When we’re not kids anymore

Reconciliation is a cup of coffee across from a cup of tea in a coffee house populated by people who can’t hear the conversations 6 inches away from them and where a middle-aged, overweight woman naps in the corner of a coffee shop off Center street. It’s a two person table in the middle of this cacophony of baristas, cash registers and espresso machines.

We calculated five years had gone by. When you got in my car I could see the time had passed just by a quick glance at your face as we pulled away from the apartment building where you were staying. I don’t think we said a whole lot, maybe exchanged or breathed some short greeting. To be honest, I was really scared so I couldn’t look you in the eyes and I couldn’t come up with much to say so I just let the music on my stereo keep playing. Bad Religion’s album, “Generator” in case you were wondering.

Did I mention I was scared? The nerves knotted up my insides like failed attempts at balloon animals, twisted and knotted up and uncoiled repeatedly. So, I focused on the road ahead of me where I had to drive about a mile to a coffee house knowing that was the only thing we had decided on that day.

You grabbed your tea and pumpkin bread. I had black coffee because details were the last thing I really wanted to think about. There was a tremendous amount of distance between us for being a small table apart from each other. Or maybe, that’s just me because the last few memories I had of you and me were not very pleasant ones. I’m sure you remember.

Remember, 5 years ago we were kids. We saw each other nearly every day because we both worked the same horrible work schedule. I couldn’t really grow facial hair back then so that’s why I say we were kids. The pictures of us back then are better proof than I could ever describe but we both had softer features in our faces because this was before a lot of stuff went down between us. But we were best friends and we would tell each other everything. We had a lot of laughs, we had some downs, we had some scary moments when the lights went out and it was just you and me but I don’t have any regrets so there’s no point in expounding any further. It’s just that I remember.

And you know, memory’s a tricky thing. When I ended what was between us just a couple weeks before Christmas I thought I was dying. I did. I don’t remember the drive home or the weeks that followed but I remember something and I want to tell you the truth because everyone deserves it and so do you. I’m just putting it down this way because it’s the best I can do and no one will really get it it but you anyway. So, here. Take it. And do me a favor, when you’re done, throw it away because it’s all garbage in the end.

Out of my pain and anger I said a lot of mean and hurtful things about you. I didn’t make up stories in fact I kept a lot of us to myself. But I told people you were crazy, clingy, and all sorts of mean things. The truth is I was all those things myself and a lot more. I put you through a lot of the hell I was experienced and you held on tight. There was a lot of unhealthy things that went on between us but that’s what happens when kids try to grow themselves up too quickly. What I’m saying here is I want to apologize. I’m sorry for all the pain I took out on you for the sake of my self and I’m sorry I wasn’t man enough to say it to your ears. I’m sorry that even if you would have heard it, they’d have been lies. I’m sorry for all the time I spent wasted resenting you and you never knew it. I felt convicted of it so here’s something finally telling you the truth.

Yesterday you apologized for the only way in which you wronged me in the 8 months we were together. I don’t think I told you that I forgave you. I do.

So, let us forget the past and bring it back to the present where reconciliation is an empty cup of tea sitting across from an empty cup of coffee. Where hours pass and so do many conversation topics and where we’re not really kids anymore.

Away We Go

Everyone should know by now I love stories. Once in a while a movie comes a long that captures humanity and their story in such a way that is fantastic and so normal at the same time that I fall in love with it. I recently re-watched the movie “Away We Go” starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph. It was an inexpensive addition to my collection so I bought it after I saw it the first time through Netflix.

The movie opens up with Burt (Krasinski) and Verona (Rudolph) finding out they are going to have a child. They are in their early 30′s and unmarried, seemingly in a rut. Their lack of ties where they are pushes them out their front door to find the perfect place to raise their family.  This takes them all over the United States and even into Canada. As their trip progresses they find more and more what they don’t want in a family as they make each stop, visiting friends and family along the way.  In their journey they find everything across the spectrum from the fun family that does its best to hide its alienation to the continuum, new age family that doesn’t believe in strollers. Through it all Burt and Verona keep evaluating what it is they want in their family, what they’ll have to deal with and the conclusion they reach is beautiful and simple.

