By: Gregory Orr
To add to our own suffering
To the world's: tempting
When we're young,
Easy to confuse that
With love.
As if
The beloved desired
Our sacrifice, wanted
Us to be the moth
Impaling itself
On the candle's radiant
Thorn.
We'd only
Smother the flame.
What the beloved wants
Is to burn more brightly
To have more life.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
God Is LOVE
By: The Innocence Mission
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden
with the gold of hickory leaves.
I can walk under these clouds.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
If I’m driving there today
and I really am this afraid,
God is love
and love will never fail me.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
And I’m under the sky, I am on the ground, with my coat.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
And some days I will decide
to let everything else go by.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden
with the gold of hickory leaves.
I can walk under these clouds.
Rain or shine, this street of mine is golden.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
If I’m driving there today
and I really am this afraid,
God is love
and love will never fail me.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
And I’m under the sky, I am on the ground, with my coat.
Some birds I know are moving on this weekend.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
And some days I will decide
to let everything else go by.
God is love
and love will never fail me.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
HOME
By: Kyle Elden
Brokenness
terribly messed up
sharp illustrious edges
shine like diamonds
alluring, calling out all the want inside
rising like a snake upward to
the flute music of its charmer
I’ve chased rainbows
cast from shattered bits of life
illusions of light breaking through shards
stomping over the shadows
the dark underbelly
the substance upon which I stand
longing to be soaked in color
intoxicated on false hope
a mirage just always ahead
dry throat, unbearable thirst
through nights, and days and years
drinking from empty glasses
broken cisterns
Jesus, God your name
used to be stones in my mouth
I tried to choke down, or spit out
a dam holding back
a great force of rushing water
I was afraid would swallow me whole
but the Kingdom is so much greater
than I imagined
there was always so much
steam and condensation
I’ve now wiped away from the mirror
to see myself clearly
to see myself as You do
I have burn marks from the flames of hell
across my body
scars from the casket that held me like a womb
dirt underneath my fingernails from the grave
I’ve been climbing out of
cuts from rocks and roots I’ve grabbed
to pull myself up
Toward you
the greatest love of my life
GOD
You are everywhere
and within
above and beneath, all around
You were always holding me
wanted me to feel my head against
the beating of Your heart
Your arms wrapped around me
love pouring into me overflowing
glasses of wine and laughter
dancing with me, spinning until
I see stars
singing into daybreak
kissing my forehead
brushing the hair from my eyes
whispering in my ear
“my child, welcome home!”
Brokenness
terribly messed up
sharp illustrious edges
shine like diamonds
alluring, calling out all the want inside
rising like a snake upward to
the flute music of its charmer
I’ve chased rainbows
cast from shattered bits of life
illusions of light breaking through shards
stomping over the shadows
the dark underbelly
the substance upon which I stand
longing to be soaked in color
intoxicated on false hope
a mirage just always ahead
dry throat, unbearable thirst
through nights, and days and years
drinking from empty glasses
broken cisterns
Jesus, God your name
used to be stones in my mouth
I tried to choke down, or spit out
a dam holding back
a great force of rushing water
I was afraid would swallow me whole
but the Kingdom is so much greater
than I imagined
there was always so much
steam and condensation
I’ve now wiped away from the mirror
to see myself clearly
to see myself as You do
I have burn marks from the flames of hell
across my body
scars from the casket that held me like a womb
dirt underneath my fingernails from the grave
I’ve been climbing out of
cuts from rocks and roots I’ve grabbed
to pull myself up
Toward you
the greatest love of my life
GOD
You are everywhere
and within
above and beneath, all around
You were always holding me
wanted me to feel my head against
the beating of Your heart
Your arms wrapped around me
love pouring into me overflowing
glasses of wine and laughter
dancing with me, spinning until
I see stars
singing into daybreak
kissing my forehead
brushing the hair from my eyes
whispering in my ear
“my child, welcome home!”
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Untitled
By: Gregory Orr
Weighed down with the weight
Of the world. What can lift you?
And how did it become so heavy?
Is it because the beloved left?
How dark those rocks seem now.
That tree shadow more solid
Than the tree itself.
Help,
Help is on the way. The beloved
Is coming. A cloud over the sun
Doesn't mean there is no sun.
Weighed down with the weight
Of the world. What can lift you?
And how did it become so heavy?
Is it because the beloved left?
How dark those rocks seem now.
That tree shadow more solid
Than the tree itself.
Help,
Help is on the way. The beloved
Is coming. A cloud over the sun
Doesn't mean there is no sun.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Blessing in Chaos
By: Jan Richardson on her blog at The Painted Prayerbook on January 24, 2012
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.
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