The Watcher

There I am, watching
Set us free, emancipate us
And we will burn away
Like forest fire

Our smoke will rise to sky
Like unanswered prayers
Ascending, dissipating
Forgotten.

All that will be left
Is our truest nature
Laid bare like fresh wounds
Ready to be healed.

Ember

When you found me, I was merely an ember

The memory of a raging fire

You picked me up

and breathed on me

and spoke to me

With a tiny breath of the living spirit.

And quietly we walked

through dimly lit trees

sustaining me with your insufflation

In the expanse,

you lay me down with the forest dreg

And I feast upon it

You embolden me with a gust of that living spirit

to become the furious pyre of my genesis

You return me to myself

And I am free

What We Do

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

Truly, they did not.

Until we shine a light on ourselves,

we know not what we do.

Endlessly we recreate the past

and bring it to our future.

We refuse to question our very thoughts

as if they are God himself speaking.

We like the whispers that we hear.

They validate our shadow.

"I told you you were right"

"They did it on purpose"

"Are you going to let them 

talk to you like that?"

On and on it whispers to you.

Driving chasms between you and the world.

Forgive us, father.

We know not what we do.

Would You Pray?

Would you still pray?

If God was black?

If he did not fit into the mirror you love talking to.

Maybe, when I try to see you,

I look through a hole in a piece of paper

attempting to see the shadow of your eclipse.

I dress you up in clothes like mine

and adorn you with my ideas

of who you are

and should be.

It makes me impregnable to the world.

Impervious to fear...

And to the truth.

Descent

I implore you,
descend into the darkness.
There you will find yourself
and other phantoms like you.

Let it cover you
like cold, rushing water
and you will be washed clean
by your surrender.

A Harbinger

I am the fire
Blazing in the night.
I scorch away the old,
A harbinger of new life.

There is no love for me.
Only for the beauty that sprouts forth
Many years later,
When I am forgotten.

Forever I am Yours

Sometimes I wonder if you were real.

Perhaps you were a spirit who crossed paths with me 

as you danced through different dimensions.

Or maybe you were just a dream,

A vague shadow that dissipates as I wake.

And so

The only thing I can say is

thank you.

Sometimes we cross paths for some simple reason. 

To serve a small purpose for a sliver of time.

To be the dot of an “i” for another’s opus.

In that splinter

You became an anchor.

A solid rock foundation.

A reminder that I am not alone. 

You were better than me and yet

You humbled yourself.

You took part in my suffering

Like god incarnate.

In flesh, we cannot coincide.

But you will always be mine.

And forever I am yours.

God Speaks

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, I 59

Solitude

I have scorched the sun
and let darkness take hold
so that I can neither see
nor be seen.

Speak

We come of age as masks.
Our true face never speaks.

-Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke's Book of Hours

For This Love

From the divine will we could not be farther;
Better off in the fate of star crossed lovers.
For this love, I willingly become a martyr.

What Is Near You Is Far

"For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large."

- Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

Be Still

In the midst of these fires, these storms, you are with us.

Despite the darkness I have let take hold, you bring light.

You are the stillness amongst this chaos.


"He says, 'Be still, and know that I am God;    I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

Paupers

"Blessed are the poor in spirit..." This is the first principle in the kingdom of heaven.
-Oswald Chambers

The most essential aspect of Christ aside from his divinity, is his humility.

Mindful

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
- Psalm 8:3-4 

I can't even grasp how good you are,
Nor fathom your mercy.
That you are mindful of a sinner like me is beyond apprehension.

Thank you.

Paradox

Some days, I go to dark places and set a light for those who will go later.

Some days, I feel the deepest pain so I can share hope with those who will follow.

I am seen as mad.
But insanity lies in the facades of men.

There is life only in humility.
Freedom only in submission.

That beautiful paradox.

Counting The Cost

"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Salvation cost God everything. Discipleship will cost us everything.


"Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it."

-Matthew 7:13-14

Kosmos

How I struggle daily to renounce the things of this world.
How reluctant I am to pick up my cross and follow him.
His heart must break.

"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him... And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."

1 John 2:15, 17

Moving Backwards

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

-Matthew 18: 2-4

Father, make us like little children.

Pain

We must not let pain give way to cynicism, but let it deepen our love for those in suffering.

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you should also love one another. By this all shall know that you are My disciples, if you have love toward one another."
John 13:34-35

May we partake in the suffering of our oppressed brothers and sisters.