Category Archives: Musing

Poetry and Wisdom

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I don’t like reading poetry
Except the works of old:
That timeless art of honesty
Where heart-sung words unfold
Like flowers. Shimmering and glistening
With vibrant tones and luscious accents
Knocking on the door of children listening
Hoping to know their guardian’s intents

Here I raise two books to the sky.
Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament
I hold in my hand Heaven and Earth.
And in between a human seeker
A person who is being shaped
To the image of the Author:
The servant who suffers is communicating
A meaningful truth inseparable from eternal love.

A Ravine. One who stands on one side
Sees only half of what can be seen below.
He who stands on the other side
Can only see half of what lies below.
But he who walks the tightrope between
And peers down straight into the deeps
Only to him can both halves be seen
As awestruck he barely balance keeps.

Mark well the poet who sees Three-D.
Such a one can see a penny from both sides
The canons that fire both ways in one shot
Are aimed with Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws in sight.
With all complexity of sides and tales
The center simple stays the same.
A start with an end that never fails:
The fear of Yahweh’s perfect name.

A Return to Rest

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That kindness we do ourselves
When we echo what reality serves
In etching out the dream-eral* expanse
Of a sort of discovery you don’t know exists

I enjoy games like Myst: Riven
Where the puzzles all make sense
And where the hours tick slowly clicking
To find my way back home where I belong

It’s what my soul wants most of all
To see Him, to be held in His embrace
And every time I attempt to scratch the page
I feel it scratching back with honesty exchanged

Can a canon fire into the night
And not explode where it landed?
A thousand voices echo in one chorus
While my own voice must remain authentic.

A brisk and dismal wind tears comfort far away
From the ever watchful peace that guards my heart
A wind of many swirling truths all clamoring to be heard
When one speaks louder than any strange or English word.

Alas the earth does moan beneath me
It’s song, a dirge that still rises up in hope
A hope that sees the beginning and the end
And indefinitely shoots at that target He intends

Can wings bear aloft this coil?
Can dust breathe life back into itself?
Is there any way life can still continue on
Unless the way is paved with living stones?

The Devil knows the power we underestimate
The power of the good coming to those who rest
In the faith-full assurance of the kindness of a Savior
Who calls, “Be yourself. It’s all  creatures of I AM can do.”

A burning bubbles up from satisfaction
Rejecting too much pleasure without rest
The soul must find its peace in One who works
And who took a day off to enjoy what He had made.

*Ephemeral and Dream are combined here into dream-eral

A Prayer of Victory

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Skiddish Little millipede
Your cyan shell is easily penetrated
I do not seek to break it
I seek only to teach and lead

Oh Room of watchful souls
Your eyes see truth more readily
Than those who bear weight steadily
And see their heart is full of holes

Now comes to tempting trials
That beckon sons to cast their life
Away for what only laziness brings: strife
But can the bars withstand the files?

Fear not, your heart means more
Than countless hours of death and dying
Though my own heart is used to lonely sighing
I will not let this emblem vain be bore

The power of the chronicle to tell
A story that reaches from the body to the soul
Will carefully instruct the wisdom’s role
Lest the story end up half way down to Hell.

A week of peeling self-lessness
That pries the very heart of all things sacred
And spits out everything that desecrates it
And renders those with no time a useless mess

Prickly sticky fingers grab the sword
Where fire leaps upon the drying brush
And carries up the anthem to a hush
And beckons the returning of the Lord

Yea! Battle cry ye sing forth words of old
And bring the AdamSon to heart the break
Of thunder clapping lightning splitted skies
Which echo with the carnage of love’s choice bold

“The battle is accomplished!” Says the son.
The rain has landed on the thirsty ground
The heart is open, and is not made unsound
By the devices of the accusing Evil One.

Nay! For the battle is for the heart of grace
The heart with a single voice to be discovered
May the Lord the Savior grant my whole recovered
So there may be a full light in our face.

How to write a poem: How to Be a Lit Candle

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The following I wrote in response to Katie G.’s request on tips to write a song. I followed these principles and it came out like this.

