Love

Everything I've read and seen and heard in my short time on earth has molded and shaped my image of what Love is. I can't pin it all down yet though, and perhaps that's what I know best.

Love is more than we estimate it to be, however much that may be.
Love is the awesome desire to be awesomely desired.
Love is a choice, which allows for a feeling, which necessitates change.
Love does not exist until it is given, hoarded love is a misnomer.
Love is the engine that propels forgiveness. 
Love is affection that becomes habit.
Love can break and mend with equal skill.
Love without sacrifice is simply desire. Sacrifice is the completion of love's first desire.
Love keeps no record of wrongs, does not envy, does not boast.
Love always is most complete when it celebrates and accompanies truth. 
Love that is not returned is the only thing as painful as love returned is wonderful.
Love that does not change lives must be examined to see if it's there at all. 
Love is most perfectly manifested in God's gifts of life and his Son.
Love's greatest threat is the acidity of sin and the erosion it can cause with time.
Love is not found in those who are arrogant about knowing its names.
Love remembers what no one would blame forgetting. 
Love is more than romance but each is most desirable when it is with the other.
Love is a metaphor's first half and second. 
Love frees through the choice to be bound.

I know more, but my deepest inclination is that I know much less. So to reconcile these two truths I shall simply cease to quantify that which is necessarily boundless.

What I Know

I know the profound silence of fresh snowfall,
Why records skip when you stack them wrong,
That those with pride are quick to fall,
And it's hard to write a good folk song.

I know the peace in turning pages,
The words of Paul make me want to preach,
That a simple word can last for ages,
And that good verbing is hard to teach.

I know how to break a zone press,
What it smells like in the forest when it rains,
That it sometimes matters how you dress,
And ice is good for aches and pains.

I know what it's like to break a heart,
And what it's like to have mine broken,
it hurts to have your dreams ripped apart
by the first person to whom you've spoken.

I know a good movie when I see one, 
That any movie's better with a hand to hold,
Why earth stays close against the sun,
And that wisdom flows from words of old. 

I know know long days,
Short nights,
Old ways,
City lights.

Where Two Rivers Meet

Past the far side of town, over a hill that no one climbs and behind the fences no one jumps is a sight that no one sees. Sidled amid the cracks of the foothills is a place where two rivers meet, a place where east and west reconcile to head north. All around are trees fed by the rivers' conference, bringing spring's leafy green and autumn's fire to the green and rolling hills that surround the place. Although secluded, there may be seen the remnants of brief visitors to this small wonder of topography. A blanket sits beneath an oak that bears the initials of those who once sat beneath its boughs, a polaroid picture of an embarrassed girlfriend reaching out to grab the camera, and a worn-in set of parallel paths just far enough apart for two to join hands and stroll to the water's edge. In fact, the whole scene seems as though it was once the stage of a real and enduring love - you can feel it in the way the wind lingers in the clearing and gently tosses the leaves of the lovers' tree. If you follow the paths you'll find that as they near the water they merge into one, slightly wider than either but narrower than their sum. The path ends directly between the currents from east and west, but where one might expect a flurry of colliding force there is just a glass-smooth gentle twist. The surface of the water looks as though it might burst if penetrated, its glistening surface writhing like a water balloon stretched over a spigot. You can sit in this spot and listen to the roar of whitewater on your right and on your left and in front of you, and you get the eery feeling that your presence there wasn't your own decision but that of the mighty rivers. The waters from east and west meet and swirl before in placid union they sweep on to the North, like two restless hearts finding peace and direction only when they've collided. To leave this place is no easy thing, it calls to those who are an east without a west and have yet to find north, to those who have forgotten how rare a thing it is to find peace, to those who love the sound of a river or two.

The Road

I stand where two roads head off from one
Both drenched in shadow, 
While I'm splashed with sun.

I sit and wait for an answer to come
From left or right or back behind,
Which to be to, which to be from.

I accost the sky, I put out a fleece,
And all the while I sit here at the fork in the road,
Waiting for heaven to sign my release. 

But soon this summer turns to fall,
With winter's chill not far behind
And still I have not heard the call.

In deepest chill my mind is racing,
My shoes worn down
By left and right pacing.

Now resolute, my mind's made up
And down one path I tread, knowing full well if it's wrong
How empty will be my cup.

But soon I find the paths collide
Not an hours walk down the road
And I feel a fool for waiting now, waiting to choose a side.

Don't wait for God to negate faith,
He only asks that you love and act
And trust Him with your fate.

