A poem.

Here is a poem from Derek Walcott. Enjoy!

Love After Love

Derek Walcott


The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Difficult times.

I find myself in difficult times. He is all I have present. My knees are buckling, but I've found that His solidness is available for me to just lay on. When I can't stand, or walk, or breathe, I can just lay in the presence of the Almighty. Through these sleepless nights when my eyes burn with insomnia, I can just fall into the arms of my Beloved. His ear is open for my cries, my stories, my struggles, and my tears. And I find that He is infinitely interested in me. I find David's cries in Psalm 61 intensely personal.
"Hear my cry, O God;
Give heed to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For You have been a refuge for me,
A tower of strength against the
enemy.

Let me dwell in Your tent forever;
Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings."
(Psalm 61:1-4) NASB

Unresolved

I have lost my connection with words.
I live lost in the disarray of fogginess
That holds my soul
In misty chains.
I cannot throw these chains
In the blackness of my inky release.
My pen lies mute.

Men as trees walking...

As I breathe another day away, I realize that my eyes have lost their freshness. Like the blind man whom Jesus encountered in Mark chapter 8, I realize he has indeed healed my blindness, but the fogginess still remains. Alas, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.”(Mark 8:24) I want fresh eyes. Newness. Vibrancy. I want to return to the rythym of worship that is soft and consistent like the ocean. I want Him to be the moon causing my tides to sway in harmony with His song of life. I dedicate now, a vow, a collect, a prayer from the inescapable fogginess of my soul, to Him who lives to make men see clearly. "Oh Father, you are the Light, burst your rays into my fogginess. Destroy the clutteredness and negativity that surround me. Make me encounter You. In the name of my Beloved, Jesus Christ, Amen."

Mr. Donne

Here is something from John Donne's Holy Sonnets, called "Batter my heart, three-person'd God." Enjoy!

 

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Things that make me happy right now.

• Converse all-stars
• High Fives
• Pepsi
• Palm Trees
• Gringo Food
• VBS Dances
• Ephesians chapter two
• Breezy Nighttime
• Little Ceaser's Pizza
• Dr. Seuss quotes

What happened? The church was created to introduce people to the Living God, and by being the body of Christ,  to connect them to His presence. Where have we gone? The church has lost her identity. We are not sure why we are here anymore. We stay in the same communities we have always been in, either doing what we have always done, or completely abandoning church history for the sake of being "contemporary", and who is being connencted to God? Nobody. Where is the church?

Hurriedness.

This has been a week characterized by hurriedness. I am working , doing V.B.S missions work in South Florida. The eye opener came, not when I looked at the problem churches and diagnosed their lacking spiritual walk. The eye opener was, I realized that I am worse of than they are. Because I think I'm better.

Altogether Lovely.

Why do you accept lies?
Why do you embrace the voices
That poison your mind
And deny your beauty?
My face was marred
So yours could be scarless.
I gave my life,
My blood ran scarlet,
To give you beauty.
I took raggedness
So you could be whole.
Yet you embrace separation
And give it full control.
You embrace false delusions
Of worthlessness.
You are worth My life!
Is that not a worthy price?
Or do you say I lie
When I call you
Altogether lovely?

Night.

I stare up at the sky
Through my hotel window.
Somehow, the night sky
Always makes my loneliness
Feel smaller.
My heart is lonely,
The cliche`d half of a whole.
But the night is bigger.
Bigger than my loneliness,
Bigger than my missing pieces,
But not bigger than you.
It is a cloudless, empty substitute
For perfection.

Calm spirit

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” -St. Francis de Sales

Dearly Beloved

With nail-scarred hands
I ask for yours.
I want to hold them
Through your darkest nights.
My eyes saw darkness
So you could see light,
But you choose to deny
My Name, and My life
That I gave for you.
I was nailed to a tree.
My hands held helpless
So you could be free.
But you hold misery
Tighter and tighter
Like some long lost lover.
My treasure gleams brighter
Than the darkened granite of
That so-called love you hold as
Dear as gold.
One day you'll fold.
If not in worship now,
Then in trembling fear in that day
When before my throne you long to hear me say,
"Come in My child."
I will not though.
I will cast you from My Presence
All the while saying
I do not know you.
So what will it be?
Do you accept my life for yours today?
My striped and ragged back for your heaviest weight?
Salvation calls.

The Bags of My Eyes

The bags of my eyes.
That's where i feel the loneliness
The most.
Not in the cathedral chasms of my heart,
Or my deserted mind,
But under my eyelids.
They fill up like overstuffed grocery bags
Full of hurt and sorrow,
And tears my pride won't let me cry,
And all in all I realize what's missing
Is you.
You inhabit not only my heart,
But also the bags under my eyes.
You inhabit me.

Her Eyes

Her eyes
Are as expansive as
The Eastern blue sky,
And they're as alive
As a desert night.
Piercing, like swords of medieval gallants,
My heart's in the balance,
A tightwire that stretches from
Ballast to ballast.
The stakes are my life.
I surrender it gladly.