***
i think trust must be
knowing
that someday i will be
standing
somewhere a
good ways off (a
good time hence),
and not
wishing
it was all different.
***
grace
Reunions
***
Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. – Psalm 36 : 5
***
Not long ago i had the joy of attending a reunion of some of my friends from high school. Initially i had quite mixed feelings about the event. There were, of course, a few friends who i was very excited to see, knowing that our friendship from school remained (mostly) intact and untainted. Overwhelmingly though i felt a tremendous sense of dread about encountering many of the attendees; i had not left a good impression on many people while in school, and i could only begin to guess at how much this would still be a factor.
The evening was quite pleasant at first, comprised primarily of the standard exchange of updates. Conversation centered around jobs, children, living locations, and other sundry pieces of data about each person’s current situation. It wasn’t long, however, before talk naturally shifted to more nostalgic ground, and tales from our time together 15 years prior began to surface. This, of course, was the part of the evening i had been dreading all along.
i will spare you the details, because some of the stories i heard about myself are truly too embarrassing to pen, but suffice it to say that even i was shocked at the level of callousness, selfishness, and utter depravity that the character Rich Wilson exhibited in some of these stories. With no exaggeration, i can honestly say that i was such a pompous and disgusting ass in high school that i had forgotten some stories that most people would remember with cringing horror. In essence, i had done so many awful things to people that my memory could not contain them all.
Reflecting on this later in the evening, i found myself shaken to no small degree as a result of these encounters. This event revealed two things about my heart, things which i knew to be true but clearly needed to be reminded of. First, it still matters to me a great deal what people think of me, so much that i believe it is somewhat idolatrous. While it is true that i should be concerned with how i come across to other people, i should only have this concern in the context of my identity in Christ. My primary concern should be reflecting Christ’s love to the world, and not what opinion people may have of me. If anything, my self-image issues frequently get in the way of this reflection, and often i find myself less bold about the gospel than i ought to be for fear of seeming crazy or silly. Secondly, i have a tendency to dwell on the mistakes of my past, so much so that sometimes this becomes my identity. My mistakes and inadequacies also have relevance only in the context of the gospel: they display, if i allow them to, how deep is the Father’s love and how powerful is His redemptive might. If He can love even me, He can surely love anyone.
Somewhere between the abject blind selfishness i showed in high school and the co-dependency i exhibit in current relationships lies the proper place for my heart. This place creates a man who is aware of his failures and yet not afraid to show them because in them Christ’s ultimate grace is displayed. This place creates a man who is concerned with how others see Christ, not himself. In this place, my image is of no consequence; in this place, i am not afraid in the least of looking like a fool so long as it is done for the sake of loving God and loving others well.
Outside of this place, there is only worry, guilt, shame, and dark, weary stories from the past. i do not want to forget these stories entirely, because they remind me of who i was, and they remind me of who i would be without Christ. At the same time, i need not fear these stories nor run from them any longer. i may concern myself with how others feel about them for the sake of healing and amends, but i myself can be free to feel nothing about them. That man, praise God, has been and is being put to death each day.
Ultimately, the only opinion of me that matters is God’s. It would be great if these people learned to love me, but if they do not, God has chosen to, and that is not only enough, it is everything. i would be lying if i said i understood it, and even to say such is humbling beyond words, but for purposes of His own He has chosen to see in me His child. i pray that i will learn to see myself in the same light.
***
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. – Lamentations 3 : 22
Stranger, and more beautiful
***
Fiction has long been a part of my life. There have been books historically which i have read and re-read incessantly throughout my life. When i was a child and a teenager, most of these tales took the form of fantasy or science fiction. Even fancied myself a bit of a fantasy writer at one point, and i still feel as though i could set down a rather rousing epic if i put my mind and (more importantly) my heart to it. Some period of time into my early adulthood i started shifting my reading and writing interest to more “literary” fiction, whatever that nomenclature signifies. i have begun and left unfinished no fewer than five novels, having never caught sufficient steam or momentum, or perhaps having never had the requisite discipline, to see these projects through to completion. My reading in this arena has been, for a time, rather diligent at least, and there is certainly a tremendous and nameless appeal that the fictive voice holds in my heart. It is not out of the realm of possibility that i may at some point dig up from under the earth of time and business these efforts and breathe life into them anew.
