Sometimes

Sometimes I write in a haze of fretting
Words misdemeaning,
Seeking to land on target,
Rest in the laver 
To spark the flame
Begetting life again

Sometimes I bleet
Like a wayward sheep
Stuck in my mind's underbrush,
Caught and locked up-
Until you find me and I'm freed up-
To roam with you unhindered
Hills and valleys, full surrender

Sometimes I think upon your love
It is said that the Word came
and became
A living dirt-born being
That among the stench of separation
You blew a fresh wind of freedom
Sacrifice, the most costly ransoming
Of the estranged with a ring

Sometimes I give up
My attempts to pen your kindness
To stand in your love
and never quit your presence
I look away from the mirror to You,
My Jesus. Your coming, giving, dying, rising
Love more than enough.

A place like home

Quiet pulse of the waves, the strum of wind in Linden leaves
Swaying of helicopteor seeds
soon to be freed.

Oh July, fading. Cool nights and bright days
The breach in my expectations
and Your ways.

Oh, heart, failing. Eye cried long ago, dreamt
Holding memories and kept
Grieved to be left.

To watch the yearnings drift into black and white
Tucked away, dusty and forgotten.
I cannot relive the season

Being here, now,
Is the reason,
the call.

It's the moments I truly
give myself
in love.

Can I love
Without demands?
Like the Linden seed, freed. 

In the return
May I be a friend
Who is a place like home.

An evening

An evening on Nokomis shores, summer's last ounce
the mallard sounds to announce
paddling until she's walking on sand
gracefully transitioning to land
waddling up the incline and sits beside me,
pruning on the grass sea,
her brown tweed with the purple stripped wing,
tucked like a fashionable clutch, her bling.  

Now lined up,
one, two, three
matrons of honor
hens next to me,
head tucked in wing.

Why are there so many religions?

Given up, my dear,

they were all given up.

Given up to their own ideas
Let loose to pursue the gods made by their own hands,
Gods made by their own deceitful hearts
Gods they could control
Structures of religion they could earn their desires with
Not to mention the demons that want to be worshiped

So there are many religions, made through the ages
Religions named and nameless
Structures of power used for gain and oppression
And, yes, there are many who are trapped,
Deceived, caught up in their religion,
There are many who don't know the Name of Jesus Christ, Yeshua,
The saving Name, through whom the Creator God has made the way.

Why were they given up?
A Roman citizen wrote "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." (ESV)  Romans 1:18–25

Dear one,
Let me share my story.
I believed the ideas of god from my own mind,
What it meant to be a "good person"
Even though  I failed my own standards 
My god would forgive
apart from reality (but believed in)
Hoping I was secure, striving, working,
That upon death I would meet mercy.
This was an illusion.

Then I met the Living God
Through His book, the Bible,
And encountered the love with which He loved me:
He came to the ones who were given up.
He came for me.
Jesus has forgiven,
Now I receive His life.
I forgive as I have been forgiven, and pray:
Come to the given up ones.
May they be freed from the gods of their minds,
To trust and believe and receive.

Inspiration: Personified

Flame handed, reaching for the wisp of inspiration
To be grasped and put to flight

She being fleet footed, doe-eyed

Her departure illuminating sight

Drawing near, I feel the flutter

A wave of desire

There’s something effervescent

Yet tangible, living stripe of fire

Oh, your perfume! I’ve met you, I’ll not forget you

I’ll delight to write

The woes and raspings, crests and chafing

Dwelling in her light

This rain cloud apparition, droughting superstition

Barrenness aside, the ruminating plight

Obliged and criticized

Unlit and loosened like a kite

From the silent womb of morning

Until after midnight

Daily to pursue the dew 

Cultivating beauty, sure and right.

More [Inspiration]

Laconic? Be not 

End the drought

With a draught

From inspiration’s fount

The waiting seed freed from dormancy,

Freed to write

Growing past the self-effacing lethargy

Into flourishing, life-giving insight

Now, ignite.

Awaken: A prayer for my nation

cut across the rivets and rivulets
of time
to a gentler age
when elected men were respectful
and discourse was civil

thoughtfulness
you are not dead,
I recall you.

though the debate
is filled with hate
fill me with love
fill us

with love to bridge the gap
may not agree, but understand
never disdaining ‘the other’
but crossing the aisle for your brother

burnt out and enraged
blame and shame filling the page
the broadcast anchor
fueling a phobic anger

fear not,
I say again,
do not fall into fear
the labels,
party associations and campaign donations
taking sides
of sides
until the division has blinded all eyes

I bless instead and call forth unity
justice without impunity
full of weighty mercy

He who reigns rains on the evil and the good
to His Name my plea is understood
in this time and place
shine on this nation’s case
recall and restore and remake
unify
and awake
yes, awaken.

