A Septet on the Father of Lights

I'm all steadfast shadows,
Double-minded, turning where my doubt blows.
Bent as I've been on turning,
Your tender heart is yearning
With an endless morn of One
Never setting Sun.
     I awake, and I am still with You.

7 My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. (Hosea 11:7-8)

40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. (Jeremiah 32:40-41)

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 
18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:5-8, 16-18)

Good Friday

I drove by a lake cloaked in fog and imagined a man drowned there. Sometimes doubt cloaks my mind, far heavier than fog, thoughts that You're a miser, a sadist, a tyrant. I like to pick my scabs to the irrational scarring of my skin, blood under my fingernails, bitten low. Perhaps it's the control. Sometimes the sight of my own blood makes me woozy, like the thought of drawing it out with a piercing needle. Maybe that's control too. I want control and I want freedom and the two are like oil and water.

There was a heavy weight on Your shoulders, far heavier than I know. Did it feel like You were drowning when You hung there so, pushing Yourself up, scraping Your raw back against the wood, struggling for a gasp of air, for life, His smile? I will never know it, never bear it. What was it like for you, a free bird, to be bound? As the blood flowed out and Your heart beat frantic, did water gather around Your heart in sacs full and ready to burst? You were thirsty.

On my way home that day it started to rain, the heavy spring way. It was Good Friday. This day, Father, You did not spare Your Son. This day blood rained down from Your forehead and into Your dearest eyes, and there was no one to wipe them for You. This day life poured out of You. This day, like the water and blood that ran freely from Your pierced side, the floodgates of free love ran pure and clean and just, clean wetness running, rushing, as a river from Your open side. This day You spared nothing. This day You gave everything. This day You purchased my freedom; I'm no longer under law but under grace. This day the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This day is for freedom, for knowledge, for nearness. Keep me in this freedom of knowing; to know You is eternal life.

On a River in a Valley

Morn after morn

the sun comes blood red
over the mount

to the Valley of Trouble,

Muddy and turbid.

Lamb after lamb -

You break its neck, and it breaks your knees

to stand in the land with your hands

Covered in blood of the innocent dead.

The acid stains eat at your peace,

Feast at your peace with God,

and burn up your skin

into festering sores.

What hope is there

for the leprous soul,

the adulterous soul,

the traitor of God?

“Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

The blood of the Son flows in rivers of red,

as He drowns in the wrath of God.

His heart is spilling,

Dousing the sinning in

Cleansing blood.

“I AM WILLING!”

He rises and

the Valley of Achor

is a door of Hope.

When Beauty Swallows

i stir a pot of orange and cloves
boiling rapidly up on the stove,
a steady, anxious heartbeat.
while spices dissolve, wet warmth rises to meet
the air as dry as my cold and cracked elbows.
a Rose unfurls in a vase on the window, 
and as winter melts in surrender to Spring
May i wither into You.

"I Am Who I Am"

You are holy.
You are happy.
You are God.
You are wise.
You are strong.
You are just.
You are jealous.
You are righteous.
You are gracious.
God. Gracious.
You are clean.
You are pure.
You're...beautiful.
You are sure.
You're...beautiful.
You are good.
God. Good.
You are lavish.
You are Love.
You are All.
You are for me.
You are worthy.
You are true.
You are You
And mine.
Shine. Eclipse.
Drown me in this.

Zephaniah and an Unexpected Song

     We grow up performing, and we want to be safe and shameless. Though we don't trust Him or seek Him, we, like tired virgins, lie to ourselves, ignoring the judgment we know we deserve, the judgment that is coming upon all men (3:1-2, 1:12). Because of the very nature of performance, a fake, outward layer of “goodness” keeps us from the joy of being fully known and totally loved. He weeps and wants us to come close to Him, but so often we reject an offer so precious. His jealousy burns and will bring a just holocaust, a fiery jealousy and flaming wrath that will consume the whole earth (1:17-18, 2:1-2). Like self-righteous Judah, we may think we'll escape His wrath and that our false hopes will give us good, but such people will stand with the Pharisees, estranged and outside of His sacred camp forever, unclean.

      Our idols cannot save us. He will “famish all the gods of the earth” and they will bow before Him (2:11). Will those whom He will famish satiate our hunger? In a delusive security, we have shamelessly exulted in ourselves and the gods we have made and said in our hearts, “I am, and there is no one else.” How dare I. How dare you. How dare we.

      The I Am who is Everything will not let us mock Him with a crown of thorns forever. He will pour out His indignation, all His burning anger, and consume the whole earth in the fire of His jealousy (3:8).

      And then He will sing, over me, over you, over us. He will save, drawing the lame to Himself, humbling the “proudly exultant ones,” and putting a song of joy in the souls of the needy, for while we were still sinners Christ died for us (3:11-20, Rom. 5:8). What we truly need is safety from His wrath and whole nearness to Him. Sinners who come to Christ are safe, secure, cared for, known and unashamed. The LORD, the I Am, takes away all of the judgment against us by placing it on the back of His precious Son, and in Jesus our Hope is secure. So much more than our defeated gods, our Jesus can save and He does save. He is with us, knowing yet loving, knowing and loving, singing an unexpected song of pleasure in His children. His voice must be so strong and so tender, so fierce and so pure, so full and so golden. In open Calvaried arms of immovable love, we are quiet and at peace. His "heart is a song that our Jesus sings."*

*from Showbread's "Sing Me to Sleep"

A Little Poem

The weeds,
the hollow macaron shells are
worthless objects of a massive mercy,
a Waterfall of Mercy,
a Rage and Rush over the needy.
Fill me.