Poetry has also competed for dominance in my aesthetic sensibilities, and though i have not quite had the patience to study it as thoroughly as i ought, there are still times when it seems that the only mechanism which will do a subject justice is the poem, thus as you can see i have written my fair share of them. Most of them are at the very least elementary, and some even go so far as to be downright terrible and asinine.
Recently, however, despite my traditional attachment to these slightly more artistic forms of communication, i have begun to suspect that perhaps my gift really lies in the area of non-fiction. i have never written very much of it, save on this particular blog, and even though the bulk of my posts here can be classified as non-fiction, they still feel fictitious, at least in the sense that they are driven by narrative rather than by research. i must confess i owe at least a portion of this suspicion to my wife, who first pointed out that she found my non-fiction to be my best work. Lately i have toyed with idea of working more exclusively in this domain, and it is starting to gain sway for me. i suppose what always steered me away from writing non-fiction was a lack of qualification. i am an expert in precisely zero subjects, save perhaps the subject of myself. But perhaps this is enough. Perhaps there is enough of a story in my life – and i suspect there is, not because i have lived a particularly adventurous or meaningful life, but because i have lived a particularly rebellious one – to merit its writing. After all, God has written a rather amazing story already, having provided for me time and time again despite my unwillingness to receive that provision. i think perhaps i will stay away from fiction, at least for the time being – God is, after all, a better story-teller than i will ever be – and stick strictly to writing about my experiences with Him and the recovery He has seen fit to mercifully bring into my life. Maybe in this, at last, after a year of dabbling in essentially every variety of writing and succeeding at none, i have found my calling. Time however, will tell.
The well-known adage “truth is stranger than fiction” has a less-familiar second clause, which i find even more profound than the first. “It is because,” Twain says, “fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” If you had asked me 30 months ago what i dreamed would be “possible” for the coming years, for my personal and spiritual life, for my career, and for my marriage, i would not have been able to even begin to guess at the current shape each of those elements has in my life. i believe that the purpose of writing is to provide insight and wisdom into the life of another, and by doing so, be a force for peace, for reparation, for reconciliation. Fiction gives us a certain view of truth through its exploration of possibilities, and poetry another through its propensity for ambitious metaphor, and both can provide some measure of universality, and thus each may, in part, accomplish the objective of establishing commonality. But God has written a truth, full and glorious, that no human word can sufficiently capture, and in my case, as it is for many of us, that truth is more compelling and more exhilarating, and thus ultimately vastly more unifying, than any story or device which we have ever conceived of or read. These stories, our stories, with all of their ugly and rambunctious and supercilious components, are the stories which people most need to hear. These are the stories that will heal, because ultimately they are not about us at all. Tell yours, and i will do mine.
***
the habit of meeting together
***
Each morning, almost without fail, i see here at the local shop at least one group of men meeting. Sometimes there are two, sometimes more. Sometimes they are older, sometimes younger. Almost universally however, regardless of background, motivation, economic status, or any measurable demographic, they are meeting here to encourage one another in the faith. i have never seen, to my knowledge, men meeting together intentionally to tear one another apart. It seems a rather dull and obvious observation, but whether or not we know it, men need one another if the walk through life is to be successful. Whether it is genuine psychology or just a popular conception, masculinity is often associated with rugged self-reliance and stoic independence. It is the woman, popularly, not the man who asks for directions when lost. i can say with no qualms that i don’t give a hang about common notions of masculinity. i need others in my life. Badly. On my own, i am pretty much inadequate to every task.
When i first moved to Austin, i left almost every friend i had behind in Houston. Granted, it wasn’t too long before i met a few people, mostly through work, but though i got along perfectly fine with them (when i wasn’t being a jerk), one cannot make life-long friends in a day. Those who remained in Houston had been my friends for years: we had gone to school together, and weathered many a storm at each others’ sides. Obviously i did not have this shared history with my new friends, so while for a season they were the people with whom i spent my time, as soon as my work situation changed, so did my friendships. I have changed jobs three times now since moving here, and the number of people from each of those previous jobs with whom i am still in contact is miniscule. it was a very long time before i began to develop connections that were as profound as they had been in my hometown, and when i finally did, i wasn’t even ready for it.
