Yes, Sir!

YES, SIR!

And I will make all my mountains a way...
Isaiah 49: 11

Ski every day, is how I read the words
of St. Paul. I walk past God Only Knows
by the YMCA on the way to the pool.
I don't have a cigarette for the man

who needs one outside the A. A. meeting.
Why do I think that I'd be a better Jew
than a Christian? The last words
I read before falling asleep

are these: The Tao is spiritual ecology.
Stories outnumber people in my world.
Skaay, the great poet of the Qquna Qiighawaay,
tells the poem of Ghaawaxh naming

his children, Tornado,
Healing the Wounds, Healing the Injured.
Today is Good Friday
and parables have us in trouble again.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer, from my own tradition
in North Dakota, says from prison,
One must completely abandon
any attempt to make something of oneself.

I make Karen's latte, and follow it
with oatmeal and blueberries for us both.
Half of the people in my own country
don't believe in health care for our own people.

No health care for my children! they scream.
Imagine that. We've forgotten we all come
from one continent. What was it like,
Grandpa before we all drifted our own way?

It seems like just yesterday we betrayed Jesus.
It's time to swim again already! First let's take
the crucified people down from the cross.
Maybe I'll pick up smokes for those who smoke.

Jim Bodeen
Good Friday
2 April 2010