Poetry Tuesday - "Burying Hearts"

Burying Hearts



I come home on a Wednesday
To find the curtains open
So I went and closed them
And washed the dirt from my hands

The water flows counter-clockwise
I can see it with my eyes closed
I stop to think about beginnings
But all I feel are dirty hands

I bury hearts on Tuesdays
Right on down to the next week
Been doing it ever since I was left alone
Ever since I broke the earth

I took a job counting bottles
Down at the town’s grocery store
But every bottle I coldly held
Felt like a hammer full of rage

She said I couldn’t take it
She said I hadn’t done enough
I think it’s ok, I don’t mind
I’m just burying her heart next to mine
I’m just burying her heart next to mine

I bury hearts on Tuesdays
Right on down to the next week
Been doing it ever since I was left alone
Ever since I broke the earth

Now Is The Time Of War

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. - James 4:1-10

I am at war with myself and with the schemes of the devil in order to have peace with God and with those around me. It is for love of God that I go to war, and by God's love that I stand and fall.

Love In The Time Of War
(Tele Version)




Photo credit goes to Dave Armstrong. Brilliant pic Da-eh!-ave.

Poetry Tuesday - "Love In The Time Of War"

And he said, "Listen all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you, 'Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz. You will find them at the end of the valley, east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.' Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you." - 2 Chronicles 20: 15 - 17

I don't fully know what to say before this one. One of my best friends was affected by the aforementioned passage of scripture that she read during a time of trial, she shared it with me along with her humility and reverence of God that followed. This was inspired by that and written for her in the damp and dark of our basement.

Love In The Time Of War

Time keeps on rhyming
I can’t break this routine
I’m bare foot on the glass of all these broken dreams

This disc is skipping,
Keeps on running the same scene
It just keeps playing and playing and playing like a demons machine

Help me break free tonight
Help me to see the light
If I start running for a better way
Help me to never again go astray
Oh do this all for Your name's sake

It seems there’s never been
A night that’s dark like this
My soul has been swallowed in a much greater abyss

The earth wet and cold now
I can taste it on my lips
It may be quiet but all I can hear is that warm demon's hiss

Help me break free tonight
Help me to see the light
If I start running for a better way
Help me to never again go astray
I need Your love in the time of war

All I have wanted I lay at Your feet
This is love in the time of war
To see You glorified is my greatest need
This is love in the time of war
For to live it is Christ and to die it is gain
This is love in the time of war
Though these demons attack me and laugh at my defeat
I have love in the time of war
You said “Don’t be afraid, don’t be dismayed”
You are bigger than the world’s greatest horde
I need Your love in the time of war
Your love in the time of war
Now is the time of war

A Clearer Mirror

I think sometimes a poem and a song can reflect thoughts and emotion in such a way that it becomes, for the first time, visible. In my opinion, music and words can portray something about yourself that you didn't even know was there. It can be a clear mirror of the soul, showing what you could not see without it. Shockingly laying truth bare and visible.

Like fear you didn't know was there, but was true.

Firefly (Shed Some Light)

Poetry Tuesday - "Firefly (Shed Some Light)"

It is definitely not the season for fireflies. On such a snowy, cold and blustery day like today (where I am) it's odd that I would finish this song (of all the ones that are to be finished!) that was started during the summer as I sat on my back porch watching fireflies. But for some reason the rest of the poetry came out tonight and the melody and chords followed very naturally and closely behind.

But I still sleep on the floor alone and I'm still just like a firefly, whether it's cold or not.

To the glory of the Father of Lights.

Firefly (Shed Some Light)

I’ve read all about the kings of man
How each of them has fallen into sand
All these kingdoms gone, gone, gone
To the kingdom come!

Well, I’m no king and I have no throne
In fact, I sleep on the floor alone
But when I leave the door
I still put on my fool's gold crown

Well I’m just like a firefly
A star below the sky
I give off some light
But quickly die
Shed some light tonight

I can’t explain what I want to mean
I can’t complain about what I lack to see
I want to see more
But I Keep wearing these masks. So am I free?

Nothing’s as it seems today
All my whites are looking more like gray
And the end of time
Is ticking down the line

Well I’m just like a firefly
A star below the sky
I give off some light
But quickly die
Shed some light tonight

I keep saying I’m not afraid
I keep saying I’m not afraid
Oh Lord
I’m wandering in the dark
Father of lights
Shed some light tonight

Poetry Tuesday - "More Grace Than Time"

There are some things you have to say with extra caution. This poem/song is one of those where I think it's necessary to do a wee bit of explaining.

The title and major theme is "more grace than time". When I say that there is more grace than time, in reference to the grace of Jesus, there are two things that I don't mean and one thing that I do.

Two things I do not mean.
1) That if you are not a Christian this all-encompassing, unlimited, completely thorough grace that Jesus died on the cross to offer to those who call Him Lord does not yet apply to you... The song is to be sung and acknowledged from a saved by Jesus perspective. I know that that is blunt, but it's not unchangeable. Jesus came to earth and died a sinner's death for sinners - to save sinners like us and give us grace more bountiful than time.
"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." - Romans 10:9

2) That because of the unquenchable grace of Jesus we should continue to sin. May it never be so. I say that there's more grace of time to exalt Christ, in reverent repentance, for covering the sins I have committed not as an excuse to continue sinning.
"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." - Romans 6:1-4

The one thing I do!
1) That "the least of Christ's graces is greater than my greatest sins". That despite my past and the time I have here on earth, Jesus has acted and has placed Himself as a substitute for my sins. His grace is able to make my scarlet sins white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).
"Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 5:18-21

And so after much clarification, and in the humble shadow of powerful scripture, a poem and a song.

More Grace Than Time

I once gave my heart away
When I was much younger than I am today
The truth came down like rain
Slowly falling on my brain, it was lust

I was spoiled from the inside out
All my love perverted in lust and doubt
But most liars best know fact
And I knew Love’s truest act; it saved my soul

Oh I gave it all away
In my sorrows to find
There’s more grace than time
There’s more grace than time

There’s no strength in muscle and bone
There’s no hope in kisses and pleasures throne
So let’s start a mutiny
To live for love in purity, come on you and me!

Oh I gave it all away
In my sorrows I did find
That there is more grace than time
There’s more grace than time

Oh You gave Yourself away
Your stripes to release mine
You gave me more grace than time
You gave me more grace than time