Recently, however, i have been living in quite a wealth of friendships, and interestingly it has only happened because it was not the objective. It is really no trick to make friends when all you care about is making lots of friends. It is another thing entirely for people to treat you as a friend even after you have been deceptive and hurtful to them. As many of you know, there have been some rather rough times in my life, mostly self-inflicted. i had many “friends” during those times, people who i saw every day, hung out with at every opportunity, people who i thought would be in my life forever. Almost none of them are still around. The people who are around, however, are not the ones with whom i was honest, with whom i was “myself” so to speak, but the ones i lied to the most. The ones who were most hurt by my actions. Those who have remained to help clean up the mess. And this is why i feel so blessed.
i have only gratitude in my heart for these few people, and for God’s placement of those people in my life. i would not be making it through this aftermath were it not for the support of my true friends, the ones who, for whatever reason, loved me in spite of my faults. They have truly shown me what it means to love others as they love themselves. It is no fault to be in need of brothers in this life, nor to admit that need. It is, in fact, a strength to be able to confess that alone we are insufficient. After all, the only thing in creation that God said was “not good” was for man to be alone. The next step in this process, now that i have been so richly blessed by others, is for me to smash that sponge dry; to take all of the love that i have been fortunate to soak up in the last few years and squeeze it back over those who gave it to me. Only then will they truly be my brothers.
***
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. – Hebrews 10 : 24 – 25
At the End, Joy
***
The first few minutes of running suck. It starts to suck, in fact, before i’ve even begun. Perhaps the hardest part about exercising for me is getting up the motivation to go. My typical exercise session (and yes, i have actually gone enough recently to call it “typical”) is comprised of four minutes of jogging/running at six-seven MPH, followed by four minutes of walking up a 7-8% incline as fast as I can walk, which usually ends up being just under four MPH, and then repeating that cycle three-four times. Now you might be immediately inclined, unless you do much of this type of exercise yourself, to think that the last cycle is the toughest. But strangely enough, as i have already said, i don’t find this to be true. It is, in fact, the first two or three minutes when my body protests the loudest: muscles that have lain dormant all day (and let’s be honest: for years before this) are now suddenly enlisted to the front lines of action, pressed into strenuous and exacting duty. A few minutes in, though, there seems to be a threshold i pass after which my body starts easing into the work, and somehow the second cycle is much less demanding, and very nearly enjoyable.
The same phenomenon is observable in macro: the first few days and weeks of beginning an exercise regimen are horrid, especially after doing nothing for years but languishing in idleness and indulgence. But now that i have a few regular weeks behind me, i actually look forward (sometimes) to going, knowing that it is accomplishing for me what it needs to: chiefly, making me have more and better time with my wife and with others around me (that is, as much as control of such matters lies within my grasp). The point is, being able to see the end result, the fruit, enables me to appreciate the journey.
It isn’t hard to see where i am going with this, especially since this is hardly the only example from the world around us. Stepping into a hot shower, the skin actually burns and reddens in response. A few minutes later, the sensation is soothing rather than painful. Entering a room that is utterly dark and flipping on a bright light can actually cause us to wince, as if under attack by the sudden influx of protons. Yet after our pupils have adjusted, light is not only not an attack but actually an improvement over darkness: seeing our way through the room keeps us from stumbling over the dog’s half eaten chew toy and face planting on the floor. I think, too, of Isaiah 9:2, a familiar quotation that points to the birth of Christ. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”
What would it actually be like if, as in John 9, we had walked in darkness all our lives and suddenly had our eyes opened? We all, going from utter blackness to the brightest light of them all, would be blinded, stunned, shocked. We might have no idea how to distinguish depth, color, shape, motion. It would be a radical process of adjustment. The occipital lobe would, like my feeble legs, be arrested up into immediate action, having sat largely unused for many years.
