of all trolling on Reformed/backslash/alt.

Yeah, we’re really into Karl, man, we really dig his scene;

we love those dialectics and the spaces in between!

Our fingers are on the pulse now of all that lies ahead,

so chill on Calvin and N.T. Wright and grok to Barth instead.

And oh, we oppose those poseurs who refer to him as BarTH!

How crude, inane, and ignorant! How smelly…like a farth.

Yet they too may be reconciled, dislike it though we may,

so better we just let it slide and love them anyway.

Besides, what one among us completely comprehends

the subtleties contained between those widely-spaced bookends?

For reading the Dogmatics is like climbing Everest;

the thin air of those higher climes can crush our very best.

That climb is tough for all of us; who dare deny it’s true?

The best of us stand stained by sin (and Barth was a sinner too).

A human being is rife with sin, whether liar, thief, or harlot.

Even the Apostle Paul had his fleshy thorn, and Karl had his Charlotte.

That sin besets the saintly life is a fact beyond dispute

like a spell that turns a holy house to one of ill-repute,

or a mind like a bookcase with one ever-warping shelf—

how dare we say we glorify Him who glorifies himself?

It’s hard to imagine anything so reckless, rich and wild—

this mystery of mysteries—that we are reconciled.

Its goodness is superior—nearly too good to believe—

this scheme of mongergistic transformational reprieve.

This thing called grace is crazy, like a pearls cast before swine

or temple lamb chops thrown to dogs—it’s clearly out of line.

Yet sweet and tender in our mouths—that sacrificial meat—

that tastes of bread and bloodied wine: redemption that we eat.

The grace of Christ translates us to a transcendent dimension

that lies within this present as incomprehensible condescension.

Jesus loves us—this we know—because the Bible tells us so,

and may all grace/love from above be worked out here below.

Livin’ 93308

Song lyrics in honor of Oildale, CA.     Fall, 2009

Dude in a trucker hat and wife-beater shirt

Flashin’ his pecs at his wife-of-a-flirt

She’s 9-months pregnant and man, how it shows!

Is that guy the father? Hey, God only knows

The life is good here—Yeah, it’s great!

Liv-in’ 9-3-3-0-8!

Well my baby she’s a winner with a sturdy build

Makes money workin’ weekends down in Bakersfield

It’s not enough to feel like livin’ high-on-the-hog

But it’s enough for us; call it “high-on-the-dog”

Life is good here—Yeah, it’s great!

Li-vin’- 9-3-3-0-8!

CHORUS

   Well, the River runs from east to west

and north of the line we all do our best

So keep the rubber rollin’ where it meets the road

And park it here in Oildale: it’s the Mother Lode!   

Well I don’t collect rare autos—Man, that would be fun

But I’m mega-rich in clunker heaps that will not run.

My yard and my driveway--they’re completely filled

At collecting useless garbage, I’m uniquely skilled.

Life is good here— yeah, it’s great!

Liv - in’- 9-3-3-0-8!

Out in the front is my own Pride & Joy

Droolin’ in his sleep on an old  La-Z-boy

Parked on the parking strip beside an old fridge

Hey, that’s just kickin’ back style, north of the bridge.

Life is good here— Yeah, it’s great!

Liv - in’ - 9-3-3-0-8!   

GET!   THAT!  DOG!  OFF!  MY!  LAWN!   ‘

(If a) tribal-tatted driller in a pickup truck

tries to make you feel your life ain’t worth a buck

I know where you can go to stand on safer soil

Yeah, north of the river to the Dale of Oil

Life is good—Heck yeah, it’s great!

Liv-in’ 9-3-3-0-8!

    Well the River runs from east to west

and north of the line we all do our best

So keep the rubber rollin’ where it meets the road

And park it here in Oildale: it’s the Mother Lode!

Yeah I’m talkin bout a town where you can get your joy

Be as happy as that banjo-playin’ Deliverance boy

Life is good here— yeah, it’s great!

Liv-in’ 9-3-3-0-8!