D.O.E.

Wow... Its been over a month. Hmmmmmm well I resurrect the blog today with a poem actually wrote for my friends blog "A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO LEAF RUSTLING" I hope you enjoy:


(D)are to (O)ver (E)xcite.
D.O.E.

I walked through the woods
where the dripping trees sang
softly to my weary heart
and matched the ebbing away of my greatest desire.

Speckled coat, blending into beauty
moved swiftly through the trees of green.
and into the darkness of the unknown
where my greatest quarry now became.

Running along with the ground grasping me
gravity called to my weary man.
yet onward I push with a new desire
to catch up with my angel, this demon I seek.

Quickly she dodges, and smoothly she moves
over and under obstacles take me down.
tears and sweat fill my vision solely fixed,
upon her dew rests and glistens in the half light.

The tears mix with blood as the brush cuts my face
and the rain washes away the semblance of strength
my determination waxes and wanes
as the sight of her I seek fades into nothing.

My burden gets the better of me as I sink into
the unforgiving ground breaks me into
pieces of love lost in the evenflow of weakness
while the mist devours my fleeting sprightly doe.

I lift myself up from the mud and leaves
fallen from the hopeful spring of the year
and brush the dead brush from my coattails and eyes
and glance once more into the depth of the unknown.

She has escaped and faded like the mist in the trees
running over dead and barren branches
dissipating with the new dark of the morning
and leaving desires and hearts to mend.

I stand silhouetted by the bleakness of the morning
a mere shell of the man I started out as.
The strength that rushed has ebbed to a trickle
and my will has left me for another.

The thrill is gone and I feel alone
in this wood of strange shadows and empty
faces flash in my mind and call me on
back to the place from where I started.

I will myself to move and rise, my gait lacks all the pride
My stomach turns inside my head and my steps fade into dreams.
The shadows all have names unknown, they laugh...
I walk this road alone.

Step.
By, step.
And each, step.
I take will, step.
And brings me closer, step.
To the edge of my, step.
Sanity comes on fast and, step.
The mist clears from my vision, step.
And the valley green becomes visible, step.
and stop.
. .. ... .... .....

I see the morning breaking over the hills
and in the break of black I see light.
the hope subsided sides again
and my faint strength faintly returns.

This hunt that was my life breathed in.
fades quicker than the dusk.
and hope like morning fades to strength
and my mind clears with the light.

The mournful sound of the woods to my back
and the glorious light, lights my face.
My heart thaws out from the cold dark night
as it faces this bright and brighter day.

Thoughts from a Graveyard

Today I went walking through a cemetery. Not for any particular reason did I feel the urge to walk and while walking sing many dirges but rather because when in a contemplative mood I like to walk, and a cemetery seemed the best place to muse.

Life my dear friends is an anomaly at best and at worst entirely unexpected. I found myself wandering beneath the trees ablaze with death and color while gazing on stones of cold and unearthly gleam. I thought of my life, how each and every day is filled with struggles and hopes and dreams and nightmares and how each and every minute differs so greatly that one would be hard pressed to look at two separate hours and try to draw a line between. I looked down upon the stones covered with the dead clipping of grass and the shells of leaves unrecognizable to their former glory. I knelt down and brushed aside the debris from two graves, small graves... two children, one died a year previous to the other, both lived only a few months. The hardest part of this tragedy to grasp was the fact that the entire story of a young couple trying to have children and having their precious offspring be taken from them twice in the course of two years was the fact that their entire lives were summed up in two phrases... Born... Died. Nothing was said of the hope deferred, of the hope again for a child that would live, of the joys and agony of carrying the children, of the planning of lives of the joy and ecstasy of childbirth and the sorrow and despair of loss, only two phrases... there were only four grave stones in the plot.

To think that in this one cemetery there are over one hundred and fifty six thousand stories all being reduced to two phrases, unless you were rich and could afford a eulogy, but if not only raw data was given. To think of all the monuments to death, the thousands upon thousands of pounds of stone used signify death and burial. And yet forgotten to the world are the vibrant lives of these countless men, women, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, couples...

I was struck by the image of the trees... amongst all these monuments to death as monuments to life yet even then so truly alive still touched with death. And as I stood under the trees bridging the gap between earth and sky I saw myself, a monument to death and life, standing in mockery of death, but at the same time a mockery to life. I mused at the possibility of such a grand contradiction and realized that we as humans are in fact a greater contradiction and as Christians should be even more so...

We as humans stand as living dying beings. We die living and live dying, we are truly alive yet so strongly are we being drawn to the grave that its hard to keep in mind that we actually live. From the moment we start our existence we are working toward one ultimate unstoppable destiny, death. No matter what we strive for in this life no matter how vigorously we push ahead we will never avoid the inevitable. Our bodies are made to fall and fall they do "From dust to dust".

As Christians we too are bound to the inevitable we are firmly grounded in a graveyard our leaves are dead and dying a symbol of our temporary existence. Yet one thing sets us aside from the cold glossy monuments that point to death as well... We are alive, we have source of life, though we look as though we pass away and stand dormant there is something in us that gives us hope for spring. While we are firmly attached to the grave but we also lift our hands to the heavens because we know from where our help comes. What a beautiful contradiction, dead yet alive, alive unto death and death brings life, our live comes from a death from which comes the end of death and the beginning of life everlasting, where death everlasting is no more. What a contradiction, Now we can stand as a dying mockery of death, because in us dwells life everlasting.