Start with the feeling, impression, idea, echo of the soul.
Silently be still in that feeling and let the words to start bubble up to the surface.
Gently lay them out and follow where they lead like strands of a spiderweb.
Don’t leave that place or alter the physical state as much as can be helped.
Enjoy the words that come to you, and disregard the words you don’t enjoy.
Ride the glacial wave of creativity until it sets you down.
Proofread it based on the whole of what you have now created.

If you come to a block, wait and see if you can still go forward.
Walk the bridge of patience between the chasm of frustration and whimsy.
Thank God for what He gave you when you’re done.

The Gospel of the Cross

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Reflections on Theology of the Cross by Gerharde O. Forde

The Cross means I must die
The Resurrection means I will live again by God’s kindness if I have faith.
The world is either heading toward the cross
Or it has already been crucified
All who are found to be on the side going toward the cross
Will not be resurrected
But all who embrace the cross
Will be resurrected
He who seeks to save his life by ignoring the cross
Will lose his life
But who loses his life for Jesus sake by dying to self
Will find that his life is saved

Why? Because our sinfulness, our pride, insubordination, and rebellion must die.
We must die since our sin means destruction of ourselves and all that is good.
But God made a doorway for the life He wanted to save.
Only those who die in submission and subordination to God will live.
God will make a new creation, but He won’t resurrect the old creation.

If you wish to be saved
Identify yourself as a rebel, a sinner, unworthy of God’s kindness
Lose your life of serving yourself
When you ignored the message of the cross: That you cannot save yourself
Like the child who knows he has done wrong, confesses and accepts punishment
Who thus shows his humility of heart to his parent’s jurisdiction
So submit your life to God, which to the detriment of all, falls short of holiness
And the God who is good, welcomes you to be resurrected into His New Creation

This is the Offensive Gospel.
This is the Narrow Gate.
Narrow as the beams of the cross itself.

A Glimpse

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That gulp of an impulse the eyes take in a flash
A note of musical color in the symphony of sight
Something is swimming in the bright ruby wash
Eternity herein reflected temporally in the light

What reason to keep the eyes breathing in the sea
Instead to savor a mouthful of fresh water in the mind
Resplendent in all its observed possibility
Opened up by imagination richer flavor to find

Quick the hush of beating eyelashes to their rest
Unlocking the chest where memories play in the dark
Villainy cannot pillage what the eye holds with hopeful fist
Yes, the world is more not less than this living spark

Fleera 3 (Trolis Fleeris)

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It is common in my walk through this world to find flowers–
Roses downcast and wilting on the ground,
And to take them in and make a place for them to be appreciated and adored.
The first I ever did this was Fleera,
Which I named such more out of aesthetic than science.
It was my third year in college
A flower well-formed which fell by my college dorm,
I found just prior to a walk in the woods with friends.
I held it and kept it out of sentiment and captivation
While one friend cast her petals to the wind
And the water carried it far away.
I brought mine home to a plastic bowl
Usually used for chicken noodle soup
And let it float there in all its stemless beauty.

The second was the journal in which I myself was plucked
And was called from my job at Walgreens as a service clerk
To return to my home, to float upon my parents’ waters.
I waited there uncertain of what to do,
Crying out to God, “I do not know why I am here!”
I wrote in my journal, Secor Fleeru
“How is it that I have come to be here?”
And my grandfather’s health began to decline
And I stopped my mouth.
Because I was not grafted into the branch of Walgreens
I could offer my fragrance by his bed close to his nose.
Which suffered from aspiration of the lungs and pneumonia.
And when he passed, the resplendence of my heart for him
I placed in song to be played in his ears by his bedside.
As he crossed the threshold into the gates of glory.
And so Secor Fleeru found a purpose for his pages.

