"The Mailman"

(1 Corinthians 16:13-14)

I can see you wanting to look me in the eye
Craving my attention just long enough to
Make me a convert of your perverse truth;
You’re destructive heresy.
I can see who you are.

You will think of my anger as misdirected,
My experience as falling short of your own.
I know you and I know what you expect of me.
But if you think I am going to step down
And take the express train to hell to satisfy
You’re mouth full of fear,
You will be sadly put out when I take my seat
Right beside yours.
I can see you for who you are.

You are the trip tongued devil wearing the skins
Of good people to try and pull me under
To drown me in unspoken hatred and burning
Misquotes that make you the angel,
Make me the demon.
I see what you are doing. I can see YOU.

Wrong

I want you to hear me.
I don’t want to be misunderstood
Or misquoted
I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea
To dissect my words to find a hidden meaning.
I don’t want you to even think that I have
A meaning that I would try to hide.

I know the meaning of the word wrong.
I know that right is think that feels good
And tells you that you are pleasing God.
I know the wrong thing will break you
Into pieces so small that you can’t help
But cut everyone who tries to help you
See the way to right.
This is why there can be no misunderstanding
Me when I am saying these things.

I understand that you are holding a bible
Deflecting my love with it, coloring me
In with the black ink of it’s pages
And screaming the only things you can make
Sense of to tell me that I am hurting you,
Hurting your belief and your trust that
You are being lead in the right direction
Even though I can see from the way you bend
To protect yourself from my smile
That it hurts you to try and break me.
I know that you mean to love me,
Mean to hold me sacred, because my heart
Is not screaming for pain.
I will continue to reach out and touch your
Face and connect you to my love
Because I can’t forget that you are a part
Of me, I think you feel that too.

But I am not going to let it go.
I am not going stop begging you to
Hear the words I am speaking because I am
Holding the bible to my heart
And not trying to deflect you, not hiding
From the smile you are trying to not
Share with me…
I know you want to love me.
What I need you to know is that love
Is never wrong.
It’s never wrong to hold someone to you
That wants to be in your arms
Its never wrong to kiss the lips that whisper your name
In the dark of night and the light of day
Its never wrong to say goodnight
Its never wrong to say good morning
To the same face each day of your life.
Its never wrong to wear a gold band
And confine your sweetness to the hands of
Another when you know they are going
To take such good care of it.

Can’t you see what I want?
I want you to stop, stop screaming
That I am the sin.
Stop saying that God cannot love me
Because I hear him inside my head
My heart
Turning words inside my soul
And I hear nothing but the bright
Light of love
That I am welcoming in.
How can you say that’s wrong?
How can you say that I am dangerous,
Thinking the devils thoughts
When all I want to do is love
While you are trying to trample me?

I know you want to love me.
Just reach out one hand
I will take it, I will hold it
Stand strong
And never let you down
Walk with me down the same road
And see that I am not taking a path
Any different from your own
Trust me that I know God too.

I know you want to love me,
Because I love you.
Jesus told me it was the right thing
Why don’t you agree?

principles

I have done so much thinking, praying and talking
To those close to me in the past few days
Regarding a topic of enormous ‘issue’ for me.
I have to deal with it head on and I don’t want too
But what continues to stand in my path is
That I must do the right thing.
When right and wrong are so very vibrant,
I have to simply chose right and stand for it.

It’s really hard to stand for what’s right.
Inevitably someone will get hurt,
Someone will be get angry and someone
Will become defensive and use that as a means
To knock you down.
But right is right.
And hypocrisy is not right.

I have decided to completely
Uninvolved myself in something that actually
Means a lot to me based on pure principle.
I cannot be part and parcel to an act
Of blatant hypocrisy…
It would be lying, it would be against
My beliefs so powerfully
That I would be ashamed of myself.

So now, it sounds easy,
Just don’t get involved.
But its not that easy..
I cannot silently uninvolved myself
Because the world wont change through
Silence.
To step back and cross your arms
In disgust…
You become a main character in the
Acts you find repulsive.
So the hard part is to face the fact
That you have to stand up and say
“I don’t believe in what you are doing.
I think your acts are unchristian. I believe
What you are doing is more harmful
Than helpful.”

