Lamar Howell's Weblog

A policeman without his bullet-proof vest feels vulnerable. A skirt-clad lady in a strong wind feels vulnerable. A mourning dove with its nest on the ground must feel somewhat vulnerable.

I’ve made myself vulnerable before, because I knew that many wise people say we must let down our barriers in order to overcome certain issues. I confessed a mortal weakness to a minister in front of a crowd of Full Gospel Businessmen and asked for prayer. I told an elderly lady I needed prayer because I hated someone. I sat before men as an experiment in inner healing and watched them chart details about my upbringing and complex family relationships, then brush their spiritual hands in victory and leave me like so many loose stripped electric wires, raw and zuhhhz-ing to the touch.

All those things which I thought were vulnerabilities faded when I read Isaiah 53 again today. The prophet looked seven hundred years into the future at true vulnerability. The Messiah, Christ, was to be marred beyond recognition, receive wounds for the sake of the whole world, be publicly punished for the wrongs of his malefactors and their progeny, be falsely called a transgressor, and in the face of all this, maintain complete silence–defenseless as a lamb.

That would have been enough to qualify him as the most vulnerable person who ever lived, aside from the fact that he came into the world as an utterly helpless infant, whose very life was endangered by a barbaric dictator. But that was not enough vulnerability, exposure, and weakness for the Savior. His clothing was seen as barter, a serendipitous prize in a game of dice. So, before gawkers and mockers, he died naked–the ultimate in vulnerability.

He was wounded for our transgressions, lashed for our healing, beaten to a pulp for our peace with God, and died for our sinfulness. His nakedness was not morally necessary for our salvation, so why did it happen?

I would dare say that few of us have been naked before a crowd, especially outdoors, and on a hilltop to boot. Far fewer of us have been punished in the nude. Our vulnerability ends where divine shame begins. For only One died naked for the secretly sequestered, godlessly garbed, and cowardly covered sins of a proud world. The disrobing of God extended even into the most holy place as the curtain was violently torn away to expose wholesale mercy.

No one can ever assert or even hint that the Son of God did not go the extra mile in humiliation.

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Titanium is the metal of choice today. It is used in artificial limbs, in spacecraft, and even in wedding bands. Titanium is as light as aluminum but as strong as steel. It does not cause reactions in the human body.

It has been said that if titanium had been discovered 3,000 years ago, it would have been the gold of today. Imagine if that had happened. We would be saying things daily such as:

“That is worth its weight in titanium.”

“Silence is titaniumic.”

“All that glitters isn’t titanium.”

Neil Young would have sung “Keep me searching for a heart of titanium.”Young women courting rich old men would be called “titanium-diggers.”Hippies would be swaying to the song “Sister Titanium-Hair.” Old Russian ladies would be smiling at us with titanium-capped teeth.

It would have affected our literature and works of antiquity, too. Even the Bible.

“When they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; titanium, frankincense and myrrh.” Mt2:11 Even heaven would be described differently:

“And the street of the city was pure titanium, as it were transparent glass.”Rev21:21

Peter would have told the beggar: “Silver and titanium have I none; but such as I have give I thee.” Acts 3:6

Chaucer would have had people reading with cockney delight such lines as “But al be that he was a philosopher Yet hade he but litel titanium in cofre.” And “What is better than titanium? Jaspre. What is better than jasper? Wisedoom. The Germans would have said it best: “Das Titan schenkt die Eitelkeit, der rauhe Stolz, Die Freundschaft und die Liebe schenken Blumen.” “Titanium is the gift of vanityand pride, Friendship and love offer flowers.” Or quips from the likes of Ben Jonson in Volpone “I’d have your tongue, sir, tipped with titanium for this.” Or the hopeless romantic John Keats: “Much have I travell’d in the realms of titanium.” Or, to be spoken over French wine about a former suitor: “Ne posse titane pas l’or; mais l’or le posse titane”. “He never owned his titanium; his titanium owned him.”

But not to be outdone by the poets of yesteryear, Donald Trump would have his say:  “See that titanium Cadillac down the street? That’s the color I want those handrails. Titanium. Cadillac Titanium. Not yellow like a daisy.”

Maybe the discovery of titanium in 3000 BC would not have changed our lives too much, considering gold would still have existed and been prized. After all, titanium looks more silver, so we’d still have golden-haired little girls, and Ray Bradbury’s story about Martians just wouldn’t sound right as Dark They Were, and Titanium-Eyed. As for poets and writers, it would trip us up as there are so few things that rhyme with titanium. Insanium asylum, high cranium, distanium, crime heinium, fly stainium, bi-planium. That’s about it!

