Interlude

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The Tristan Chord of our lives
In tremulous tension

Craving,
Reaching,

 Longing for resolution,

Rest

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"For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come."

-Habakkuk 2:3

Bathwater

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Religion is the ultimate counterfeit of God

 Seemingly innocuous

Sometimes attractive

But always a Trap

Selling the tasty treat of Belonging

Which our Souls so crave

Which is meant to be found in God

Not rituals and regulations

It is a sideline

A deadly detour

Derailing us

Distracting us

From

Deity

Well meaning atheists

and waylayed agnostics

were right to reject 

this ersatz nonsense,

In their intelligence they saw it

for what it was

Failing only to compartmentalize

the counterfeit from the Creator

Thus the Baby

Born in the manger

Got thrown out

with the 

Bathwater

Leaving
Otherwise
Wise men
Defrauded

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Counterfeit--made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud.

One Thing

+

See me

 Scraping and clawing at your word 

Trying desperately to find the metaphor 

Which makes sense 

of my existence...

 My failings,

 My agonizing misses

 My utter lack of character

 My Self 

It is here

 In the middle of this crazed kerfuffle

And not in some pious white washed prayer time

You meet me

You gently take my chin

You reel my gaze back in to meet Yours

And to look

Instead

For You

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"One thing is needed..."

Luke 42:10, 12

Prisoner's Paradox

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We write

Like Paul

Out of our own imprisonment

Which 

In the end

Is what makes others

Free

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"The spirit of the Lord is upon me...to proclaim freedom to the captives."

-Luke 4:18

Saved

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I am the woman at the well

I am Mary

 I am the one caught red-handed, 

The Pharisee in me poised with stones,

Saved by Grace alone 

By The God Who Sees

 And loves anyway

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"I have loved you with an everlasting love."

-Jeremiah 31:3

Gambler

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We all play our cards

As best we can

All we're made up of,

For better and worse,

Informing each move

We sometimes play cards we desperately wish we hadn't

We despair at the cards

We did not play instead

Our hindsight a merciless taskmaster

Keeping us fettered to the futility of regret

It is not a new hand we need

 or even a new game,

But faith in The Dealer Who still holds an ace up His sleeve 

Faith in the fact,

 that when all is said and done,

 It is His hand which will play out,

His hand, which so tenderly holds us,

which also holds all the cards

And in the end,

Wins.

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega

The beginning and the end,

The first and the last,

I am He."

Revelation 22:13

Third Day

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A pensive stillness

As the crowds

Which had dissipated

Stopped

And

Turned...

... There was movement

They saw it

Unmistakable

The body thought dead

Was Alive

What was that?

Another movement

A Breath

They were sure if it

The dead was being raised,

Back to Life

The Breath Giver

Held her in His Arms

Resuscitating

Reanimating

Determined in His Purpose...

...She 

Would

 Live...

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"I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not evil, to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

-Jeremiah 29:11

Wings 101

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The wisdom of winged things

Their flight

Their smallness

Their delicate strength

Their Simplicity in the Scheme of Things

No wonder His eye is on the sparrow...

...We would do well to follow His lead...

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Matthew 10:29

Jonah's Prayer

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Caught between

Sun

and

Storm

This pause

This middle

This nothing

Throw me overboard

Off this ship

Swallow me

Swim me

Spit me

Out

Onto the Shore

Of forty second

Second Chances

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Hosea 2:15

Second Day

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The crowd had dissipated

With the disciples hopes

Thousands of had-been believers

Up in smoke

The overflowing stadium emptied

The over-rated throngs withdrew

The jig was up

Game Over...

... Thus Began

The eternal three days,

As most Real stories do,

In Ashes

And in the Still Small Voice of the second day,

In that comparative silence,

Destiny had been decided

Despite appearances

For Beauty was brewing

About to bloom and burst forth

Unbeknownst to any

Unwitnessed by any

Save one...

... The Summit of Time

The Sublime Moment

Would not be seen by millions

But by Mary,

A hooker turned fisher of men

(Gotta love God's sense of irony,

Redemption in a nutshell right there)

God would wait

Till the masses had melted away

To whisper His secret to one

No fanfare

No pretense

(Truth needs not these fineries)

But in an atmosphere of

Utter Anticlimax

And the anonymity of the grave,

The stone would roll away....

Just because the crowd is gone,

The lights are turned off,

The door is locked

-tell-tale signs of the second day-

Don't suppose the show is over...

...It may not even have begun.

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"My ways are higher than your ways,

My thoughts are higher than your thoughts...

Though the vision tarries, wait for it, it will surely come...

For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not evil, to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

-Isaiah 55:9, Habakkuk 2:3, Jeremiah 29:11

Lovely wings...

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I have flown so far

God's wings have flown farther still

Watching over me...

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"I have loved you with an everlasting love"

-Jeremiah 31:3

Haiku

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This Becoming is

itself in the end, indeed,

will be, Homecoming

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Birth

*

Again and Again

We are born,

In one life

We live Many

But A Thread holds together

And runs through

The Whole

As fragmented 

And disconnected

As the Pieces may seem,

In the end

We shall see

They fit together,

They have always fit together

Beautifully

*

"God gave us the gift of life,

It is up to us to give ourselves the gift of Living Well."