But to have to say this all to and about
Someone you love
Is the worst feeling in the world…
But the best thing you could ever do.

"Everything" (Psalm 62:7)

I can rise
Waking against the dawn
Drawing myself from the comfort
I believe, into the purple-gray
That I am so unsure of
I can open my eyes
Stare into the horizon
Daring the sun to look back at my
Face and blind me with it’s
Unending draught
Purified in fire
Disintegrating darkness
I can do anything
Even if I am only me

I can retire
Pushing against the light
Quieting myself with the escape
Into my own world
Something I think of as
Mine alone
I can convince myself that this
Doesn’t have to happen to me
I don’t need to see the sun
When I am shivering with the moon
In my hands I create dreams
Telling myself I don’t belong
To the world you made
I can do anything
Even if I am only me

I can.
You etch into my soul
The desire to resist
The desire to fight
To comfort
Steal
Scream
Laugh
Divide
Dream
Control
Decide
You let me call it my own and
I fall into your arms
Calling it anything I choose
To invent

You will wake me with the light
You put me to sleep with the night
You let me believe me
You let me just be

Free me

So helpless.
These are times of trouble when
We struggle like animals in caves
Trying to see the darkness for more than the light
Trusting the light not at all because it chanced
The darkness was false.
Questions are not riddles
Answers are not certain
Things are taken from us and given to others
And we are embattled..
Truncated by the very God we deign to
Worship.. worship with such limited
Trust…

Times of trouble.

The struggle is not new to me,
It is not new to you either.
That helpless desperate need to change
Things that cannot be controlled
And fix things that are simply not
Broken other than by your own vision.
We damn ourselves for our lack
Of healing when others hurt
Our inability to work miracles
When things are impossible..
And we damn God for entrusting the world
To us and not empowering us as he is empowered himself.

Oh, false prophets and cast iron idols are we.

I dare you to sit, to look at your own face
And admit that you are the powerless.
You are the human child to a mysterious Lord
And he cares not if you have the answers
Because you don’t have what it takes to
Make these answers the truth…
This is not a condemnation.
This is a beautiful relief when you are faced
With injustice, desperation, disaster, loss and pain.
You are not cursed
You have not been forsaken
You are simply human.
You are responsible for only what you put into this world
Not what He has taken out of it.
I speak not only to you
My brother of fear
My sister of discontent
I speak to myself, most potent enemy.

In trying to learn that unhappiness
Exists not to swallow me
But to remind me that joy does not grow
Without sorrow first sowing the fields
I cannot hope to know happiness
If I do not trust that it is on the heels of
Sadness and that the two do
Walk together and one will be
Sorely missed should the other be
Cast away so completely.

No, you cannot solve the pains that
Are bound to open the wounds of the world
You are not responsible for the knives that carve them
So unless it is your hand so maliciously set forth.
I don’t know what to tell you
Because I am not that powerful, my words
Ache with loss and misdirection as much as any
But I know only that in this time of
Terrible loss
I have found so much gained.

Morning in Jerusalem

Good morning and happy Easter.

it's a beautiful thing to awaken
to be forgiven
to be with one another
to know the truth

Christ is risen!

re-writing Isaiah 41:10

I watched your head fall
Your haunted silence is mine
The tested waters cold to your
skin at the riverside
I see what this has done
to you in the sacred places
The changeless soul
that I have grown to love
as I could only love my own
I know that you cry
Tears of lost redemption
Tears of prayer for the last
of the revelations
I can taste the salt on my lips
when you sing in the dark
It is for me that you sing
the words are my loss as well

Before you drive yourself
any closer to the ledge
Stumble any further from
my sights
Let me plead with you
in a language you will know
Take care, frightened heart
Hold to the shore and you will
find in time that it is my hand
Run into the darkness and I
will make it my arms
Fall to your knees and wail for me
I will make it a love song
and your cries will be redemption
Trust me that I am here in
your darkest nights of fear
Whatever wrong you believe is done
I have righted it with my love
You and I are the same
And forsake you I will not

G.P.S.

