A poem, reflecting on James 3

The words in a man’s heart are oft words he dare not speak

lest he make a world of enemies. Oft these words are tainted things

less profanity and more truth. Sometimes the words in a man’s heart

praise the One who laid the stars, and other times they curse the man of whom he is the seed. Though these things ought not be, they are. And men of many words must live in that reality, adding salt to what they voice and rebuke to secret words inside.

Some Poetry: "The Hostage" and "Looking for God"

The Hostage:

I remember the encounter well

It is the story that I now tell.

There I stood, atop the ledge

With all devices in my hand;

Gun and rope and wire and knife.

I was prepared to take my life

The man below spoke soft and slow

He was a man I did not know.

Minutes in, I knew that man did I oppose.

For no friend of peace was I, I know.

The ledge now gone, a memory.

I am grateful for the life I do now lead

For the outcome I am thankful.

Indeed, guns sometimes tell messy stories

But that’s not the tale you’ll hear from me.

For that day upon the ledge, the man who talked me down, the victory he won.

For it was God who said “Let’s talk-just put down your gun.”

(based on a section of this interview with C.S. Lewis http://www.cbn.com/special/Narnia/articles/ans_LewisLastInterviewA.aspx)

Looking for God:

I wonder if we are all looking for God

And mistake it too often for freedom.

We leave small town life

For the lust of city lights

The lie we buy says that we are better than most

As we set out to make our claim, our claim amongst the steel and concrete temples of New Amsterdam, that never sleeping giant.

.

After all my years were spent, I found that life would not relent;

And so I died with dreams unmet and not fulfilled. Life became

Redundancy, looking for God in places he was not

So in the grave my body slept, my soul retreating to the depths.

I wonder if we are all

Looking for God where he is not at all

Like freedom or New Amsterdam.

(Based on a tweet by Jamie Tworkowski. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jamietworkowski) 

"To be young in New York or anywhere. Everyone doing what they want and calling it freedom. i wonder if we're all just looking for God."-Jamie Tworkowski

Why are you downcast, O my soul? (A Poem)

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why do you fall so easily?

I’ll tell you why.

You are weak, and fickle and full of lust

And you don’t trust those who love you

You think that you can do everything by yourself

But then you get to feeling like you do now

And you feel so alone and would take a life for a way out.

You’re looking to score and no, not in sports.

You’d kill for the whisky that takes the pain away

Or a joint just to kill the voices

You’d trade the progress you’ve made so far for the kiss of that whores mouth

Just so you could feel somebody close.

And so I ask again, why are you downcast, O my soul?

You don’t trust the man that saved you

And so you tie on your spandex cape

And you try to play the hero

But it never works does it?

You can’t stop the bullets that piece you to the core

And you can’t stop that thundering train that is racing toward you

And so to comfort yourself, you’ll retreat even more

Losing more and more of the few days you have left.

And so I ask again, why are you downcast, O my soul?

Getting Personal

I'm still not completely sure of the timeline, but it happened something like this:

My moms dad cheated on my grandmother, mom got pregnant with me, my moms dad told her he was divorcing my grandmother, my mom was furious and told him that he would play no part in my life.

And until I was 10, I did not know my moms father.

Truth be told, I wish I had never met the man.
When I did meet him, he just popped in and out of my life until I was about 18 or so when I made the choice to see him as little as possible.

I have many words that I would like say that are mean and cruel, but I will not give him that luxury. He does not even deserve the worst of my words.

You're probably asking yourself, why doesn't he like this man? Well, for all of my moms life, her father was a pastor of several churches and a music leader and from what Ive been told, a great preacher. But that changed. He got sexually involved with a woman he was counseling and left my grandmother for her. After I met him, and after I got my call to ministry, I was paralyzed with fear for almost two and a half years because of that mans sins. I was terrified that I would turn out like him. Finally one day, I bucked up and chose not to be a victim of my own fear anymore. I decided to have as little contact with the man as I could.

I've never considered the man a grandfather. Huey, may dad's dad, was my Grandfather until he passed away this last June. My grandmother waited twenty years before she got remarried, and when I was 19, I was privileged to walk my grandmother down the aisle as she married a man named Leroy who several years prior had lost his wife to breast cancer, and by the grace of God, God brought Leroy and my grandmother together and Leroy is more of grandfather than that other man has ever been. It was easy to love Leroy because he is the grandfather I should have had, not my moms real dad.

If you want to get personal, I can't stand my paternal grandfather. I get angry when I see him or talk to him on the phone. I even have him in my phone as "Do Not Answer"

Is it wrong for me to feel this way? I don't think so. The man is a horrible example who is still married to the whore he cheated with. and yes...I have every right to call her a whore. I've forgiven them both, but I don't have to let him be a part of my life. I never met the whore he cheated with, but it I ever did, I guarantee it would not be a nice meeting.

I decided to write this because he had the audacity to call me tonight. I am still fuming angry that he tries to have a relationship with me. He walked away 22 years ago, and I want nothing to do with him.