-Voltaire

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Outpost

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We are

 breadcrumbs

 white blazes

 beacons

 He has placed 

on this planet,

throughout the path,

 plotting out the way 

to The Way 

Himself

 We are Found for the Lost 

Lights in the window 

We are outposts of the Kingdom of Heaven

 for Travelers

 who feel themselves to be

 so very

 far

 from

 Home

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"Behold I tell you, the Kingdom of Heaven is within you and among you"

~Luke 17:21

His eye is on the sparrow...

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Incarnation

~*

It's a sort of reincarnation,

 New Years Eve,

The ritual reset,

A time to rebuild

Having shot our wad

 We penniless paupers 

Come to find our empty pockets

Met by Heaven's Hand

Outstretched

 With the offer 

To Begin Again,

Again

Where our Gideon Hearts faltered

Audacious Grace is given

Where we went left instead of Right

The Way Himself makes a way

Where our bargaining for bad fruit

Betrayed our entire garden

Gethsemane's bloody tears are remembered 

Golgotha is once again brought to bear

Sin, thus silenced,

Is made to stand down, 

And we are rendered 

The chance to stand

This remittance

This rebirth

 This "reincarnation"

Is gifted to us

Lavishly,

Lovingly

By Incarnation

Himself

~*

"I AM The Resurrection and The Life!"

-John 11:25

Gift

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Graced by this gander

Welcome winged harbingers

Warming winter hearts

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Reflections

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For now

That is what we have

We are moons

Reflecting The Light 

of Faraway Day

Into fellow travelers' night...

All of us longing

For Home

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"Deep darkness will cover the people, but The LORD will rise upon you, His Glory will be seen upon you; The people will come to your light,

and Kings to the brightness of your rising..."

-Isaiah 60:1-3

Hope

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With David

I Rise

From the dead child's side

I put aside pleas for what is past,

Fix my eyes forward,

And Wait 

For Solomon

To be born...

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"For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the shoots of it will not cease nor will they fail."

-Job 14:7

Believe

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You can close the blinds

Pull the curtains

Seal off every crack and crevice

Disallowing the Light

You can hunker down in this darkness

Impenetrable

Unperturbed

Insisting "There is no Sun!"

Asserting disbelief in its existence

"How can I," you cry, "believe in a Sun

Which burns

Which causes pain

Which dries up entire deserts

Which hides when warmth is needed most

Whose rising impels me to work

Whose setting allows such Night in my life

When I'm desperate for 

and despairing of the Day?"

You can hold tightly

With the tenacious grip of a toddler

To your defiance of a Deity you don't understand

You can get colder and colder

Wrapped in the blanket of your disbelief

Of your denial

Eschewing any possible Good

Benighted by what you see only as bad

Or

You can risk removal

Of your limited lens

Let your finite perspective

Be peeled away

Accept your smallness in the scheme of Things

Your blindness to The Big Picture

Allow the pain through which you peer

Which has muddied your view

Exposure to Heaven's Orb

Which seems to have wounded you

Which is your only hope for healing

The Sun goes on shining

Whether we believe in it or not

Giving Life

To the most massive of planets

The tiniest of mustard seeds

Indifferent to none

Despite what you thought

His Eye is on the solar system

And the sparrow alike

Nothing goes unnoticed,

Escapes His gaze,

Eludes His Love...

In your most honest moments

The ones no one else sees

When the superfluous is swept away

And all that's left is your most primal knowing

You Do Believe in God

You just don't believe that He is Love

or if you do believe that He is Love

You don't believe He loves You

And the pain of such an errant belief

Is too much to bear

So you choose

Instead

The anesthetic of Unbelief

At war within yourself

This belief and unbelief colliding

In which state Peace is an impossibility

Let It Go

Risk the pain

Feel the fear

But allow also for the possibility of Love

Know simply that you do not know

That even, perhaps, you cannot know

Herein lies the key:

You Do Not Have To Know

Only Believe

What you Deep Down Believe

Let in the Light

And all that comes with it

The "Good"

The "Bad"

The Pain

The Healing

Open the blinds

Choose to see

The Sun is shining

Love Is waiting...

Believe

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"Come, and let us return to the LORD;

For He has torn, but He will heal us;

He has stricken, but He will bind us up...

His going forth is established as the dawn,

He will come to us like healing rain to the earth."

-Hosea 6:1-3

Treasure

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The treasure I hold

In this earthen vessel

With riches to vast to be told...

... And "Once upon a time" you had eyes to see,

And "Once upon a time" I had eyes to see...

But there is One

Who calls to me

As though from a far off dream

His eyes scan the horizon 

Of a world I am a stranger in

Searching

For

Me...