They can only take care of their family, their daughter and they will have to take whatever else, be it abandonment, death, or seahorses, as it comes. It’s very hard to make a movie in which you see the characters grow and mature in just the right way but I think this movie does a really great job. With each new location tested comes a new family they observe in which they get to see what good (if any) comes out of it as well as the really dark and sad parts. The relationship between Burt and Verona is one of best friends, it seems. Even if it’s not exactly a “God-honoring” relationship (as Verona refuses to get married) their experiences before finally landing back in Miami where they grew up ends up marrying them, in a sense, by exchanging promises on Burt’s brother’s backyard trampoline. The scene itself puts a smile on my face and sparks something in that inner romantic that is buried deep, deep down inside me.

I think we all desire something like that in our lives if we don’t have it already. Family is such strange concept to some people because they either never really knew it or lost it early on. This movie manages to put the heart, soul and a little awkwardness that is necessary in telling the story of a family. God has fashioned us in a way to relate and love others and it just strikes me deep in the heart when it’s portrayed with all its range of emotion and beauty. I must be honest, though, that it also makes me a bit sad. Not that I don’t have a family or didn’t experience the weirdness of it all (my family is strange in ways I’d rather not explain). But the movie explores something deeper than that. I think it’s that there are very few certainties in having a family because, invariably, there are an incalculable number of variables that can alter things forever.

Personally, it makes me wonder. I turn 26 in two days which is on the downward slope to 30 and I wonder what it’s going to be like for me to be in that situation one day. It thrills me for so many reasons and scares me to death for so many others. Most of all, I have to convince myself daily that I haven’t somehow damned myself to solitude forever. My psychologist calls that, “worst-case scenario thinking” and he’s right. I must try and convince myself every day the irrationality of those kinds of thoughts. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. I watch movies like this and, though it’s fiction, I know there’s always a spot of true story in there. I dunno, anything that puts a smile on my face has to be worth something these days.

On a scale of none to five bears, I give this movie 4.9 bears. I will add it to my list of movies I would highly recommend you like if you want to be my friend.

My favorite lines from the film take place on a trampoline. The entire movie it is pointed out over and over again that Verona doesn’t want to get married but, near the end, they manage to have a marriage ceremony of sorts just the two of them. I think it portrays the tone of the film really well. Go check it out.

Burt Farlander: Do you promise to let our daughter be fat or skinny or any weight at all? Because we want her to be happy, no matter what. Being obsessed with weight is just too cliché for our daughter.

Verona De Tessant: Yes, I do. Do you promise, when she talks, you’ll listen? Like, really listen, especially when she’s scared? And that her fights will be your fights?

Burt Farlander: I do. And do you promise that if I die some embarrassing and boring death that you’re gonna tell our daughter that her father was killed by Russian soldiers in this intense hand-to-hand combat in an attempt to save the lives of 850 Chechnyan orphans?

Verona D Tessant: I do. Chechnyan orphans. I do. I do.

Sweet Anodyne

These days, they turn into nights so quickly. And these nights? They turn into days in the blink of an eye although sometimes it feels like the day bleeds deeply into the night though you can’t tell by the look of the sky. It just creates this sense that I’m supposed to keep moving. Or maybe it’s just that my mind won’t stop thinking like it does in the daytime and sometimes it moves faster. I just wish my nights were longer than the moment between when I wake up and when I go to sleep. It’s just nonstop movement in some direction that I’ve obviously sight of if I can’t even decide between being nocturnal or diurnal.

These thoughts have just become so real even though I haven’t really decided to function for a couple of days. I haven’t really showered or gone anywhere. I barely had the energy to change my clothes today. This is a new taste of an old thing, you know where I have to say goodbye to the bright side of everything and focus so calmly on the darkness inside of me that I sometimes realize I’ve had my eyes closed for minutes on end or I’ve been staring off into space which made that guy over there a little uncomfortable. As if he knows the meaning of the word, I think to myself.

Because I am the king of feeling uncomfortable in my own skin as I swallow the hopes of ever really understanding the depths of my sin. I can see it in the lines carved into my face and even though I look 5 years younger without a beard I wonder if really I was just hiding something or protecting something or swallowing something more than I usually do daily.
This moment of rest has turned to a moment without feeling. An anesthetic for the moment while I try my best not to unrest my current state of mind because if I wrestle with it then it only becomes more real. Let me pause a second and breathe deeply in through my nose and out my mouth again to slow down the pulse of anxiety that is on the ebb and flow in the background static of this bittersweet, sweet anodyne.