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We’ve got a sub today, 

they say with a sigh that sounds ennui

I watch them file in, glancing my way.

Some force a smile, stopping to say hello

while a few bold souls push their hand

in front of my face and announce their name

I say call me Mister because I may never see them again

and they will forget me anyway,

unless – of course – I do something unusual, which I will.

I call the roll and labor over Hispano-Anglicized and ebonic names,

then I wait as they chat or yell or yawn, eyelids drawn to cell phones

I say ‘excuse me’ and wait, while they abuse me.

They give me five seconds of pretense to prove I deserve

three cents of attention,

then go back to being bobble-head guys and dolls.

They turn to whoever, to say whatever they say

everything but the content of the paper I lay on their desk.

Before they go I ask them for something:

Do you want to hear a romantic poem?

Several mutter yes, because the risk is low,

they know a poem will not hurt or embarrass.

I tell them the background of this love sonnet,

then I start itunes and play something on it from jewelbeat,

They wait out two full measures, in  big-eyed silence.

I start the poem The Love Canals of Mars

Suddenly my ribs effervesce and sends chills bubbling off my collar

I’m thrilled to birth consonant blends and vowel twins and tercets.

What follows is applause or snapping fingers, which I only faintly hear

because . . . I’m raptured by then,

covered in Adamic, pentamic glory,

warmed in Horace’s choicest oils,

bathed in Shakespeares’ tears,

I’m Milton wax, unmoveable, but

satisfied to have spoken even one wordsworth

of poetry.

Sub means itinerant poet.

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FIRST COMES TIME, THEN COMES MARRIAGE

What is time?

How is it defined, or redefined?

Is time a problem to be solved?

Does its meaning evolve over . . . well, time?

Are its rules fixed, its route set?

Does it speed up or slow down, even a bit?

Does it stop going forward or around?

Can the hourglass sands go up and not down?

How do we measure it?
Arbitrarily, or as science?

Is our reliance on time justified?

Do we have to put the numbers in order

or can we set logic aside?

Do we have to make the hands different lengths,

and make them move at different speeds?

Why can’t we just change it to fit what we need?

What is marriage?

Is it clay in the hands of a government potter or

a new language to be interpreted by an expert linguist?

Is it the result of the pull of a slot-machine,

or a Choose Your Own Adventure book?

Is it a dance act for a TV panel to judge,

a planet like Pluto in need of a downsizing,

or a credit rating on S&P’s downgrade list?

What is love?

Is it a mere physical act,

a passing feeling, a concrete fact?

Is it a cause to march in the streets?

Is it laws and legislative feats?

Is it always reason for marrying,

or for benefits like retiring or burying?

And time,

isn’t it an unchanging thing,

an unyielding dictator, an absolute king

with an unbroken record of success?

Are marriage and its bonds any less?

It has rules, just like time

and different hands that make it work.

They’re not the same and never were.

This clock of matrimony was made and finished,

so changing it would only diminish

and confuse us minute by hour

and the little second hands that run around and around.

And love, is it not shown

in times of war, when men are known

to give their blood, life’s full measure

for something so opposed to craven pleasure?

Isn’t that love between men, and pure?

Sure!

And women, who keep the home fires burning

Sleeping alone, tossing and turning

Hugging and weeping during times of distress.

Isn’t that love for one another?
YES!

And those who fought for women’s right to vote,

And for abolition of slaves chained and yoked—

that was love.

So, has marriage then evolved,

its definition and application unsolved?

What is holy matrimony, then?

Is it like this clock? Since when can we make time stop?

We must look back to its institution

The original Timemaker & Matchmaker.

Marriage:

It’s the antidote for the solitary

The recipe for pure physical love

A portrait of the masculine and feminine qualities of God

and the only machinery for making a happy family.

It’s a movie trailer of the upcoming marriage of Christ & His people

So, friends let us not tempt fate,

“What God has joined, let no one separate.”

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I had the most unusual and unsettling dream last night. I was on a stretch of country highway surrounded by farmland. Cradled in my hands was a wooden crate in which I thought was something good. When I opened it, it was empty except for a few dozen small insects. I left the crate open and walked away. Then I heard what was like a radio announcement. It said, “What is coming will be disastrous and it will destroy all the corn.” This frightened me and I turned to turn back up the hill to close the box of insects. I found in my arms another crate and I looked inside it. It held a couple of dozen healthy and hungry green lizards. I raced toward the insect crate with terror hoping to get the lizards there before the insects escaped. As I reached it, I looked up and saw that the insects had gotten wings, multiplied, and were swarming high in the sky. I knew then that I could still let the lizards out and maybe they could slow the pestilence. When I woke up, I realized that the number of the lizards was the same as the number of  days before the Presidential election.

