O LORD, You’ve seen the eyesore guide me— mistaken glory strutting like an idol. You’ve heard the swelling praises pride me into fantasies beyond my title. You’ve seen the fallen angels ride me like soldiers guiding horses out to fight. You’ve heard the shrieks the monster cried me— deriding, whining, striking for my rights. You’ve … Continue reading A Prayer for Humility
If my heart is a song the notes ramble far and long but like the roads that go to Rome every melody leads home to the exact same words again, again, again. .
Oh, Joy, You came to us in the night— a baby boy—made like us— oh, God of might, small in Mary’s arms, whom Herod could not kill.
That Christmas comes at the end, in the final breaths of a wasting year, is best. After the muscle-ache of trekking graveside and back, graveside and back; after the haunting loneliness— of beauty-gazing and solo-missions, of incomprehensible party chatter, of home without its people; after the long war— the blitzkrieg of unrelenting lies, and the … Continue reading In the End
I walked with the stoics to the cliffs of death . I peered over the same ledge, down into the same ice black waters . and I tried so hard to breathe in the rush of freezing ache . kicking and squirming and trying not to make a sound . while they sat with their … Continue reading Observing Death with the Stoics
Take down your flag. The rain is falling. The gentle drops that wash away the past Are falling all around us, falling fast, Eroding all the paths that led before. . Take down your flag. The seams are wearing. The weakened threads of a forgotten age Have failed to stop time’s turning page. They let … Continue reading The Sun is Setting
My life has a limp and I shuffle along— swift and graceful as a turtle. Other lives have limbs built for speed and run majestically like cheetahs. My heart loathes to lose, but my head is in the game— I will limp on for You, and when I do, I only seem to lose.
They gather— like the sound of laughter at a party or black-cloaked mourners at a graveside or storm clouds thundering in. They move— like an eagle mounting the wind, or a turtle shrinking back into his shell, or a hiker lost in the wilderness. They read the signs— like a fortune teller or a political … Continue reading Feelings
Oh Lord, I am afraid of the eyes— all of the eyes— the dark, dark eyes that find me. They bind me at a look— a single look— a long, attentive look— and, Oh, LORD, I am afraid. One glance my way, and I fall— I trip and fall— I whither like a leaf and … Continue reading Prayer of the Timid
All my days bear Your footprints. You have gone before me faithfully. Before I knew Your name, You gave me a heart, and You have kept it beating faithfully. You did not let me live 5 years without the miracle of Your life joined to mine faithfully. My sin ran deep; Your love ran deeper. … Continue reading Faithfully
Gratefully His 