It has come to the point where, though I don’t realize it at first, I do things just to evoke a reaction. Not just from others thought that provides an ample amount of entertainment as well. No, I’m talking about from within myself. I have fallen in love with modern day love stories, ones that tell of the rise, fall, demise and rebirth of love. But like 500 Days of Summer this is not a love story I’m telling because I kissed that goodbye a long time ago it seems and it has never come back to greet me, haunt me or try to kill me since it put the heel of its boots to me years ago. And I get the desired reaction, I actually feel something deep within me but it goes away like a high I never sought ought but a drug I can’t let go of.

I write this story down, if you can call it a story, because I can’t express myself speaking but I can sure write a pretty line. I romanticize so much of the garbage I deal with it’s not even funny but it’s the best way I know how to put it. I hope some day someone understands it. Until then I will let these fingers fly across this keyboard in hopes that it will one day give me the wings to fly free of this permanently. But until then I am Sisyphus rolling a stone across a page only to have it return to the next line for me to start over again. And again. And again.

Until the pressure eases I can’t stop doing this. I need to relearn how to breathe easy or maybe I just need to find something to occupy my time. I’ll find out tomorrow, I guess when my schedule becomes a mess and I with it.

Praying for survival.

No Apologies, No Regrets.

As I sit here and ponder, as I can feel that darkness creep into my heart yet again, I can’t help but think that, though I have tasted it here and there, the depression I have consistently had to manage this time of year has been fairly innocuous. Sure, I have missed a few days of work here and there but I have not fought tooth and nail in my head to talk myself into getting out of bed nearly as often nor have I white-knuckle gripped the control over myself to make sure every bit and piece of my emotional state was in line. What’s different this year?

Almost three years ago when I started classes at NCC I remember a voice in my head tell me that I needed to let go. Let go of what? Well, control of course. I am one of the worst control freaks I know but I think I do it backwards. Rather than trying to control everything external I try and control myself. Sometimes that looks like me swallowing my anger or my sadness whether or not it’s justified. Other times it means I remove myself from all social situations and just concentrate on keeping myself in check and doing things to keep my mind off the fact that I do, indeed, have some things to think through. These coping mechanisms just helped tighten the grip of this control I attempted to have because if I lost control I was not being the man that God wanted me to be. By doing all these things I thought I was being righteous and good in his eyes.

What a colossal, steaming pile of shit.

I came to this realization after a few talks with both my therapist and my friend who is also my pastor. All of that control just created padlocks and chains that constricted tight around my very soul until it could no longer bear the stress. If anger is a consuming fire and depression is anger turned inwards then I was swallowing napalm on a regular basis and the ache in my gut and chest became overwhelming. But for the sake of control I pushed through the end of the last semester and collapsed completely. Whether the actions that followed were done with purpose or if it was incidental I don’t know but I unearthed some things about myself.

Though this may seem obvious I was completely miserable being this tight-laced, overly controlled and self righteous prig. There was no delight in the law I had etched in my head as the path to holiness and nearness with Christ. I didn’t even feel near to the people around me. I realized that most of the anger I had been swallowing was anger at myself for not saying or doing things that I wanted to do for the sake of the people around me and what they might think or how it may affect their comfort level or whatever excuse I wrote down for myself and filed away so that I didn’t have to be real.

So, I asked myself, “How would it feel to have to be real?”. Because in my heart I knew these actions, these lies disguised as truths that I had been telling myself about who I was and how I was supposed to act and interact were slowly poisoning me and eventually they would harden what gentleness and mercy I had left in me after all these years. I didn’t want that. So, I began to ponder my ways and rethink the things I had been thinking all this time and by the grace of God I was able to come to the conclusion.

Fuck it all. Truly.

In my quest for seeking the most right and God honoring path I had become a slave to the law. Yes, I had taken the yoke on that no man was ever meant to bear because, in the end it leads to death and it is our God’s strongest desire that we seek him and, in the process, live. It is a hard reality to face that one has not yet lived at the age of 25 but I swallowed it and immediately spat it back out realizing that changes must be made now if I am to survive the coming semester and the rest of my life without wanting to eat a bullet or to lock myself in my room like I’ve done for years because my brain tells me I’m an alien for wanting to express myself in all things because that’s just who I am. Or that I shouldn’t love for the sake of love without selfish gain because that’s what I do better than anything else just because most people have forgotten or never learned what that looks like.

