She

She is like something God painted,
like He couldn't risk it, so He reached down from heaven.
Time changed when I saw her,
It now was time before her and every moment since.
The sad part is that she will always escape me,
like a moment your can't change, but wish with all your might you could.
Tears fall, yet she eludes me.
No embrace for comfort.
She clings to solitude.
Her beauty still shines through.
Always ever like something God painted.

Slow

Can you remember the last time you climbed a tree?

Think about it, you reached up, and got a hand hold,

then you secured your other hand, and steped up a little on the trunk,

and then begins the dance...

you know it, the upside down,

hook a leg around a branch,

and try to really get a handle on things.

Ever feel like that with a difficulty?  That your start off slow

and end up upside down?  I'm there right now.

Hanging, and my arms are getting a bit tired. 

I know that eventually I'll be upright again, 

but even then there are always those times 

when the only good foot hold is a quarter inch joke of a limb.

You know you have to put your foot so close to the trunk your touching it.

But as I sit here hanging, I know that life is better when I'm in the tree.

When I'm actually going for the top.  

When I was in middle school we found this horrible little walnut tree,

it was growing in an awkward little patch of trees between a road

and a local bike path.  We originally just stayed at the bottom and 

threw things at innocent passersby, but it was a really hard tree to climb

its branches were just over my own body's length apart for the 

entire bottom half of the climb.

I tried to get down, but it was harder to go down than up.

I mean gravity could have stepped in, but it was an internal struggle,

So I kept climbing, and I eventually got so close to the top that

the tree was bending under my weight. 

Once I was there I realized something that has stuck with me

It only gets easier from there.

"for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." -Philippians 2:13

Pebbles

There are pebbles beneath my feet.
Cool water above my ankles,
it has taken my breath away.
And now it returns, warm within me.
But the warmth within is shadowed by the cold without.
And I feel so alive, so content.
Why water green, and sky blue?
Forced poetry, and babbled words.
The world is more real when I'm not in comfort,
as though bed is Wonderland, and warmth Nirvana.
Yet, I, in my naivety forsake this for the cold,
chilled water bellow, and pebbles between my toes.
I have developed a new love for air,
an appreciation for that which is over looked.
Oh to swim in the deep streams!
To run a hard race,
to sleep a deep sleep,
to climb a high peak,
to sit beneath a tree, basking in its shade.
Life is full, like my lungs.
And I am so thankful for life.
Cold negates gratitude.
A chill... appreciation.
May I ever absorb the chill,
and may pebbles always be under my heals.

"Cold, cold water, surrounds me now. And all I have is your hands."
-Damien Rice

Straw

I am drinking through this licorice straw,
it was the only solution for the lack of grenadine.
The "Fresh Cut Pine Trees sold here!" sign is still
hanging from Christmas.
I haven't looked through my mail in a week.
The calendar still reads "February."

There is a mug with milk and crumbs in the bottom.
Small cups are fine for Oreos,
but for the gargantuan chocolate chip ones I was
eating last month, only a mug would suffice.

I was just consumed with a thought.
To an outsider it would look as though I am
REALLY lazy. That I have no initiative, or drive.
But if only one could see the mine I have been
digging to my heart. The one with solid walls,
Not a difficult journey, to a normal heart but
mine had been collecting deposits of stone
for more than twenty years!
It took "a lot of doing."

My heart is beating again, and it is softer than
ever. I had to use a lot of metaphorical aloe.
How did I of all people ever get like this?

How sweet it is to feel like this again. So soft
to the words of God! So responsive to His
nudging. It is as if I have been re-engineered.

And I just finished my dishes.
Maybe the work on the inside is going to
spill over to the outside. Hm.

"My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in
the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me
are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them...
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."
-David

Melt

I want to love.
Not the shallow currents of a passing creek,
but the deep streams of love.
To love with the entirety of my being.
Whether love of God, wife, or child, that my
Innate capacity to love would become as great in
Depth and breadth as an ocean.
Far beyond what I am capable to on my own
It is only by abundant grace that I can learn
This love that I seek.
Oh Lord that you would pour out your grace on me!
That I would love you with an un-fettered heart
My eyes turned ever upward, and my
Steps falling in paths of righteousness.
That you would be my everything.
I want a love like the world does not know
Open my heart to you
Open my heart to you!

"God in my living, there in my breathing, God in my waking, God in my sleeping, God in my resting, there in my working, God in my thinking, God in my speaking, be my everything, God in my hoping, there in my dreaming, God in my watching, God in my waiting, God in my laughing, there in my weeping, God in my hurting, God in my healing... Be my everything."
-Everything by Tim Hughes

Fresh

The trees stand tall, not a breathe of wind to sway their branches.
The air is fresh, yet has not gained the warmth of air kissed by the sun.
The grass is silver with dew.
The colors of the sky are muted, and have not given birth to the full color world I am accustomed to.
The whisper of the breeze carries on its back great anticipation.
I find myself expecting a God, notorious for showing up, to do so once more.
My feet, now coursing through the cool sand of Lake Michigan.
The air of which I spoke, still lingers, and in analogy so fully mirrors the spiritual air within me.
How I long for fresh wind to fill my sails, to cary me beyond the shore.
To fill my sails, and set a course for the horizon.
That I may move with reckless abandon.
To examine my charts, and find that I have not wavered a single degree.
Did you feel it? A favorable wind is swelling at our back!
What does this day hold?
What is prepared?
Allow me to mend each sail, that I may forge on with reckless abandon.
Waken the dead in me!

Shalom

Frost

As I gaze past the frost-kissed glass of my window I see a world overcome with ice. It weighs heavily on the boughs of the pines and oaks that line the back of my yard. It is as though the wind has no effect on them. They are stagnant, and serene. It is as though life has been drained, left for a warmer climate. Such is the feelings of my heart. I feel covered, crystallized. As though a needle on a tree, engulfed with darkness. When will the warmth of morning come for me? I wait for the morning light. Light is purpose. I grab for anything. I hear questions asked of me. Question of light, and what I will shed. Yet the questions are dulled, ladened with strategy. Is my light practical, will it stand, and all I want to do is shine. Night is a veil, death in its opacity, demise, carried on its wings. The moon is a light, a mirror of the sun, the Son. While waiting for morning, I find myself in mourning. Which is the life I shall choose. A life of light or night? The answer is simple, light is the only path for a candle, yet this world is cold, and it is so hard to keep this light lit. Give me air O moon, that I might breath, and morning O Son that I might burn bright. A lamp post on a mountain. Shine

“on a hill stands a cross still shining fair as the sun when the night has turned into day, and still it shines, bright as day.”

-excerpt from “Morning Light” Phil Keagey