viewingcamelot

Climbing a mountain
With lame feet
Means being left behind,
Stumbling, tumbling in defeat
Down the plane, over stones,
Beginning again incomplete
Alone and bruised.

Reaching for heaven
Lifts the aim of my pursuit
Above the jagged obstacles,
Hazards inflicting jabs acute,
But no jab compares to Your nails:
Bleeding to commute
The sentence of Your enemies.

You had to keep moving.
Your enemies right behind with
Different faces in different places,
In deceit, in false kindness,
And both friends and enemies
Walking in total blindness
To the reality around them.

I am blind, Father,
Touch my eyes, make me see,
The structure of Your design
The power of speaking into eternity
As Your Spirit indwells
Time reducing infinitesimally:
Colliding, dispersing, converting

The golden thread I saw
A quantum entanglement of soul
Sharing properties, transforming,
Fusing with lesser nodes
Rescue, redemption, regeneration
Damaged strains to integrated whole

A great organic debridement
Of Your forever, woven bride,
Burning off what’s disentangled;
You never intended to hide
The complete, amniotic poem of creation
But in our pride
We think in crayon sketches.

Repair my love.

Grow new limbs here:
My faith. My hope. My love.

Let Your desire for me
Be my only sway
The only guiding gravity
Molding my byway:
Remake my ability to move and
Repair my ability to stay.

Where You go, I go.
Where You stay, I stay.

Thank You for the beauty
Of Missouri: the river, the fields,
And all the wonder of them
I’ve been able to steal.

But the people here that You rightly love
Have been brutal to me
All empty words and numb hearts-
An ice gauntlet: a frigid battery.

And I know You,
How You must grieve
For all of Your prodigals
But I want to leave.

I can’t wait to forget this place.

In a raw season
I let them in.
I bitterly regret it,
But I can’t get them out again.

Their appraisal of me
Will be the one that carries me
For the rest of my life:
The one that buries me.

Is there a corner on this earth
I can curl up under for comfort?

Is there any safe place for me
To rest in peace?

I hate it here.

All of my days, so full
Of the myriad of moments
The complex paradox
Of human atonements
And divine renderings.
How prodigal I’ve been.
Look on my ignorance;
Forgive my sin.

On those incapable of love,
I spent it all.
So did You,
In the throes of our fall,
But Your love
Changes a man;
Mine built houses
Of sand.

I’m world weary
In my bones
Please let my journey
End in a forever home.
When I close my eyes
In my final tears,
And lay to rest
These tragic years.

Or else, let my heaven
Be a lonely meadow in bloom
Wherein no predators
Will ever consume.
I told You once: I’m so small.
I asked You to carry me
Into tomorrow:
Maybe tomorrow is eternity.

I’m sorry I wasted my hours.
I don’t have any more stakes
To drive into the earth.
Please don’t forsake

Your foolish child.

Father, cleanse my soul.

For believing the worst of my friends,
Forgive me.
For speaking what offends,
Forgive me.
For thinking as means to an end,
Forgive me.
For demanding food for my sin,
Forgive me.

For stepping into another’s place,
Forgive me.
For seeking comfort over grace,
Forgive me.
For desiring anyone else’s face,
Forgive me.
For resenting running my own race,
Forgive me.

For turning a shoulder
Where I may have extended a hand,
Forgive me.
For thinking of myself
When I could have tried to understand
Forgive me.

For taking or keeping
What I may have shared,
Forgive me.
For expecting care
Where I ought to have cared,
Forgive me.

For coming to be served
And not to serve,
Forgive me.
For treating love and grace
Like substances deserved,
Forgive me.

Most grievously I have sinned,
Let Your mercy know no end!
I have no righteousness to display
Let Your glory light the way!
Cover me in bridal garments of grace alone
Prostrate I fall before Your holy throne

And surrender all of my nothings.

Cleanse me in Your tenderness,
Worthy Lamb and Father.

Forgive me
My speech became a saturation
Of resentment
And bitter accusation.

