street preacher

A pocketful of change dropped in a dirty, broken cup is enough to illicit a smile from those cracked swollen lips. His dirty hands hungrily tally my trivial change, the stuff from the bottom of my bag, not even enough to get a hot drink with. But he smiles anyways...his smile, too wide for his face, opens up the cut on his lip exposing ruby red flesh. He runs shaky fingers through unwashed hair, and turns his head to look up at me through one good eye; the other is swollen shut, a bruised tattoo of street violence. From his torn mouth he whispers "bless you darlin" like a priest to a parishioner spoken from his unholy pulpit of dirty rags. My tithe accounted for... He turns back to the deaf assembly on the streets, preaching to a walking congregation. He speaks his message of hunger and hurt, of desperation and dirt, and like any church of late they do not heed his message. His message has become a chant, a looping dejected line that has lost its meaning "could you spare some change"...

...if only I could give him more than pennies...

How shall I hold on to my soul, so that it does not touch yours?

How shall I lift it gently up over you on to other things?

I would so very much like to tuck it away

among long lost objects in the dark, in some quiet, unknown place,

somewhere which remains motionless when your depths resound.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes I think I will always be that little girl hiding in her closet, afraid to feel the outside world. Pushed back into the farthest corner, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, trying to tuck away part of myself "among long lost objects in the dark, in some quiet unknown place." hiding in the darkness measuring my breaths as if the number of them might add up to a different total than the sum of the day's events.

Keep up your bright swords for the dew will rust them....

Sometimes its easier to fight than to give up, sometimes the battle is so consuming that to lay down our weapon seems impossible, we fight, mindlessly hacking away at an enemy we do not know how to fight, we fight till the sweat beads on our foreheads, till our limbs are heavy with fatigue, and we can barely raise our arms to strike the next blow...

We stand deep in the woods now and the dark shadows overwhelm us, the underbrush tears at our clothing and still...we fight. We beat against it....blindly casting about our weapons....no longer aware of how near the enemy really is......

And all the while... through the furor and the chaos....as if whispered on the wind we hear

"Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"...

We pause.

Sword in mid swing...

but just as quickly as the wind brought the promises of The voice to us... the overwhelming sound of the battle rises to a tempest roar and tears away that sweet voice that promised us rest and we forget that moment of release... and trudge on again....

and Yet in the beating of our own heart we hear it still... like an echo in the cave of our empty hearts...."for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" ... " my yoke is easy and my burden is light"......

Oh that we could cast off this heavy burden!!

that another could shoulder its weight... but the enemy is at our gates!!!..... he prowls as a Lion at the posts.... seeking whom he may devour... and we tremble at the terrible fear of him....

then somewhere in the deepest part of ourselves we hear a defiant proclamation....

"For I HAVE overcome the WORLD, and greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, no weapon formed against me shall prosper, for I will shut the very mouths of liars, and I will make your enemies a footstool to be trod upon, and every knee shall bow, and every mouth confess... that I AM Lord"....

The long journey home

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease,

I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

A monument in the Greyfriar's Kirkyard cemetery has an inscription to an unknown man and on it the inscription speaks of his life and of all he had lived for..."long before death hath closed his eyes" Last week I lost my grandmother, she passed away unknown to me and I wasn't there to be with her, to hold her hand or tell her goodbye, instead my phone rang late that night from a world away with my mom telling me the news. So, I had to say goodbye to her in my own way since I couldn't be there with my family. And without a funeral, or the memorial service, or the casket looming; like a dark portent marring the church's altar. I had time to think about who my grandmother was "long before death hath closed her eyes" I got to thinking that funerals are such a poor farewell to those whom we love and cherish. We forget in our grief who they were, that they lived and breathed and loved. Instead we travel down the dark road of mourning, carrying with us the void that they left behind, like an empty suitcase whose hinges have broken and will not close. We walk, blinded by sorrow, spilling out the valuable contents on the road behind us, like a sad homage to hansel and gretel. We cast out the contents and concentrate instead on the empty suitcase. Because the locked casket won't let us forget, the waiting grave won't let us forget, and certainly the preacher won't let us forget.... that they are gone. But here in my quiet livingroom sitting on the couch, without funeral music playing, or preachers stumbling over my loved one's name, or sickly sweet flowers dripping from every corner of the room, I can remember. I can remember my grandmother's hands worn and wrinkly soft, I can remember her humor and quick wit, her papery powdered cheek proffered as I started to leave, her life lessons, and cooking tips, her softly spoken prayers over her supper, her caramel cake that she would bake for me, her tears when I couldn't stay, and her joy when I came to visit...I can remember HER... and I can cherish who she was without being lost in the sorrow of her absence... and more importantly I can relinquish her to Christ... and I can look down the long road still left for me to travel, and pack up the memories back inside the suitcase of my heart and continue walking....

