Heaven and Earth
And your life in them
Cathedral architecture
This is who you are
Don’t be fooled by the vendors
In the courtyard
The ticket-man at the entrance
Who would sell you for a song
They no longer even see you
And you were made for more than merely being seen
You were made to move mountains
You are a masterpiece
There is a truth in every act of creation
That its final meaning belongs not to the maker
A chef’s delicacy
Is prone to spoil
Unless a mouth receives it
A painting or a song or a poem
Has no life of its own
Unless a heart beholds it
Every true artist understands
That the movement of a heart’s response
Is merely the final touch
Of the creative act
Which demands from the artist nothing more
Than an act of relinquishing
An act of surrender
An act of love
The specific thoughts and intent of the artist
Certainly have their place
For those who have already been moved
Or else for the critics
And the academics
Who need to know what they are discarding
In favor of their own pent up agonies
Masquerading as interpretive methodologies
Twisted into the shape of the pretzels
Sold from the food cart outside the gift shop
With excessive amounts of salt
And greasy packets of mustard
Torn open
Discarded
And scattered like wildflowers
Across the concrete courtyard
While the rest of us
We know without a doubt
The deepest meaning of the artist’s work
Because of what it does inside our chests
When we try to walk away
Every true artist knows
That cardiac arrest
Is the highest measure of success
And all that matters
Is that at least for one fleeting moment
There was silence
A skipped beat
A momentary death
To all that came before
And every true artist knows
It is the domain of amateurs
To obsess over how the heart stopped
And whether it stopped correctly
Or whether it understood why it ever stopped at all
Far too often we wield our theologies
Spilling out of ambulances
To another 911 call
Another tourist keeled over in the food court
With mustard smeared across their chest
Hurriedly grasping at sound doctrine like a defibrillator
To restart the stopped heart
Just long enough
To make sure the patient understands
Exactly why they are about to be
Slowly killed a second time over
By an amateur cardiologist
But don’t be fooled by their machinery
For God is no amateur
