The oaken trunk
Spills to ground
Like auburn tresses
Curling round
While lifting up
Vibrant green arrays
The magnificence
On full display

I thought that I should never see.

A page turns
In the most wonderful sense
I didn’t come here under
Any false pretense
So I’ve reminded myself
In metronomic echoes all day:
I have a right to be here;
I am invited to stay.
Between the tall brick barracks
Along the slope of the greens,
I unfurl my soul under the
Ambitious reach of the trees
My ears relax into
The soothing symphony of sound
Global dialects singing
The broad world is round
No sides or angles
From which to wage war,
Just one sphere of souls
Standing before One Lord,
As He created it to be.

What a miracle to be standing here.
After all I’ve seen, all it cost,
To have a gained a Heavenly Father
Who can restore what is lost

Was worth the journey.

Some things can’t be broken.
But when the quakes settle
The rubble of all the shattered
That could never have remained
Yields to The Eternal:

God Unshakable,
Transforming
Corruptible into incorruptible,
Temporary to permanent
Providing a way to being The Way

God Unbreakable,
Able to withstand every blow
Without yielding an inch
Ever advancing
Through all time and flesh.

God Most Worthy and Most Wise!
All that must remain:

Surrender and Adoration
Gratitude and Allegiance

Resurrection and Embrace.

There’s something else here
I can feel, but cannot see.
Some warmth or kindness;
It reaches for me
With phantom hands
And I grab at the ether
To steady my descent
But plunge beneath for
Lack of tactile manifestation,
The figure you turn to see in flight
Vanishing immaterial:
A benevolent gaslight.
But the tiny patter of raindrops
Leaves ripples in the peripheral
Of my reality, of my intuition,
Their micro-explosions visceral
Like an echo that returns changed,
Resonating in the deep.
They tap lullabies on my window pane
While in the cold I sleep.
This spectre is better than I
At hide and seek;
Better, by far, in the hide.
Is it reluctance? Resistance?
Does the kindness flow
From perfunctory obligation,
Or does it stay in shadow
To feel philanthropic?
Perhaps it may rightly believe
I am already a lost cause.
Virtue and vice both deceive.

Maybe it’s because the kindness
Knows when it extends,
Connection requires response,
And I have nothing to expend

That I haven’t already spent.
I have nothing else to give,

And everything costs something.

You said:

Let there be Light

And there was.

I pray,

Let there be Love.

So many here trample my soul
With presumptions and rejections.
Before this place, when I was inside,
Didn’t I see the broken? Didn’t I let them in?
Because You are no respecter of persons,
And they could see beyond their noses.
I am barred here, labeled, held outside
One of Your storm-torn, trampled roses.
Comparing myself to the beautiful
Isn’t an object of gloat;
I defend my little value here,
Because I cling to anything that floats.
Sunken people always do.
Let love melt this cold-hearted place.
Dissolve their foolish pride.
Wrap Your bride in spotless lace,
Defend her honor, lift her face,

Because the idea of such love
Originates from You.

Remember Your betrothed.

Father of Mercies,

My heart has been broken.
I don’t remember
What the pieces looked like
Intact and assembled.
When the one I once loved betrayed
Thrusting me into danger,
I leapt into the arms
Of surprised strangers
Whose footing wasn’t sure.
Down I spilled.
After falling to rest
All the graves I’ve tilled
Have yielded the crops
Of my empty bones,
And the absence of mourners
Shows a life wrung into alone:
Exposed, hidden, exposed, hidden-
Like a lighthouse before dawn.
Lacking special devotion;
Not unloved, but withdrawn

But I don’t want to be angry.
I don’t want to carry my grievances.
Help me drop my stones;
I’d taken leave of my senses.
You came to save, not judge
All that’s required is belief
I believe;
Heal my grief
That leads me to look down
Or feel something inexplicable
Like doubt in Your promises;
Disloyalty is despicable
To the Most Faithful One.
Help me believe through and through;
Help me inspire belief;
Let others see proof of You
In the undulating mess of me.

Because You love us.

You really, really love us
With special devotion.