I grew so tired of being the one to swallow who I really was for the sake of others that I finally just decided to burn it all down and be the one thing I know for certain I was created to do and that was to be me. The me that I was before I decided to lay down in this cross-shaped coffin and bury myself in the cemetery of self-righteous souls like the rest of the people around me seemed to be so comfortable doing. I have resolved that I cannot and will not do that anymore.

I was talking to my best friend about it, one of the few friends I still have that knew me before NCC and I told him what had been going on my head. I told him I was bringing back the me he knew before I started. He smiled, we high fived and I realized that perhaps that’s what had been missing from this equation. I think there’s this lie that Christians tell themselves that says I must filter myself and I must bind myself by this invisible code that tells me what I should and shouldn’t do. Am I saying that you should forsake what you believe and just do whatever you want? Not at all. But what I am saying is that if your heart is truly set on Christ then you shouldn’t have these trepidations about who you are. It is not as if he does not guide you, shape you, mold you through your experiences. No one who follows Christ does so in a vacuum and so it is important to remember that while our mistakes are many and we may feel like we we are broken beyond repair (I know i do) that we still have grace.

What has this meant for me? Like most things, I dove into this idea at the deep end which yielded stronger results than I was anticipating so I may have come off a little rough and uncaring. The truth is a powerful thing and it staggers some people including me. So, I unloaded on a couple of people but was also very clear about the fact that a part of me that hadn’t really been used in three years was resurfacing. I don’t know if anyone notices a difference but in my heart and soul I feel as if I am slowly learning to breathe again. It’s a tough lesson to learn but as B. Dolan says “It’s good to be hard but it’s harder to be honest.” I feel as though I unintentionally hardened my heart and as begun to melt. Once I granted myself the freedom to immerse myself in the experience I quickly remembered how to love it.

I grant that a lot of this is abstract and maybe I’m the only one going through something like this. I don’t think that’s the case based on conversations I’ve had with my friends but perhaps, if you’re reading this, you’re not ready to vomit that garbage you’ve been swallowing. That’s ok. The truth is painful. I pray there comes a time when you’ve had enough of living in your law box and are ready to step out into a far greater freedom than you or I can imagine.

I believe that God created us the way he did for a purpose. The emotions, the reactions, the love and the hate, the dichotomies and our ability to lie to ourselves consistently and constantly are there as striking points for the hammer. With each strike a part of our old self dies and it has precious little to do with the things that we do. More often than not those things we try to do are not for him but for our own selfish gain or, in my case, or misperception of who he is. Once I realized that I lost all hope in ever being able to change without the guidance of Christ in my life it was as if someone had calmed every nerve in my body and the only thing left was me.

Don’t you know you’re only as strong a Christian as you are when you’re alone in the dark?

“And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” — Fight Club

I don’t get it

My dear, my dear,
the winds are CHANGING
and the inclement weather,
you know the one that
chills me to the bone and
leaves me feeling
barren, frozen desert–
that’s one ‘s’ because
you only want to go there once
and yet I’m there all the time
it seems like–
Its clouds, they have lifted
in a sense that everything
is only slightly hazy
and the pendulum in my head
is no longer swinging from
one extreme to the next like
time’s endless joke is being played
on me
perpetually and continuously
but I’m so used to the temperature
CHANGING that I just accept it
and dress appropriately.

Right now,
I’m no longer
Runnningaroundincircles in my HEADand there’sjustnotellingwhat’s
goingtocomeupnext. Ijustknowthateverythingiscollapsingquicklyand
runningatapacethat’snolongeracceptablycomfortable. Oh,God,ohGod
makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop. MY headpreparingtosplatterits contents
alloverthisroomlikesplatterpainsplatterpaintsplatterohitdoesn’tmatter
anymorei’lljustsithereandwaititoutandtheseimagesinmyheadwillsoon
runoutofsteamorillrunoutofsteamsteamishot,burnsthebabyohGodhelpme
ican’tfocusbeyondtheimmediateanditsslowlytryingtokillme killme kill me kill

me
I am no longer that
me.

