strength in weakness

my hands are giving up,

attached to a body that’s shaking and weak.

an empty feeling weakens my knees and brings me to the ground.

i am hollow.

i am gone…

i would be gone if i had nowhere to fall,

but i’ve fallen on the softest rock my flesh and heart could know.

and it cradles me just tightly enough to stop the shaking,

to strengthen my frail frame

and stand me up again.

my body.

my body is not my own.

my body is built on the rock.

helpful

and with that, they looked him in the eye and said,

“why… aren’t you helpful.”

that’s what they called him.

helpful.

no one but two people had ever asked his real name.

and even those two had forgotten what it was.

water had saturated his hands to the point that his skin

didn’t answer to it anymore.

those hands knew heat and wind,

friction, grit, and sand.

they were calloused and coarse,

lined and abused.

yet he repaired the thin chain of the necklace

that sat discarded on the nightstand.

it was broken by frustration,

rewoven by patience.

he knew they would remember for a long time,

and then they would forget.

and he didn’t mind.

he was just

helpful.

soft dreams

soft dreams settle on me

through the scent of a warm winter flame,

by its glow, a slow turn of dark to light.

can my whisp’ring imagination fight the cold around?

can past and future find a foothold here unbound?

soft chords arouse a sleeping ghost within me

who once refused to be a shadow

but has now rested far too long.

let her be strong amidst the concrete walls and oily water,

drift above like light’s own daughter,

give a gift to self, to sons of man,

one quiet, fierce, and unafraid.

what we are in our letters

"...what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present."

Paul writing to the Corinthians about their opinion that he is different when he writes to them as opposed to when he is actually there speaking with them, that his letters are strong and "weighty" but his presence "unimpressive." He states that he is the same person, living and preaching the same message of Christ. In writing, his words live; in person, his actions speak.

in a much smaller way (i don't consider my writing nearly as monumental as his), this makes me ponder the difference between my writing and speech. i feel like i stumble over my tongue as my throat dries up and my mind searches for words to make the gears of your mind turn. but in writing, seeing my thoughts unfold letter by letter and word by word, where i can rearrange and sculpt, stretch my thoughts out as dough kneaded then risen, i see myself unveiled. and when i am able to shape the words in such a way, i am content.

here's to writing myself to you more often. here's to quelling the unrest that rages at times or igniting the hopeful sparks of inspiration that smolder without the breath of the hand or pen.

sunflower

along away

through yellow petals traced with the scent

of summer grass,

my face in it

and falling through

to roots of trees and other things…

a small cascade, if there’s such a place,

is my escape

and last autumn's leaves

impress the sun around the water’s face.

Song of Isaiah

This melody has been swimming in my head today, applying to everything, as the Word of God is wont to do... I grew up in an LCMS congregation, singing hymns and psalms and liturgy, and many of them have stuck with me. I thank God. I have fallen in love with the melodies that carry Scripture from the pages of the Bible into the air from the pipes of the organ and the lips of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and every so often they play back, sometimes in my own young voice. Today was one of those times.  

This particular refrain comes from an arrangement of Psalm 31 and a song of Isaiah (12:2-9). The melody that has stuck with me is the one printed in the CW, p. 77...

Surely it is God who saves me;

I will trust in him and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense,

and he will be my Savior.

overcast

overcast isn’t over anything.

it’s perfect.

a shade of dark that accentuates the green under my boots.

constant conversation in the air entreats my silence.

but there is music and narration in my mind,

atop my footsteps,

in my place,

because i am invisible here...