Between Me and the Void

My faith has kept me every day
Especially these past two years
If not for it
There would not be
any words
for you to read.

In the darkness
there you find
the light shines brightest–
brighter than you have ever seen
It is this brightness
That I claw towards,
on my broken knees.

People have failed me
Left and right
and I,
to my shame,
have failed them at least as much.
But one thing has remained
true
and that is my faith.

I have betrayed my faith
It has never betrayed me.
I have failed what it represents
It has never failed me.
I have seen many fall and betray
and yet
the faith is strong.

Edwards spoke of the fires of hell
and being suspended by a spider’s web
they say he read his sermons
from the page.
They say he was not
an orator.
I imagine him
walking to the front,
to the pulpit,
placing his sermon on the wood
looking up at the congregation
and then looking down
and then he starts,
to read.

It is said that people ran
screaming and crying
out of the church.
How many have any realization of peril
in this day?

It was handed down by trustworthy men
And so I did receive it.
Let me again embrace my love
and never forsake what keeps me.

In Our Veins

Oh on holy night we bend
Taking knees to show our hand
Blessed saviour without end
Give us strength that we might stand.

Never have we found our fears
Waxing quite as strong as this
Change our hearts with many tears
And lead us to eternal bliss.

Three in one that mystery
Haunts me as I search for you
Take my blindness make me see
Show me now just what is true.

In This Night

Oh on sacred day we wait
Blasted from the raging storms
Lit with fires not our own
The lighthouse flares to save and warn.

Listing to the day
While fearing all the night
Waiting for the line
Hoping it is right.

On our knees in prayer we go
All the ancients at our backs
Lifting up our voices singing
As we bear the wave’s attacks.

Imagined

When I microwaved the left over
day old
coffee,
I didn’t expect
that great surprise
the grounds.

What makes good of bad gone worse?
I’d really like to know
I’d like to bottle it all up,
and give it to the world.

If disgusting worn out coffee
could be turned to joy
imagine what
a man could do
with abuse.

If foul taste could be made sweet
and given as gift with love
think of what
a girl could do
with hunger.

I know not
how the world goes,
how God spins it
out in space,
but all the dreams
that died today
should still find a place.

Winding

Running in the heat and light
With all lost kisses thrown from high
Basking in the anteroom
Where the earth meets holy sky.

Starts are harder than you think
Sometimes harder than the road
But on we go love’s blessed path
Winding on to home.

The Walking

I don’t know the way to find
things lost long in tattered past
thinking, searching, in my mind
I lose myself sometimes so fast.

If when all the victors flee
and all the vanquished find their home
Perhaps we will begin to see
and find our place, no more to roam.

But pilgrims walk for many miles
And on a sojourn find their way
but they are not at home with wiles
That people use to make them stay.

And so I walk on down the road
Leaving many once again
And I know I need the goad
Sometimes to start on towards the end.

Fear.

Fear is like an ice-cold spike
that shoots strait to your heart
And when it reaches into you
Everything wants to stop.

Stop.

But the spinning world and your spinning head
don’t care much for how you feel
And then the test is on
And watch how you will reel.

In The Midst

Do I desire to be free
Really free inside my soul?
Or do I simply want to be
Want to be at ease?

If I found the way up through,
would I make it to the top?
Or would the path prove far too hard
and leave me stuck up high?

There is a rainbow up ahead
And I will find what’s at the end
but it might not be quite just what
what I think it is…

Witness

A blind man
a man from Nigeria
Stayed in my house when i was a child
Just for a few months.

He always asked me to pray
He was a pastor
He may have been
the happiest man
I ever met.

He taught me to sing a song
Perhaps you know it…?
It goes like this:

“I found a new life.
I found a new life.
If anyone asks me,
what’s a matter with you my friend?
I’ll say I’m saved,
sanctified,
Holy-Ghost-filled,
Water baptized,
Jesus is mine,
Heavenly bound,
I found a new life.”

We would sing this song
on repeat
clapping-
sometimes off beat,
very,
very,
Loudly.

He would laugh when it was over
He would clasp my hand
and hug me like a bear
it made me
uncomfortable
at first.

Now I think back
and remember
my blind nigerian friend
and his joy.

Best witness ever.