Do you know where I am?
Trace my steps from where you think
I begin to where you now stand
and tell me if the footsteps don’t match
in their intent, if not their path.
Too often we watch the path we take,
the path we think others take,
and we judge the scenery as the destination
and the destination as the proverbial wall
we are so wont to hit.

So take a step back, re-evaluate.
Do you know where you are?
Can you see me from where you are standing?
Or do you even see anything at all?

I went on a long overdue vacation to an island
and it was there and then that I realized
where I am
Using the little realized G.P.S…
God Positioning System.
Often lost and forever wanting I find my faith
often the wall and not the scenery.
Confused?
Philosophy is like that.

Faith is the scenery, faith is the belief
in what is there for you to see, regardless
of what someone else can or can’t see.
People search high and low for God in this world
and I don’t think God cares to be searched for,
It’s a quest with no point.
You don’t search for your house when you
are standing inside it…
You don’t look for the keys that you are using…
You don’t tear the room apart looking for the room...
G.P.S.
God will find you, he doesn’t need you to find him.
You are moving and living and breathing inside him
and he is covering you with everything
that he is at all times.
From the air you breathe to the skin that wraps yours bones.
You are here, You are within and God is all around you.
Sit still and let God find you.
He will.
Sometimes it will be in the subtle
Movements of whispery web of fish fins in water
Or the shattered curves of a war torn torpedo
and you will feel the tug, the overwhelming everything
that wells up within you
The unexplained throbbing of you heart and fluttering
of the blood that spreads its fingers through your veins.
Sit still and God will find you
And you will remember…
Faith is the scenery…
The destination?
Well, that’s not really our business yet, is it?

SOS

Do you think I can't see?
Stumbling in this darkness,
this well water refuge
where I cannot breathe.
Dare me to have faith in
the pain, take me in your
arms and wish me away

burn the light from this
broken machine, this
dying hollow..
once I had so much
and now I am made of so little.

there is this
trepidation and fear
silence and destruction
a well meant hand to hold
me under for as long
as it takes to
drown the hope.

It is my cross that I
will nail you too
each scream from my own
mouth as I call out to every
tear that pours free
until I am numb..
until the last of this slips
from your grasp.

I thought I knew the words
the protection of your love
the trust in my heart
i thought i knew that you meant for
this to be a life I could
lead and in your name
i know the truth...

you can give me anything..
but love.

40 Ways of Lent.

The trials of Lent have been unforgiving.
it’s what I asked of them, for them to test me and push me
As I sit as still as I can in the face of it.
It has been my experience that Lent is a time
When people give up things they like in favor of
A Jesus they don’t really know.
I wont eat chocolate.
I wont go out every night.
I wont spend money frivolously.
I wont over eat.
I wont drive to fast.
I wont swear.
I wont, I wont, I wont.
For 40 days we wont.
Then we will.
And it was nothing but a temporary inconvenience.
In the name of the Lord Jesus,
We wont.

I thought of everything I could give up for 40 days
And there were lists of bad behaviors and old habits
That I could confine to the rest of my life and free up
Those 40 days.
My job of ‘getting behind Jesus’ on this one.
Nothing fit.
At this point in my life I don’t want to give anything up for 40 days.
If I give it up, it needs to be for the rest of my life.
That’s where I am stuck most often…
You need to make it count, make what you do matter.
You can give up for favorite food for 40 days,
But could you have given up your life?
Could you have walked for miles and miles to your own death?
Is that worth the weight of the chocolate you gave up?
The drink you aren’t having?
The money don’t spend?
Or are you perhaps not really meeting the bottom line on this one?

