A True Hymn

MY Joy, my Life, my Crown !
My heart was meaning all the day,
Somewhat it fain would say,
And still it runneth muttering up and down
With only this, My Joy, my Life, my Crown !

Yet slight not those few words ;
If truly said, they may take part
Among the best in art :
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords
Is, when the soul unto the lines accord.

He who craves all the mind,
And all the soul, and strength, and time,
If the words only rhyme,
Justly complains that somewhat is behind
To make His verse, or write a hymn in kind.

Whereas if the heart be moved,
Although the verse be somewhat scant,
God doth supply the want ;
As when the heart says, sighing to be approved,
“O, could I love !” and stops, God writeth, “Loved.”

-George Herbert

Your Love

Your blood.
Are the tears that run down my face,
When I am completely lost and feel out of place.
Your arms.
Are the comfort that wraps around me,
When all I want to do is scream.
Your beauty.
Is the one thing that makes me beautiful,
When I swallow the lies the media pulls.
Your kindness.
Is how I don't lose sight of why I am living.
When I feel the pressure the world is giving.
Your love.
Is why I haven't died.
Is why instead I've cried.
Is the only thing that fills me up inside.
When I just want to hide.
-Becki Perez

Thanksgiving Hymn

This poem was written during the first world war to honor the young men of great Britain who had given their lives.

For the Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
-Laurence Binyon

Spellbound

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
-Emily Bronte

Death

DEATH, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
Nothing but bones,
The sad effect of sadder groans :
Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.

For we considered thee as at some six
Or ten years hence,
After the loss of life and sense,
Flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks.

We looked on this side of thee, shooting short ;
Where we did find
The shells of fledge souls left behind,
Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort.

But since our Savior's death did put some blood
Into thy face ;
Thou art grown fair and full of grace,
Much in request, much sought for, as a good.

For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
As at dooms-day ;
When souls shall wear their new array,
And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad.

Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
Half that we have
Unto an honest faithful grave ;
Making our pillows either down, or dust.

-George Herbert

Blind

We blind ourselves to the truth
We go on to say 'wow, what does this truth look like?'
But in reality the blind see him best

So is this truth even tangible?
Ahh but the nerveless can feel him the best

But to whom can hear him
Only the deaf can hear his glories
Of a power all packaged up in a silence

So we continue to search for what he appears to be
But in all honesty
When we reach that heaven
We will see that we have been chasing a phantom
Of non existence
And realize he was there all along

So who, was blind
-C.J. Lofton

Expands His Being

All beings
are words of God,
His music, His
art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps
in our
souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night.
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my heart.

-Meister Eckhart

Cold Was the Tomb

2009

Cold was the tomb where my dead heart lay
Void of life and steeped in shame
Empty of joy and life and day
Filled with guilt and hate and blame

Long was the silence of a heart turned cold
Warped till it couldn’t recognize truth
16 years and a mind that is old
Purity and innocence both murdered in youth

Burning was the hate of an empty heart
Choking and grabbing and draining away
I and my God were ever apart
My mind was convinced there was never a way

To die to death
To live to life
To trade all my emptiness, pain, and puke
To open my eyes
To be born again
To a life that is living, fulfilling, and new

Great was the chasm me dear Lord crossed
Down to my world of self-centered drive
Love pushed Him to rescue what was lost
To take what was dead, and make it alive

He stooped down and spit in the dust to form clay
He opened my eyes and made me see day

How great was the cost that brought life to my steps
The jeering, the tearing, the shortness of breath
When God came in flesh to stand in my place
I bruised Him and mocked Him and spit in His face

Proud was the heart that was condemned to die
It did not recognize it had been set free
When holy fire fell from the sky
And burned up the sacrifice instead of me
God, fully human, nailed to a tree

As Isaac's own death was replaced with a ram
I have been saved by a crucified lamb

