The God Guy

Proverbs 9:10

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
How is that?
Fear is the feeling of terror
in a frightening event.
It is respect a servant shows
for the master’s vision.
It is reverence one feels
in the presence of greatness.
Those who fear the Lord
continually are aware of him.
Those who fear the Lord
have a deep reverence for him.
Those who fear the Lord
are committed to obey him.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
but the fool despises wisdom and instruction.
The fool seeks wisdom
while ignoring the Lord
and yet the Lord is the source of wisdom.
The fool has no foundation
on which to build wisdom.
Without a fear of the Lord,
the fool makes decisions
based on faulty human understanding.
The fool despises the Lord’s instruction
and cannot be told what to do.
The fool neither glorifies the Lord
nor gives him thanks.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
We are ruled by a man
who does not fear the Lord.
He arrogates himself to the Lord’s throne
in the chain of being.
We are not terrified by his power.
We do not respect him.
We do not feel reverence toward him.
He is a fool,
but because of self-referential ignorance,
he is the last to know.
His time in power will pass away.
The Lord’s path of righteousness
is the path to wisdom.

Contact info: davebaldwin37@gmail.com

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Change

For a memorial service

The sacred sea defines
our summed collective soul.

Our infinite designs
are in the sea’s control.

We scarcely understand
our fundamental start.

We cannot comprehend
the sum of every part.

As the aeons come and go,
its silent flow and blend
is all we ever know;
but now we feel the wind.

A molecule of water
that skims the sacred sea
and breathes corporeal air
resembles you and me.

As soon as we are tossed
above the nurturing foam,
this flesh, from found to lost,
obscures our natural home
in such a pleasing way
we lose the cosmic sweep
of comely, sunborne spray
rounded by the deep.

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[tanka]

my glass is filled
with dusk tonight
I swirl the west and think of you
and sip the stars
down to the stem

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The Ark of the Covenant

In the red morning on the umber sea,
none of the tall ships, wind or lee,
is lovelier than you, proud lady.
O, wandering bark, come home to me!

The storm is passed. Sailors rest.
The People are safe, no longer oppressed.
The Lord is calling: Be my guest.
You are the chosen. You are the blessed.

The throne of God is in this space.
The Holy of Holies is now in place.
From tent to temple, the race is over.
You are safe at last in Yahweh’s grace.

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New Year’s resolution: More poetry, less politics

[haiku]

rain
first sidewalk slime
for baby slugs

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Class of 1960

We meet again, halfway to the sea;
we touch again, halfway from the snow.
Our disentangled lives have floated free
through range and farm and city far below,
and far away from home. We floated free
within the groove of the river’s quiet flow.
Our lives are channeled—this we clearly see;
our cut of land determines where we go;
but how we go is up to you and me.
Entangled as we are again tonight,
salute the past, then say a last good-bye.
Remember me as I appear tonight
and I’ll remember you with an inward eye
until the whispering river meets the sea.

I read this poem at the 50th reunion of the San Marino High School Class of 1960.

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White Privilege High School

Professional lawns, exquisite flowers, houses
out of Sunset illumined quiet wealth.
Money was mostly new, but tastefully displayed.
Professional men sipped cocktails with their wives,
quietly, of course, when business deals were done.
The tone was English. Along with Germanic cousins,
British surnames slept on English streets.
Italians, Greeks, and Jews were borderline.
A fleet of Japanese gardeners broke a sweat
in sunny yards. The trash was quietly hauled
each week by courteous men in coveralls.
After school, perspiring maids in uniforms
white or blue would queue for buses along
the Drive to ride a rumbling ashtray home.

The nights were deathly quiet. We never saw
the underclass at dark. Invisible deeds,
professionally drawn by cordial men, kept
our slumber safe, our world a safe cocoon.
Depression-haunted parents pampered us
into the sixties. The gaunt face of poverty
that fueled their fears was one we never knew.
Our class of 1960 naturally believed
in privileged wealth, believed in dread pursuits
of Dry-As-Dust at top professional schools.
Our dreams were so intense before the dawn,
before the day enhanced our consciousness.
From out of the comfortable night we faced the sun.
At long last we were forced to cope with light.

NOTE: I wrote this poem just before the 30th reunion with my class of 1960.

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The Body and Its Desires

for Matthew Arnold

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.

In the time it takes a Sierra redwood in the ageing
of two thousand rings, many gods have come
and gone in the public square. Further, we become
weary of our own fungible ground of being—
the dreary march of certainties by which we cling—
as we amble toward the dust from which we came.