Allegory

He approached the door. Its frosted glass read simply "Perfection." He had been instructed to clean the room, to empty it completely so that new equipment might be moved in. A simple enough task, he thought. He was motivated to finish the task quickly, as he had been told the boss would invite the best workers to his private getaway in the hills. He could just let the boss take care of it--he'd offered to do so on several occasions--but he didn't want to risk his spot at the retreat by depending on someone he'd never met to clean the room. So he cracked open the door, and as it groaned with the weight of his push he remembered all the times he had passed this room and never bothered to enter. The air inside seemed awakened from a deep sleep, like he was the first intruder for many years. In the dim light he struggled to make out the contents of the room. He flicked the switch, but the old halogen bulbs struggled to produce light. Nevertheless, he started into the room and was soon greeted with the foul stench of manure. In fact, in the dim light he could make out a whole pile of it. So he wrapped his shirt around his mouth and nose to shield himself from the stench and began to shovel it into a wagon and wheel it out. Load after load he removed from the room, until in the still dim light it looked as though the room was empty. He sauntered to the door, satisfied with his work, but before he reached it the light became just the smallest bit more intense. In this newly lit room he could make out in a far corner of the room a small stack of dusty books. Dejected at this new chore, he opened one of the books to a random page and found it full of senseless, hateful drivel. Like some sort of wicked stream of consciousness. He shut the book quickly, and the slam echoed in the large room. His mind raced, as the hateful words brought back memories he had tried hard to leave behind. Soon the books were removed and again he headed for the door. Before he could shut the door, though, the lights in the room became a little brighter, and he could make out around the bulbs a massive array of cobwebs that filled the top of the room. He wondered how he hadn't noticed the cobwebs before, they seemed so prominent now. They didn't come down easily, but in a few hours he was satisfied once again that the room was completely clean. But he paused now, waiting for the light to get brighter, as it had twice before. It did. In the new light he could see dirt piled in each corner. Frustrated, he swept it out and waited. The light grew brighter. He saw. He cleaned. The light grew still brighter. He saw more. He cleaned more. This continued for hours until he found himself sitting in the middle of the room, exhausted and in despair. It was obvious that with the completion of each job, a new and smaller one became evident in the brighter light. He was about to give up and go home, when the boss came in and picked him up. The boss took him out into the hall and closed the door behind them. The worker stared at the door for some time, still tired from his hours of labor. The boss asked "Will you let me finish it?" The worker nodded, as much from resigned exhaustion as anything. Suddenly, the door no longer read "Perfection." Now it read "Finished." He asked why the door read finished, when there was clearly more to be done. With that, they entered the room once more. The room looked different now. Lights fully bright, and all the walls and floors and ceilings a perfect and unblemished white. "All you had to do was ask," The boss said gently. With that, the two of them left the room, turning of the lights, on their way the getaway in the hills.

Grace

I cannot comprehend,
When in my lowly state,
That He my soul should mend,
Although I am prostrate.

Not for his love lay I,
But for my weak-knee'd pain.
No reverence still have I,
For Grace, which falls like rain.

But Grace, my constant friend,
Still gently lifts me up. 
Not wishing my quick end,
Grace overflows my cup.

His Grace still finds me now,
My mind in far-off lands,
I wonder "My God, How?"
"How graceful are your hands?"

I can't deserve His Grace,
I steal, I lie, I cheat,
But blood flowed from His face,
His side, His Brow, His Feet.

Amazing Grace, how sweet
That saved a wretch like me,
His standards I can't meet,
But Grace still sets me free.

If I Were a Tree

If I were a tree, tall and old
This world might not seem so cold
Even with the biting frost gnawing my bark.
I wouldn't worry, in light or in dark,
For trees carry no memory but in adding rings.
And with each sunrise the birds would anew sing,
Singing songs with meanings that cannot be expressed.
So my stately tree silence would simply be best.
But when winds would blow my arms would clap,
And to grow I need consult no map.
I'd climb the rungs of heaven's call
Raising up leaves to sunny heights from which to drop in fall.
If I were a tree the lovers of this world could sit below me,
And carve their name, and call me "their tree."
To be a tree would be to know,
In brightest day and deepest snow,
That the light of day brings newness and life,
That ownership is marked with a knife.
To rightly ponder the song of the sparrow
And to climb to God, straight and narrow.

I've Got a Plan

I have a plan, my life to lead;
a mold to carve and fill.
And when this plan has taken seed
Upon Him only shall I thrill.

I plan at length to fill my head
With book and song and thought and muse
And when it's done i'll know in dread
My God, his wisdom high, profuse.

I plan, now free with fright, to toil
Long hours beneath my setting sun.
Take heed, take heed! My youth and joy'll
soon turn to age, the day's near done. 

These plans seem cold and empty now.
My days of labor now bear down
on me like smog and make me bow. 
Where now is wealth? Where now renown?