But it’s as if things
have

slowed

down.

The truth is
I am not the man I used to be
and I can’t decide
if it’s the cure or the poison
that’s poisoning me.
I just know everything suddenly
makes sense and
I think sometimes the best things
have no explanations.
It’s just God’s way of letting me know
“Hey, I see you’ve been paying
attention.”

Yeah.
I have.
And I am thankful for the calm
you have given me
in the time where my life has been
ripped, torn, stepped on and worn away
I am standing here in your grace
and I am breathing this cold air
in the end of December
when everything always falls down
for me.
I am able
to finally stand
and make peace with the winter wind
who has a history of pumping
these veins
full of ice.
But I am a flame in the cold,
I am untouched and unfaltering
and I don’t understand it.
Why now?
Why?

Give Me Strength

How many times…
HOW MANY TIMES
have I, in moments
of intense stress and distress
hit my already arthritic knees
and prayed…
HOW MANY TIMES
have I asked, you GOD
“PLEASE, GIVE ME STRENGTH
I’m failing in this monumental task
of living life against the
GUSTS and gale force winds
of hardship and sorrow that
rip holes in the sails of my chest
and knock me down.”
But I get back up.
And I get back up again.
And again.

’til finally I lose all strength and
sink deeper into the folds of my blankets
and I forget about getting out of bed
that day.
And I stay there until the feeling subsides
or I am able to pep talk myself
into opening my eyes and raising
my head up high another time

Little and all too well (at the same time)
did I know that this was part of YOUR plan
As I trekked through life learning about you
and how to follow you from stronger and smarter men
Drawing strength from them in their heart
and in their wisdom
I drank amply from the deep waters
and leaned heavily on their shoulders
I was still a child and still am,
still learning the ways to live life
in a way that is most pleasing to you

Ironically…
DEAR GOD, YOU GAVE ME STRENGTH
finally in a time when I am most in need
YOU have helped me push away from
leaning heavily on anyone but you.
But I still don’t FULLY UNDERSTAND
I’m just ONE MAN living a LONELY existence
something I feel deep within my soul
and it weights down the soles of my boots
as I traverse the concrete nightly
and stare at YOUR night sky wondering
if perhaps there’s one up there just for me
But here I stand, finally strong
in my WEAKNESS I am willing
to toe the line and be faithful
even when I feel like I’m standing alone

Dear GOD give me STRENGTH
CONTINUE, I BEG OF YOU
DON’T LEAVE ME TO ME
TO MY OWN DEVICES.
I’m tired but I can feel your hands
holding me
pointing my eyes towards the sky
so I remember the promise
you made to a man who once stood alone, too.
And you kept that promise.
You always do.

These are the words you wish you wrote down

This past semester I fulfilled the one open elective requirement I had for my BA. It was a class on writing poetry and, as some of you know, that is something I do anyway so I thought it would be a cakewalk. It was, but I got to see how my interests evolved my writing style over a semester. It was an interesting journey. But I didn’t come here to post a long diatribe about how the class changed me because it didn’t. It really just reinforced my unwillingness to stick to convention with writing and my strong will to turn my back in the face of self-proclaimed authority on the subject of poetry. This is me being me at its finest, good or bad. This is a link to the PDF of the chapbook I had to create as a final project. Over 8,000 words of heart, soul and insanity. Ladies and gents, I give you…

The Lesser Lights

theme

And then I think to myself…

 

Maybe I expect too much.

Before Chapter 3

I gotta tell you something
I’ve been struggling with for a while.
It’s not a major sin or a nasty habit
in need of intervention,
in fact it’s a question of interruption,
A problem of periods ending sentences
at the end of sections
marked with numbers designating location
in my Bible.

See, I wanted to start reading my Bible.
I wanted to absorb the very word of God
translated as best as it possibly can be
from the Hebrew and from the Greek
I went back to the beginning
because it seemed like a good place to start
but I wasn’t reading very long
and I didn’t get very far before 
my eyes had seen enough

I was too DEPRESSED to get very far
I started at the beginning
and got only two chapters
into Genesis
and I had to quit my devotional act
to spit the bile that was quickly rising
from my insides like black tar.