Loud was the all wondrous all healing grace
That wakened a mind from guilt and sin
When by His mercy He lifted my face
“Be opened” my eyes and my heart let Him in

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
That awesome debt I could not pay
And grace made all fear disappear
In three dark hours one yesterday

Now the cold has birthed a light
By His work my heart will grow
Out of filth to what is right
My soul knows heaven from below

Jesus, Jesus, how I love Him
Eat His body, drink His blood
Living water, ever flowing
He has plunged me in the flood
of healing waters from His throne
I’ve been called to enter in
To His temple as His own
By His suffering, cleansed from sin

How can I worry of life’s passing doubts
I have a promise that won’t pass away
Jesus has called at my grave “come out”
And He’ll keep calling till earth’s final day

When I look in His face and feel His hands
“My Lord and my God” You’ve saved me from night
I’ll ever sing glory to God become man
When God given faith becomes rapturous sight

Tu Ne Quaesieris

For all the lore of Lodge and Myers
I cannot heal my torn desires,
Nor hope for all that man can speer
To make the riddling earth grow clear.
Though it were sure and proven well
That I shall prosper, as they tell,
In fields beneath a different sun
By shores where other oceans run,
When this live body that was I
Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,
Yet what were endless lives to me
If still my narrow self I be
And hope and fail and struggle still,
And break my will against God’s will,
To play for stakes of pleasure and pain
And hope and fail and hope again,
Deluded, thwarted, striving elf
That through the window of my self
As through a dark glass scarce can see
A warped and masked reality?
But when this searching thought of mine
Is mingled in the large Divine,
And laughter that was in my mouth
Runs through the breezes of the South,
When glory I have built in dreams
Along some fiery sunset gleams,
And my dead sin and foolishness
Grow one with Nature’s whole distress,
To perfect being I shall win,
And where I end will Life begin.

-C. S. Lewis from his first published work, Spirits in Bondage

Sweet Salvation

Sweet Salvation

You wrote truth inside my head
Overlooked all I had said
Woke my soul up from the dead
Hallelujah, Sweet Salvation

Changed my mind and made it new
You’re making me to be like You
Replaced my filth with what is true
Hallelujah, Sweet Salvation

I couldn’t buy it, I couldn’t earn it
I desperately need it, but I don’t deserve it
I didn’t even want it
But You looked in my eyes and changed my heart
Now all I want is Sweet Salvation

7-17-10
Ditch
The crime inside your mind
Of thinking God is blind
Requiring supervision
and approval
Before obedience

Serve
In headaches, sweat, and dirt
Give up your only shirt
Even when it isn't cool
or hip
To sacrifice your life.

And do not fondle (idle/idol) dreams
That blot out what's in front of you
You think the future's years away
He's laid out works for you to do

Love
In weariness, dryness, and confusion
Don't lose sight of your life's infusion
Fall for Grace
every day
He's given blood for you.

After the Storm

After the Storm
by Mumford and Sons

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.

And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Lay Down

7-9-10
Lay Down
Lay down every right
Every claim to self
Any belief that I deserve peace and safety

Lay down
Lay down any thought of vengeance
Any retaliation and bitterness
The grit of teeth and the anxious wrestling in the night

Lay down
Lay down your dreams of perfection
And your plans of self pleasing
Lay down your grip on having all things work out your way

Lay down and rest in the tumultuous peace of Jesus Christ

Where circumstance swirl
The heart grows still
Leaning on the only arms that can hold

Lay down

Called

Called
Dec 1985, John Piper

Five miles southeast of Nazareth
A young man drew his final breath,
And perished in his mother's arms.
She stared across the olive farms
South to the Plain of Esdraelon;
And back and forth she rocked her son,
Her only son, and held his head
Against the breast where she had fed
Him with her bitter milk and tears.

For dark and bitter were the years
When he was born. His father died
Before the child could walk. His bride
Of twenty months had buried him,
With help from friends, out on the rim
That falls steep toward Samaria.
And spices from Arabia
Were given by the neighborhood,
As everyone agreed they should,
Because she had no other family.
But yet there was the son, and he
The widow's only hope.

