O   n   e    

         

            G  O  O  D   

         D  a  y

       D  e  s  e  r  v  e  s

    A  N  O  T  H  E   R

 *    *

 (    >    )

U

JOY

H a p p y

H a p p y

J O Y

J O Y 

H E R E

C O M E S

T H E

L I G H T

T H A T

S H I N E S

F O R  T H E

W H O L E

W O R L D !

I'm Younger Than That Now

I've never been so young in all my life
It's not a fountain I've found it's not vitality
I've never been so green in a red world
It's not the color but the experience.
My heels are soft my hair is trim
There is no wool growing on my skin.
A wise man once wore my shoes;
The shoes have worn out all their use
You cant (very well) wear an old hat
If that hat don't fit like it did.
But an old wise man once whispered,
"You just gotta keep doing what you've always done,"
As we stood on golden shores of achievement together.
Does the same advice still stand,
when you're head is buried in the sand?
"Help! Help! Help! I can't speak!" I cry out in my mind
Just sever my body and let the tide take care.
But don't say I (didn't) let myself go without trying.
Youth has become me as wisdom has returned to its writer
God giveth and God takith away
My image mirrors my loss.
I will write because this is so and this is now:
All the doctors have exclaimed in unison,
"You've lost your time! You've lost your time!"
But they are doctors, who can see only the outside
They aren't speechless, floating in a vessel
They've got things to do! Money to make!
But that's how I know they're right,
They have to be quick with truth
Like a stealy jab
And be gone.
Because, time out of mind, is contagious.
Because, no one (really) wants to go back
To their childhood.

Mind, the Gap, in You.

A broken heart shatters the mind too
makes you forget the past you
whatever broke the moment therein
the future ceases with every whim
an unexpected ghost you become
the limbo bursts your back
a deep knife wound photograph
and someone saying you can
always or never go back
that picture is you
before the cripple inside
before the fear
that created the lie came
into your life
the fear only wanted the mystery
not the real and feeling thing
but you latched on to it like a risk
and risked it all you did
with a heart of pure trust and sensitivity
being that was who you are
your foolish blind love
was the only kind of creativity
you had no secrets that stirred queries
for you were wide open juicy affection
you were you the golden loon
you were you the silly buffoon
and you trusted the lie was the truth
how were you to know
you weren't the lie
you weren't the fear
surely not, you were
a beggar, a pleader, a hopeless believer
seeking communion with desire
forgetting what was before
the want wasn't there.

First Wake

I was born in 1978,
Must have been like any mundane day
My father had to work
He couldn't be late -
Mid summer sweat in July
Packing meat in a truck
Veal, ribeye, tenderloin, etc
The blood of lambs

The Head and the Heart

"I get lost in my mind
I get lost in my mind
I get lost."

I cant fight it
Myself that I know.

The scarecrow wanted a brain
the tin man needed a heart
the cowardly lion didn't have courage
and Dorothy just wanted to get back home
so they all followed the yellow brick road.

Loneliness may point to bad decisions.

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

tags: compassion, empathy, loneliness, love

There is someone who knows this about me, who believes this about me, and for that person it's enough to love a long time. 

Happy Easter!

Message Revealed!

Some time ago,  I received a message.  I wrote it down and didn't think too much about it, not realizing where it really came from and what it really meant. I thought it was just another inspiring poem I was proud of writing. Time went on.
The rhythm of this poem always reminded me of the sound of a psalm in the Bible or something slightly Shakespearean. It rang out in my head day after day, and I wondered why. I left it out on my coffee table displayed in its tiny tattered mistakenly scrap-like look thinking the meaning would one day pop. The only thing I could think about it was that it must be referring to this desert city I was in, and how I wanted to plant and grow vegetables and farm so bad but couldn't because the desert soil was so dense, hard and dry.  I thought this came from my spite of the state I was living in geographically.
Time went on. Seasons changed. Circumstances changed. Physicalities changed. I put the little note in a box. I moved out of the desert. And later on I changed. All the while this poem or whatever it was lingered in the back of my mind. More time went on.
But at 3am on a very dark moonless night on top of a quiet mountain in the corner of the north American continent I was alone in my room grieving many things. Regretting many things I'd done.
Within a cloud of darkness, pain and hopelessness without joy. I fell down on my knees and begged God to speak to me. To help me. Somehow.
The flash in my mind at that instant was this tiny scrap piece of papaya paper with these words by now I had forgotten.
And in that instant, their meaning was revealed to me. This was not just a poem I wrote. It was not about my spite for the desert. I had not written this at all. In fact, it was written to me!
God spoke to me! Yes, that's right, this message is about me!
I was the thorns! God is the sower! And the peace, love AND JOY of Jesus, enduring through the trials of his life for us, is the seed! God was trying to tell ME something about myself way back then!
I was too busy being a thorn while wondering why my belief didn't flower! I believed, yet I suffered because I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't know I was the thorn!
I didn't know the Lord praised God even in His anguish, humiliation and suffering! I didn't get the other half of His message! Praise God in all things! And joy and blessings follow!
Had I been more "in-tune" would I have understood then? I don't know! But that doesn't matter! I understand now, Praise be to God!
During the years in the desert God blessed my life richly beyond my imagination. But I was a thorn. In my own side. I grumbled in pain over things I had no control over. I was caught up in a whirlwind roller coaster of emotions yet, God kept blessing me with so much, kept granting me trials, kept putting it in front of my face, saying "Be joyful in all things for you believe in Jesus!" "He is joyful! He is praising me! The Holy Spirit is joyful!" "He is with you!" "Praise me!" Accept the joy Christ felt even through his persecution!" "I love you, as Christ loved, and still does."
He wrote me this message though, in all my thorniness, in all my hardened soil, knowing, it would take a mountain that I would climb in order to understand it.
The mystery, glory, and joy of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Praise be to God! 

The Greatest Artist Had to Outdo Himself.

The miraculous design creation and function of God's human race is the finest reaction to the creation of the Earth.

Praise.

For all things that are
For all that has happened
For everything
For everyone
For all pain discomfort and struggle
For all uncertainty challenge and confusion
For all joy happiness and love
For the darkness and the light
For life and for death
For all
Praise God!

Let's do that.
Let's put our things together,
Our papers and pencils and typewriters
And suitcases filled with ink and art
And the guitar and a drum
And call ourselves The Trumpets
And stand on the corner professing
Something about life and what it isn't
But at least we've got each other
To help us make believe its real.
Let's do that.

International Women's Day 2013

To all the woman in our lives.

2 Agreements

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”
― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

tags: hope, inspiration, inspirational, life, truth

Talk about it

"Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic...
but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it
than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned."

-- Anne Lamott

Living the Dream Worn Out

5am alone
Train whistle blowing
Cold dead poverty
Frozen feet bitterness
Looking for my wisdom tooth
Frigid creaking bones
Insomnia alone
Queen Anne's hill
The stillness of truth

Total Eclipse

                                               
                                                       My experimental photography.