Truth and Beauty

Music, tone of violin
Piano, jazz, can set a mood
Wagner, Bach, and theremin
Are considered very good.

But so is caring for the poor
And trying to be empathetic
Could it be that what is moral
Also is what is aesthetic?

Without conviction our actions are hollow
Art without moral is hard to swallow
For that which makes a thing beautiful
Is also that which makes us whole.

Good is not better
And bad is not worse
By God we must measure
Soul, string, and verse

Good, better; worse worst
Bad, worse; better best
One thing last, one thing first
Some are better than all the rest

In order to compare two things
You need to know that better is
You need to know about your sins
Nothing can be relative.

Faith and virtue, viola and flute
Truth and beauty are both absolute
Both we call good, both we applaud
Because both were created by the very same God.

decem verba

Thoughts.

Thoughts don't.

Thoughts don't make.

Thoughts don't make sense.

Can't.

Can't feel.

Can't feel my.

Can't feel my heart.

Love.

Love is.

Love is always.

Love is always hard.

Time.

Time moves.

Time moves ever.

Time moves ever still.

Hurt.

Hurt can.

Hurt can only.

Hurt can only heal.

God.

God doesn't.

God doesn't ever.

God doesn't ever abandon.

Thought without magic

Have you ever thought without magic?

Words with definitions precise

Seemingly each devoid of all wonder

Logic instead of what's nice.

What's real is what my heart is ever after

My mind to mimic actuality

Maybe this leads to truth without comfort

But bliss less ignorant is reality.

What if this leads me to question my God?

To see what he does that strikes me as odd

And wonder if things that I think that I know

Are error, when removed, will cause me to grow?

Clearly and coldly I'll think as I wonder

For all that's at stake if my heart were to blunder

If perception doesn't match reality

The God I know isn't the God that made me.

To stop here would be a grievous mistake

For love-lacking logic is far worse than fake

The things that I know must cause me to act

Worship and care should follow fact

Is it true that logic leads to love?

Through humble deliberation brings wonder above

To know that my God makes sense and is real

Causes me to majestically feel.

Do you understand that Jesus was logic?

Precisely, was "Logos" as John set forth hence

God's love and his justice were locked in paradox

So Jesus, sent to die, was sent to make sense.

It just so happens what fulfills the law

Also fills my soul with awe

For God so loved logic that He sent us His son

To die our death deserved to make us like one

Grace Rescind

If you, for this, your grace rescind

My heart would shatter, burst in flame

Wish that I had never sinned

Curse my very name

Should I let you see my heart?

Could you watch this sinner-saint

Sanctification in part

Dark tones I would paint

Is your heart so Spirit-led

To forgive my inner sin?

Grace of body, heart, soul, head

From this day à la fin?

My joy will be to see your soul

Take apart, then make it whole

Stare your sin right in its face

And mirror God's grace.

Gravity

Oh gravity, won't you dance with me?
If you say the word, we'll come down.
Gravity, apple from the tree
With velocity on the crown.

If you think you have lost your mind
And the whole world is spinning round
Look again, see what you may find
Like a red apple on the ground.

Oh waltz with me, dance with gravity
Yes, the whole world is spinning round
Fall with ease, turn around, be free
Like that red apple on the ground.

Gravity oft more kind should be
And nicely avoid the head
For it may be finger, toe, or knee,
When hit won't make you dead.

Picture of Grace

Her hands whisper beauty as her feet take their place

The love of movement holds still on her face

All fear that was there is gone with no trace

She is a picture of grace

The music takes form in her fingers and toes

Like a leaf on a river, it ebbs and it flows

Her form likes to follow wherever it goes

Capturing truth in each pose.

Logic meets love in the glow of the lights

Neither one nor the other feeling contrite

Beauty and truth, for a moment, don't fight

For a moment all things seem right

Her pointe is a pen on the audience's soul
Each punctuation soon takes its toll
Cursively writing emotions in scroll
Noting what it means to be whole

The music ends as tears fill their eyes

Even the very most stoic ones cried

They know with the dancer's bow and goodbye

They are left more alive

To Feel Again

I haven't been able to feel much this past week. My heart was stuffy as if it had a cold. Most people think depression is where you are really sad, or a perpetual debbie-downer.  Depression doesn't work that way.  There are two main kinds of depression. On one hand, you have people who feel more than normal people do.  I have a couple of friends like that. "Happy" for them is euphoria for a "normal" person, and sad is dysphoria. They can't contain, nor control their emotions.  They are caught in a whirlwind and feel like they can't get out of it.  People with this type of depression have an incredible blessing beyond the obvious curses; they have felt emotions that I can't begin to comprehend.  They have tasted heaven, along with the hell.

The other kind of depression is, I feel, the more sinister.  People with this depression feel less.  Do you know how hard it is not to feel?  To want to cry, but can't?  To see a sunset that you know is overwhelmingly beautiful, but remain underwhelmed? To eagerly anticipate free time for a hobby, but find yourself unable to focus...again. To walk next to someone special, to share in a precious moment, yet feel distant. Detached. Dead.  What does a man do if he can't feel?  How can a man cry out to God...if he can't cry at all.

Today I felt again; I laughed the hardest I have in a long time; I cried harder than I have in a long time. God heard my muddled, muffled heart.  He gave me strength of heart to live and love. He kindled joy in my heart that gives me hope. It's a reminder to me that God is in all things sovereign.  He can bring a man down to the depths; He can raise him up to the heavens.  He can give a man depth of heart, and he can take it away.  He is the same God to both, and to both, He is good.  He is the measure by which real and normal take meaning.  I don't know why I go through phases of lifelessness, but I know that in it, God is good, and that somehow my lifelessness will bring life more abundant to either me, or some other of His children.  As much as it cuts me to the core, I delight in the opportunity to be forced to rely on God's strength completely, in heart and mind, when my own falters.  God is good.

Boston

Our hearts hang heavy when somebodies die
Even American flags softly cry
Bowing, half standing, silently weep
While over our country a steady watch keep.

Today I saw a sight I thought I'd never see
Freedom's flag was mourning ever less than me
It stood so proudly with its head raised high
While I hung my head, at full mast did fly.

Oh star spangled banner, how could you forget?
At such a time in hist'ry, how could you just let
Things roll off your back? They're completely devastating 
And you just ignore them by quietly levitating?

I stared up with anger and a tear in my eye
And yet for freedom, it continued to fly
It looked down at me with a well weathered face
And whispered of battles, and songs of God's grace

And just at the moment it stood there and waved
I came to see it's by God we are saved
That even through the horrors of man
We're still part of Heaven's good plan.