Twelve years
They lived together, and her fears
Grew less as he became a man.
And then the dread disease began:
At first the intermittent cough;
And then the puzzling fever off
And on; and then the constant wheeze;
And then the nights upon her knees:

"Almighty God of Abraham,
Take pity on me, Lord, I am
A widow; he's my only son.
If he should die I am undone!"

And then the purple spit appeared,
And all the worst that she had feared.
To fight his final fears she tried
To hold him tight until he died.
And back and forth she rocked her son
Above the Plain of Esdraelon.

Her friends made fit the burial place
Out on the rim, and made a space
Beside his father, and prepared
The body while his mother stared
Across the Plain, too stunned and weak
To work or cry or even speak.
But then, come burial day, at length
She summoned up her little strength,
And with the child and crowd and pain
She led them out the gates of Nain.

And now, behold, the Word of God!
The rock- and ocean-splitting rod!

Along that very road there came
A band of men, and One whose name
Is Jesus Christ the Lord. They bowed
Politely to the grieving crowd,
But one: the Lord had fixed his eyes,
As though he heard a thousand cries,
On her. And when she saw his face
She stopped, and silence filled the place.
A strange and awesome feeling fell
Upon that crowd, and they could tell
That this exchange was very deep.
And then he spoke and said, "Don't weep."
And something happened in her heart
That made the heaviness depart.
And then he motioned to the men
Who held the box, and when
They looked at her and saw her hope,
They set it down and loosed the rope.
As gentle as a hand could be,
He made the coffin cover free,
And then with father-fingers lay
The strips of facial shroud away,
And spoke with passion in his eyes:
"Young man, I say to you, arise."
And he arose. And Jesus placed
Him in his mother's arms, and faced
Her one last time. Perhaps the two
Of them alone were all who knew:
Two short commands were all he said—
Two people quickened from the dead.

Who can withstand the word of Christ!
It has for ages now sufficed
To bear the universe it made!
Come let the glory be displayed
Of Jesus Christ's triumphant voice!
The dead rise not by their own choice,
And none of us would live at all
But by the Lord's triumphant call!
This is the truth of candle two:
The call of God makes all things new.

Heart and Skill Pt. 2

The Genius unknowingly shared a birthday with a goat who is not even a part of this story, but also with a young woman who was christened Kathy. Her biography will remain short, but let it be known that in the course of the previously mentioned nineteen year span, she became the most beautiful girl in body and heart that was alive in the entire world. Period.

Through a series of mishaps, ironies, and one overturned cart in the middle of a market, she became acquainted with both the Simpleton and the Genius, both of whom joined the entire bachelor population in loving her madly.

But there was a problem.

The Simpleton felt a fire burning in his heart for the girl but could not tell her how he felt. It was not a language barrier that kept him from writing beautiful sonnets for his love, it was the fact that even if he knew the words to say, he would not know in what order to say them. He had become, by no genetic fault whatsoever, mentally handicapped. And now at the age of 'nine'teen the only phrase that could run through his head was "I love you".
This desire of his was strong, but it was never allowed to grow. His love was confined to this one phrase in the same way that a fish is confined to a tank. If only it had room to grow it would have become much larger and deeper, but this single phrase did not hold ultimate sway on him.
The interaction that took place between the girl and the Simpleton was entirely limited to this one phrase. At first Kathy loved the Simpleton because she heard whispers of passion in his voice that ran deeper than the mobs that pursued her. She thought she heard echoes of art that her heart longed for, but in the end she grew tired of his repetition and, seeing that his mental faculty did not match his heart, shunned him completely.

