Truth

Truth is beaten down
by naysayers and die hard critics.
Cynicism is the new cool,
cursing it's language.

Truth is sidelined
as unimportant and irrelevant,
too old fashioned for words,
laughable even.

Truth is how you see it,
and you and I see it
so very differently.
We can all be right
in this age
of conformity to nonsensical logic.

Truth is changing.
Of course it is.
All good things mutate over time
as the precise facts of the evolution theory
put it.

We will create a new truth
that will last forever,
with a few parts of the old
for the sake of continuity.

Truth is guarded
by a fanatical few
with a Book revered
and stories told
of a Man who said he was Truth.

Truth has been silenced,
all in allegiance killed.
It will not be bothering us anymore.

Truth can never be destroyed.
One day He will return
and put an end to lies
forever.

Wedding

Sunlight shafts glimpse through
canopied Puriri,
long lived trees witnesses in that
fine missionary tamed plot of ripe earth.

Tangled deep green growth is crushed by
three generations of expectant feet
awaiting the holy solemnity
of new covenant
forged with full lipped vows and dearest declaration.

An ivy twisted, flower pinned archway
waits to behold the beauty
ushered in with bagpipe shrill.

The wild green church
encompasses the beckoned bridal throng,
blushing deeply with the first glimpsed view.

Words sung softly
wrap around the living columns,
woodland stilled by the One who is praised.

Gentle words and bold kisses
mingle on the lips
of the couple beheld.
Their hearts a whirl with
fulfillment and anticipation
of together life.

Applause rings the proclamation
of husband and wife,
sealed before God and man
underneath these ancient trees.

Bad Religion

I don't want
bad religion
that binds me up
in fear and guilt,
herding me into
a suffocating small space
unable to be free
to laugh
to dance
to sing
to be the myself
God has created me to be,
and not the one of
someone else's tiny imagination.

I don't want
bad religion
where those who are in
look down on the out,
bolstering their fragile egos
in the light of other
less fortunate failures.
One look condemns,
the verdict next,
the sentence carried
before a word from the accused.

I don't want
bad religion
where no one cares
if I live or die,
as long as it doesn't
take up a moment
of their busy schedules
or inconvenience them in any way.
The volume turned down
on the cries of the desperate,
and off if it becomes too irritating.

I don't want
bad religion.
God doesn't either.
That's not why Jesus came to earth
and died
so we can be tangled up
and downward dragged
by confusing legalese
and man-made print.

God
so misrepresented
by willful muddle
and downright lies.
Humanity wants nothing to do
with the One
who created,
who loves,
who cares,
and deeply longs for
relationship
sin broken, cross restored.

He's waiting for us
to say no to
bad religion
and yes and yes and yes
to His kingdom and to Him.  

The Hollow Men (My version of T.S.Eliot's poem of 1925)

We are the hollow men.
I know T.S.Eliot said it first,
but it bears repeating.

We are the stuffed men,
seemingly resplendent on the outside
in all our social finery,
but lost and broken inside
hoping no one will glimpse
our shame.

We are the hollow men
born without hearts
for feeling,
without minds
for thinking,
without souls
for touching one another.

So we voice our shallow platitudes
and we hope no one will ask us
a truly difficult question,
such as what does love look like
in this battered and bruised life.

We smile and nod
hoping no one will
notice our faces
flushed from crying
in the desolate wilderness
of our own untidy sanctuary.

Those who have broken through
to the other life
do not understand our downcast faces,
the despair of unknowing
and being unknown.

Faces I cannot meet again
of those in the future kingdom
look with kindness
and cheer us on to this better place,
where pain is left
as doorstep shoes
for the rain to dampen
and thieves to reject.

This is the dying land in which we live
as we look for the living One
to come and turn this death kingdom on it's head,
and flood resuscitating life into every soul
that accepts the new breath.

Here we go around the same garden path
that our first parents so carelessly wandered in.

Can it be the same
in the future
present and past,
of a world between
it's beginning and end,
surely nearer the end
although it's inhabitants
do not behave as if it were so.

We gather on the shore of this decision
to go forward
or to turn again to our personal Egypt,
that place of pleasure and pain
so muddled we cannot divide them.

Between the commencement
and the finale
comes the awkward
moment of silence
when the audience
is unsure of the
timing of their applause.

Between the passion                               For yours is the kingdom
and the regret
is something far
more confusing
and impossible
to quantify.

Between the creation                                the power and the glory
and the judgement
there is salvation
if we will have it.
A freely given gift
scorned by so many
in this darkness hungry life.

This is the way each one's world ends.       forever and ever. Amen
This is the way your world ends.
There is an end.
May it be with the power of a prayer
and not with a whimper.

Word Received 9.4.2016

Draw near to Me
and I will lead you in My purposes.
Listen to My voice,
and shut out the other voices
that would try to distract you
or lead you onto other paths.
Listen to Me and respond to My Word
not in the future but now when you hear it.
Do not fear,
for nothing will be impossible for you
if you walk in obedience.
It is not about your righteousness or your worthiness,
but it is because of My righteousness
and My worth that these things will come to pass.

Don't lose hope

Don't lose hope.
It is more vital
to you
than your daily bread.

It sustains you,
nourishes you,
cleanses you,
and refreshes you.

Don't lose hope.
You can't buy it,
borrow, beg, or steal it.
It does not come
in convenient multi-packs,
half filled to avoid waste.

Don't lose hope.
You can't quantify it, define it,
measure it with metric or imperial.
But you will be truly lost without it,
unable to move one space
forward in your beckoning life.

Don't lose hope.
We take it for granted
when we have it in abundance.
That invincibility of youth,
untainted by disappointment,
who know they can do anything.

Don't lose hope.
When disaster or tragedy
visits with unwelcome abhorrence,
and leaves you with a disgust
that life can be so.

Don't lose hope.
The disciples lost it
as they saw Jesus on the cross,
but found it afresh
on the third day
with gripping intensity.

Jesus said,"I go to My Father
to prepare a place for you."

Don't lose hope.