IN THE BEGINNING, GOD.
In the beginning YOU were there
and from the formless and void,
the chaotic and functionless
you called everything out.
By the very sound of your voice
things came to their roles and assignments
and you said they were good.
And so I keep reading thinking that
if creation was good it can only
get better.

If in six days you indeed created the earth
and it was good enough
that on the seventh day you looked at it,
called it very good and you rested
then it must be the very definition
of perfection.

But on the sixth day you created man
And he was meant to give you
nothing but glory
and worship you for the very dust
he was created from and
the very breath of life within him
which was you, God.
And you made creation even better
when you anesthetized Adam,
realizing he was not meant
to wander this world alone
as a solitary creature having dominion
over nothing but himself and the animals.
Without a helper.
Alone.
The only one of his kind.
So you laid him down on the ground,
performed surgery, removing a single rib
from a single side and created for him
a single helper to help him in his daily duties
including loving each other without shame
despite their God-given nudity.

And Adam REJOICES in this saying,
“This is bone of my bones
and skin of my skin
and she will be called ish’ah
for she was taken from ish.
To God be the glory
because without him I’d be wandering
this perfect garden
darlin’ I am incomplete, now,
without you…”

See, this is where I have trouble
moving forward because
the story up until this point is the story
of perfection and sha’lom
The of kind peace and completeness
I just can’t see defeated in fact
I’m rendered SPEECHLESS for every
moment I dwell on the perfection
of God’s creation
and the short history of man and woman
before they are first presented with temptation.

So this is where I shut my Bible
and shake with such anger and frustration
that I shut the front cover quickly and toss
it away from me.
Just because I can’t face the grim reality
that comes with the opening of chapter three.

WHY GOD? WHY couldn’t you have stopped
with the creation of Adam and Eve,
man and woman, ish va’ish’ah?
 lam’ah?
Because we all know that the story only lasts
a short while before going East,
before the serpent leads into temptation
and delivers them the feast of the eyes
and of the lips, the tongue and the teeth
with the promise of being like you
GOD, I WANT to be LIKE YOU
but I could have done without
knowing what was right and what was wrong
because I now know the PRICE
of losing PERFECTION
along with losing my completeness in you.

But knowing right from wrong
got our first parents sent out,
told to kick rocks and depart
because paradise had been lost,
it’s gates shut and guarded by
something so terrifying I hesitate
to draw the picture of it in my head

I realize that I can’t go back
and change any of this but I lament
at the loss of shal’om and so I return
to the beginning
over and over again to get a taste
of what it was like when all was
perfect.
I hold my hands to my chest
to feel it stutter, I rub my
arthritic knees and shoulders,
I sink to the depths of depression
and when I’ve almost drowned
I let my mind run free
and remember the cost of sin in this world.

But is the picture really that bleak?

I look out into the night sky and wonder
if the lesser lights of heaven are as
perfectly painted that night as it was
when its existence was first uttered.

And I wonder about the night in the garden
the one called “Oil press”
were the lesser lights as bright as Jesus
STRESSED to the point that the capillaries burst
around his distressed sweat glands
causing him to sweat his own BLOOD.
And as they dragged him away he desired
no more blood to be shed,
So when Peter swung that blade
and took off that servant’s ear
He told him, “Put your sword away.
You might not like this but you cannot
take my Father’s cup away from me.”

So when they BEAT him
and ripped the flesh from his BODY
with THORNS and WHIPS and RODS
he offered NO RESISTANCE because this
revolution would not be televised.
It would be LIVE.
So, he took UP his cross and CARRIED it
to the place of the skull
and on it he seemed to be saying
“I know your pain and suffering is great
but I will bear it all to save your souls.

I will MAKE myself incomplete
and imperfect just so I can
make you whole again and
I can’t do that without offering up
myself, the LAMB without MARKS,
marked up and marred for all
the things you will ever do wrong.
I LOVE YOU
BEHOLD, I am making all things NEW!
And now that you know that,
this thing is through,
IT IS FINISHED.
[... But I’m not done yet...]“

And then something happens
that I can never fully wrap my
head around.
It sends me spinning in dizzying
mind melting moments of indecision
I am often at a loss for words.
And I’m sure his followers were too…

“HE IS RISEN!”