Kathy's relation to the Genius is another story altogether, or another paragraph at least. As Kathy conversed with the Genius she was amazed with his knowledge. He seemed to know so much about life and the world. Unfortunately it became evident to her that he was rather blind to people. While he tried to show his love to her, he would always do it in a blunt and assuming way. The genius thought that the match between perfect beauty and perfect wisdom was logical and he tried reasoning with Kathy to show her this was true. Over and over again the Genius took things that were beautiful because they were true and eloquized the life out of them. Something of romp and play had died in him long ago and so every romantic proposition was wrung of anything that would sound silly or that was not completely true and then presented to Kathy with humble flare.

Kathy eventually dumped them both and married a tubby boy named Poetry who had grown up with red-haired Bill Collins.

Tip to Simpleton: Train yourself to appreciate beauty with skill.
Tip to Genius: Don't be a moron.
Second tip to Genius: Train yourself to appreciate beauty.

Heart and Skill Pt. 1

Once upon a time there was a boy who was born in the countryside. His parents were both very poor and could not afford to send him to the local school. Wanting to save face when queried about their son's education, the parents told all their neighbors that they valued their son's character above his education and that they would train him themselves. Since neither parent could read or write it was assumed by the neighbors that the son would prove an excellent ditch digger, which he did. Unfortunately, his parents hired him out too early in life and at the age of nineteen his vocabulary matched that of his last year of training ten years ago.

The Simpleton unknowingly shared a birthday with another boy in a village eight miles south. This boy's parents were also not extremely well to do, but placed a high value on the boy's education. He learned to read at three and was working on Latin and Greek by the age of eight. At nine he had mastered algebra and French and was just writing his autobiography. By the time he reached fifteen he had accomplished so many things that his parents were running out of subjects to teach. At sixteen he attended the largest university in the nation and completed his Masters in Every-stinkin-thing-there-is-to-ever-learn-in-the-whole-world in three years. At nineteen he was the most literate person in the country. From a young age the boy felt pressured by his parents and the distance grew as he began to pass them academically. His trip to the University was his final break with them. Now, he was alone in the world, for he could not find anyone his equal intellectually. Several times he came close to have one or two actual friends, but he was such an extremely logical fellow that he discarded them because of several flaws he detected. Alas, no one would be as perfect as he.

Portrait of a Toilet

It does not matter how eloquently or expressively a toilet is described, it remains a toilet. While it may be portrayed with words meant to strike emotion in the heart it can only reach a certain depth of poetry because of the content. Similarly, I have read some excellent poems about trees that have somehow stirred up less longing in my heart than the crappiest verse about the cross of Christ.
How much better it is when a master painter brings the soul to worship with words that cut straight through bone and marrow to the heart? I have seen it, I have heard it.
And if you all you see on the horizon is trite verse or exquisite wastepaper, do not give up. There are diamonds in the rough; there is a fountain in the desert. The source is the ultimate Poet, the Giver of Life. He is the only one who has every come up with anything original to say and when He talks all eternity listens.
We hear The echoes of His voice in every second. Train yourself to sing along.

A Hymn

A thunder tumbling down the alleys of the rockies,
Blowing the pines with a freezing gust of heaven

A billion gallons of ocean,
Crashing into the rocky cliffs of the Oregon coastline

A sunrise so artistic
I can taste it in my heart
And a dying sun so lovely
It makes me want to cry

Wondrous are the works of Your hand and the breath of Your mind
Poured out on our surroundings as a testimony
To your greatness, power, and love


But Greater still

God on a cross
Man made free
All sin forgiven
Eternity opened
Pain crushed
Grief assuaged
Life poured
Death killed
God saves
God loves
God restores
Nature testifies day after day

Countless stars frozen in the dance of night,
Bursting light soundlessly past light-years of liquid space

River scattering, twisting, rushing, before falling to a wondrous impact,
Scattering the mist I taste at Multnomah Falls

A field of grain
Reverently bowing to its creator in the wind.
A coyote howl
The beat of bumblebee’s wings
A stroke of lightning across the sky
A baby’s first cry
A testimony of your greatness, power, and love,