I think everyone has their own account they keep with the Lord.
We know what we’ve withdrawn, what we put in, what we owe in overdrafts and what we can expect this months loan payment to be.
But the Lord keeps no account with us, he isn’t noting in a ledger
That does and donts of everything we are doing.
He (yes, I’m afraid I like to think of the Lord as a man) doesn’t need
The petty moments of our life to figure us out.
He knows the worst of you, the best of you…
The right and wrongs.
He makes no lists, keeps no tally and you can’t shock him with any amount of fear or deliverance.
He is there for you, waiting for you.
He has no agenda but I think he has a full understanding that we need
To make all of that work for us down here.
We cannot remain at peace with ourselves.
So we give things up, we give ourselves over to sufferings and
Acts of contrition…
We pray, weep, sing and praise to let him know the things he knows
Already, he loves us and stands over us like the eyes of a parent
Over a baby who is learning to just take those first unsteady steps.

What does all this have to do with Lent?
It has to do with my decisions for this Lent.
I couldn't give anything up and make it matter, because my life
Is all that I have to give up that could possibly express the truth
Of what was given and lived…
And so many people I know are set against me giving that up
(maybe I will call you my apostles, my Judas’.. my Peters…
but in this I am no Jesus, too weak to walk to my knowing death)

what would God have me do, if I were not so young and opposed (as children often are to their parents demands). What would he ask of me in this season of Lent.
If I ask
“Father, what would you have me do to show that I am aware of your love and the forgiveness your Son laid upon me and my sins?”

Like any good parent
He was quick to answer.

This Lent I do not give up anything at all.
I give in. I give in to His plan, His path.
I give in to His control and stopped grasping for my own.
I give in to the truth as it presents itself.
I give in to the understanding that I will not and cannot understand
And must just continue as He sees fit for me to continue.
I give in to acceptance, love, belief, trust.
I give in to the Lord, because that is what I have.
I am no saint, this is not a simple task.
It is hard to let go when you are accustomed to fighting everything.
It is a battle against my own willfulness
but in the end, after 40 days, When Jesus dies and is resurrected once more..
this is still who I am.
No temporary inconvenience, but a lifelong gratitude.

Wrath.

“Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming,
but who is able to stand before jealousy?”
-Proverbs 27:4

It’s a room, it’s a darkness,
It’s a struggle.
Everything within me rails against
The betraying reality of what
I cannot control, cannot fix,
Cannot destroy and cannot release.
So consumed with anger,
Bathed in hatred…
Wrath, my friend, we travel hard side by side
All too often.. all to near.
What can I do?

It is a sin to be wrathful,
It is a sin to have your heart
So devoured by the destruction of anger.
But I am a child of God,
Made in his own image.
Why would he give me such rights?
The way I see it Wrath belongs to God,
He wears it wisely and hands it out accordingly..
Why let it settle itself so snugly under
My skin knowing I cannot resist it..
What it produces in these times
Is all I have left to survive on.
Am I such a sinner?
Am I such a sin?

No,
Its not quite that easy.
I want it to be, I want to be angry and
Powerful.
I want to tear flesh from bone
And bears my teeth in laughter
I want so much to be without anything
But this delicious hatred of all things.
But that’s not it.
That’s not what feeds the fires…

I have loved once,
Lead so deeply astray by it, blinded so willingly.
I gave into the warmth and peace of it.

Oh, what fools these mortals be!

Now, love has no home in my heart.
It is in that void, that cancerous hole,
That wrath breeds..
Shakes loose it’s wings
And begins its flight.. scraping claws through
All pain..
All devastation.
Resurrecting the dead that lay in my battlefield
Every wound blazing anew
Every loss consuming the light..
How could you? How could this be?

So we weep newly, we bleed newly,
Screaming and beating fists against our
Chests..
These ghost soldiers of mine..
These bleeding wrecks of pain!
Can there be no rest??
Is this God’s love? Is this hell what I am
To trust and believe in?
Fires that burn cold, infections in the soul
That I cannot even hope to heal?

Wrath, you winged beast of destruction,
Is there no other way to embrace this pain..
No other way to love.

The sad truth..
As I deem myself unworthy,
As I call God down from his throne..
As I find myself growing distant and cold…..
The sad truth?

“For the wages of sin is death...”

and mine cannot come swift enough……