Ageless Spirit of Beauty

A gentle quiet quite unheard
she pulls me into the silent place
Apart from time for but a glimpse
in the gentle breath lies her grace
An icy breath against warm flesh
upon the mountain top
Underneath it's furrowed brow
lie the age old crop
Upon her breast are trees of green
that do not turn to gray
Their story lives beyond our time
they've seen many pass away
In her hair is fire
which burns  across the plains
With speed akin to strikes of light
she cuts our feeble reins
In all the words of man and beast
she cannot be described
And through a thousand ages past
every man has tried
Yet in our tongue cannot be found
the breath of life to make such a sound
and though we praise and hail with all our heart
all we can say is a mere part
Who knew such beauty could be found
All other is pretend
In her heart she knows no time
her days are without end
With eyes of stars and moons above
fingers reach across the sky
Ears that catch a lowly curse
that hear a lovers cry
Dressed in suns and galaxies
her light fills every eye
To look upon the face of time
it cannot be compared
To tell of her to mortal man
is a joy that cannot be shared
Yet every man has tried
All of mankind has tried

Psalm 119:71

'It is good for me that I was afflicted,

that I may learn your statutes.'

~Psalm 119:71~

This verse meant so much to me when I read it last week when I was so hopeless. It just reminded me that God does what he does for a reason, and I am not suffering in vain.

Hear My Cry (Pslam 43)

A well without stop
A never ending road
As space in all its greatness

I never understood
I could not comprehend
Now I stand here breathless

Never content
Ever thirsty
I need you more each day

If not for you
Had you not cared
I should have lost my way

The night so long
would have my life
and all would be in vain

Yet you daddy,
maker of life
have saved me by your name

A righteous man
may have fears
But you save Him from them all

You carry the sword
and brandish the spear
you hear my weary call

Your are here
in my broken heart,
within my wounded soul

Said before
and said again
Come fill my God shaped hole

I boast in you
in your great name
the humble shall rejoice

On my lips
shall be your praise
I give you this broken voice

Give a shout
unto the Lord
man and angels all

Weary and torn
completely undone
on my face I fall

You hear my cry,
you raise me up;
your righteous ears don't fail

You hear the shouts
of your humble son
and you always will prevail

Rescue me from sickness,
sickness and dying;
I take refuge in your chest

Within your heart
I fall apart,
I lay here in your rest

Hope when I am cast away
Life on less than sunless days

In your hands are all I love
Safe in the feathers of the dove

Not My Own (Psalm 16)

Oh God, Oh lovely father
In you is all my worth
Apart from yours I have no strength
No place among this earth
And here you take it all away
your remind me what is mine
It takes you draining all my life
for me to finally find
As I lay face down in the dust
and gasp with every tear
In this place you rescue me
through pain you choked my fear
You will sustain me even now
sick beneath my bed
From this illness you have saved me;
your words are as my bread
For all my strength is in your words
and all that leaves your mouth
I've tried to live apart from you
but I cannot do without
Oh Lord, almighty savior
I give my life to you
Although it is not mine to give
it is all I know to do
Oh Lord, maker of our world,
that you would turn your eyes
That you would look at my mere life
among all other cries
You hear my whispers in the dark;
I have no good apart
Oh Lord, it is not me
for you dwell in my heart

These Mere Words

Oh Lord, father of the hills and trees;
Oh maker of the birds and bees.

Your glory cannot be held in idle words,
or in mans voices among the birds.

But yet I try to relay,
through all the words I say.

Your loving arms have no measure;
Your worth cannot be told be treasure.

How can one use your breath of air,
to paint a picture to compare?

How can one formed from the dust,
one in sin and fear and lust?

Model something after your might,
something that can reach your height?

Is there no way we can express,
all the peace within your rest?

Or all the love within your heart,
that caused the veil to tear apart?

What can I do to show my love?
What can be heard from up above?

Since I have not the tongue to shout,
all I can do is sell all out.

And that is all you ask of me;
I cannot even pay for what you give free.

So take these words though they are few,
for I only strive to honor You.

In all that I do;
It is all for You.

