My Tree Cutter

Just cut, my son, continue cutting.
Swing at the deep roots
or at sprouting shallows.
For the unknowing bow down
before altars men built tall,
planted in fertile, fearful ground.
So cut them down, son, cut them down.

Sister Elizabeth

Elizabeth, there is mystery and certainty
in a husband who cannot speak.
As on the peaks there is a majestic silence,
secluded from a life lived in hope of mercy.
A change in scenery like the ceasing words
that leads into a preparation of praise.
You are the wind that sweeps above the rays
and looks at life from breathless heights,
leaving the barren below, seeing God in the sights,
for He has yet to show up in ways you know.
Beauty and mystery speak as whispers between
the Aspen trees when our regular dreams are
crowded out by the weeds.
In cornfields sewn but in mountainsides find
the God that miraculously steps into life.
What then will this be? So separately called than
we, so far from our normality, from our
self-defined reality. What then will this be?
Sisti, pour some hot cocoa for me,
come sit by me here under the tree...

October at 7-Eleven

These roads embrace with a silent, torrid
pace; encourage want and waste; spread wide,
opening the distance to (God forbid!)
anonymous escape. For I have lied

about destination. Pressing fear of
unselfish hands forcing my hands to steer
in directions I would know little of.
The unknown, the untrusted. A sincere

wave, a gentle nod, slight acknowledgement
that I do see and hear; I just crumble
underneath your gazing voice, your judgment
of decisions made in haste. The rumble

strips beat at my tires and beat me awake
with tones of avoidance in streets I take.

Hmmm...

What do you do to remember someone you can't possibly forget? (but still do)

It's not about who you are, that kind of thinking has made you what you are. It's about who God is and what He is making with you.

Ideas

- What we, in the modern age, are looking for are people and methods we can imitate. That we can be just like. But in the Bible, all we see are humans who tell a story, who show us the way, not models to imitate and procedures to replicate.

- The way that dad running across the stage reminded me that the disciples were real people

- Something about the word into, God's way into the world was Jesus, our way into God is Jesus

My Hezekiah

The living, the living,
humble life demands little notice.
Demands influence existence,
but in the instants between
abuse and abusing, we are given
a chance to regain our breathing.
Yet you are taking my chance away.
You are taking my breath away.

And what can I say?
Lord, come to my aid?
From unchanging to unchanging,
You spoke, and so as I know
You, rigid and but honest:
Where is my hope?

While I walk humbly, with voice
like a thrush and otherwise hushed.
With gentle hand my living soul
is brushed like breathless,
heartless, formless dust
behind your back, oh the grounded lack
spirit to fill their lungs
and exhale Your name aloud.

With eyes that roam the fields
and hands that harvest earth,
do You ever pause, do You reflect,
do You consider the swept up speck
that longs for life, to sing alive,
that has wept and wept and wept?

Now what is the melody coming down
as the sun backs up the ten steps,
to dry the tears where I sat and wept.
Restoration, light through the vines
round the almond tree, light for me.

And so have You, have You changed?
Or have You heard a mourning dove
moving toward its final evening,
and have You wept?

Patient, til dawn, You have taken a broken song
and put it to strings,
new life to its wings, and made it rise.
The perfect renewal of a rhythmic chorus,
taken up by the first tree and still
sung by steaming fig leaves,
the perfect crescendo, the reason to hope.

Yes, the Word of the Lord stands forever,
but it bends to bring voice.
For the grave cannot praise you,
cannot remember the sin You've left behind,
cannot even hope You'll change Your mind.
Beyond and above, majesty misunderstood,
the living, the living --- they praise You!

Zechariah's Song

- Zechariah's song in Luke 1:67-79 and the idea of salvation in deliverance, covenant (who God is), know (that God is God), and serving God.

Zechariah's Song --> Luke 1:68-79
"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
{DELIVERANCE}salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our fathers
{COMMUNITY} and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
{KNOWLEDGE}to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
{LAND}to guide our feet into the path of peace."