Wordtreasure

On Selfish Prayer

Matthew 18:15-20

The Germans were fond of the slogan, Gott mit uns.*
They wore these words on belt buckles and helmets
and they hoisted them on a sign in the Great War.
The Brits responded, We got mittens, too.

Jason and Jamal each prayed to win
the state championship, but for opposite teams.
Jamal’s team won and he was chosen MVP.
After the game he said, I give thanks to God!

When you pray for victory, what answer do you expect?
Prayer is not a zero-sum game.
The scripture says, Again, truly I tell you,
if two of you agree on earth about anything
you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

When two or more pray for a selfish purpose,
it does not matter if the group agrees or not.
Nothing will be done by your Father in heaven
except what God decides is best for you.

*God is with us.

Photo credit Lenny Warren of the Militaria Collectors Network

I Was the Messenger!

Tuesday, October 4, 1955.

Eighth grade class. Early afternoon.
None of the boys paid attention
to the teacher. The seventh game
of the World Series at Yankee Stadium
was on TV and we were sitting in class
in a cloud of unknowing.
All of us were Dodger fans.

I remember the teacher was annoyed—
boys were whispering among themselves.
She said, “What’s the problem?”
Someone said, “We want to know
who won the World Series.”

“Okay, we need a volunteer
to go to the office and find out.”

Every boy raised his hand.
I was seated in the front row because
my last name was first in the alphabet.
She picked me.
I grabbed the hall pass and took off running.

I was the messenger!

Five minutes later,
I burst through the classroom door
with the great news,
“The Dodgers won 2-0!
Dodgers are world champs!”

Every boy and some of the girls
jumped up and cheered.
After losing to the Yankees
four times since 1947,
Brooklyn finally won.

I remember taking personal credit
for this splendid turn of events,
as if it was me
who drove in the two runs
and pitched the 8-hit shutout.
Everyone was happy,
jumping up and down,
and I was the one who brought the joy.

New Book

Just published on Amazon. $12 for the paperback. No eBook yet.

These are my ancestors who lived near Charlottesville, Virginia, before the Civil War.

What Kind of God?

Hebrews 2:14-18

The gods consume nectar and ambrosia on Olympus
and amuse themselves by looking down on us
dispassionately. Cool detachment is a sardonic business.
Hellenism insists we see things as they are.
For right thinking, the body and its desires are a barrier;
we are cautioned to keep the mind completely clear.

Hebraism counters that the body and its desires
are a barrier to right action. The Lord requires
clarity of thought chastened by strictness of conscience.
The principal rubric of the Law is studied obedience
to the will of God. The Lord has a vertical presence—
aloof except to chastise with corrective fires.

The unknown author of the book of Hebrews crystalizes
the Christology of Paul by defining a different kind
of divinity in which the pioneer of our salvation identifies
with the human condition. Jesus is wholly man
as well as divine and, thus, he thoroughly understands
what it means for us to live imperfect lives.
 
But there is more. It is well and good to know
the Lord has empathy, unlike the dispassionate pantheon
or the distant God of Moses. It begs the question:
what can be done about our suffering and sorrow?
The pioneer of our salvation has come to earth to show us
exactly what we need for true consolation.

Inspired by Scripture

A Pinwheeling Leaf

Now for sale in paperback. The blurb is out of date. The book has 99 poems.

[tanka]

a bee swarm of ducks
lifts off from the wetlands,
then forms a V…
what kind of no-mind
makes them do that?

Perfume

Christmas was coming.
I walked into J.J. Newberry,
the five and dime on Huntington Drive,
and approached the perfume counter.
The saleslady could see
I didn’t have a lot to work with.
She tried to fit quality to my budget
by showing me a tiny container
of a popular brand.
I was not impressed.
I pointed to a larger rectangular bottle
with very pale blue glass.
The price was four dollars.
I put my money down
and left the store
feeling good about myself.
On Christmas morning,
Mother opened my gift
of cheap perfume from the five and dime
and made a great show
of thanking me for my kindness.
“It’s the thought that counts.”

NOTE: This poem is from my book Bud and Mary, which was just released on Amazon. It recalls an incident at Christmas 1951 when I was nine years old.

Abraham’s Bargain

Genesis 18:16-32

The Lord is angry. I ask the Lord,
“Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
If you are just, would that be fair?”

I stand before the Lord and ask,
“If fifty are righteous, will all be swept away?”
The Lord responds, “For the sake of fifty,
I’ll save them all.”

I am the master of the deal.
I got it down to fifty.
But then I wonder if we have that many.
I’ll bargain for a lower count.

I stand before the Lord and ask,
“If thirty are righteous, will all be swept away?”
The Lord responds, “For the sake of thirty,
I’ll save them all.”

I am the master of the deal.
I got it down to thirty.
But then I wonder if we have that many.
I’ll bargain for a lower count.

I stand before the Lord and ask,
“If ten are righteous, will all be swept away?”
The Lord responds, “For the sake of ten,
I’ll save them all.”

I am the master of the deal.
I got it down to ten.

(Slower)

Then the Lord went his way
And I returned to my place.

(Resume)

The Lord is angry. I ask the Lord,
“Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
If you are just, would that be fair?”

I am the master of the deal.
But I knew not the hearts of men.
Even ten was a count too high.
Ten souls were a count too high.

In the end, he saved the righteous.
The children of my children fan the earth
Because he was just, he was fair.

(All on the stage face the congregation, raise their arms, smile, and shout)

I am the master of the deal!

Announcement

I uploaded three of my poetry eBooks to Amazon this week. Go to Amazon.com and select Books. In the search engine, do this: (a) Type “Bud and Mary Baldwin”, (b) Type “Inspired by Scripture Baldwin”, or (c) Type “A Pinwheeling Leaf Baldwin”

On the Bridge

Hebrews 4:12-16

The word of the Lord is an oscillating dialog
of course-corrections from the officer of the deck to the helmsman
as the helmsman utters “Aye,” repeats the command,
and turns the helm and tiller to the new heading.

Except the word is a quiet voice within
and not a person bellowing over the main.
Brothers and sisters, it connects God with man—
a constant conversation for those who choose to listen.

Cigars

Cigars evoke the stadium.
Whenever I catch the drift
of a great cigar,

I revisit the Coliseum
where you and I
would cheer the darkest team
In white America.
The tunnels reeked of smoke,
cigars especially;
today I miss the stench.

Cigars evoke for me
our best of times as father and son.
Whatever I meant to you
and you to me
in real life,
together we loved the game.

Now That I Am Dead

After reading “Evening Land” by Pär Lagerkvist

As I stooped through the low portal of death,
I saw my human fate
emptied out into a lethe.

Life’s luggage of love and hate
was left behind the wall;
the gardener burned my once-essential freight.

I asked myself if this was all.
Intelligent souls clicked like dolphins in the wind
on either side of the wall,

discerning everything. My mind
came clean; discernment whirled ahead
as soon as I was schooled by the garrulous wind.

Now that I am dead,
I know that God did not create the soul;
the soul created God instead.

Now that I am dead, I know the soul
imagined heaven straddling earth
where God was hired to rule

irascible man and iterative death/rebirth.
I dreamed of an infinite life,
a dream encoded before my birth,

because one life was not enough.
I know that paradise was once inside my head,
now that I am dead.

NOTE: I read “Evening Land” and wrote this poem over 30 years ago. It was published in 2018. We wrote book reports when we were in school. “Now That I Am Dead” is like that. There is a poignant tone of regret throughout about Lagerkvist’s loss of faith. I tried to capture his point of view here.