Wounded Lamb

From the depths of the earth, you have revived me
and still do.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made,
and ever made new.

These lips are searching,
reaching,
groping,
for the right words to express
Love, the man through whom
I continually offer my sacrifice of
Praise.

Could many waters quench? Are you still reaching out?
Are your nail-scarred hands actually able stretch into my agony?

Behold, he comes in glory. And how does he step forward?
As a Lion? With the glory of Angels? As disembodied Word?

No. He is my Wounded Lamb.

All laud to this glorious victim
who laid himself down of his own accord.

Forgetting Myself

What love is this?
That reaches into weakness
and speaks to me in deafness

When I was far away, even an enemy
Fresh light broke through
penetrating the darkest parts.

And still I sit here
alone in my self-pity
helplessly hoping for the acquittal
that only caresses those at the foot
of a Roman cross.

Breaking out of myself requires
repenting of staleness and realizing
the liquid love of Spirit-wrought affections
that have already been poured into my heart.

Slowly I am learning to forget myself.
I am becoming like Christ.

Scorning the Shame

My saving complete, the crown of your head
the suffering elates and glaring across the rope
is my death.

My friends give way: abandonment.
My reputation eroded: mockery.
My decency exposed: nakedness.
My comfort dismantled: torture.

When fortunes are less forgiving
This fate is locked in your gaze and
a heart song is born.

If glorious indignation remains
the sonnet of redemption,
how am I to make sense
of Shame?

Its ok.
There is joy set before me.

More than ok. Is it true
You approve of my reciprocated mockery?
Even that You,
Son of Man, would take up,
both cross and Shame,
and resent what I abhor?

A wound of mine that you haven't shared
there is not.

If you endured, so will I.
I despise that which cannot be compared
to the Joy.

Joy- my power in the face of Shame.
When his filthy hands
fulfill holy prophecy,
and your sacred suffering becomes my own...

I am resurrected.
Now I know I can scorn the Shame.

Your Fear is Clean

Naked eyesores, groping in darkness
unsure whether we want to be undone
again.

Whimsical whirling in our loneliness
and laces of wine-skins weakening
leave us to wonder if we really asked for all this
as our narrative.

Redemption.

A really nice notion to ponder unless
you are the yonder years of another's
poverty. Really, they were just fighting gravity
and so grew your depravity too.
Too long had you wasted all the lowliness
and bowed to unholiness.

Stop.
There is something sweeter.

Spices trickling down a fresh bloom of Rose.
Pricking the thorn, you thought this space to be only
for a race far from you.

Then he comes.

The one you awaited, though his witness be
a woman whose moan of intercession would be
way to whack, even for apostles.

Who would have thought the rolling of, what
must seem a grain of sand to Him,
moved mountains for those whose fear is clean?

A Hero

We love you exactly as you are.
We don't want to change you.
You are altogether lovely and we can't wait to see you
for then we will see.
We will be like you.
We love you for who you are
not who we've made you to be.
Even if you are alot more specific
than our categories would approve.
Your story is enough for our philosophies.
You are a hero.
We will attain likeness with you
Because you chose us.
This is love.

Letting Go

If knowing what was coming cannot be done

then what are we even talking about. 

I thought I tried to take 

a reason

but reason is really the risky route. 

It requires that I reach into a cavernous path

of elevating my intellectuality

and not feeling anything along the way. 

I'd rather my emotion be in tact

than boast of all the facts. 

The truth is letting go. 

Letting go of all 

I think I know

to know another. 

A Person above perception. 

When progressive revelation becomes my paradigm

I am freed to see the world 

as it has always been

and soon will be. 

Now I have a living hope. 

The hope of loving 

as I was made. Made to be loved 

and love in return. 

Tears in Your Bottle

When we've wasted our inheritance,
what's left is a stone-cold heart
neither lost nor found.

And there you meet us.

Waiting for and wanting what a wretched man deserves
drives me to the drawing board
where I dream of drowning the wasted years.

Fighting to find tears, as I come up dry
something inside reminds
me of the truth.

Its ok.

Is that you? Is it true that a lover's voice
is more lowly than I had thought?
While my spirit is not painted gold,
I find a rusty shell, shouting for a resurrection.

As I let go of what should have been
and believe in the truth,
I find I am trusting you.

And then they flow-the tears I used to know.
Now I'm not afraid that they'll be lost- I know its You
who holds them.

I am tears in your bottle.