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