PERHAPS

Perhaps God will act on my behalf

With man after man taking my innocence how am I supposed to be at peace with love?

The most unsuspecting friend will be the subject of my wrath

Do I know how to take an olive branch from a dove?

Why am I even here?

I am a broken, broken woman yearning to reach out to broken hearts

How effective can my paltry overtures be?

Like a crippled woman trying to dance the arts?

Yet perhaps God will act on my behalf

The last person this can be about is me

He gave Aaron to Moses and you almost just have to laugh

At the things God can see I may never see

Perhaps this humble servant can be obedient

Perhaps God has a grander plan

Perhaps not comprehensible when I am heeding it

Perhaps this is why He is God and I am woman

Perhaps God will act on the behalf of all of us

Truly what are we, besides agents of change?

It may be just a matter of trust

Rather than something we can measure or gague

Perhaps, oh, perhaps HE WILL

If only we are still.

MISSIONS

Take my heart and let it be

Stepping out into a world unseen

Wondering if I can possibly measure up – want my heart to represent Yours

Wondering about the sequence of events in my life and what it possibly could mean

Abba – what do you see when You look at us?

All so eager to reach out and touch hurting hearts?

We want to do everything plus

Yet we know that with YOU is where it all starts

We want You to move in the midst of us and perhaps so trite, yet we want to be YOUR hands and feet

To learn about what YOUR heart looks like when you bleed for others pain

What happens when eyes and heart and mind and soul altogether meet?

What are we going to lose and what are we going to gain

Abba we are so thankful for YOUR commission and YOUR word

Abba glory be to YOU

The whole thing still feels a little absurd

Only YOU can take something that doesn’t make much sense and say “Child, that doesn’t make it any less true.”

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO

Maybe if I breathe really quickly I won’t be able to feel my heart ache with every beat

Maybe if I surround myself with noise and chatter

Maybe if I hadn’t welcomed you into my life and invited you to take seat

Maybe the word “may be” just doesn’t matter

What am I supposed to do with the jumbled mess of confusion that you handed off to me with your anguished face?

What am I supposed to do with the tendrils of the plant of relationship that you cut off during the height of its growth?

Am I supposed to be the barrister when love grows at a rapid pace?

How was I even supposed to know that you perjured against your oath?

What can I reconcile now that I don’t even want to see you crumble and fall

Unless it is back into my arms?

Darling, there is no such thing as too short or too tall

Only too much deceit and charms

I don’t care if you don’t want me to see where your underbelly lies

A life that is not shared is not lived

Darling we have seen too many years to say such silly goodbyes

And I love you too much not to forgive

Abba see him, chase him, bring him into YOUR arms

That he may be one with you

Intimacy with you calms the most alarming alarms

Abba, I just don’t know what to do.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS FERMENT

I finally gave love a chance. I finally rode the forbidden wings of change

I trusted the twisted sense of humor of fate that perhaps this time it would end well

That the outcome would finally not be deranged

That there would be nothing to buy and nothing to sell

Remember that song that touches on the insensitivity of saying nothing?

Casual goodbyes?

You are so incredibly uptight about doing the “right thing”

What about the lies that you tell with your eyes?

I’m so tired of halfway and so weary of just getting by

I want something wholehearted and desperate

I will scream if one more stupid man asks me “why”

I need “thou art more lovely and more temperate”

Do not insult me with your ignorant excuses and your stammered shortcomings

Do not approach me if you cannot stand on your convictions

I’m so tired of silly play things

I will not chase you in a thousand directions

I am a woman – worthy of the pearl in the field – worthy of crossing the ocean – certainly worthy of your priority, your time, your respect

Do not indulge me for the sake of your “feel good” moment

Love me with all that you have and never treat me like a prospect

Treat me as a wine good for 100 years ferment.

ALL MY LOVE, ABBA. FOR YOU

Eyes are sparkling. Head is spinning. The leaves are a lovely shade of orange of brown and suddenly I notice the earth.

How long have I been living in this place? How long has joy been in my soul?

It’s been quite awhile and when I slow down I see that peace has found a place where I used to wonder what I am worth

I find that it doesn’t really matter anymore once I relinquish control.

For you, Abba, have stolen my heart. I write a love song to you with my eyes and my spirit and my soul

My feet dance a love song to you.

Perhaps I don’t know the steps to walk that make a person whole

But there is something so simple in the way that I love You.

I sing a song of grace and forgiveness and everlasting comfort in Your arms

It is to YOU I run when I have lost my way, when things don’t make sense, when I know that there is something new to learn

With you there is no artfulness, no pretensions, no charms

You are the first resort, the last resort, the path of most resistance, never leaving me, a place I can always turn

Never, ever, ever a Father like you.

You carry my life in your hands and still your hand is small enough to wipe away my tears

You share your perspective yet understand my point of view

You never judge me for my fears.

For you, Abba. For you. All my love, Abba. For you.

YOU CALL ME BEAUTIFUL

I can see the ocean and the crest of the waves is the state of my mind

Peaking, frothing, moving, yearning, ready to crash, ready to move forward

What beautiful things do YOU create when you take the ax to the grind?

Abba – where am I right now and what am I moving toward

To say good bye to you is so bittersweet. I’ve said it a million times

I don’t want you in my life yet is there something real to which my love attaches?

It’s so hard to tell what seems to go together and what actually rhymes

Remembering that just because it once seemed true doesn’t mean it still matches

Letting You heal me of my shame, Abba – is so, so hard

I don’t even want to let you look at it

I would much rather sweep it under and disregard

And let my life be monochromatic

The crest rises and falls and breaks on the sand

And I am still walking along the beach not often breaking stride but calling out to YOU to draw near to me

Sometimes I don’t know if I am in the water or if I am on dry land

So many times I wish I could see what YOU see

And YOU call me beautiful

When it hurts. When it is joyful. When I am outwardly presentable and when I am outwardly in shambles

You call me beautiful

When I am inwardly ready to cave in and I reach to YOU to provide me with the rope of last resort and I am cut up and down from wandering in the rambles

You say that I am beautiful

From the shining of my soul to the light that YOU have put in my eyes YOU call me YOUR much beloved, beautiful, beautiful daughter

YOU call me beautiful no matter what the circumstances

Because when I am sinking You are treading water

Theodicy in Parentheses

How sad God was, 
and dare I say, resigned.

Wind fell. Sand fell,

and the blue night, 
an absent shade now,

a broken memory of sky.

His fingers sank through clay 
and clay rose, 

folding over like a tide.

This is called giving 
up, or it is called love.

He spat on his hands, 
cleaned them, called 

a boy alto from a distant cloud, 
newly dead, 

someone to hear his defense 
and sing it back.