The third happened today, almost three years to the day.
I mowed the lawn around my parents’ house,
In the back there was a Rose bush planted above our septic tank
It had flourished under my Graceful sister’s Joyous planting.
And the previous evening, my parents and I looked out and marvelled
At this one rose towering high above the others toward the heavens.
The next morning I found two smaller buds in a 6 inch ceramic vase
But these were not the Fleera.
The Fleera I found while I mowed the lawn.
I came upon it, recognizing it from the night before.
It lay downtrodden, it’s pedals browning on the ground.
I stayed my blade, and reached to clutch the stem.
It was not cut, but broken off,
By the fierceness of the weather and its weight.
I took it in, not counting the browning edges against it.
I gave it its own crystal cup.
I rested it up against the other smaller flowers.
I smelled it and relished its more poignant fragrance
The fragrance of a beauty bruised yet still shining

Because it is alive to be beautiful
Fleera 3
And it is beautiful to be alive.

The Hedgeman

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Madam Grandmother had a house of grey:
Grey roof, grey shutters, grey siding.
All one story; All one level
Surrounded by box hedge plants waist high.

A hedgeman had come and trimmed them recently
But he only chopped the shape just right.
He did not seek to undertake
The dive seeking weeds of thorn and vine:

Young spritely clinging little buggers
Troublesome meddlers in a boxy world
In shadowy subtlety they showed their heads
A long time they had grown in secret.

The hedgeman returned at the grandmother’s request
The bushes needed trimming, but the vines were his quest.
Over two days he set about the purge
Of everything that grew up from secretly seeded earth.

He found himself saying, as the vines scraped his arm:
“My goodness this bush is a pain.”
But then he thought to himself:
I wonder if God looks that way on me?

Extricating and tending the bush planted well.
From the weeds of the seeds of the unworthy sown.
Did the Maker of creation who saw it was good
Did He say, “This is a pain.” When the devil’s seed was sown?

Grace shines like the hot afternoon sun on his back.
Reminding him of the Maker’s glowing face.
Which does not cool when faced by those who turn
Their back on him shady tents to pitch.

O grief, such grief: that crown of thorns
That encircled the Savior’s human brow
To crown the flower with Satan’s weeds
To raise up a sacrifice of earth because of Heaven’s love.

Of course! Twas not for grief He bore
But for the Joy that was set before!
His cross he endured and the seed he planted
In the tomb of the rock to sprout forth with new creation!

Determined by his Father’s love,
Pronounced for the world from the beginning
He did not merely say, “It is good.”
He simply “Saw that it was good.”

Now the hedgeman was ennobled to press
Through the thorns that tore his exposed flesh
For in these thorns a fresh thought was true:
God fell in love with the world to make it new.

Emancipation: the feeling surged as one by one the vines relinquished their hook
They could not withstand the power of man determined to make the bushes good.
Why? Because these bushes were planted first, and then the weeds took root.
The bushes are good, it’s the weeds that have corrupted their look

So even though the weeds are deep entwined
With the plants of the Grandmother’s good intention
Still, deeper is the ability to dig
With a pair of pruning sheers to clip the hidden stems.

Strong is the stock the Sower sowed
When He made the world out of His goodness
The enemy may have added his own ingloriousness
But the Angels can tell what is good by its fruit.

Oscillating between standing and kneeling
The hedgeman cleared away the weeds by probing deeply.
Humility and confidence to seek understanding and apply it:
Getting to the root, and pulling up the shoot.

Familiar with these living plants
Their tender leaves not sown by chance
Were worth releasing from these self-ish pokes
For which the fire the Angel stokes.

Grappling with the plant near the top does no good.
It took a long time to reach the now spoiled-sightly top.
With a firm hand the hedgeman pulls on the vine
So he can pluck the thorns like a bow string and cut the base.

Others yank the plant up by the stem
Hoping that the whole thing will come right out.
Those who are clever know such a risk is not sound
Even if it clears the top, soon the issue will reemerge.

During his struggle, He sees the Creator dealing with him.
Not managing his issues so as to keep God busy
But always asking the questions that get at the heart
Of why man hides and turns his back on Him.

Resting in the tension of the Master’s pull
And wincing at the precise cuts of the wise Healer
Leveling haughty lusts from creeping back out again.
He reminds me of His pleasing and excellent plan

Utilizing the hedgeman to keep the hedges beautiful
The Creator has appointed a manager for His Creation
A Creation He made so beautiful, that it was even good in His own eyes.
The only One who is Good, saw that it was good.

