The Plunderers Mission Statement

We scour the hard worn floors of our thoughts searching

For a scrap, a coherent piece, of sheer luminosity.

What we find instead are pieces of lint and bugs scuttling past,

Shuffling into tiny dark crevices then blinking out,

Mothballs and cobwebs collect innocently within,

And a hint (a delusional whiff?) of lavender and oil.

So, in summers we, donning scuba gear and rubber gloves,

Will collect fading sheets of paper from old vacant houses,

Our feet carefully pushing aside rusty nails, broken glass,

And moldy bits of apples, chips and un-drunk whiskey.

We will search for hours to find some indicative item,

An old love letter, perhaps, or a page of dated newspaper.

After, we will pull our findings around us,

Pick through crumpled words with unknown meanings

And pin sentences from other's lives onto our doors.

Finding this repetitious lack in ourselves, we will

Painstakingly plunder stranger's souls.

Distractions

We play at the edge of disaster,

holding hop scotch chalk and pebbles lightly in hand.

We stare up and the clouds dusty

with unused lightning and waiting water,

but then forget for hours at a time

our looming tragedy, sticky and dense.

Instead we mock and mimic,

laughing with credulous mirth in skips and stumbles,

engrossed in scratchy lines

and the exact precision of throwing rocks.

Sometimes...

At times I can make myself believe that I am waiting

instead of merely dreaming into the ebony emptiness.

I hold my breath, fingers entwined, circulation spent

And stare at the page, the door, the blaring screen.

We humans are in such a muck. There is too much to know and far too little time to care for every detail pertaining to continuing existence, let alone for ever political theory or philosophy of living. We are constantly harassed by leases and mail, insurance, loans, yards, friends, jobs and money, not to mention hygiene, dirty dishes and toothbrushes.

It is a grand notion to think that we might be able to rely on others for some things, let them sort through political candidates, the complexity of taxes or even the foods we should be eating for our health. Yet, through bitter experience we must either become consigned and lazy or cynical and frantic, or some strange mingling.

Unfortunately, for me, I can think of very few, if any, real suggestions for this state of being other than to merely stagger on, thinking though what I can and plunging gruelingly through the rest, but what kind of advice is that really?

J.R. in church today spoke of contentedness, looking always upwards, our malcontent only remedied through the cross, also, I assume, through the realization of our own limitations, humanity and incessant falleness and fallibility.

Thinking through this I become mystified as I so often do when trying to figure out how to balance grace and peace with duty. How can we possibly know peace as we unflinchingly gape towards our own weakness, and yet this seems to be the deliberate dance that God demands. We can not do it, but we must try and pray that God will take pity on our feeble efforts, thankfully, I realize, he already has.

Sometimes this seems reasonable, to know we must do, yet to know it is done. It seems reasonable on lazy Sundays staring blankly at the sun blanched sky, when we are briefly allowed to forget that we live among other humans that cross our paths for longer than a greeting wave, that our lives are governed by rules we are not even always aware exist, or that when we strive at something it can all be turned around to become a scoffed at nothingness. However, on such remembrances I am jolted. It seems all that we can do is to shrug, tense and muddle onwards, yet it appears as though we must placidly, happily, contentedly fight and remain ever aware that the fight has been won (and such remembrances are a feat among themselves.)

God grant us grace in this utter chaos.