Written Words

For the Church, she was a prophetess

Here in the Now but seeing the Not Yet.

”Your Kingdom come,” she sings.

”Your Will be done,” she wept.

She lamented for the Church

who failed to heed the Wise

And called out to her God

who, she prayed, heard her cries.

“Help our hearts to be humble.”

”May pride not lead the way.”

”Protect us from ourselves,

let us not be lead astray.”

But she knew what she saw

A reckoning must there be

Either we would humble ourselves

or the Great Humbler He would be.

 

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Dream

I was with a group and we had traveled to a foreign land. It was ancient and beautiful, with stunning vistas. The warm coloring of the late afternoon fell across the giant stone buildings and the surrounding jungle.

A long table was set for a meal, and at the head of the table was a young man. I could see Wisdom on him, and he was so full of it he nearly shown. He then asked us if we believed that a single Westerner would be saved at the end of times… confusion seemed to rise around the table. “Why would they be? Let us look.”

I suddenly felt as if I were watching a movie within myself. I witnessed my country’s treatment of those who are homeless. The hatred towards the soujourner in our land. The neglect of widows and orphans created by an unjust justice system. Starving people left with crumbs by gluttonous, all-consuming machines (“You call them people”), prioritizing their rights over those marginalized within our society.

“Would you call this a fast? An acceptable day to the Lord?”

And I saw the Church, and she was weak and sick, covering herself with makeup and veneers of brands and cheap gimmicks. And she was rejected.

I then began to sense hungry people around us, in the shadows, quietly watching. As if in answer to my question, I hear him say, “You have your feast now, but they will feast in heaven.”

To Choose to Love

Nearly 10 years ago, I had forgotten how to be loved well. I have heard it said that we accept the love we think we deserve. It may, to an extent, be true. But I hadn’t always believed that I deserved to be where I was. It was a slow degradation; the result of many bad choices and unkind people, some of whom I allowed into my life and some who forced their way in. However, those led me to enter a span of time where I came to believe that everyone leaves: they leave marks, brokenness… and me.

But then came Moose, this shelter puppy who seemed as broken as I was.  And he chose to love me a LOT. He would panic when he couldn’t see me. Break cages to get to me. Try to dig through doors and bust through fences to be where I was. I’m not saying he was 100% stable; his need was sometimes exhausting. But it also revealed to me that to this little (now giant) guy, I was beloved. I was valuable. I was preferred. I’d never felt loved like that before.

Tonight I realized that Moose represents the first time I really believed any creature in Creation could choose to love me. Every day, in every moment, for his whole life. Even when he was destroying things, killing creatures, digging through doors, breaking cages. Even when I lost my patience or got frustrated at our inability to understand one another. Usually, his purpose in those moments was solely to find a way to get to me and get my attention, my comfort or my care.

This reckless love forced my hand… I made a choice to love this neurotic and somewhat uncontrollable dog right back. I decided to love him as relentlessly as he loves me, without restraint and against the sound advice of my veterinarian and friends who said this young pup was just too much. Somehow, his love slowly moved me and mine him. Moose taught me how to love again, and just as important, how to receive love. He taught me to give and receive affection and comfort. He revealed to me that love didn’t always have to hurt. At least, that’s what I thought.

But as Moose has entered the geriatric phase of his life, I find myself bargaining with God. Because I know sometime, Moose is going to leave. Not because he wants to but because such is the nature of this world. And I find myself in a tug-of-war within my heart to love him well and harder. I fight to resist the instinct built over decades of practice that tells me to distance myself, to harden my heart.

I really don’t know how I can bear the loss of him, and that moment seems to be drawing closer. I recently experienced the loss of my dear Grandma, and that loss has triggered some things I’ve managed to ignore for a really long time. I prayerfully ask God to bless Moose and I with a little more time together; that one devastating blow would not follow right behind the other. It’s freaking hard to just be right now. To allow myself to grieve and mourn in a world that thinks pain and sadness are things to avoid and medicate. It’s even harder to love fully when Death hovers right at the edge with the promise of heartbreak. I wish we knew how to deal with “hard” as a community…

So in this raw and vulnerable state, I’m going to call my heartbreak good because it meant there was tremendous love there. I’m going to continue to love Moose well, even if it is tearfully. I will give thanks to God that I can love so deeply and completely as I do, and that I have received that same love in return. I praise God for giving me the strength to bear the weight of loss. The fatal misstep I see so many make in this time is to believe Loss when she tries to convince us that Love makes us weak, vulnerable and guarantees suffering. Some of the best lies are the ones that are mostly true. Love is all those things; but in these very things I am reminded of Christ, and my desire to grow in Christ-likeness. He LOVES us. He loves us in a way that our ability to love only hints at. He reminds me that those who love do not flee from suffering, but bear it in the most intimate and vulnerable of ways. He reminds me that His greatest victory and manifestation of the strength and might of God was only revealed through His humility and weakness, to the very point of death. But most critically of all, and the one we often fail to see when the veil of Death hangs over those we love, is that Death is not the end. Nor is Death the victor. We are all more than conquerors through Him who loved us… (Romans 8:36-39)

A Sinking Heart

There is no despair

when my heart sinks

into hopeless waters.