Lo, He did not only say “It was good” when he made the light.
Nor even when he made land, trees, fruit and seed
Nor even when he made stars, and birds and fish and animals
But when He appointed man to rule He saw that it was VERY good.

Ended the task, back stood the hedgeman and smiled
The grey house framed by box-hedged life
The weeds were cast away to rot, to be chewed, and to die
And the Hedgeman sees that the Earth is worth redeeming.

The Effect of Finishing MYST IV Revelation on My Conscience

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What rumblings wrestle within me?
Ah yes, that game MYST IV Revelations
Such a striking contrast
Between the simple and good
And the deep and deceptive.

Long ago I played the game
And my heart was hamstrung by the kidnapping of dear Yeesha
But my affection for the Atrus character
Doubled over me with an effort to get the girl back.

These games are precious treasures of character.
They shiver the mind’s analyses down to the spinal column of our own choices
Shaking the branches to the trunk
To see what hart it holds within.

But when the spirits got involved
When invitations into darkness of unguarded dream awoke
When the so-called guide to truth in the spirit world spoke
I felt deeply quinged by the unstructured whim of another.

And I heard The Holy Spirit bid me to destroy what I could not truly love.
For I had chosen to love Him fully and not disown Him.
I cracked the DVD in half,
Mid-story
Mid-heart-throb
Mid-sob of relinquishing a soul’s investment.
And my sister who gave it me as a gift was deeply offended.

The years passed, and the story remained undeveloped in my spirit.
I had to know what happened to Yeesha,
How would the seed bear fruit that was good?
Could I trust the word of amulets worn around the neck of the unseen?

And so today, at last, I took up the card that said, “It’s only a game.”
And stared through the safely distant lenses of a player who walked through the game for me.
With eyes unveiled at last, and puzzles solved clear and fast
I came to the moment of decision.
My own weak heart could not have released me to do what was right.
Indeed even now, I stare at the screen typing this poem
Where once little Yeesha was imprisoned in a chair
Her memories being parasite-d away.

Hope, what a game you gave me.
It ended well, and a bit unsatisfactorily.
I wanted to rescue Yeesha myself,
But I could not see the danger
Unless the one other than He who truly is:
The shadow cast by a human imagination turning his back on God
Had come and shown me the answer.
Boo hiss you Serpent seductive.

And now my spirit crawls on all fours
A dry and thirsty land is the world when your own mouth consumes dust.
The conscience once guarded, and the heart never satisfied.
What a price to pay for the instigation out of innocence!
That one or the other must remain un-met, un-kept, or un-sung.

But nay, mine eyes were too weak to see His light, back then.
I was young, and filled with all the vigor of beautiful sights
Of which this game was full and rich.
And My heart, being trusting so fully as it was
Trusted in the inherent goodness of what was before me.
But now I know better.

The music of adulthood, has been tuned to a deeper fundamental
Than games that are of the devil, or cares that were superficial.
But now, I see the love of humanity,
And how we are meant to reflect our father and creator well.

How frightful the effect still was on my conscience.
Spiritual vomit seemed the only recourse.
And the past cannot be made different in the present.
But the past that belongs to God can be reshaped so as to better situate the present.

And the profoundness of the lessons of hope
And of the power of life to convert the soul
While the conversion of our souls for power will end in death.
But still, some depths are not to be plummeted
Unless they are in the bosom of the father.

I am resting now. Such a journey was not a waste.
But I bid all who wander there, tread with care.
If the spirit and the bride say come
Then come, and do not go the wedding of a corpse.

From with Him

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I sit here in the real: a couch beneath me, my socks are damp from the morning dew. The rustling of my mother moving past, and the quiet of my father on hold on the phone across from me.

I see in stillness what the eyes cannot see. I wish not to move lest I disturb it. I just read a book about the book of Genesis, and I can see the perspective of the author of that book and how it is correct in places, and not deep enough in others. But am I the judge?

People read the different books of the Bible all the time. The more one reads it, the more one sees through the letters on the page into the story beneath it. And the story is more clearly seen not only in terms of historical accuracy, but also worshipfully correct, celebratory interpretation of the historical events from with Him.