And So I Fall

Well, I know I haven't written here in a while, but I have been doing soooo much writing in my journal and song writing. Here's some of the stuff that I have been doing over the last few weeks:

Even when I'm down below
as far as I can go,
You are here

If my faults are shown
and all becomes known,
You are here

When I fight the fears
and drown alone in my tears,
You hold me still, and you always will

I don't want to see
who I would be without you;
I need you

Every time I do
my heart breaks in two;
and so I fall

More than all you care
and that I have to share;
your love knows no bounds

Will you go in time
and leave me behind?
You will Never

Though sky and stars fall around
and the darkness has us drowned,
You are the eyes of the blind.

When I am tossed away
and I dream of better days,
Your love is always mine.

You gave me your heart
It's every single part,
And it's more than I could hope to ask

You keep my boat afloat
and through the lies you wrote:
I am your mast

Dejected and ignored
your love I can't afford
But you give it to a beggar and a thief

There must be more inside
for you look on me with pride
you find me underneath

Under the shame and guilt
behind the tears I've spilt,
Your eyes go where man cannot

Caught in your flowing mane
my fearful doubts wane
You give a peace that all have sought

But they find it not
for they cast their lot
to peril fraught
and end up caught
and in their trap they rot
because of where they sought

Where they seek
they will never find
Because you give yourself only to the blind

Hope

What is life for? What is it that gets us out of bed in the morning? what makes us fight so dearly to stay alive? The simple and overlooked answer is this: hope. Hope that one day we will be free from the fears and anguish of this world. Hope is what begins wars, what begins mirages, what causes the offspring of birds to leave the nest. What is there beyond hope? What besides the thought of a new day and of better life is there to drive us. Without hope, life is no more than leaving a good corpse behind, no more that idle victories over meaningless feuds, no more than feeling good now.
In a world void of the faint glimmer of hope, there is no morality, there is no life, there is nothing to believe in. So what can be done when hope is gone? What thing could give that back to us, even though all else fails? Can we believe that there is more than mere suffering and death?

hope |hōp|
noun
1 a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen : he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information | I had high hopes of making the Olympic team.
• a person or thing that may help or save someone : their only hope is surgery.
• grounds for believing that something good may happen : he does see some hope for the future.
2 archaic a feeling of trust.

What person can save you? Can your best friend, out of their own fears and doubts, save you? Can your neighbor save you? Can your dog save you? No, they cannot. The only one who can save you, the only one who can give you hope is the one who's very thought was the hope that sparked our universe. Anything else that you put your hope in or think will save you will fail you in the end, over and over again. If that is we live for, if that is the only thing that is keeping us alive, then God give me hope.

Queen of Exile

Well, I was going to try and write up a post about something I've been feeling over the past few months, but I cannot convey sufficiently what I am feeling through a post. So, as I am enjoying this breath of fall as the sun peeps her head through these turning leaves, I have thought of a way to put words to my mind. Don't feel bad if you don't understand it though, it is just a jumble of words that have spit themselves out onto this page.

Queen of Exile

I wish that I could write
But all that I have left is this light
Because the learned scholars all say
That beauty never came that way
They will never understand
What they cannot hold in their hand
To them it is nothing but a waste
What they cannot see or taste
A substitute to life is what is being sought
But what I have found here cannot be taught
To analyze and scrutinize is to look at life apart
Just gaze into her beauty; it is a work of art
To peer so close at slides
Through microscopic eyes
And seek to find her there
In a single lock of her hair
Is a great search in vain
When she hides within rain
But they will never see
Their blind eyes are not free
Far too few have seen
The beauty of the exiled queen
She can be hard to find
So most don't waste their time
I wish there were a way
That I could make her stay
But that is where her beauty lies
She is held down by no ties
All her life I sum in this
To take a gentle kiss
to find her in my eyes
To breathe her gentle sigh
to meet her in the sun
To find her one by one
To smell her in the air
This beauty is so fair

Is There More Than Just An Accident?

Well, this blog post is doubly true to the name; accident. I'll explain as I go along, so just hang with me for the next couple of minutes I have you.