There is a reason this verse points to Christ: this is precisely what an encounter with Him is like. When He enters our life it is as if we see light for the first time. And though we typically think of this verse in Isaiah as an expression of great joy, which is certainly is, it is also a proclamation that where we were previously blind, we will now see, but this takes tremendous healing and adaptation. In fact, our personal encounters with Him can be quite demanding, painful, blinding even, and it may seem at first as though we were worse off than before. Think of how many times the Israelites, after clamoring to be free from slavery in Egypt, bemoaned their new fate and expressed a wish that they had simply died in Egypt.
i have been there many times, and many times a day: every time He wants me to relinquish control, conquer fear, steady my heart, give instead of ignore, love instead of curse, die rather than thrive. These things are anathema to me, to my flesh. Nearly every time i am asked to do one of these things it doesn’t feel like joy, or sudden freedom, it feels, in the moment, like pain and constraint. it feels like stepping into a shower that is too hot, or onto a treadmill that is too fast.
But joy is not in immediate gratification. That is why Paul calls the Christian life a race, why he “beat[s] his body and make[s] it [his] slave.” (1 Cor. 9:27) Joy is in the long haul, the discipline, the dedication, not in the quick fix. The Quick Fix is what got us into a “quick fix” in the first place. Joy, real joy, will need to look like something different, and might very well need to look, at least at first, like something so different that it is extraordinarily uncomfortable. i must remember, we must remember, that many of us, myself chief among these, have just gotten up from our knees on the road to Damascus. We have just gotten on the treadmill of the walk, just plunged ourselves into the heat of His cleansing waters. For the most part, we are still staggering and reeling from the shock of having “seen a great light.” But given time, our skin will adjust to the heat, our legs to the work, our bodies to the strain, and our eyes to the wonder and glory of vision. After that perhaps we will enjoy the fruit of walking upright in Him, and we will see the joy of not tripping over the dog toy of temptation and face planting on the floor of sin.
***
i don’t go work out every day. Sometimes the sluggard inside wins. i am terrific, probably the best you’ve ever met, at originating excuses. i need to write. i need to read. i didn’t eat that much today anyway so i don’t have enough calories to burn. My leg still hurts from tripping over that dog toy in the dark. Whatever the reason, it is just as common, if not more so, that i fail to go as that i actually do go.
The good news is that the gym will still be there tomorrow, and i bet my key will still work to let me in.
Christ, our Key, will also still be working to let us in tomorrow. He is an Amenity that has already been provided for us as residents here. We have but to reach out and grasp hold of Him and the fruits will come. Should we fail to do so today, well, He will be there for us tomorrow. But my prayer is that as each new tomorrow becomes today, it will be the day that i stop making excuses and just go to Him.
***
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – Hebrews 12 : 1 – 3
Amon-Ra
***
the particular, peculiar
purple bruised sadness of sunset
lies not in the light fleeing us,
but rather in whole hosts
(nations, tribes, families)
of men, we, turning, in concert,
daily away from it.
(and darkness, as we know,
is the time
for secrets, for shame, for
deeds best left hidden, for
theft, for stealth, for
private weeping, for
lonely bedtime sorrows.)
the particular, peculiar
blushing red joy of sunrise
is that of embarrassed gratitude
that when we have turned ’round again
it is still there to greet us,
at least for another day.
***
For my wife, on our Anniversary
***
It took me longer than I had hoped to complete this. I am a day late. May she forgive me.
***
On Shopping for a Card
There are few options. All born,
whether by mirthful laugh fanfared or by
agony thrust into the gaping bright new empty:
all have a day, all without exception.
Cards to mark these occasions abound like
cans on grocer’s shelves –
but those congratulating
a spouse for the anniversary of our union
are so few, sparsely littered about the stacks like
plastic bags on the side of the road. They are
battered, jumbled up, envelopes don’t
match the cards. The messages are
banal, benign, flat and yellowed as the
paper on which they are printed.
But one stands out. Simple, elegant,
refined, stated with candor and
wisdom, without cheek, without
frivolity. The script curves gently like
a slow river, graceful, serene. The colors are
subdued but warm, as faintly burning embers,
or April sun rising over newly tilled earth. It simply states,
“Love is not in the falling, it is
in the staying.” I buy it, and just
sign it. It needs no addition to its words. (You
know well how mostly I like to
amend what is already perfect.)
