That last prayer
Was just another way of saying
I’m angry.
I wasn’t really praying
For forgiveness,
I wanted retribution,
But these feelings are foreign
To my constitution
You created me differently,
So I bow the knee
To none other but You
Forgive me,
And forgive them.

Always Do
What pleases You
Cauterize my bitterness.
Let Your will be done on earth, as it is

Everywhere else through all time.

Forgive me, Father,
For banging the judge’s gavel
From the seat of pardon-
For letting myself harden and unravel.
Whatever they have done,
Or refused to do,
Is not my jurisdiction:
I surrender my claims to You.
You don’t sever wholesale;
You judge each by their fruit.
I turn them over to You
And release the pursuit.
Vengeance is Yours,
And You’ve promised vindication
Is the heritage of Your servants:
Forgive my imprecations.
I walk away, and from my sandals
I shake off the dust.
Repair my faith, my love, my hope,
And most of all, my shattered trust.

Thank you for the good;
Redeem or remove the bad.
When the tears eventually run dry
Instruct me again how to be glad,

Restore to me Your joy.

I cannot fathom what it takes
To sit behind a lens
And watch someone die
Again and again and again and again
The self-protected, self-contented,
Voyeuristic, sadistic extremes
Preferring to consume, then expel,
Instead of care and intervene.
Self-righteous murderers slurping
Whatever blood doesn’t cry from the sod:
My only hope is that man
No longer reflects the image of God.

This grief is bitter in my soul
And longs to murder the approaching day
What is required of me
Is beyond what I can pay.
There are none alive
Who will stand for.good.
Promises feel like bread crumbs
Circling inside the dark wood:
My only hope and sustenance,
But they seem utterly useless.
I have met no one here
Who isn’t ruthless.
Tonight, with my closed fist,
I want to burn down this world of men
Because it will be the only warmth
I will ever get to feel again.
I want to wish away every moment
I’ve ever shared with another
Erase every word and shared smile
Cover every laughter until smothered
Until I swear my soul to concrete
That I will never return in grace
To those hungry souls
Who ate my place.

But that’s the kind of sacrifice
You bleed to an idol, not a Lord.
That’s an allegiance
I cannot afford.

And so I mindlessly stutterstep
Barefoot through broken hope
Shattered shards slice deep
Beyond what I can cope,
But I’m ever alone, and it’s all on me

To never buckle under the weight
Of every bitter thing.

Maybe I should just burn down me:
There’s no one to grieve.

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.

What a friend we have in Him
Who tells us plain and true
What He has done in ages past,
What He does, what He will do.
Who opens a window from myopic earth
Upon His majestic, inscrutable throne
And allows such feeble creatures
Long glimpses at the Unknowable and the Unknown.
While if He were here on earth
He wouldn’t be a priest at all,
Because these are only shadows
Of the fullness of His call
The greater cannot come into Himself
By leaving the fulfillment of His position
To inhabit something lesser,
To force such a transition
Would be to abdicate in full
And if our full role be unfurled,
We are only to echo the Reigning Almighty
Into a noisy, clanging world
Imitating the High Priest who now serves
In the heavenliest of places
On our behalf, our Gift and Sacrifice
Interceding with tender graces
Until we stand broad-shouldered
In the shadow of His wing
And lift our voice in testimony;
One united witness bring

As worship before the One True King.

Hebrews 8