Life

After All

Can’t stop thinking about her
Before anyone gets excited
Let’s be honest
I am not a fan of obsession
It’s hard to distinguish from devotion
And the night
and day
and night
and day
seems more frustrating than anything
But maybe there is a reason
(did I mention she gets on my nerves?)
Maybe it is an opportunity
to go beyond
the things I want
because after all
life isn’t all about me.

Deciding For Love

Free to choose
Like a slave in chains
Choose anything you can
And while the demons laugh and taunt
A fire burns inside.

Trees put down
Right there to see
Freedom must be worth a lot
And as the serpent weaves his lies
They mostly hold to truth
But a small thing turns water into coffee
And medicine into poison.

I chose wrong a thousand times
And the blows that followed have left me dumb
Except that I am writing this
But don’t know what to say.

I have never quite believed
Just how big a choice could be
And how could it still matter so?
And why is choosing ever here?

Yet for Freedom are we set free
And yet elusive may it seem
But wanting to make sense of it
Is part of who He made me be.

As I Look up Further Still

Patient now I must abide
And trust in Him who formed her world
And look to love on every side
And give less thought to death.

But as I do spend time in pain
(for I know I’m born to it)
The love that rests in ancient words
I pray would live in life.

Gently go to harshest plain
The place where such forgiveness lies
The road to peace is blood-fought hard
Let my world be made.

The Strangest Place I Have Ever Been

I have traveled across the sea
To foreign lands with strange hard tongues
And been a stranger there to see
But this is stranger still by far.

I have climbed so high to see
If maybe on the tops of peaks
There was a way to simply be
But this is stranger still by far.

I have served a loyal dog
Jumped to answer every call
I wore that green in every fog
But this is stranger still by far.

I have studied till my eyes went cross
And read the stacks as if on fire
Searching for an answer lost
But this is stranger still by far.

I have been in love with all my heart
And kissed the fairest maiden found
Enthralled I was by beauty’s mark
But this is stranger still by far.

I have lost most precious everything
And felt the depths of cold despair
And searched half crazy for that ring
But this is stranger still by far.

I’ve almost died so many times
I could not even feign to count
And on the edge of ghostly climes
But this is stranger still by far.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
And here I come at last
How might I begin to see
To love myself at all.