Somewhere I know there must be one whose
writer, blinded, dumbed, stumped by his wife’s
glory and beauty, can only say,
“I hope it has been as good for you
as it has been for me.” Until I find it,
this one will have to do.
I hope you like it.
***
a slow veer
***
As a few people have been kind enough to remark, i have been posting significantly less lately. The reasons for this are myriad, however a few are worth mentioning here. Firstly, i was out of the country for about a week or so, limiting my access to the internet, although it would be disingenuous to suggest that this was much of a factor, since my virtual absence really started back in late October. Secondly, i was listening to an NPR program a few weeks back on which a poet was being interviewed. (Which one, i do not recall) This particular writer mentioned that a poem written in less than two weeks was, for her, fairly phenomenal, and in general three or four weeks was more the norm. My own tendency, though i don’t believe there is necessarily a right or wrong here, is to use primarily a stream-of-consciousness approach, and do very little editing of my own poetry. This allows for ample and abundant posting of writing, but my fear is that is hinders my ability to be critical of my work and improve upon it. In an attempt to learn from those wiser and more experienced, i have begun to let poems marinate for a while before posting now, walking away from and coming back to them two and three times. Thus rather than posting a poem immediately after the first draft is complete, i now wait at least a week to see if anything about it strikes me as naive or banal. i am not sure this has catalyzed any significant increase in quality, as was its intent, but the strategy is still young.
But all of this, while true, still merely beats about the bush. The true reason, if i may be honest here (and if i cannot here, where can i?), is i have been suffering from a tremendous lack of confidence. i have mentioned before, and thus will not belabor the point ad nauseum here, that perseverance is not one of my strengths. i had high, and almost foolishly mystical, hopes for this blog. i imagined that in no time hoards of readers would be refreshing their blogreaders salivating pavlovianly waiting for the next nugget of wisdom from my mouth, then gleefully sitting back in repose after reading, content in their knowledge of having discovered a secret prophet.
Needless to say, this has not happened, to my knowledge.
Which is good. Of course. i must admit that, though my pride does not want to do so. But i need to remind myself what the purpose of this blog is, and it is not self-glorification. My stated intent from conception was to use this space for two purposes: to hone my talents and practice my craft, and to glorify the One who gave them to me in the first place. Interestingly, in neither case is confidence particularly necessary, and in fact in both cases it may strangely be a deficit and a hinderance.
A good friend once told me never to apologize for not writing. i have no intention of doing that here, at least not to my few readers. Nevertheless i do wish to admit that my heart has been in the wrong place, and thus apologize for the flaw at root in my absence. In other words, i have no specific regret about not writing, merely about the heart condition that my lack of effort writing indicates. But this, too, will ultimately be used by the Lord for His purposes. Dry seasons, too, are necessary that rain may have its desired effect when it at length blessedly falls. So my lack of confidence in my abilities in no excuse for ceasing to attempt. In fact, it is all the more reason i should be putting forth yet greater effort. God will use what he chooses, and most of the time he chooses those with little or no ability at all, that it may be His strength that shines through. May it be so here, as well.
***
The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. – John 7 : 18
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. – 2 Corinthians 12 : 9
Underdogs Unite
***
I have never spent much time in the book of Judges. In fact, before recently, i would have been hard pressed to recite even one story from the book. In a way, Judges is one of the underdogs of the Bible. It is not oft quoted. Generally speaking, there are no artsy cursive-script pictures hanging in kitchens with scriptures from Judges. It is probably possible to have a very intimate relationship with God and the Bible without ever setting foot in Judges. But this is fitting, because as i have spent some time in the book recently, it seems to be a running theme therein that victory is not always for the strong. And though i didn’t see it coming, my perusal of the book has definitely enriched my understanding of the Word as a whole. Here’s why:
i have a tendency to err on the side of disqualification when it comes to service to the Lord. i look at my life and my past and see too much litter there, too much garbage and brokenness in my history, for me to be of use to God. And this is where Judges is a great affirmation to me. Even in the earliest days of the Israelite nation, God was already trying to guide His people to act in ways and follow precepts that, frankly, were just different, counter to the reason and logic of the world around them. Of course, this didn’t begin with Israelites. All along he had been using unlikely characters to further his designs. Abram, promised that he would be a great nation, was nearly 100 before he had any descendants at all. Sarah, his wife, was a barren woman before this point. Throughout the next few generations God is constantly using youngest sons and barren women to continue Abraham’s lineage.
