We are titans powerful and ill treated
By the gods. Defeated and made responsible For bearing the weight of the sky In its entirety. Sufferers preventing Heaven unrelenting from crushing our Dear wretched earth. How great how great Is our burden. And how harshly bestowed. We are titans! We claim and we boast Until our petty pride does our selves erode. Our self-importance will smother us all, For none will turn to see another straining, None will consider another's task more Degrading than his own, no, we are a world of Self-made Atlases. Too nearsighted to notice The Gorgon's eyes before us, and now Our hearts are turned to stone. Mountains We have become, still bearing this cosmic Weight. Then comes an invitation to move And the truthful Word spoken in love Releases our mountain hearts to crumble So we fumble and the world does not tumble Into oblivion because the burden our shoulders Could not bolster, though self-constructed, Has been made silent and we are instructed To take a lighter yoke. How strange that we are Not the cause and end of things and yet the Cause invites us to be grafted into the means. Oh that screaming loss
Of hearts like these trapped And holding stubbornly to malice Of hearts like these unwilling And afraid of mercy Oh Father, oh Spirit, contend with me Reach through their hate Unmask their false way of thinking Destroy their self-righteous idols Oh Father, let them hear you Oh that screaming loss Of these hearts dulled and cracked As these stones they wield and clutch As their bent sense of justice All shame and unforgiving Oh Father, I will move as you lead Will stoop to touch this earth Will show them your just mercy Will speak only your words Oh Father, break their hearts for your worth Oh that steady tumbling hope Of hearts who have caught a glimpse of grace Of hearts who may yet believe Who have for a moment loosened their vice Grip on self-justification to wonder Oh Father, the time is now and coming For your kingdom to be released For your people to be redeemed For your Son to be revealed for your glory Oh Father, oh Spirit, come and breathe truth Here perches Precarious,
On the edge of things, At the near-torn seam, Weighing faith, weighing doubt. Oh Precarious, Both here and there, Determined in detachment, Yet willing to embrace the extremes. Dear Precarious, Take the full tilt and tumble Into the depths of unknown splendor, Fall humbled and bare into the song. They must have known
These teachers of the law Righteous men like a serpent Patient, widening its jaw To swallow me in shame To fracture every bone They must have known They cast me like a snare To catch some madman Galilean Righteous men and their zealous mob Desperate, toting me the unclean To coax him to blood To falsify his care They cast me like a snare They left us there unbroken These Pharisees made to hush Righteous men too well answered Stunned, concealing their blush To set another trap To consider the answer spoken They left us there unbroken Such things he says
Unfathomable, unearthly things And his metaphors are lost on me From where they come and to where they go I do not pretend to know And yet eye to eye one evening His reproof feels more like healing And there is life in his words. Such times he chooses Unfashionable, unexpected times And his methods are a shock to me For dead men he wakes to living and of bread He speaks always of giving And yet eating of him and drinking Yes it is a hard teaching But there is peace in his hands. So when she is thrust before him Unkempt, unclean woman And he stoops low to touch the dirt While the Pharisees incite their soldiers His just response cuts their blood-kill hunger And then he stoops and writes again She stands there uncondemned And there is grace in his heart. |
AuthorI write to process. I write to explore. I write with the hope of sharing truth greater than my own. Archives
February 2022
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