Sheaves of white-capped grass
keep a windward watch
beneath silver shadowed sun
small squad of whispering sentinels
lonely, green and fresh-footed
reminders that life is in the roots

Mischievous muse
sets fire to my dry mind
that it might burn bright
a blazing consumption
bold brushfire of hot words
killing words giving life
till my spent thoughts
drift upward like sparks
aglow in an evening sky
like unchained stars
heading home

no matter how you cut it
sometimes words pour out
without attendant beauty
just a sickened vomit
a dangerous diarrhea
released infectious to the world
by a body burst
for the pressure of it all

each written word
is a sinking stone
cast to the abyss
that it might
sound the bottom
and teach us
how far we have
to fall

i write for ghosts
shades of shapes
shadows of ones once remembered
hiding out of reach
and glowing in my dark mind

i write for dead friends
still living on islands apart
for the quick ones bound
alive with a babble of lost language

i will give them words
that they may sing songs in silence
hallelujah hymns of us together
under a heartier heaven
than this thin separating sky

a free and flying driving steam
is slave to the encasing engine
buried beneath brick in basement
to every crack in mortar
to every roof-line leak
to supply of fickle fuel
till time tracks it down
cools it to tears on wet walls
it runs away, unwound

it was obvious by the stains

on the walls
on the floor
on the sheets

there was a death in this room

it was harder to tell

by the soulless cinder
by the empty shell
by the caged smell

if there was ever a life in this room

this day
is steam-pressed
ready-made to be one
like no other day
a caffeine-soaked
sun-drenched
hyphenated
crisper of a day
filled with promise
till it is tipped
that it might spill
warm across a worn life
a good, faded jeans
kind of life
torn in all the right places

Simplify –

What a wonderfully, terribly complex word for me.

How does one simplify anything at all when one over-thinks everything? I can barely exist at times with the great contradiction of myself. I am burdened with words upon words upon words that feel beyond me while at the same time feeling I can never fully live up to them.

This is been the great and weighty question that has dogged me my entire life – how do I stop being me? How can I become something other than what I am?

Are these the right questions? They smack of an inner deficit or at least the apparition of that deficit. A dream of an emptiness inside that doesn’t get filled.

Ecclesiastes speaks of the burden of knowledge and I agree. There is a burden…to know is to be responsible…and for most of us, the longer we live, the more we know.

How is one supposed to live with knowledge of oneself?

I feel trapped sometimes at a crossroads with Jonah beckoning me in one direction and Jeremiah calling in the other. Jonah with bags packed and two tickets to someplace far afield away, away, away while Jeremiah stands in rags weeping, broken and anointed for the nearness of God.

The most frustrating thing is that staying in the crossroads is an option.

“All the world’s a stage 
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts”

The Bard understood these things. He understood human nature in ways I think we still struggle with. The crossroads is the place of the stage and one can find a part to play – a job, a a life, to play at while the turmoil roils on the edge of things. A nice routine to keep the time passing.

How does one stand in the tension between “Be perfect therefore as your Father in Heaven is perfect” and “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast”?

It is an artificial dichotomy I have created between which I have strung a red hot tightrope that I walk. How does one exist as a fallen creature and breathe in grace? How can one not?

I have these words that spill out and they will not stop as if I have been torn open somewhere and am bleeding them. Words of grace, words of anger, words of hope and despair and along with them perhaps some poison goes and healing waits somewhere in the wings.

I long for the undarkened sky unblemished by cloud. I yearn for voices lifted in a chorus of joy unwilling to speak anything other than healing words.

And then it is gone, done and stopped up…for now.

In the world of faith we look for signs of success. I mean that as we journey we look for things that let us know we are journeying well, that we are succeeding because we are success oriented, and we are competitive in our bones.

So along the way we count people, we count baptisms, we count programs…we count. We like to count because numbers are meaningful to us. Big numbers are good…little numbers…well, they are areas “in progress”. We do not say bad unless we are speaking of someone else’s ministry – in our own journey we provide context and reasons for why things are (and therefore should be) the way they are.

Our measure of success is a human thing. It is a human endeavour inlaid onto a Godly initiative…like rhinestones glued onto gold.

It is good to remember the following; God became human and dwelt among us. God walked as Christ through Israel for more than 30 years…three in intentional, public ministry.

God.

Really drive that point home…GOD led a ministry in the flesh on earth surrounded by a nation that he was INTENTIONALLY seeking out. He fed thousands (success); ;he healed the sick, the lame and the blind (success), he drove out demons (success), made water into wine (HUGE success), walked on water (success), and the list goes on…

He died.

Get that…three years into his ministry he was executed (success?)

He died nearly alone. His mother, an ex-prostitute and his best friend were at his side everyone else, the thousands who followed him through Israel, eleven of his closest friends, dozens of other disciples outside of the core….they all abandoned him (success?)

God.

God put on human flesh, ministered in our midst and was killed and died almost alone.

God.

Think about that when you feel like you are not very successful in your ministry (whatever that might be). When you feel like a failure. Or maybe think about it when you feel you are succeeding beyond your wildest dreams.

The kingdom of God is present and actively working amongst us and kingdom success looks radically different than human success.

When you die you may die alone but that is not really the point is it? Your ministry (your life in Christ) is not your ministry and how God is working is up to God and you may never know this side of death what effect it is having. That’s part of the deal.

This is not a sad thing…this is a freeing thing. This is why the yoke is light…because you don’t carry it at all – it carries you.

How remarkable do you want to be?

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” – John 1:9-11