More crucial over the years than definitions of the divine
are behavioral tendencies toward either thought
or action when it comes to the body and its desires.
The tension between Hellenism and Hebraism defines
every age, and will continue, like it or not,
to shape our every outcome of action or thought.

NOTE: The first two stanzas of this poem are identical to What Kind of God? in which I posted on October 17, 2024. There are two versions of this poem. What Kind of God? is for the fourth Sunday of the Epiphany, Year A. This second version is the secular version in which I look at Matthew Arnold’s contrasting of Hebraism and Hellenism. See chapter 4 of Arnold’s “Culture and Anarchy,” published in 1869. 

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America in Decline

It’s like the air went out of our balloon
in 1989. The last time
we were this self-absorbed
was during the Hoover presidency
before the great depression.
The stock market crashed
and there was a national failure
of imagination for three years.
FDR rallied our spirits
and asked us all to pull together
for the greater good.

Meanwhile, in Europe,
Hitler was on the march,
invading his neighbors.
He rounded up the Jews
and others who were not members
of the Aryan Master Race.
He sent innocents to death camps
and stole their properties.
When he threatened
to crush Great Britain,
America quietly lent a hand,
then jumped in with both feet
when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Everyone served,
one way or another,
in this national emergency,
and we won a two-ocean war.

After the war,
we helped to build
the enduring architecture
for international peace.
We did not back down
during the ascent of the Soviet Union,
but rose to the challenge.
At home, a single worker
could support his family.
Company presidents and CEOs
had modest lifestyles.
We enjoyed peace abroad
and prosperity at home. 

America leaned into the sixties.
Descendants of Negro slaves demanded equity.
Half the population was female,
but women—who built the weapons
of war a few years earlier—
were unfairly treated in the workplace.
Japanese-Americans jailed during the war
were told, “Sorry about that.”
Still, the country moved forward as a unit.
We continued to have a sense
of national purpose.

This sense of national purpose,
which led us astray in the Vietnam War,
also enabled us to put a man on the moon,
the greatest achievement ever
by the American government.
It’s been 50 years since that moment.
What happened?

After a presidential resignation
and the end of an unpopular war,
we lost faith in our leaders.
Some people were quick to say
government could do nothing right.
We elected a president to serve
as head of our government who said,
“Government is not the solution to our problem;
government is the problem.”

This was the national mood
when the Soviet Union fell apart
in 1989—the year we lost our edge.
“We won!” was our triumphal coda.
We bought the popular idea
that unrestrained capitalism
was superior to any kind
of government planning.

So here we are today:
the moon landing plus 50 years.
We are ruled by a reality TV star
who never reads anything,
who only cares about money and his brand.
His mouth is a firehose of insults.
The common good means nothing to him.
Congress wallows in paralysis.
People reading their phones
bump into each other on the streets.
Anonymous avatars
post their hateful messages
on the internet.
The captains of industry
reap outrageous sums of money
while two-income families
are on food stamps.

Does it really take a national crisis
to bring us together—
another great depression,
a war for our very survival,
a space race,
an ideological struggle?
Can’t we the people
with clear minds and kind hearts,
men and women of every origin,
come together naturally
for the good of the country?
America is in decline,
but it is not too late—
it’s not too late
for a new, inspired mountaintop.

NOTE: I wrote this poem in 2019.

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[tanka]

a pinwheeling leaf
strikes the watercourse
and floats around the bend
gone forever
do you ever think of me?

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The High Achievers

A single mom gave everything she had
to her children. She took care of their urgent needs
at all hours. She worked in a stressful job
to put food on the table and clothes on their backs.
Because of her, there was peace and harmony at home.
The day came when she suffered a stroke and died.
Nothing was the same again. The children devolved
into anger and bitterness. Selfishness ruled the day.

The team was losing. The starting point guard
was bringing the ball up the court and taking
all the shots. His teammates were standing around
watching—hoping to do something useful.
The frustrated coach benched his leading scorer
and put in an unselfish pass-first reserve
who got the whole team up and running.
Soon the team was pulling away for a win.
The leading scorer sat at the end of the bench.

A major company wanted to increase its profits
by reducing payroll, so they laid off thousands
of competent older workers. The new people
struggled to find their footing. Investors were glad
when the stock price and quarterly earnings went up.
But the company lost its edge and never recovered
because of lagging productivity and the great loss
of institutional memory that left with the severance checks.

The high achievers make things better, not worse,
by their presence. Be honest: are you a high achiever?

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New Book

My life’s work as a technical editor. $19 on Amazon.

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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

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