Help me
Extract precious from worthless
The heavy grief
Leaves me mirthless.

And the pain,
And the lonely work ahead
May be my days
All that remains before dead

Resurrects alive in me.

The tiny, baby hairs
On the back of my neck
Bristled in warning
Before and behind, I checked
For the being I felt
Staring with malicious intent
The darkness took form
Street noises went absent
Is this because of my new routine,
Or just the year I’ve had?
I sense danger in persona,
Threat in shadows-clad,
Is it in reality?
Some kind of spiritual stew?
Or just psychological drift illusion
Looking through trauma-residue
In fragmentary awareness
With an understanding
Of the new risk levels
I am handling.

But then,
Has there ever been anything right,
Or safe, or trustworthy
In the night?

Is safety even a real thing?

Who condemns you?
Go in peace.

The stones have been hurled,
By venomous tongues in quiet places
How heavy they have landed
Condemnations graceless-
I was innocent in my engagement.
I just wanted to know and be known.
I wanted a little mousehole
I could call my own; I could call home.
The arrogant lovers-of-self
Publicly stripped me bare
Disproportionate to my crime.
Vanity of vanities, they only cared
For their own reflections.
What a fool I have been!
How I believed the good in men’s hearts
Would never stand such treacherous sin!
I must have been too high maintenance.
How relieved everyone becomes
To expel me from their presence
Unfit for family, I follow the crumbs from
Days to weeks to months

In circles,

But there’s no going home
Because I don’t have one
I never did.

I miss our home.
I miss feeling secure
In my husband’s love,
Staying indoors
In our warm little nest
With our little brood
Holding them for hours,
Preparing warm food
For our warm souls.
I loved our little family.

How will I ever grieve it away?

How will the loneliness
Ever die on its own?
Can it die alone?

I am still broken, Father.
Please remember Your maidservant.

I know I’m looking at this all wrong.
I keep trying to forgive
As mind over matter
But the grief I’ve lived
Exacts blood, and I cry out.

I sensed the narcissism, the rage,
I sensed the treasury
Of self-satisfied pride,
But I never sensed the treachery,
Or the reliance on unjust gain.

But I don’t want them destroyed:
I pray You dismantle the dysfunction.
Purify them of their idols.
Rebuild them for a higher unction
Than self-aggrandizement at cost.

Help me remember when the pain swells,
And the anger shakes my fist
That I survived
And You redeem the twists
Of Fate’s chains.

Thank You
For establishing the work of my hands,
In a place of provision and fairness
Where I need not buckle under demands
Far out of their jurisdiction.

Purify me of the loves I shouldn’t hold.
Help me to move forward and fully let go.
When people show me they don’t care
Help me to see; help me to know
Like the fig tree that refuses to bear.

Thank You for those in my life now
Who value me in surprising ways.
Help me be a blessing to them,
As I used to pray every day
At Wellness.

Protect me from the folly of my affections.
Lead me in wisdom and discretion.
Help me leave them to You,
And not look back in my procession
Like Lot’s wife did.

Give me the strength for the work ahead,
And the needed endurance and skills
I will keep endeavoring to make my hands strong,
Continue to deal with me from Your gracious will,

Jesus, my most gentle and generous Savior.

The people here saw everything,
They heard it all, they covertly knew
My deepest wounds and suffering
And the only thing they chose to do
Was withhold justice for nepotism,
And abandon me to my plight
In isolation, knowing the weight I bear
They engage in their delights
Apathetic to the destruction
They both wrought and condoned
If You ask, I forgive them
But I beg You, make it known
What they have done,
Confront them with their sin.
Let them repent in sackcloth and ash
Topple the towers they pride themselves in
They’re foreigners to kindness.
It’s equally brutal to silently view
A soul get exsanguinated-
They don’t care, but I believe You do.

It hurts because I loved, I trusted,
And I must never do that again.
Because it’s also hatred in a soul
To watch a wolf devour a lamb,

And feel like a better person for just watching.

“Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?””
Genesis 18:25