I do not fear the depths

nor the breadths

of the pain that swells

and crashes against me.

Hope, I carry with me.

When I sink

into darkness.

I am not the Light.

But the Light dwells within me.

The Light transforms me.

More. More of it.

Not lessening me.

But less of the Dark

who said “You’re me.”

Drawing me into a fullness

A wholeness

Into the me God intended

Before I gave myself to the world.

Expelling the rot.

The lies that would say

broken can’t become whole

but Truth calls the me made new

Beautiful.

 

 

 

Dream – 08.25.18

I was standing in a room that was familiar to me, but I didn’t recognize it. I was elevated; at least a couple stories up. In the room there was a giant window, swung open, across from me.

I walked unhurriedly toward the window. The curtains didn’t move; the air felt dead. When I was towards the center of the room there had clearly been the noise of a great commotion on the streets but as I reached the window it was silent. Not even an insect chirping. The world looked on fire. The light cast over the cityscape around me was red and orange. It made the room I stood in seem sterile and white in contrast.

Leaning out the window, the fiery colors seemed to originate from the sun, but it was larger than any sun I’d ever seen. It was the color of blood and it seemed to swallow the sky. The air moved like waves, visible to the naked eye, yet I felt no heat.

Appearing on the horizon was a giant cube built with smaller interconnected cubes. There seemed to be as much empty space within the larger cube as there was space occupied by smaller cubes but it was hard to tell. The smaller cubes moved together but it was unclear how. Their movement was less mechanical and more like the flow of water, if water were cubes which defied the laws of gravity. This whole thing, perhaps the size of a 2 or 3 story building, was surrounded by fire. I understood that what I looked at occupied higher dimensions than I could comprehend. ‘Strange. Surreal. HOLY.’ I thought.

The cubes that were more than cubes hovered in a way that seemed weightless, and it seemed as if somehow, the cubes weightless rotation moved it down the road and towards me. It’s fire was different; where the light around us felt like it hummed with wrath, the fire around the object felt alive and purifying.

As it drew close, level with the window I leaned out of, I noticed writing on the various smaller cubes.  It was in a very weird language; it felt ancient. I looked closer and it appeared to be a merging of pictures and symbols but in a flowing script.

Suddenly I was aware of the meaning: here I looked upon the name of God and the mere name overwhelmed me. There were many names but I only KNEW a few of them. I knew these were not names of many, but the names of One. As the burning, rotating Word drew close to the window, I dropped  to the ground. I was utterly fearful of the holiness. I was acutely aware of all my “deficiencies,” but it didn’t feel like shame or judgment. I felt filled with a holy awe and tremendous gratitude. Eyes closed, it felt as if I was being cleaned of things I didn’t even know were stealing my life. Leaches I didn’t even notice. Without looking, I felt it directly in front of me. Without thinking, I began to worship. I didn’t even know why I did it or what I sang except it was my only possible response to the situation. Every cell in my body cried out in praise.

Poem: Perfect

The birds all sing without concern

For how their song might sound.

Quietly the water runs atop the rock

Without knowing where it’s bound.

With the wind sway the trees

The rustling leaves their royal crown

As the light breaks through 

And dances on the ground.

This beauty and this balance

Abundant life in harmony

But man will burn and chop and pave

The irreplaceable for a penny. 

A Prayer (1)

Adonai, I hear Your praise

in the rumbles of the thunder

in the warbles of the songbird

in the dancing of the leaves.

 

Elohim, I feel your presence

in the warmth of the sunlight

through the softness of your grass

by the washing of your waves.

 

Lord, I hear your cry

in the plea of the hungry

Through the weeping of the lonely

By the lament of the mourning.

 

O God, I know communion

through palms pressed together

By the lifting up of voices

in the sharing of oneself.

 

And to You goes my worship;

to You, Lord, goes my praise.

To You, Abba, I cry out;

to you I give all my days.