Whether I am a beloved vessel
Of honor, or one of disgrace,
I am Your vessel.
Keep me before Your face.

The earth is Yours, and all mankind.
All is in Your care, under Your command:
Whatever becomes of me,
Let it come from Your hand.

Don’t turn me over to the hands of men.
Let wrath fade; Your grace abound free.
I am Your humble maidservant;
In the womb, You found me.

Be gentle with me, Lover of my soul,
Ache with my ache each day.
I don’t know what to ask You for,
But I know to Whom I pray.

I’ve always been on my own
Wandering window to window
Where I had no place to call home
Hoping for warmth that couldn’t come
To a nomad on the roam
A lifetime abandoned to the road:
On my own, but never alone.

My life has passed like scenes
Through a train window
Streets and towns and dreams
Clasped hands and hopes
Scattered by the slipstream
Settling into the debris,
Fragments of me left unredeemed

Like unpunched tickets
But I’ve always had my plus-One
Through the thick of it
My ride-along I couldn’t shake
Through drought or sickness
Learning maybe love
Doesn’t need the chimney and pickets

Maybe sleeping in a cold railcar
Is as good as a home
When you know how far
The One beside you will travel
Will persevere through hard
Miles, and hearts, and tears,
Under the rain or stars.

It won’t be long again
Before I take up the bindle
But I already know when
I disappear in the night
My flight won’t be without my Friend
Because You never leave me alone
From beginning to end

You’re the only One I could ever count on;
You’re the only faithful among faithless men.

My gift today, I saw his face
Like clock gears noiselessly
Clicking in place
Peacefully ordered, voicelessly
Emanating grace.

I felt safe from violent depravity.
Only a few moments, but full,
I rested in the center of gravity
Neither pushed, nor pulled,
But still in a beautiful tapestry

Woven in a young lion’s mane
Lighthouse eyes burning like bonfires
A voice like the west wind unchanged
The scent of nostalgia, hearth, desire,
Wherein I cannot remain,

But a single inhale is a forever gift.

From the dawn of this season
I’ve sensed my potential end-of-stay;
Braced for the abrupt blow
At his hand, but today
I saw it’s bigger than one man
There are broader forces in play
Who have, from my conception,
Wanted me to go away.
They hate me now, to my surprise,
Because of the way I pray.

I have grown at the knees
Of spiritual forces at war.
I have wept in the sand
On their blood-bathed shores.
I have stared down hatred
Until I could bear no more,
Until war became what I am:
No afters, no befores,
No peace in the trenches:
Merely the brief calm in the storm.

My spiritual language
Has been born of pain:
The explosion and fracture,
Crying out in louder refrains
At the bones being reset
Field dressings stained
Shivers and tremors and gasps
Until movement is regained
Unable to yet see through the casualties
At all the battles have attained

But He has carried me.
There’s something in this place
Of a final stand, but I feel
His presence and grace
Upholding the unfolding
And fast approaching days
If I am to be a martyr
May I close my eyes in praise,
And open them in heaven
On the tender face

Of my betrothed savior,
Who has held me gently
Laying me down in baptism,
Purifying me intensely,
Leading me and preparing me
For the marriage ceremony
Wherein I will discover a groom
Who can delight in me,

Who is capable of loving me
Immensely and for eternity.

Last night I begged You tearfully
To protect me from blasphemy,
From cursing You and dying,
From the horror of denying
I feel on the other side
Of every day, my severed pride
My punctured peace,
My pain cries for release
From me: my new identity

Which is not in You.

I live a slave in every way.
In a colorless fade, I stray
With no recognition or feeling
Into error in my blinded reeling,
And back to the ground, flat upon my face,
Groping for the feet of the throne of grace
Unable to discern what hem is near
Through eyes flooded by blood and tears.
Living inside a sarcophagus lie

Painted pristine and flesh-eating.

Today, You remind me tomorrow
Is a thing against which I cannot borrow;
It worries and works out its own way.
I will only ever have today.
And Peter said what was true;
He recognized the Lord in You,
And that alone was a gift You gave.
But when faced with the grave
Of all he loved and hoped, unable to cope,

Peter denied You three times,

And You restored him still,
After his crime,
In Your tender will and timing.

When You converted Mercury into Stone,
Never leave me alone. Move for me as well,
God Most Holy and Most High.