The paradox of searching and being searched for

Will one day become finding and being found

... Home Again

Treasured

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Esau's Tears

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I feel myself to be

among the Damned 

once blessed

now consigned

to live with my choice

my damned

and damning

free will 

But that which is consigned

can it not be bought again?

Put back into the circulation 

of the Living?

How many times did Hosea's hand 

Redeem 

one so far gone 

not even repentant

strange that she was saved 

(may it be said of me 

and may I not cry 

the unanswered tears of Esau 

as he stared at the bottom of his empty bowl

his Birthright 

but a memory)

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Ashes

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When all you have left

To offer

Is Ashes

Offer them to The One

Who parlays ashes

Into Amazing Grace

Who brings the Phoenix

Out of the fire

Who In The Beginning

Set the precedent,

Breathing Deity into Dust,

Blowing Dead Bones

Into a Divine Battalion

Man's equity

Allows only

For Ashes to Ashes

Dust to Dust

But God Mercifully turns that math on its ear

Exchanging for our prodigal hearts

Every precious thing in His possession,

All of His Household

With All of His Heart

So Go Ahead,

Lay your ashes on the altar

And see Divine Alchemy

alter Everything

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"I AM the Resurrection and the Life"

- John 11:25

Bang?

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The Mystery

Hidden in the hush of Things

Not a Big Bang

But A Still Small Voice

A Let There Be

A Whisper...

If you're quiet

You can hear it

The Secret

of

Everything

+

"In The Beginning

was The Word"

-Genesis 1:1

Checkmate

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No choice we make

Can checkmate God

We sometimes check

but never checkmate

We are three year olds playing

With The GrandMaster

Who is Always twenty moves ahead

Who knows The End from The Beginning

Who is the Alpha

And Also

The Omega

The Hands which even death could not hold

Will not be tied by our folly

Our failures do not dictate our future

The Author and Finisher will have

The Final Word,

And in The End

It is not our lapses,

Our laughable loyalty,

Our less than admirable actions,

But Love Himself,

Which will

Checkmate.

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"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

-Jeremiah 29:11

Eden's Eclipse

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Astounding how one apple

obscured an entire garden

Like how a little moon,

momentarily,

blocked out an entire sun

Our enemy's tactics remain the same:

He doesn't have to eradicate our Edens,

He simply has to fix our focus 

on one piece of bad fruit.

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"Let us lay aside every weight, 

and that which so easily and cleverly entangles us...

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith..."

-Hebrews 12: 1, 2

Dark II

"He made darkness His secret hiding place

His canopy around Him was dark waters,

and thick clouds of the skies."

-Psalm 18:11

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We have a God

Who does not wait

For us to grope our way out of the blackness

Toward some state of elusive "Enlightenment"

Before He deigns

to commune with us...

...No, we have a God

Who, from The Beginning,

Got His Hands dirty,

Forming us from dust...

Who, when we bed down in hell

lays down beside us...

Who, descended to The Pit 

And faced down Death

Unwilling to let go of even the Lowest of the Low...

We have a God

Whose Love goes as deep as our deepest darkness

Who is Light

Yet chooses this darkness as a dwelling place

Because He knew that's where we'd be hiding...

Because He knew

That's precisely

Where we'd need

To Find Him

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"If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me'

Even the night shall be light about me;

Indeed, the darkness shall Not hide from You,

But the night shines as the day;

The darkness and the light are both alike to You."

-Psalm 139:11, 12

To Matter or Not To Matter.....

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The Great Gift

Given Every Human Being

is

Choice

Contrary to what the Talking Heads Du Jour

are doling out,

Peddling from their pie holes these days,

Our lives do not Matter

just because we were pooped out onto the planet;

Mankind has been presented

with the Extraordinary Privilege

of Making our Lives Matter...

...Or Not.

To accept the welfare checks of self-esteem

being written out wholesale,

paid to the order of "Whosoever Will"

from a bank account woefully in the red and desperately overdrawn

Is to abdicate our God Given Freedom

of Earning

and Owning

How we Matter to Mankind,

Is to indulge in unpareleled naivete and ineptitude,

being conned with cubic zirconias

out of the Diamond of our Dignity.

To buy in to vacuous verbiage is to Sell-out,

Is to willfully choose Slavery

to the Fickle and Groundless

And Very Changeable

Dictums of the Day.

In the end, it will be a jury of our peers

Which reviews the resume we leave behind,

Wherein our value to humanity is determined:

Whether or not our lives benefited our fellow-man in any way

Whether our lives made other lives better

Whether our lives

Did indeed

Matter...

...or Not.

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"This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you, that I have placed before you this day, Life or Death, Blessing or Curses;

Now therefore Choose Life, that you and your descendants may live."

-Deuteronomy 30:19

Emergence

+

Like a Genie in a lamp

An Oak tree in an acorn

A Message in a bottle

I am all of these

Although

To be clear,

He is the Genie

The Oak tree

The Message...

I am only the lamp

the acorn

the bottle,

Rubbed raw

Buried

Broken

So that He may

In the end

Emerge

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"He died for all, so that all those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for their sake."

-2 Corinthians 5:15