I have a plan, my life to leave;
my empty life has lost it's thrill.
My Lord, may no one my death grieve, 
My heart now bound to you, your will.

"Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair."

Hope is a dangerous thing in this fickle world. The line between desperation and elation is formed by by the resolution of hope; and hope is formed through the soul's desire for the resolution of the human condition. In a world in which dreams so rarely come true and Murphy's Law need not be spoken, hope can become more tragic than the unfulfilled dreams they've left behind. But should we then give up hope? Should we resign ourselves to what is realistically our fate? Hope would seem to be more cruel than the world we test it in. Without hope, without dreams, we might never know the sting of defeat or the pain of unrealized potential. Without hope, we might not waste our time on lost causes or reclamation projects. But we must not lose hope. Hope not only connects us to this world but it binds us to the positive future. We must consider that the reward of hope always, always, outweighs the futility of a life devoid of purpose. Hope is direction, hope is north, hope is the call. While hope may well create pain, to be numb in its absence denies us the chance to feel and breathe. Hope gives the soul its license to feel, for better or worse. So whenever we wish, whenever we rejoice, whenever we cry, it is the return of an investment in hope.

We Shall Be Free

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love -- 1 John 4:18

Today, there is a pandemic of slavery in our world. Not so much slavery in the traditional sense, with the buying and selling of humans as property, but a covert slavery, a bondage that has no use of physical chains. Slavery to fear ruins lives and cripples our world. Why is this? Why are we so afraid to act? Why do we sit in quiet rooms when the world around us presents adventure, when the very friendships we avoid for the risk could be our very purpose. It seems we've become content with complacency, to avoid risk by the religious practice of inactivity. Maybe we've been hurt, maybe we've been stranded by the ones we love, maybe our circumstances have left us to forever question whether or not goodness can truly find a way in this world, but whatever the case we let that fear bind us. We miss out on the great blessings of our Lord's provision because we're afraid to rely upon it. We claim on Sundays the unwavering sovereignty of our Lord, we proclaim his goodness in loudest song in our sanctuaries, but outside those walls we confine Him to hushed tones and quiet thought. We're so content to lead quiet lives without risk, to never challenge those fears we've gained throughout the years.

And it's selfish.

And it's pride.

We like to think of our fear as humility, when in reality it is a lack of faith in our Lord. We refuse to act, waiting upon a sign of his approval for a course of action, and we're always so shocked when that sign never comes. We pray, we fast, we stare at the wall in anticipation of the Divine Finger Painting to give us direction. All the while, God holds doors open for us. If only we would simply align ourselves with his perfect truth, commune with him in the most trivial parts of our existence, invite him to take part in our lives like we would a friend, we might not be so afraid to act without written consent. St. Augustine put it this way "Love God, and do what you want." Now, those of us who have just been staring at the wall might find this idea frightening, even blasphemous. Do what I want? Isn't that the least wise idea ever? After all "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) If I do what I want, won't I just go astray? But we forget how that verse began. "Love God." Why is this so hard? We all know "Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart." We all know "And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Have we ever bothered to put these together? Perhaps if, instead of focusing on our specific circumstances, we just loved the Lord, delighted ourselves in Him, He might conform our desires and our wishes to His will? Maybe, just maybe, He might still be the sovereign Lord of our lives if we acted on our desires in accordance to our love for Him and others. How rich our lives would be if we spent more time doing than thinking, if we got off our knees in prayer and made prayer a lifestyle, a constant conversation. What if we offered ourselves as a living sacrifice? Not a praying sacrifice, not a thinking sacrifice, not a waiting sacrifice, but a living, active, doing, being, meaning sacrifice. And should we falter, we are in the arms of a loving savior. If we truly love Him though, if we are truly aiming to please Him, our want will never be to forsake Him. We must cast out fear with love. We simply must. We must trust Him with our actions, we must offer our lives to him in meaningful ways. If we do, we won't be paralyzed by fear but empowered by active love.

What a concept.

Questions

I think that I spend too much time asking meaningless questions. I spend my life in the etherial, scared to scrape the sharp edges of the pragmatic. So insted of these questions the never enter the realm of affecting how I behave or think, maybe I should focus on those questions and those things that renew my mind and restore my relationships. I can only assume that other people are like me in this, but perhaps it's just me.

Do I live in such a way that those around me feel free to acknowledge their savior?

Do I live in such a way that those around me feel free to be themselves?

Do I spend more thought on myself or others?

Do I spend more time thinking about myself or God?

Do I spend my time on things that last?

Can I be trusted?

Can I trust?

Do I give? 

Am I humble?

Where do I find my identity?