Thursday

Today is Thursday... and Thursday inevitably is followed by Friday which is inevitably followed by saturday and so on and so forth... I am sitting here at my desk deciding where this leads when all of a sudden I am struck by the idea that time is no respecter of persons... It rolls along whether we want it to or not, our lives may stand still entirely but the sun moves on... so should we be subject to this thing which is subject to only God? I'm not sure...

Cracked lips....

Just some quick random poetry this time... Descending into despair..


I hurt.
I feel.
I bleed.
I cry.

I think and
sleep
and then I
sigh.

the tears I shed
run down my cheeks
and rest on curves
of broken lips.

A sigh escapes past bleeding mouth
from swollen throbbing tongue
it rose and fell with change of heart
and sways and swells with lung.

My emanating cry rose up
through curtain, bone and air
it echoed through my empty frame
and continued like a prayer.

The room in which I dwell alone
Is cold and devoid of friends
the coffee’s long been chilled and old
and the lights have all been bent

The shadows playing in the corners
creep along the walls
they rest upon my darkened soul
and slink down narrow halls.

Cries rise up from broken lips
from the throats of desperate men
the screams of a thousand shattered hearts
Rise up and take the wind.


And that is where I stopped... For no particular reason....

You know its funny how our ideas about life can change so drastically... One day all seems fine and then the next the cobwebs seem to come out and play. But one thing that I must keep in the forefront of my vision is Our God is God whether I feel like He is or not... and I can avail myself of his hand.....

Perspective...

Another quick thought for you today.... When something is closer to our view it seems larger to us. It simply must, this is a law of perspective. Did you know that a penny can look larger than a mountain when held close. This is truly a strange phenomenon that something so small can dwarf a thing truly millions of times larger than it.... You know, sometimes I think we are this way with God... He seems so small in comparison to the things we are going through right at this moment, but that is simply because He and our problems have switched places. Our God is infinitely larger than anything in this world but see we have to place him first in our vision. And when we place Christ first in our life, even if our problem truly is the size of a mountain it will be dwarfed by the majestic splendor of our God’s never ending Love, Mercy and Grace....


Perspective.

He IS....

“He is my Light, My strength, My song.”

Ah.... I love that song. “In Christ Alone” A beautiful wonderful reminder of our Great Father. I find myself singing that oh so often. It has become second nature to me, I will be moving along in my daily routine when I find that I have been singing and no other song than that one. I was singing this today when I stopped to think about what I was saying. “He is my light.....” I had been singing that song for years but I think in my mind I never put what it was saying together, In fact I think I entered my own thought in that line “Lord be my light, my strength, my song”. Which Is a true heartfelt cry to our father, but isn’t he already? All along I had been asking God for something that he had already done. He already is my light and so on. I think that this, while not a radical idea, can be a life changing one. When we think about the fact that Christ has already accomplished all, that he was slain before the foundation of the earth, that all our days are written in a book before we were thought of. When we think about these facts Is it to much to think that christ is already our strength... Now at first though this sounds wrong... you will say that this thought supposes that it has nothing to do with us, that we don’t have to ask him and that it takes all the responsibility away from us and now we can live passively... Ok stop. Most of you have a family... and most of your families have homes. Now You as a child have this house at your disposal. Now when it is raining outside you have the choice to run inside for protection, you could stay outside but you don’t, you go inside and maybe even get a change of clothes if you had gotten wet. Now imagine how silly it would be for you to stand outside in the pouring deluge and ask “Home, will you be my protection?” Here is another thought. Would you stand outside an empty house lot and ask and yell and plead that “You will be my protection? Ha... well some might, but most sane people don’t make a habit of that. Sometimes I think we look at God like that though. We look at him like an empty house lot and ask and plead for him to become our protections and refuge when He already is a place that we can run, an “Ever present help in times of trouble”.

So what are the benefits of this kind of thinking? Well first I think it can totally change the way we respond to trials and hard times. For when we know that all things that we need have been provided for, we can walk in the new faith that comes with its security. Second I think (for me at least) it paints a much grander picture of our great God, For everything we might need, down to the smallest most miniscule thing has already been made and provided for me..... everything, strength when I am weak, my song when I need comfort, my light when things seem so dark and my fortress when I am vulnerable to the battle called life. This Is my God, and your God as well. Hallelujah.

But we have to realize this, and not only realize it but avail ourselves of this great grace and mercy that our Lord has provided for you and me.


In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

Smoldering Wick

A smoldering wick...
what once was bright and flaming
smokes and smolders
barely
holding on to hope of oxygen
feed me revive me make me come alive.
In days long past
I burned for you
a light to you for nations.
A gentle breeze I embraced
as a comfort I took it
slowly
I drew from it into a
corner where i could feed myself
and hide in, from the darkness
I was meant to dispel.
Now I cower under a basket
with the smoke wafting up
the darkness that frightened
the cold that scared
the burning.
Yet a new life is breathed
Into the very soul of my souls
And a fire starts to burn
on the tip of my wick
It is barely there.
Hands come from nowhere
to everywhere and shield the burning
flame.
No cold and stormy blast will reach
the heart of my fire and the flame
that grows ever and anon.
It grows slowly still and
greater with each gentle breath
from his mouth he feeds me.
The flame still small and barely
wavering.
Not between the dark but towards the light.
He takes me from my corner
the basket topples down the
table and rests on the floor.
He moves me through the
heavy black which turns to smokey gray
and sets me on a pillar.
And there he holds his hands around me
which don’t suppress the light and
brings the world around me
to see and speak of his greatness.
So on the stand I stand anew
a token
of his loving kindness. I
Will not again retreat
to the darkened corner of myself
that suppresses the light he gives.

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

Isaiah 42:3