Sick

What haven't I done to make me ashamed
What opportunity for regret have I passed without siezing
Wooden gates growing heavier
Steel hinges turning louder
Grass growing past comfort
Dead statuary neglected

How much of your failing is mine?
How many of your faults are grown on my tree, my sister?

Where you need strong arms you fall on shadows
Your bed of rest has forgotten the shape of your tired body

"The Salesman"

We must always be careful with our applications of other people's
ideas. For most of us with the Internet in our pockets we are without
excuse if we choose a band name that has already been taken. I've been
through twelve taken band names and pretty soon I'll just be myself.
When other people have great ideas they haven't used, and when using
those ideas themselves would be extremely beneficial to them, "right
up their alley" so to speak, and they encourage you to use that idea
with all manner of energies and creative impetus that fits their frame
strangely; unfamiliarly, irregularly- so unexpected considering who they are... They probably saw someone do it somewhere.
Think about it. Research before adopting someone else's genius plan,
unless you trust them completely and their track record is flawless.
I have once again been saved from unintentional plagiarism by watching
a documentary that had inspired somebody else to share a good, already used idea with me. God definitely doesn't inspire that kind of illness.

"That's just so depressing..."

At one point or another, all men must come to know the sufferings of other people.
Whether in this life or the next is the only choice we are given.
The efficacy of prayer for those thus treated,
The preference of suffering in fellowship with those thus treated;
I wish upon no man the communications:
"I was naked and you clothed me not,
I was in prison and you did not visit,
I was in chains and you cared not,
Meet me now."

The End of Seasons

While the Earth remains
Summer and Winter
Cold and hot
Springtime and harvest.

While the Earth remains

The promise has remained with us
Lifetime after lifetime

We come to that day quickly when even all seasons end,

the heavens wax old like a garment and are rolled up with everything inside, every element, all elements melt with a fervent heat;

Once again you shall discern between the righteous and the wicked. For once, perhaps.

You shall discern between them that fear and love God and those who don't.

In that day.

(Behold, those who feared the Lord God gathered together in their living rooms and spoke of him. Behold, in their hearts they called him father and accepted the gift of all gifts and he listened and remembered and it was written in his book. Read my heart and my lips and write it down God those pages will be my only hope.)

Broken Heart

If it be the will of God that I come to understand through my own experience the dark richness of a truly broken heart, should I not recieve it in holiness, with thankfulness and godly interpretation?

"Me" Time

You know, sometimes it's just about others. Just kidding, it's always
about others. Liberating thought.

It's True After All

Aren't those classic devotionals resting on the shelf above your
friend's grandparents' guest toilet irritating? Don't you find them
hard to read without holding the author in derision? They wrote in
such grand style. Whatever.

Peradventure upon reading from one consistently your opinion may change.
That depending, of course, on the sincerity of the author and the
doctrinal validity of the content.

If you're like me you wouldn't even pick up a book that lived so near a
potty unless a fine layer of dust lay upon the cover of the work.
Fortunately (and unfortunately), most people who put that type of literature
in the bathroom don't actually read the above-toilet lavatory copy (I have found).

After many years of loathing Mr. Chambers' Opus, I have read it occasionally
along with Spurgeon's Morning and Evening (the one I've always liked) for a time now. After some reflection I realized that his (Oswald's) writings have always irritated me because
false converts always love "My Utmost" (for at least two months) and
furthermore I don't believe in him; I don't believe he actually lived
as wonderfully as he wrote.
Well how could he? And what does it matter that the false moth seeks a lit candle. I'm an idiot, sometimes.

So now I read "My Utmost For His Highest" every now and then. Especially
dusty copies in other people's bathrooms.
Still sometimes it's a little too dramatic, even for me; but I
love Oswald.
I wonder if we would have gotten along on a thirty-six hour bus ride
across some bland chunk of North America, sitting next to one another
and having to share a single armrest.

I wonder if the person who arrives, after my departure, unto the Sanctuary-of-the-Loo will be encouraged by the tracks of my fingers in the silt to crack open the pleather-bound day-helper; or will they ignore the volume further?

"Pants, Totally Ripped"

How, on the Earth and beside the sea, did I accidentally wear pants that were totally ripped all the way up the back (full clown-style) to work today?
I ripped them playing with my kids a week ago. I thought I had thrown them away.
I got dressed this morning and drove to work.
Then I put my hand into my lap and felt my boxers.
An hour later I arrived back at work with whole pants.
?

To See Your Light Go Out

All you've ever known is
my hands to meet your needs
All we've ever shown is
the same we give our seed
yet while you have grown this little time beneath our tree
I have always known this, what I never want to see

When your trusting baby's eyes
look to me to lift you up, at times
I tell myself lies
to ignore the coming cup
which itself in no wise would ever not be filled
"To drink", my heart cries
It might rather be killed

Every day we live
like all who've come before
Learning how to give
from those who've trusted more
After all that I have seen how can I not see
when all I've ever known is His hands to meet my needs

I could bear most things,
but to see your light go out would be so hard.

Mercy

I have seen great mercy.
I have felt it. I have felt it come to rest upon me in sheets; happiness and sorrow and joy and peace.

In my wife's eyes I have seen mercy overtake scorn. I have seen it come from far away within and change her, for my sake, in an instant and completely.

My children have been graced with vast sums of mercy, here and there, there and in other ways, for mercy has stilled my hand and shut my mouth when there were better ways.

"The Shore"

The cold winter sun shines your hair like petals 'round your pretty face
We talked for a while but you looked right through me to another place
I love you, more than anyone here washed up on the shore
Is that why you've asked me not to tell you anymore?

I saw when we spoke that you've become what you love
Your eyes are the sea
For I wasn't in their reflection, though I stood in between
You and the Water

You trust in hopeless things
the wind and water bring
and leave upon the sand
Waiting every day,
wading through the waves
And grasping with your hands

and now I see
It will take more than this
More than I can say; me and all my words,
My words don't matter to you

Fashion Tip

When you have a nice jacket or sweater or tie or pant or shoe and, through its frequent use
it loses some luster,
just couple it with something really jacked up and something else really cool and not jacked up and go for the "High/Low" look.
I do it all the time, and it seems to work okay.
This way of dressing enables you to keep clothes pretty much forever, and you're almost always appropriately dressed once, after a year or two, it becomes your "mode".

Wedding attendee one: "Oh look at that cool guy. "
Wedding attendee two: "Yeah he must be a fashion student or a rockstar. Check out how he rocks that single-breasted suit with those sick shell-toes and that jacked-up old hat."

Also, don't try to match your socks if that's an act of any difficulty for you. I don't even try anymore. It doesn't matter; nobody cares.
Just be super confident and obvious about it. Like one brown sock and one black with green plaid kind of thing.
This way of living may alleviate a whole ton of unnecessary stress in the morning (or evening if you are nocturnal through choice or necessity).

Heed my words.
Fashion "seasons" are just marketing tools.
Let's come back to this subject later too I could talk all night about it.

"Not To Us"

For all the blessings from our hands
The timely spoken words
The lifting of the widow's face
The gift given in secret

For the heroes of America and wherever else,
for the babies carried in the arms of firemen

For the little kindness actually given on earth without hidden motive

For the people of all times and places who have truly sought God

For the children who are kept from harm and the wives who are treated
correctly

For the fair master; even more the benevolent

For any peace anywhere

For any good that has ever been done by man,
or happened upon him;
Not to us, Lord, not to us,
but to thy name give the glory.