In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

On its way

The steady state of change

The waterfall's trickling refrain

Grown by rain

A constant cycling, source releasing

Carved through seasons and ages,  

River stages

Sinuous, hydrologically continuous

Individual droplets create this entity

Connected movement continually

O, like the river to embrace

Life's transitions with ever-flowing grace

Never arriving, but at rest.

August 2018 Submission to Friends of the Mississippi River's 'Write to the River' 

Love song

Love is a flame
Love
is what heals the pain.

The grief of having loved and lost
Grief of change and the cost
of giving- of truly living.

Love is a call
and it's a command
Love is a call
and it's a demand.

Love, come
awaken
me.

You know I've called you,
sought you
I've wanted you to be
here
with me.

I'm calling you to love
I'm calling you to life
I'm calling you to be here
with me
Be here, with me, now.

You won't forget
the one you've made
you won't relent
until she is safe.

Awaken you to love
Awaken you to life
Awaken you above the striving seas
into my eyes
See yourself in me.
In love-
loved, and known
cared for, and owned.

Awakened to love
Awakened to life
Awakened to know
yourself and find me by your side.

March 2017

Heritage and Repentance

I love my nation, the United States of America. 
I didn't choose to be born here, but I was. 
And I'm thankful for it. 
So this fourth of July, I celebrate. And I pray. And I cry.
 I started this post a decade ago; I don't know why I didn't finish it. I just remember being so in awe after reading about a national apology. As a representative of his nation, the prime Minister of Canada apologized for trying to 'kill the Indian in the child'. 

This act was so needed. Yet does it sate the desire for justice? The colonial rapacious oppression? I'm angry at the legacy of racism and the perpetuation of stereotypes against first nation peoples. I'm angry my nation and northern neighbor had these evil policies.

It seems right for the government to apologize, to no longer sweep such actions under the rug. But is it enough? Is it repentance? 

Corporate repentance for cultural sins is mentioned in A. Scott Moreau's book on Spiritual Warfare. This is when "a person or a group of people, repents on behalf of a people or nation. This is called identificational repentance, meaning that the person or group is identifying itself as an appropriate representative for the people or nation that has sinned."
 
It's the fourth of July, the signing of the Declaration of Indepenence, the 'birth' of the USA. How do I, how do we, repent, forgive, and live in light of this? 

Father God, have mercy.
I repent for my nation's evil sins,
the church's part in destroying culture
in dishonoring and assisting in efforts to exterminate people groups
for destroying languages
for warring and stealing land
for perpetuating lies
for continued subjugation
for laws, policies, treaties and promises broken
for every evil, oh God, I repent, on behalf of myself, my forefathers and my nation

Oh Jesus, High Priest and Intercessor, have mercy
Bring a new day
Let Your light dawn in the First Nations
Remove addiction
Bring wholeness
Restore families
Bring reclamation
Shout new hope 
Herald in new life
Bring lover's of You into every life, releasing the gospel contextually 

Oh Holy Spirit, bring new songs and dances
Creativity and prosperity 
Entrepreneurship and opportunity
Education and dreaming Restore honor
Release peace into every home
Release freedom into every soul
Restore the combination: to be First Nation and a Lover of the Creator and His Creation
In Jesus' Name.

Answered

I want all the answers conveniently in my billfold
Rational and wise, benevolently advised,
Never surprised

Rather than
Mad-driving and poor
Biting and sure

Oh, the learning plight
Expectations bite
Parking lot fears and long nights

I wrote this and awoke this- choked this,
Cage my heart,The bitter part.

Sour to this gustatory perception
Never mind that it's late, too, 
An unequivocal rue. 

The aristocracy of chemistry.
Sure, subtlety,
I want to be known and, yes,

I have an agenda,
A timeline and a dreaming veranda
On the recline I'm inclined to fantasy

Until suffocated with the chest-crushing reality
Inciting; righting
Commanding fears, be flighting

Truth, be resurrecting, anxiety blasting
No more trust in starched prescription
Held by the fairy tale's happily ever after ransom

I will live in the in-between
Fearless and trusting
In Answerer never-forsaking. 

She shone with fire

She's broken but she's fierce
She'll be welded back together
But it will be a wild weld, never torn asunder.

She's speaking from a deep heart
Blue eyes shining- fire of love impart
Wanting to belong, be known, be found, be shown.

Show her again your love and care
More intertwined than she could ever dare
(Even for one who practices prayer)

God: with boldness, adventure, meet her there.

Writing Your Name in fresh ways
Healing wounds and stopping the replays, the delays
Bringing faith, her destiny made
Brilliant and shining and never waylayed
Journeying deeper all her days.