Today I was in a coffee shop, and as I was sitting there sipping my coffee I noticed that every chair in the room had a small square shelf on the back. A simply carved wooden bracket that had once been the home of a hymnal or bible. There were over 30 of them in the room, and it caused me a lot of pain to think of where they had sat before their relocation to this shop. I took note of how the arms of the chairs were worn smooth, the edges worn down probably by the fidgeting hands of children as they sat listening to the pastor, or by the calm hands of the pastor as he waited to give his sermon, or maybe polished smooth by the anxious hands of mourners that had come to pray for comfort, over time notched by hymnals laid on the back of them as the choir stood up to praise the Lord. And now here they stood, empty as tombs, a yawning nothingness as if a cruel grave robber had come and ripped away all that was valuable. 30 worn and run down, wooden monuments of a church's burgeoning bankruptcy. I know that they are only chairs and that a church is only a building, and that it is we who hold the truth inside each of our hearts. But still, seeing those empty seats filled with apathetic shop-goers; empty cups thrown haphazardly in their wooden shelves... I thought of the empty church they came from... and of what it must have felt like to close the doors of the chapel for the last time knowing all the while that no one would go back in the sanctuary to praise God, knowing no marraiges would begin or sinners be reconciled at the altar, no new believers baptized in the baptistry and no babies dedicated to God at the pulpit...and then having to sell off those chairs one by one to a bidder who didn't care if they came from a church or from the dentist that had gone out of business down the street.... and it saddened me. How many churches will close selling the contents to pubs and coffee shops because they can't keep the doors open? I long as David did to "behold the glory of the Lord in the sanctuary"... to see empty seats filled by hungry believers and desperate unbelievers, by the wealthy and the poor, the joyful and sorrow filled, the sick and the well, those with homes and those who find themselves homeless, with the upright and those that are just down on their luck....so I guess I have to ask myself... if the doors of our churches are closing... is it because they did not open them wide enough?

The tide

The ocean beckons calling out to me,
Beseeching me draw nearer, to look upon her sea,
Her salty whispers spoken with foamy lips of brine
Offering me her bosom, a salty tomb enshrine,

Where will the sea take me? I don't know.
Into the deeps of the ocean, carrying me out with the undertow,

Where will the winds sweep me? Will they toss me upon the glassy water still?
The ocean will not tell me, and I know she never will,

But If my feet should never touch land again I know,
The sea will be a loving mother, and dress me for death when I go,
My bones will be washed clean, a human coral made,
Polished on the rocky bottom, is where my bones be laid,
My hair will be like the kelp that washes up to shore,
Strands of supple seaweed were chestnut locks before,

Where will the sea take me? I don't know.
Into the deeps of the ocean, carrying me out with the undertow,

Where will the winds sweep me? Will they toss me upon the glassy water still?
The ocean will not tell me, and I know she never will,

My heart will be found in the flashing fickle tide,
That foolish men try to conquer in their fatal human pride,
My soul in the crashing waves, will be,
To lure men to the water's edge, as surely, she lured me,
My love will be in the currents that constantly swirl and twist,
That rise up in mighty mountains of soaring salty mist,
And one day I'll wash upon some far and distant shore,
Not really me, but the more the sea, than the me that was before.

Where will the sea take me? I don't know.
Into the deeps of the ocean, carrying me out with the undertow,

Where will the winds sweep me? Will they toss me upon the glassy water still?
The ocean will not tell me, and I know she never will.

To a Savior who set me free:

Now all have fallen short of the glory of God’s grace,
All have been disqualified to finally finish the race,
Still my sin sows seeds that suffocate the soul,
And my hopeless humanity hangs on in helpless hopes of being whole,
While burdens break the backs of beaten believers bent in crying,
The whole world holds its breath, while Jesus hangs there dying,


While his denied love desperately drips down a dusty and dejected cross,
His crimson covering completely cleanses a coal colored sinner’s dross,
In the last merciful moments of our Master’s mournful death
When his holy hands hang helpless as he heaves his haggard breath,
Father I am forsaken, in this faithless feud I faced,
Into thy hands I commit my spirit, my arms in your embrace,

Pierced for our transgressions, while he knelt in the garden to pray,
Prayed for those who dwelled defiled in that dire and dark decay,
So that now the faith of the fallen few no longer faces the fear of the flames,
So that the burdened backs of broken believers no longer bends in blame,
And now realizing we can rejoice in a real redemption that reclaims the ready soul,
We pray for a purpose,and for the powerful passion of being whole.