He seems to take this to a whole new level in Judges. First off, the whole point of the book of Judges is that Israel was intended to be a land of which God himself was the king. They were to be surrounded by enemies with powerful kings, but were not to be a nation with a king, but rather a nation ruled by Judges. God intended to use this political structure to indicate man’s proper place before God, and to demonstrate this to the world. To drive the point home, consider just a few of the people he chose as judges:
Ehud – “a left-handed man.” (3 : 15) His left-handedness was significant because the right hand in Israelite culture was the royal hand. Consider that Christ sits at the right hand of God. Also, he was from a tribe, Benjamin, whose name means “son of my right hand.” And yet it was his very left-handedness that allowed him to be victorious. (vv. 15 – 30)
Shamgar, son of Anath – (3 : 31) Shamgar is not an Israelite name, and Anath was the name of both a Canaanite god and a Canaanite city. So by most indications, Shamgar was not an Israelite, and yet God chose him to aid His people.
Deborah – a woman. Need i explain why this is significant? In many cultures, women are still considered second-class citizens, and the effects of that attitude still echo in cultures where it has long been (at least according to law) eliminated.
Gideon – one of the few stories from Judges we are familiar with. In this case it is not Gideon but his army that God chooses to be an unlikely victor. He whittles the fighting force down from 32,000 men to merely 300, so that they would know it was not their strength but God’s that delivered them.
***
I could go on and on, because this theme does not stop in the Old Testament. God chooses a virgin and a carpenter to be Christ’s parents, old barren people to be the parents of John the Baptist. Jesus chooses fishermen and tax collectors for his disciples, some of whom go on to be leaders of the early church and powerhouses of faith and spirit-filled preaching, and none of it has to do with their personal backgrounds of learning or exemplary faith. He chooses a murderer antagonistic to the faith to be his messenger to the Gentiles, etc. etc.
The point is, i look at my history of sin and rebellion and depravity and hear a tiny malicious voice that discourages me from speaking about Jesus. They will never believe you. You are not educated enough. People will think you are crazy. You are not faithful enough. You should not be so bold as to brag about something you are not worthy of.
There are a hundred ways in which my doubting heart and mind twist these facts into excuses for being cowardly about the gospel. But when i read books such as Judges, i come to realize that it has nothing to do with my capabilities anyway. i am not being asked to convince anyone of the truth of the gospel. It is only the Spirit that can do that. i am only being asked to tell my story, and to tell Christ’s story, and tell them faithfully and truthfully. God will use my words as he will, as he uses barren women and bones and stones and virgins and rapists and thieves and murderers and liars and adulterers and a whole host of unlikely, impossible anti-heroes throughout history. What makes the Word believable, and thus the gospel as well, is not that everyone in it is perfect and acts rightly all the time. In fact it is quite the opposite: it is that everyone in it is broken and weak and flawed in some way so that by the end of it, it can only have been God who brought everything about. It can only have been God who turns sticks to snakes and raises people from the dead and stops the very forces of nature, and in my case it can only be God who makes anything i say land on fertile soil.
God is both capable and qualified, and that is all i must believe. When i start to worry about my own qualifications and abilities, then i am only getting in the way, blocking the view: eclipsing the one true sun.
i’ll step aside now, Father, and let you shine through. That’s all You were asking of me in the first place.
***
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – 1 Corinthians 1 : 27
contentiously content
What kind of paradise am I looking for?
I’ve got everything I want and still I want more…
From “Grey” by Ani DiFranco
***
contentiously content
Today
just there was a greying only
a staying lonely soul ,a solely,
a wholly holey unholy whole
Today
wise a bird in whitening sky
wide high flying just to fly
not wanton wanting whining why
could i
Today
have just blackening ungainly
mainly staying in the staining
waning fainting embers ,faintly
still aburn with auburn ,painting
warming me just for
Today
***
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. – Philippians 4 : 12
***
Grey lyrics © 2003 Ani Di Franco / Righteous Babe Records
inputoutputmodule 