But greater still

God as a man
Using our lungs
Craving our food
Stubbing our toes
Feeling the strain of our exertion
And the pain of our exhaustion
Tasting our food
Hugging our frames
Caring for our brokenness
Loving us in our dying
He came
He saw
He conquered with love
All hearts that had till then
Fortified themselves in pride and despair

The Savior of all souls
Came crashing in as the greatest of earth
But the humblest of heaven

God man
My friend and savior
Ever the name of Jesus written on my heart
And heard on my lips
For he sought me
And he bought me
With blood divine.

Depth of Poetry

The depth of poetry is not rated by an author's ability to use a thesaurus. Poetry is not someone's attempt to bend over backwards to say something a new way; it is an attempt to say it in a way that we feel it should have been said all along. Where an artistic level is high, but the level of meaning and significance are low, there is a lack of poetry. Because while there may be a superficial admiration at the ability of the author, there is no wonder stirred in the mind, no resuscitation of the heart, no opening of the eyes to the wonders of the world. Ephphatha.

Glencoe- G.K. Chesterton

The star-crowned cliffs seem hinged upon the sky,
The clouds are floating rags across them curled,
They open to us like the gates of God
Cloven in the last great wall of all the world.

I looked, and saw the valley of my soul
Where naked crests fight to achieve the skies,
Where no grain grows nor wine, no fruitful thing,
Only big words and starry blasphemies.

But you have clothed with mercy like a moss
The barren violence of its primal wars,
Sterile although they be and void of rule,
You know my shapeless crags have Wed the stars.

How shall I thank you, O courageous heart.
That of this wasteful world you had no fear;
But bade it blossom in clear faith and sent
Your fair flower-feeding rivers: even as here

The peat burns brimming from their cups of stone
Glow brown and blood-red down the vast decline
As if Christ stood on yonder clouded peak
And turned its thousand waters into wine.

Foolishness

Poetry must not be over dissected. It is like a shaft of light observed with peripheral vision. When you face it head on it loses its distinction. The joy of poetry is that it is foolishness to the wise, but water to the thirsty. The mechanical and stoic may search in vain to find out why certain words shoot to our cores, but I do not. I simply thank God that He designed the human mind to both create and enjoy the premonitions of all things made right.

These Days- Rich Mullins

There's a song down in my heart
Nobody there to sing it
Like a vision asleep in the dark
With no one around to dream it
We just all sit back and watch all
That we love sinking away
When we got to where we was going
We forgot were it was
The next thing that you know is
All we found was we was lost
And the blame, oh the blame
Comes down on all of us these days

These days we got nothing left to find
These days, oh, its the blind leading the blind
These days I need more than just a line about Jesus
Oh I need to see His love these days

We got sophistication
In the wake of the fall
Now we got this civilization
And it's got us all involved in nothing
Oh nothing at all but atomic waste
And we got too many people
Who are too easily disposed of
Well you can make it all legal
But in the end you know that it aint right
You were just doing your job
And your job did you in these days

These days we got nothing left to find
These days oh its the blind leading the blind
These days I need more than just a line about Jesus
Oh I need to see His love these days

Poetry

Poetry.

I used to dislike poetry. There was something inside of me that had a deep disdain for the form and pattern of perfectly rhyming couplets. I loathed limericks and felt the sudden urge to break the sixth commandment over the head of anyone who mouthed one within earshot, a conviction I hold to this day.(For those alarmed by my last statement, the sixth commandment refers to murder, not adultery.)

But over time I have come to recognize an artistry and playfulness with words that touches the deepest part of the heart. A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes words can cut corners by painting pictures. Some of these word paintings are so packed with meaning that they catch in my throat and give me heartburn.

I would like to introduce you to some of my favorite word painters. These are men and women who have observed the numbing beauty of the world around us and have not shrunk back, but rather made attempts to capture them and share with others.