Vanity (A venting of feelings)

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Futility’s ache of timelessness borne
In a time capsule that drifts downstream
Between eternity past to eternity future
And conveys us before the scrutiny of Angelic eyes

The winding of a clock ticking in purple space
Floating endlessly in an expanse of starry hosts
They study how the Glory of God looks
When flowing steadily in one direction.

AICH! Those capsules that encase eternity entrapped
Down the tube which we call finitude which isn’t so bad
Except for the corruption that has corroded the metal
That would have preserved time’s treasures unwasted

Oh the loss of precious seconds, those synovial drops
By which the clock-works turn their increments
Over and over, made pointless not by the repitition
But the emptiness that accompanies the incredulous tick.

Daddy, Time-Keeper, Heart-lover, friend-forever,
I spit out time into a cup like lukewarm water.
I etch out the daily grind of losses repulsive and unnecessary.
I cry out for meaning in this enterprise I take.

Why do the hours cake over my heart like mud?
Why can’t the hours be burned up in flames
Fuel for the passionate heart that utilizes
All the stuff of life, so nothing goes to waste?

Come, O God, show Your glory in this outcry
Little sense comes from seeking worth in vanity
But instead let me find my worth in You
So that I can somehow maintain humble sanity.

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.

The Less and the More

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The heart wrestles with the less and the more
The less it knows well; its Hell he can tell
How it numbs him and dumbs him
Like a lute it strums him
Shaking his soul’s song sung before
The first conducted baton stroke fell.

The more is his deep-seated longing true
This more– the core with more in store
How it fills him and wills him
Like a like river flowing thrills him
Life that gives its life for more in view
Saving joy for the ocean he will every day adore

O heart betwixt the path of now or always
The choice is yours; make your noise and rejoice
The song He wrote has one sure note
Like a name He skillfully wrote
Awaiting its debut in many plays
When you hear your beloved’s voice

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

Wow! Jesus really *Did* do everything!

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From July 2015, while I was in Seminary

The Gospel is often stated: “We are sinners, so Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. All you have to do is believe on him, and have a relationship with him, and you’re saved to go to heaven when you die.” That’s true.

But what about when you’ve lost a loved one? What about when you don’t know what to do with your life? What about when you feel like you’ve blown it and can never get back? What about when I am tempted to sin again? What about when I am alone, and burdened, and filled with anxiety about distressing circumstances in the present and the future? What about when I want to avenge my friend who has been abused? What about when I can’t sleep at night? How does Jesus dying on the cross to pay for my sins really help me deal with all of this?

The answer is not forced: there is a lot more to what Jesus did than his dying for our sins. Tonight in class, my professor showed us the whole work of Christ which impacts every aspect of our lives, our guilt, our wounds, our hurts, our lost-ness, our groaning, our purposelessness, our burdens, our vengeance. Here’s the Hope and Comfort of the Gospel revisited in the Seven things Jesus did for us, per Justin Holcomb and Ridderbos.

1. Pre-existed– Jesus always existed with the Father, as the Word of God. Everything good in this world was made through Jesus, so he is worth thanking for every good thing we have. Jesus was the Father’s plan all along.
Because of this, we can have confidence that God is up to something good in the world, something bigger than we can see at any given moment. And to know Jesus personally is to know His wisdom, His plan, His will, and His very thought.

Pretty cool huh? Just wait. It get’s better!

2. Incarnated– God became flesh, and dwelt among us. That means, He knows how to hunger, He knows how to be tired, and to hurt, to be marred, to thirst, to be alone, to be hugged, to sleep, to poop, to eat, taste, smell, hear, touch, see, have a family, speak, communicate, listen, to work, to play, to dance, to run, to walk, to jump, to create, to craft, to shape, to figure things out mathematically, to sing, to laugh! Jesus was completely Human!
Because of this, we can have full assurance that as a little Christ, He has actually showed that all the facets of humanity you were originally created with, are good. He knows how you physically feel, because He has physically felt. He knows how you intellectually think, because He mentally thought. He knows how you emotionally feel, because He emotionally felt. Jesus being incarnated shows that to be human is actually a good thing!

Now before you start thinking I’m un-God-ing Jesus, just wait for the rest. It get’s better!

3. Lived– Jesus lived a sinless life. He was faced with every type of temptation that we are, and he did not sin. So doing, He himself established an eternal reservoir of Righteousness.
Because of this we who are sinful human beings, are given the eternal reservoir of His righteousness to live out in our own daily lives. It is possible, to live as Christ did, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is only made possible, because Christ did this on our behalf, and called us forth to the same love and truth He lived out.

Now, really, is this heresy? This sounds too good to be true.

4. Died– Jesus by his death paid the penalty of every human being who ever lived and would live, and by being the second Adam, by his death, he made complete substitutionary atonement for anyone who believed in Him. How could he do that? Because this was God’s plan from the beginning. To redeem the world, by himself paying for it with his own blood.
Because of this, all guilt of the past has no weight. All regrets lose their sting, because Jesus bore upon himself our shame, and our sickness, and death. It is paid for, and you are now free to live fully as what a human being was always created to be: God’s representative on earth, and Earth’s representative before God.

This is the part we always hear. But now we’re getting into the GOOD STUFF!

5. Resurrected– Jesus was proven to be good by being raised from the Dead. Jesus rose and gave us a hope of a life that we live right now that is eternal.
And because he was raised, we have hope after death. But we also have hope for life right now! Because Jesus was resurrected, we have a whole new life right now to walk out of, in the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit. Because He was raised, the sick can be healed. Because he was raised, we are raised. We have a sure hope!

6. Ascended– He ascended to the right hand of the father. He is interceding on behalf of his people RIGHT NOW! He is interceding for you! He is drawing all men to himself. He has all authority on earth and in heaven. He is at the hand of all power in the universe. He is ruling from his throne over all the course of world events. He is at work in the world doing something Awesome! He is refashioning the image of God in the world, for the Father’s glory. He is making the church, and He is making a mature man out of many imperfect creatures, made into new creatures.
Because of this, we needn’t worry. God is perfecting His body on earth, and we who believe in Him are that body. He is ruling now, so we get to follow His rule, and See His work first hand through our own hands.

7. Returned– when he returns, and all time is completed, he will exact vengeance upon the earth in the fierceness of His wrath. And once all evil is purged, He will restore all things into a new heaven and new earth.
Because of this, we needn’t avenge ourselves. Instead let us keep cultivating the good that God has given us, which will last forever to the praise of the glory of His grace.

Wow! Jesus really *DID* do everything!

Therefore, what should I do? Sleep! because it’s 11:49 p.m. and I gotta go back to class tomorrow.

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.