You have been my faithful God
From my obscure infancy
Through the wilds of nature
Along the city streets
You have protected me.
I live today
Because You walk with me.
You open blind eyes
You’ve made me to see
And I’m in love with Your beauty.
You have been my faithful God
From my obscure infancy
Through the wilds of nature
Along the city streets
You have protected me.
I live today
Because You walk with me.
You open blind eyes
You’ve made me to see
And I’m in love with Your beauty.
I want to honor you.
I know what it’s like
To never get a good start,
To fly, to try, to comply
Until the cost gets too high
I think you had a good heart
But you had to survive
And the world doesn’t care about the ones
Who can’t pay their dues.
I learned so much from you
And now, in this season,
I’m back to running drills,
Putting in hours, paying the bills-
You were the reason
I learned the skills
That help me move through any crowd.
Why I worked my nine-to-fives.
When I was nine+five.
This isn’t accusation.
No matter what life I chose
This is the life that finds me
The apple near the tree,
And my love travels long roads
Because I know I’m only safe
If I stay in motion.
But I kept my ride-along
For better or worse, till death do we part
Shame on me
For treating decent people
Like an open door,
Like I forgot what I’m for,
Where I’m from, not the steeple
But the basements and attics
Where all the tragedies happen.
It astounds me they still weigh-in.
Like some moments are so evil,
They shatter so loudly
They echo through time and sensation
And you can’t outrun the reverberations
Like ripples in reality, how proudly
I believed I could be
Worth whatever I chose to be,
But they saw right through me.
And I can’t blame you
The mother you were
Was the mother you had,
And we share the bad,
But you gave me enough to care
To swallow the mother we share
My daughter held me today
And said she knew she could always trust me
To love her no matter what.
And that was enough.
And maybe that was because of you.
It’s all been stripped to nothing,
But instead of nothing
There’s You.
Whatever is next,
Even if it’s death,
Keep me Yours.
You are the code inside
The motion of all molecules
I feel it all as One substance
Unifying all the variations
The earth is Your song
Hung on Your single breath
Curling through existence,
The canvas You created,
From the first fiat
To the final victory
When You defeat all evil
By finishing Your exhale
By showing the lie
The ultimate power of the Truth.
By giving the lie its full say
So it may collapse in its own weakness
At the gentle breath of Truth.
It’s beautiful.
I feel You. I am here.
I am Yours.
Send me. Make me.
I love You.
I’ve grown up on hot bricks,
The hearth of hell,
Through the searing flesh,
The rotting, sulfurous smell,
The gnashing, the twisting,
The weeping, the forgetting,
Torn under merciless hands
Bruised while begging
Not a soul willing to enter hell
To extend a tender hand,
To lead me out
Into a free and gentle land
But through it all
You’ve opened a window in the sky
And I have glimpsed heaven
And whether I live or die
Your Beauty is my ultimate aim.
For me, to live is Christ.
To die is gain.
I want to look like You,
To love like You do.
Being killed, You forgave them.
If it’s Your will, save him.
If it isn’t, redeem this for good.
In Your grace, I’ve withstood-
Use this for a deep formation,
Or to bring someone back to salvation.
Don’t let this go to waste.
Forgive me for my haste
To blame or despair.
I feel You care.
I know You’re there
For everyone who calls on You.
Call them, too.
I believe he may
And succeed,
And get away
Scot-free
But people solve things
Late and messy.
Be my God in glory
All the days of my life
Write the story
Be the light
Solve the dilemma
Or is it finished
Since the cross?
You are Good.
You are God Just and Kind
Whether protected in the lion’s den
Or pierced in the lion’s jowls:
I praise You again
God Most Worthy and Most Wise.
This is no appeasement,
I may be consumed today,
But if my flesh and bone
Decay away
You are ever the best part.
You make it worth it:
The agony, the exhaustion, the fight-
Not as some future promise
Not if You make it all right
I’m saying this in present tense.
If I die in this struggle,
And ever after is the same,
I am sustained in it all
By the beauty of Your name
Echoing through all.
I love You, Jesus.
A morning of cuddles,
And coffee, and children’s giggles
Budgeting to make sure
There’s room to wiggle
And still stay here
The most beautiful place
I have ever known:
My children’s security and laughter.
After they have grown
My life will have been complete
Because I got to see
The mystery and wonder
Of each blooming.
And I am blessed in this space.
This complex data keeps reducing.
The lowest common denominator I see
Is canceled out- zero- there’s nothing
Left for me to do or to be
There’s no way forward, no way out-
My passengers are too valuable to leave
I’m too weak to keep it going
Too forgetful to try to deceive.
I could ask to make it quick,
But the slow pain is the goal
Isn’t it? But I’ll forget it;
That his payoff is my toll.
If the entropy of an isolated system
Tends to increase over time
What on earth am I going to do
Inside this pickle of mine?
Addendum:
Except open the system-
Flood it with new variables-
Destroy the isolation, lose your control group-
Lose every semblance of control-
A Hail Mary only thrown
When the odds of a random roll of the dice
Are far better than your own.
But how can I roll those dice
Until I’ve read their faces and sums-
Until I know I’ve insulated the components
I can never risk?
Am I competent to appraise the estimates?
Nothing is true, vacuum random.
And I already tried it with churches.
I’m a magician.
I pull white rabbits
Out of hats, and pure doves
Out of my jacket,
So no one happens
To notice
I’m the lady sawn in half.