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.

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.

Thoughts Half Thought

Echoes of thought off well-read walls
Reflect, remind of who I once was.
The silence was golden, but glittered not
Expression held back, but certainly not thought.

I ask no forgiveness for time that was lost
It was for me, and for you I was gone.
I had to weigh the good and the cost
Expression of thoughts half thought is wrong

But here I am to speak again
(Deep thoughts, emotions with God remain)
To share my heart and soul well thought
In such a way I know I ought.

It's been a long while since I've posted anything real on here. This is intentional, but I think I'm ready to be back. :) God is ever changing, shaping, molding me. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but it's always beautiful whether I can see it or not. The problem lies in being at a point of not seeing and still writing that troubles arise. I have never been fake here, and I never intend to. But thoughts and feelings not properly processed which get expressed can cause damage. So I offer no apology for being gone, and I hope I don't have to apologize for being back. :)

Twisted

Bent, crooked, twisted, broke
Anything that isn’t straight
Evil’s not its own entity,
But anything that's not quite right

Slightly shifted focus,
Malicious overtones;
All are evil equally
When all is said and done

The devil aims to hit us hard
Right where we always place our heart
He always seems to slightly twist
That which we can't bear to part

All covered in dust...

Thinking in silence, praying to God
Scattered emotions all covered in dust
Should I freely give my heart
And with whom can I trust?

You see love another way
In Faith she truly understands
It’s like another language whose
Translation baffles words of man.

You refuse to see His love
But God is what sets her apart.
It tears me to see you alone
But you can’t understand my heart.

My heart remains unspoken of
And till God wills it shall remain.
I wait at rest until the day
When I can freely love.

Everlasting Song

I wrote you a song
With images fair
Of beautiful eyes,
Long golden hair

Of beauty of souls,
Noblest minds
Perfection of pathos,
Hearts that are kind.

The words never change
Their images mirror
perfection in heav'n
incorp'rated here.

The deep tearing pain
My tears now show;
The reason you changed
I never will know.

Or maybe it's me?
And I'm in the wrong?
I guess time will answer
When you hear my song.

Brothers Karamazov

In the study of rhetoric, there are three things you can appeal to; Logos, which is logic, Ethos, which is ethics or morality, and Pathos, which is the appeal to the emotions. These make up the entire human being, and thus Rhetoricians of old said to appeal to the whole man. I was reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and I noticed that each of the three brothers correspond to the three appeals of rhetoric. We begin the book meeting Ivan, who is a rationalist, Dimitri, who is a sensualist, and Alyosha a monk, who is a moralist. Dostoevsky speaks to the whole man, not just the intellect, like a technical manual, or to the emotions, like a soap opera, but to the mind, heart, and soul of the reader. The conflicts between the three characters ring familiar the conflict inside us. I learned a lot about myself, while reading. The situations and episodes are unlike most anything that I’ve experienced, but he presents them in a way most like everything. He creates a reality quite real. A part of me left me when I finished the book, because it affected the whole of me. I was almost sad to leave a world so real. I think I may go visit again sometime. :-)