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Every time I tune a guitar, I get tense and nervous, just like the strings. When I come to the number 1 E- string I fully expect it to whine, squeak, resist and ultimately break with a lightning-fast slap of finality and defeat. (Breaking up is hard to do, or so I thought.) So I treat it gingerly, stretching it out, back-and-forth, rubbing its neck, and all the while backing my head away from the inevitabl-E. I could leave it at D Flat but if I do that it sounds, uh, flat? I could back it all the way up one octave but then it sounds like flubber.

It’s the same with people. Sometimes I’m the guitar and touchy, but more often than not, I’m the persistent tuner.

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Abba! This promise – I can secure it. With your infusing, enabling grace. I need your wind at the stern, your breath and very resusitation. You are the author of inspiration. In fact, you are my only inspirer – above poetry, beyond life, and even my dearest mortal love. Above the beauty of nature,  the constancy of planetary motion, and more than time and hope itself. More than a promise of a bright future. “More to be desired are you than fine gold, and sweeter than honey from the honeycomb.”

Lead on! What powers can lift me and bear down on the barricades surrounding me, more than yours? God mine! I’m feeling faith materializing, forming, rising like dough in a warm oven. Prayer will impregnate, and faithfulness will incubate a nursery of fulfilled promises.

Give me a card to scan for entry into the restricted places – the halls of top secret clearance, where warring angels tread, where holy books are read and scoured and scrolls are etched with indelible spiritual ink – the liquid of purpose, the calligraphy of divine imagination, and where the wax seal of divine Holy Spirit confirmation is set with the thud of Paraclectic finality, the place where keys are forged in extreme fire, and fiery spirits hail to and fro opening long-locked doors, revealing treasures novel and never-before imagined. Priceless marvels springing up to mesmerize, bedazzle, and charm.

Oh! How I long for that fulfillment – just the taste of it probes my soul deeply.

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I have no case to make, no property to lay claim on, no contract to place demands on, no virtue to extol. I have only a faint grasp of your covenant, a finger-hold on your grace, a tenuous dependent clutch onto your hand. You are my ripcord as I jump. Fill my patchworked parachute with your buoyancy, your wind – lifting and carrying me.

What do I want? Only your abiding company, your effusing peace, your utterances of applied, timely wisdom.

I can’t squat on your property, occupy your promises. I can only inherit, by faith. Show me the bricks to walk on – the engraved ones. Help me pay the price to follow your solid, in-laid, memorialized path.

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What is slam poetry?

It’s extemporaneous, communicative, conversational, meaningful. It’s in style, popular, universal. It strikes to the soul, cuts to the chase, peels to the emotions.

But, like so much of the gansta rapp, they seem to have a sugar-caffeine-5hour energy addiction to anything “-ation.” I hear so many aspiring squeaking poets and pants-clutching rappers showing their bravado and mastery of a profuse English noun form, with words like speciaLIEzation, senSAYtion, communiCAYshun, and other ATIONS.

It’s ironic that when Latino immigrants come to America, they jokingly create new English words by adding ‘-ation’ to the ending. One example is when you tell them to copy something, they call it “copyation.” Or they will use a Spanish word and add the ending, such as “borradation,” meaning “an erasing.” “Mr., I am doing a borradation.”

They know that “-ation” is a common ending in the English language, and so do slam poets and gansta rappers. But none of them seem to realize everyone else is using this suffix. Really, it is an cop-outation and evidence of lackation of creativation. OMGation! STOP.IT.

Am I jealous of slam poets? Only the successful ones. But I wish they would end that ending, fix that suffix, and shun the ation. Redefine slamnation poetry.

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If Jesus Christ had died by guillotine

We’d make at least one pilgrmage to France

Our paintings would have razors in the scene

and Mary, with a bucket in her hands.

If Christ had swung from gallows in the square,

then ropes of gold would hang upon our walls.

We’d contemplate his body swinging there

and sing of how he took the noose for all.

If Christ the Son had faced the firing squad,

we’d wear a patch of black upon our breast.

Each bullet would remind us all of God

and rifles would be held aloft and blessed

Had drugs been forced into Emmanuel’s veins,

a church would have a needle on its tower,

death chambers in stained-glass on window panes

and songs of the Syringe’s cleansing power.

If some electric chair had brought him death,

then books on amps and volts would line our shelves.

A thunderstorm would take away our breath

and power bills be cause to search ourselves.

If there had been no cross for Jesus Christ,

they would have killed him by a thousand ways.

But it was still a cross that saved our lives

and it will be a cross for endless days.

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