Only a Glimpse

I didn’t know what I was talking about

Had I known, I probably would have kept my mouth shut

I said I’d give You everything, down to my very life

You just didn’t tell me that You’d turn around and give it back to me

Had I but known what You had in store for me

You know I would have run as long as I could still see ahead of me

But that’s the way You are, You only give a glimpse of what will be

I gave up what was killing me, all my guilt and shame

Again, You didn’t tell me that I’d be picking up more burdens along the way

It is for freedom that You have set me free

But the call to come and suffer wasn’t in my plans for me

You tell me that you can be trusted. I’m saying I don’t understand

how to drop my independence and reach out for your hand.

Had I but known what You had in store for me

You know I would have run as long as I could still see ahead of me

But that’s the way You are, You only give a glimpse of what will be

I’m too far in to go back, but looking back its clear

Thickest fog and blackest night just means You’ll be near

Had I but known what You had in store for me

You know I would have run as long as I could still see ahead of me

But that’s the way You are, You only give a glimpse of what will be

Thanksgiving

Started last November, just picked it up again. I think I like it. 

How can I say Thank You

When I know it’s not enough?

How can I give back to You
When what I have is Yours?

Ever-loving, You are holy

Never changing, You are true

Forever faithful, Savior God

You call me, You call me

So I’ll run after You

Though the darkness hides You

And I cannot see Your face

I will trust in Your great love

That died to take my place

Light of my path, steady my feet

Warrior King, You fight for me

The battle’s done,  by You I’m free

Now You call me, You call me

So I’ll run after You

Oh Great Invisible One

The Only God

Be honor and glory forever

For You have made yourself seen

And you’ve called me, you call me

So I’ll run after you

How can I say Thank You

When I know it’s not enough?

How can I give back to You
When all I have is Yours?

I’ll run after you.

A work in progress 4-29-09

It still needs a lot of work...


The painter's brush
The minstrel's song
The author's word
burst like morning light
through shuttered bedroom windows,
shattering oppressive darkness,
and calling sleepers to life.

The selfish and the scared
The tyrant and the tired
pull up the covers, desiring
to only exist in dreams.

Oh foolish, gifted, ones.
Do you not know a gift not given
will turn your dreams to nightmares?

Torrential rains and villainous night
boast in their power
until lightning explodes from the sky
and mutilates the dark.
For a moment, it is day.

Deaf to the cosmic battle
the sleepers are trapped
in their own phantasms.

Some can never sleep.
The fight for light and life
calls any who will wake
and take the more terrible road.
So the sleepless enter the storm
hoping to find their way.

Their way to what, they do not know.
Small, courageous souls
fight to walk through the storm
as light present, and remembered,
builds their courage
to be vessels for the mystery
until it makes itself known.

Understanding less than they believe,
the vessels are filled with the mystery
of all-powerful light, dependent.
What fills them, overflows
in joyous creating of reflected light
like daggers in the eyes of the dark.

Surging back, the night expands
and engulfs the vessels
damming their reflections.
The vessels are too weak
to contain the light they possess.
Illumination grows in the finite vessels
increasing their agony, slowing their pace.

The vessels crawl in the rain-soaked earth,
too aware to go home
too exhausted to go on.

Aching for release
the writer-vessel scours for words
the singer-vessel cries out for his voice
the painter-vessel gropes for color in the dark.
Nothing comes.

Irony too cruel--
the gifted-vessels carry a gift
they cannot give.
The essence of freedom
is trapped in them, and they are lost.

Once comforting warmth
now a violent fire inside
like the sun itself as it almost
surges from the east.

But it waits,
and permits the night expansion.
The rain beats down on the vessels
punching, bruising, killing them.

It was not supposed to end like this
Courage is drowned in confusion
and the vessels wonder why.
Why light dependent?
Why vessels?
Why this war?

The night laughs and glories
in it's victory over the light and the vessels
but will not stop until they are powder.
Still burning inside, the vessels wait for death.

The rain is cutting now
here at the end, the vessels find relief
in being broken.
Like the rush at the end
of hypothermia's course.
They haven't felt this comfortable
since slumbering
in their long-forgotten beds.
If only they had never woken up.
If only.

The city

The middle of the city does not lend itself to much quiet contemplation.
Manufactured waterfalls do little to satiate one's natural desire for nature.
But I look to the sky and I see the clouds in wisps and billows, and if I look high enough I can imagine I'm lying on a grassy hill far above this urban scene.

Focus carefully, then, on the clouds
and the chlorinated fountain begins to smell like lilacs;
the engines like a campfire;
the car alarms sound like birds;
the wind is always wind.

Suddenly, secretly, I am free.
The secret to freedom is not where you find yourself, but where your mind can go.

Nothing New

I wish I could sing
My own song for my king
That he’s never heard
But he’s heard it all
His voice it beckons me,
“Sing, Sing, oh Little One.”
I have nothing new.

Anything that I could say
Has already been said
By prophets of poets
or princes or thieves.
Why do you need me?

I wish I could use
My own words to amuse you
Like you’ve never heard
But you’ve heard it all
Your voice still beckons me,
“Sing, sing, Child anyway.”
I have nothing new.

Anything that I could say
Has already been said
By prophets of poets
or princes or thieves.
Why do you need me?

Why me?

Walking Blind

What an adventure
to live a life of trust.

Wilderness mazes
deliberate meandering

As if the better route
were the jaggedest line.

What an adventure
to live a life of trust.

A Sonnet

Talk not of lovers, I have had my fill

of silly boys and escorted misses

who cannot see a thing outside their will,

‘mid evening lights, exchanging their kisses.

Their eyes are focused on none but the one

beside them sitting here in this café.

The servers must tell them, “Time to go home.

Let us please sleep to be ready next day.”

The single lover holds her affections

in outstretched hands, a poor, inverse beggar

she seeks to give, despite all rejections,

to the nearest passing lovelorn lover.

The world waits not for fantastic wishes,

I would just like some help with the dishes.