viewingcamelot

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.

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

I feel like I’m flatlining.
My crushed heart is dead.
I don’t love people;
Maybe I never did.

What is there to hope for?
Everything is violated by sin,
And it’s hard to believe
Anything could ever feel good again.

My faith has become
Bitter waters:
The neglected tears
Of the rejected daughter.

But I drop these deaths,
Like a dead sparrow, at Your door.
I ever know, beyond all I see,
You are infinitely more.

Unless the walls get torn down,
No sunlight falls inside the tomb,
But the reality of sunlight
Is greater and truer

Than the enclosed gloom.

Here, in the darkness,
Echo songs of the Light
From fellow travelers
Marveling at the sight

But I stay blind.

They sing of Your healing,
Of deliverance from captivity,
But I wake in groans, and
When I remember being free

It draws weeping.

Under the weight of these chains
I cannot dance for You,
But in the face of my devastation
Your promise stands true;

Your character is impeccable
Your hands are innocent and able
Your gift of kindness is ample
Your long arms are powerful
Your word is true reality

Your kingdom come
Your will be done

In me, in all, on earth
As it already is in heaven,
And through all space and time.

If there’s one thing the company taught me clear,
It’s that I am completely alone here
On this crowded earth, and maybe it’s time
To elbow my way to the front of the line

Before the food runs out.

Everyone is cruel and crude.
There are mouths that need food
And no compassion in man
For women or children in demand.

This bitterness will help me provide,
If I can just internalize it.

I want to be mad at him
For saying it to me
Because being good or bad
Belongs to those with agency
Who can stand on their own feet
And step here or there
On purpose, with intent,
But I am impaired.
I want to be mad
Because this wasn’t my choice,
But I heard warmth and concern
Saturating his voice

And it was the only genuine kindness
I’ve heard in ages.

God,

It doesn’t really matter what I write here
Because no one reads me.
It doesn’t matter what I say
When no one is listening.
Can it matter what I do
When no one sees?
Or who I am
When no one loves me?

I love cold souls, don’t I?
People who refuse
To put their house in order
Regardless of who they abuse.
They did such damage to my soul,
To my choices,
And they still grow and flourish.
People hear their voices
Even when they slandered me.
No one defended.
How can I assume there is value in me
If no one has ever contended
For my good.

I want to pray imprecations
With closed fists;
I have endeavored to live open-handed,
But their toxicity has twisted me
And I want to wish they would reap what they sow,
But I know Your ways are higher.

By my calculations, this can’t be put right.

I had one chance
To still get to be me,
And they burned it to the ground,
Without tenderness or regret.

May Your math be higher than mine,
God of all heaven and earth.