Confessions: # 1 I Am Worn Out

I've wondered sometimes if I am the only one who loses faith. I'm not ashamed to admit that I struggle and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't just be easier to give up and walk away. Go my own way and get what's mine in the world. Even as I write, I want to do just that. I'm tired. Exhausted really. I remember when my faith was new and nice and shiny. Nowadays, I look at my faith and I see that it's wearing thin in the middle. It's becoming threadbare, and the edges are starting to fray. It's no longer in pristine shape after years of being trampled on and drug through the mudd. It is bloodied and bruised and limping and barely alive. I'm worn out and washed up. I remember when things like simple childlike faith, grace, and simply trusting that God was enough for me was easy, but now that all seems like a forlorn memory. It's been drilled into my head that one of the marks of a 'good' Christian is doing a quite time. But even something as easy as reading my Bible is a chore as of late. Do I love Jesus any less? No. But I'm tired of the ritual.

Earlier today, I posted this to Twitter: #Truth: Today, grace hurts.
I've felt that way all day. I screw up and I feel terrible about it. So, I pray and confess, and yet even though I know I'm forgiven and even though I know that God's grace covers me, it pains me to accept that which I don't deserve.

I'm trying to hold on. I really am. I blare Christian music in my iPod all day, trying to find encouragement, and I try my best to stay in constant prayer, but it seems like the more I pray and the louder I turn my music up to drown out my doubts that I'm worthy, the more bitter and cynical I become.

I don't want to turn out cynical. I don't want to turn out bitter. And I don't want to lose faith. But it's hard not too. Like I said already, I'm tired. And today, both grace and the cross are hard to bare. But, I'll keep limping my way on. I'm not giving up though. I am broken and bitter and apathetic, but I'm not giving up hope.

"Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars.The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope." -Renee Yohe

Bear With You

Jamie Tworkowski, the founder of To Write Love On Her Arms (http://www.twloha.com/) posted in one of his blog post recently these words. He said:

"Be loved. Be known. Love people and know people. Be so brave as to raise a hand for help when you need it. Make friends and make sure they know they matter. Be loyal to them and fight for them. Remind them what’s true and invite them to do the same when you forget. If you do some losing or you walk with someone else in their defeat, live with dignity and grace. It is a middle finger to the darkness"

I've been dealing lately with community. With my openness with others. With loving others and being loved by others. I was recently, thanks to my friend John Blackford, introduced to the musical stylings of Christian rappers Lecrae, Trip Lee, Sho Baraka and Tedashii. As I listened to Lecrae's album "Rehab" I kept hearing words like community, and I became convicted of my lack of living in community with fellow Christians. I've been under deep conviction lately of my reclusive, introverted nature. If I claim to love Jesus, I cannot seclude myself and hide behind the flimsy excuse that "I'm just not a people person". That being said, I've been listening to Trip Lee's album "Between Two Worlds" for the last two weeks. It's a raw and honest introspective album that has made me look hard at myself and how I live. Well, although I love every song on the album, all day today I've been playing his song "Bear with You (Featuring Tedashaii)" and I have to tell you...it has hit hard. I've had a frustrating time this semester, especially dealing with my family and even some of my friends. But as I have listened to that song today, I have been moved beyond mere conviction to a sort of Holy Discontent, and I am determined to look past myself and all of my excuses to try my best, with God's help, to bear with those in my community at Williams and back home. Paul writes to the Colossians in 3:12-17:

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Like Jamie said in his blog and like Paul writes to the Colossians, we must bear with one another. To do so is a middle finger to the darkness. Trip says in "Bear with You"  "It gets hard tryna to bear with my kind, But I gotta keep the gospel in mind Since He rose with my life, it ain't mine I'ma bear with ya, I'ma bear with ya"

 I pray that I will be able to bear with you, and you with me through all of my imperfection and weakness.

"I'ma bear with ya!"

Limping, but far more alive...

"God's grace does not mean that God benignly accepts humans in all their fallenness, forgives them, and then leaves them in that fallenness.  God is in the business not of whitewashing sins but of transforming sinners."-David Garland


The cross of grace, I have found is a heavy burden to bear and more oft than not we bear the cross of sin with joy. But where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. We are fooled into believing that the cross of grace is easy and carefree, but I can testify to the enormous weight of God grace, because in my life, where my sin was great,  God's grace was higher and longer and deeper and wider than my sin and I struggled under the weight of God's enormous kindness because where my sin was great, his grace was greater. I encountered God and wrestled with him, and he took away my cross of sin, replacing it with a cross that I was never meant to bear. The cross of grace. It was too good. It was a cross that ransomed me from the throws of death and hell. It was a cross that bore witness to God's forgiveness and unfailing love. Here's my encouragement to you: Wrestle with his grace. Trust me, it's okay to struggle with it. It is only natural to fight against it because grace is so unnatural to us. Even if you come away from your life changing experience with his grace and you are beaten and battered and limping, you will be stronger because where our sin is great, God's grace is greater. It is not a pretty fight and we are bound to come out bloodied and battered and limping but we are far more alive afterward than we were before we began.