And the debt of Genesis 3
the chapter I must fight with myself
to read is only a matter of record
for those who abide in him
who conquered sin and death
to bring us back not into peace
but into a more perfect existence in sha’lom
reconciling all things to himself
and promising a new heaven
and new earth where God and his children
will reside forever
where all tears will be swept aside and
Jesus will be fully reunited with the one he loved
even when she didn’t love him, his bride
singing
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY
WHO WAS AND IS AND IS TO COME

And I will hopefully see you there
someday.
But, to remain faithful
I have to be faithful today.
God, I know you meant
for creation to be beautiful and 
I’m sorry for what I’ve made it into
Please, never let this yearning for perfection
leave this broken heart unmended
until that day when the perfect
comes for me,
wipes my eyes clear and tells me,
“It’s time to come home.”

To My Future Wife

To my future wife:

I feel as if I’m being a bit presumptuous
and not the least bit humble as I begin
to write this but I feel I must let you know
there is a part of me that aches,
longs for the connection in our
interlocked fingertips
and your head against my chest
since you’ll probably be
much shorter than I.
At least that’s how I imagine you
as I pray for you on your path
towards me and mine towards you.

I’ve been feeling pretty LONELY lately
as I watch men leave their mother and
father and
cling to their
wife.
That’s the most BEAUTIFUL picture
two people can paint in this life
As the MAN loves his wife like CHRIST
does the church.
But I find it difficult to find JOY in all of it
I guess I’m just tired of falling in love
then falling to the ground time in and.
TIME OUT.

This was supposed to be a note to
my beautiful wife
because surely she’ll be BEAUTIFUL
in my eyes
But I want her and God to know
that I’m
putting some thought and heart into it
even before I meet her.
It’s just that a large part of me
is still UNBELIEVABLY bitter.

So, to my future wife
I want you to know that
I’ve done lots of things wrong
and for all things remembered
I have REPENTED and asked
for forgiveness through the blood
of the bridegroom to our Father in HEAVEN
who has since dubbed me
and hopefully you one of his CHILDREN
and so, my sister I HOPE you’ll be able
to SEE past the deepest of my evil deeds
and see me DRAPED IN WHITE
even though, on the outside I
have dipped my toes in the opposite
and come out looking physically
blackened.

TEN YEARS AGO
I developed this belief inside of myself
that I wasn’t built to be loved and
as I stood on the OUTSIDE of social circles
I started proving myself right
and then FIVE YEARS AGO
I had walked away from the faith that formed me
and walked on into that DARK night
Into the ARMS of WOMEN who were not you
and teasing the line between what was and wasn’t SIN
and then ending it all when everything rang
too close to my heart and
eventually came back BROKEN by the truth
Then, finally THREE YEARS AGO I said hello
to someone who played my heart
like a yo-yo and I swore never again
to fall FLAT on my FACE to bow down to the idol
this confused generation has made
relationships between women and men
Somehow, this map got FLIPPED
and now our compass points ANY direction but right
it just SPINS like some SICKENING
and unhealthy GAME show.

So, dearest wife to be
I have been alone since then
and some days I’m READY
for you to be here but if I’m
HONEST and ask myself why
It’s because I’m sick of watching
the STUPID GAMES that people
around me play with each other’s hearts and souls
like if you pick them up and DROP THEM
they’ll bounce against the pavement
and be no less DAMAGED from the
down and up, the up and down

HOW DARE WE?
How can we treat each other like this?
Did Christ teach us all
“Blessed be YOURSELVES for yours
will be the kingdom to which you feel entitled?
Blessed are the greedy for they’ll
inherit the desire of their hearts and minds?”
I cannot buy into this,
sweetheart.
And so maybe it’s best if you keep your
distance until I can clean up this
MESS inside me

DEAR GOD
help me dismantle this poorly assembled heart
I have long since grown out of the games
But that doesn’t mean they haven’t, at one time
been played but I’m so sorry
I didn’t trust you sooner to put all things right
Though you’ve already made yer peace with all things
I have not made peace with the pieces of things
inside me.

So, to my future wife
I’m sorry I wrote this for you
since it’s not the love letter you deserve
but it’s the love letter that has already been written
In the beginning.
With the word
And that’s better than any trite word I could
type or write down in spite of myself.
My prayer is that you will keep your head up
And your heart strong
Because long and hard is the way to the light.
Keep it tall and high so I can see it
in the darkness that threatens to surround
every hour of every day