As all (or at least most) of you know, I've been having a lot of GI issues over the last year or so. It's been a real up-hill battle even to get as far as I am now. Just a few weeks ago I got the news that my liver enzyme count was back to normal which was a huge blessing, but it turns out that it will take longer to heal my GI than we thought. I probably have another 6 months left before I can be fully healed, but that all depends on how it goes. Well anyway, my stomach has been hurting me more consistently these past few weeks than it has to any point thus far, so it can be really discouraging at times. But this afternoon at the law office (for my internship) was one of the worst times my stomach has been. I was almost at the point of going in my car and just laying down in the backseat, but it wasn't quite that bad. Needless to say I felt under a lot of attack today, and I think a big part of that is the new song that we wrote and played at open mic night at BG last night (watch here). I know that satan is trying to get me down, but somehow God always turns it around, or is in the process of doing so that I can't see and might never see. I feel that is especially true of what happened tonight.

For some reason I felt that something would happen on my was home from work tonight, so I asked God to get me home. Then I realized that I was turning into the wrong road from the parking lot. So what do I do? I back up. But as I am backing up, I feel a thud and realize that I'm up on the curb and, thinking 'it's just a little curb', continue to back up. Suddenly, there is an even bigger thud, but instead of the car going back down, it goes up. I try to pull forward, but realize that my wheels are just spinning in the air. "What the..(well, you figure it out)" I yelled to myself. I got out of my car and slammed the door shut, only to come around the back and see to my utter horror that I am on top of a two-foot-tall rock. Then, that one rock turns out to be two two-foot-tall rocks. I ran around and jumped back into the car and tried to give it some more gas to get me off, but as I found out later, one of the rocks was locked onto the gas tank (which now has a huge dent in it). I was furious and (being a guy) began to ram into the car, trying to push it off. I somehow managed to get the first rock off, but the other one was underneath the transmission. I sat there and prayed that God would provide for me and surely enough about a minute later two men in business suits came up and started helping me figure out how to get the car loose.

"Do you have a tire jack?" one of the men asked.

"I don't think I do actually" I replied, but went to look and make sure. I didn't. The only way we would be able to do anything was to get a jack. So what do you think happens next. You guessed it, the repair man from the Noteboom office just happened to see us as he was leaving and also just happened to have a jack in his car. We started jacking it up and were making good progress when the jack broke. Joy.

By this time I should have mentioned that my mom was driving to 'pick me up' (no way I told here what happened over the phone) and arrived just as the jack broke. So we got the jack out of the mini-van and continued to jack up the car. Several minutes later (and skipping much of the story) we ended up getting the rock out from under the car. The two business men has left a few minutes before and the repair man was just leaving. We tried to give him money for his help, but he wouldn't take any. I drove home no problem and we're still waiting to take the car into the shop so we can see the extent of the damage.

So that was the first accident, the second one is much less thought of when we say accident, but it happens to us everyday, or so we say. This 'accident' is when you forget to take your little brother with you to your school and have to turn around and get him. Or when you burn your lunch and have to make it again and end up being late to the movie. We call them accidents, but could they really be God's provision? Maybe your being late to class saved you from an accident you would've had. Maybe you would have been mugged in the parking lot if you arrived at the movie early (just go with me on this one). Maybe, after all is said and done, it was God's provision for you. Maybe he needed you to see something. Maybe he was saving your life.

As I drove home this evening, I felt a huge relief on my heart, like God saved me from some major accident the I would have been in; and I truly believe he did. So what most people would call an 'accident', I know was God's provision for my life.

Paycheck (getting paid for your work)

Getting paid, earning your keep, having compensation, all of these ideas have been running through my head over this summer. Why as humans do we always look to be paid for everything we do? I slap myself when I start thinking about how I can get something in return for doing something as small as teaching someone how to play a song on the piano. It is in our blood to want to be repaid for our so called 'charity'. If you think about it, we're really sleazy in that way. If, by that same logic, Jesus had died for us, we would be slaves to his will every waking moment. Why is it against our nature to give out of the sincerity of our hearts? Maybe it is from the transition of that thought from our heart to our head where it becomes selfish and self seeking. Maybe the problem is not that we are evil to the core, but more that our heads want what feels good where our hearts want whatever is pure and just. And maybe, just maybe, when we only think about how we can benefit from a situation or get something from it, we have learned to shut out our hearts from out actions.