It’s bizarre
Stumbling into a waltz
Mid-song, mid-step,
Uninvited with all your faults:
Clumsy toes, lack of rhythm,
Ignorance of the dance,
Rote outdated maneuvers,
Misplaced stances
While all the other dance partners
Know each other, know their moves.
They laugh at you as you trip by:
The tongue that cannot find the groove.
Sometimes it stings, and you weep.
Some days you shuffle on numb.
It isn’t their fault
You’re the sore thumb
The left foot.
But on the off chance
You may find the music,
There’s nothing else to do but dance

Alone, offbeat, the best you can muster.

I see.

I’m punishing the town
For the sin of the company.
I threw myself at their feet
Because I could feel

The single abuser in their corporate DNA

And I have spent my life
Begging abusers to love me,
And punishing everyone
When they will not:

The repetitive vacuum I create.

Thank You for bringing me
Through an abusive system,
While my own was being exposed,
So I could see the composite parts

Like an iota indwelling an abuser.

Each person an expanded element
At play in a single relationship
So I could understand the internal structure
Of the intangible machine I was in,

Of the machines I choose.

So I could see how I choose them,
Adore them in their evil,
And pull myself back through the system
Cycle after cycle after cycle

Grinding my own soul to feed the gears.

And I believe You lowered me in,
Held me all the while,
And now pull me towards the surface
So I can see, and be clean;

So I can be free.

I have lamented my time with them
Was wasted, all a waste,
But it was a chamber designed
To wake me up, to expel me into life,

More like a womb,
Or emergence from a tomb.

You loved the blind,
But took no part in the people
Who devalued You
Who belied Your identity:

You walked with those who walked with You.

I’m counting my blessings again;
Forgive me for not seeing before.
Thank You for taking me into that place,
And thank You for bringing me out.

Help me learn to shake the dust off my feet
And search instead for persons of peace

Who are everywhere- the fields are white.

I Want to Be Well Now.

It’s time to release,
To say goodbye and walk ahead
They may have demeaned
And left me for dead,

But God resurrected.

I wanted to be protected,
For some people to call home:
They beat that out of me,
But I am never alone

When my Maker is close.

It’s no wonder I wasn’t their people;
I know to Whom I belong.
And they didn’t resemble Him;
I knew that all along.

Maybe in time they will.

But in the meanwhile, I forge on
I pray I also look more like Him in time,
Because He says I am His;
He’s the only One who’s ever been mine.

And we have miles left to travel.

There’s nothing worth stopping for
On the trip to the cross,
To the crown, to the vow:
I’m willing to count it all as loss;

I’m sorry I took so long.

I leave them in His hands,
And symbolically wash my own.
He knows what’s in His plan:
If there’s reconciliation, I know

He will do that work.

I will focus on the practical
Hurdles before me,
And leave relationships aside
Unless He restores me.

By His grace, I will mount and fly

He was worth the grave.
He is worth the sky.

The compensations I make:
Reaction, emotion, expression-
To maintain my balance
Lean farther in either direction

Than I am comfortable or accustomed.

Help me find True Center;
Give me a Northern Star.
Or help me see if You already have
And I am blind to where they are.

I am forgetting what solid earth feels like.

I am struggling to bridge
The chasm between their small graces
And the self-involved apathy and cruelty
That, with indifference, left me faceless

Alone in a cold grave.

I am struggling to see our intimate prior life
As a predator feeding at will
On the ignorant lamb
And does that mean I am still

The ignorant meal?

Can I heal and forgive and love
In a way that isn’t driven
By sheer choice and discipline-
Can I still be forgiven?

Since my infancy, sharpened fangs
Fall in line to feast
A constant succession, is the procession
Because the awful beast

Hates me, or the Divine it sees
Has etched me in His hand?

Am I worth more than the blows that land?

Will I ever trust again?
Will there ever be someone worthy?
Will I ever truly care for another again?
Is brutality the perpetual cost of mercy?

Are there human connections that don’t incise?

I have been murdered in plain sight,
And reciprocity cannot make it right

But I want to strangle time nonetheless.
All these things I confess.