I had to get up to blow my nose. I am such a human. How grateful I am to be a human. What does it mean to be a human? If we take humanity as a whole as a clue, it appears it means to generally desire what is good, but to mess up and fail all the time. If we use humanity as a whole to help us interpret the scriptures that say, “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” (Romans 3:23) We may say, “Everyone is no good.” But if we interpret humanity through the lens of who God is, then we see humanity as He sees them: as bearing His image and His likeness. This is why He loves them, because His goodness is what makes humanity valuable. This is only seen from with Him.

I journal. It has helped me go deep into the heart of who I am, as a sort of “Soul Mirror” which I use to talk with Him about what I see. It is through my journaling that I have been able to honestly see how utterly corrupt I am– How inexcusably unworthy of being the judge of good and evil. As I have broken down all the childish follies which grow up in my heart like weeds every day, I have seen in the light of His word, the things that are of Him. But I can only see them from with Him.

Humans today scrutinize God, with an intention to pass judgment on Him. And why not? The church has been passing judgment on people emphasizing God’s wrath on sin, and our otherness from Him. (My Dad just playfully passed a trashcan between my face and the screen as I wrote this. It is like that when we speak of God in such an unloving fashion. It obscures the glorious magnanimity of His face with the garbage of misinterpretation from our own failures.) If only we could see Him. See his face. What would He look like? Would we see someone in the likeness of our own corrupted vision? Is there a way we can see Him better?

Dad just walked up to me and said, “You’ll discover this later, but I bought a rope, in case you want to use the rope for projects in the future.” Then he gave me two thumbs up and said, “I have set you up for success.” I smiled and thanked him, and now I think, hasn’t God done that for us? Has He not since the creation given us everything good? Hasn’t He been pleased to give us good things? I immediately think, “What about all the terrible things that have happened in my life? How can a good God give me that?” Then I continue to think from with Him, and I humbly admit that I don’t understand it all. I just have fully trusted and become convinced that He is good, and that I am not yet aware of just how good He is, because I don’t want to know.

It’s a pervasive problem of being human because we are corrupt sinners. We don’t really want God to be a God who is bigger, greater, more perfect than we can perceive. We also don’t want the “God” who has been interpreted to us by people who claim to know him, but are really painting a picture of God in their own wounded image. This is what we want: we want to be our own arbiter of good and evil. We want to make God in our own image. This is so unworthy of God that He is just to condemn, and punish sin with death, because it takes what is good and perverts it and twists it to its own destruction.

We try to be our own “god.” It’s how we read the Bible; it’s how we pray; it’s how we live this crazy thing called real life. It’s utterly foolish. It is not possible to know God from this standpoint. How absurd! It’s like the pottery saying to the potter, “Look! I don’t have hands, therefore, the Potter must not have hands.” I don’t think this is what Isaiah was talking about in His reference, but the point is still the same. We have a Potter who is beyond us, and has been pleased to fashion us after His likeness. It is the serpent, the enemy who has sown these bad, corrupt, fake, fruitless seeds that have mixed in with God’s goodness.

When I am with Him, I see things. (My Mom just came up to the lamp by the couch and replaced the bulb that had blown out. It is shining now.) And when I see them, I love Him. But it is because I love Him that I see them. And because I love Him, I do what pleases Him. And when I do what pleases Him, I see that He is good, and his reasons for what He commands are perfect and powerful. He is with me, and I don’t see that unless I am with Him. I cannot see Him unless I am with Him. I will not be with Him, unless I can find Him. And He hides from the proud, but with the humble, He is intimate. Why? *smile*

Like a father who wants his children to grow up to take after him, so God the Father is inviting you to grow up to be like Him. This is why Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Be imitators of God as dearly beloved children.” It is simple. There are an infinite number of ways to do life wrong, just like there are infinite numbers stretching both ways from “0.” But there is one way, one place where all of life comes to a whole. And it is Jesus Christ. All else is seen, done, and known rightly from with Him. And in this world, He is not stationary.