VIII

How nearsighted am I!

See how the edges blur as soon

as they flow past my fingertips

and so I do not reach farther.

I do not raise my head to search

for the signs of Your presence

but only stumble along in the my greygreen world

wondering what I'm missing.

Lord cover my eyes!

Render me blind!

Freeze me in place in this darkness

and teach me to reach for You,

to hear Your voice among the chords of chaos

and hold that harmony in my heart.

Strip from me any portion of independence.

My pride is my chain--

how I long to be unshackled!

To strip it off like dead skin and stand

glowing in your reflected glory

tuned to turn at Your slightest thought

trained to hunger after You

always ready to reach for You.

Your Presence is the light of my eyes.

VII

The things I have seen O God 

I do not understand.

The things I have heard, Lord on High,

they are beyond me.

How can I with my aching head

take hold of what you have done?

How can my twisted tongue

speak clearly of your great deeds?

Let your grace, O King, reach

even to this stumbling thing.

Stretch your hand to me, a mere shadow of a shadow of your glory,

and open my mind to your wonders.

How weary I am of my clumsy questing

my questioning tongue that fails

even the simplest of queries

and leaves me searching in the ocean for a stone.

How feeble my efforts,

how weak my arms in reaching for you!

The distance stretches beyond what I can fathom

double that and double again.

How far you are O Lord above my understanding

How great beyond my grasp,

Leaving me as though blind and deaf 

before the magnitude of your majesty.

Even the things you have shown me

I do not understand.

The things you have told me

I cannot comprehend.

Teach me O Lord the beauty of your Presence 

VI

How good you are Lord!

Most generous above all!

Standing here in the fields of your flowers

which you love

giving sustenance and then also beauty

it is so overwhelming

to realize in this crowd of glory

you count me yet a treasure among jewels

a thing precious to love.

I am struck silent

my lungs filling with the mark of your love

and with a wild song I break loose.

For what use is a treasure

but to glorify its master and craftsman?

I pray, Lord, never let me be stolen away.

Keep my heard, guard it as a wandering lamb.

Place your sentries around it.

Hold it captive in this place where I am so loved

that I may glorify you forever

and shine in the light of your Presence.

V

Raise your voices, 

cry out together O you people.

How dark are the days before us

full of fear and wrath.

When the Lord has turned from us

where shall we go?

Abandon at hand the work of your life.

Leave it by the wayside,

knocking it aside with the foot

as you flee from the coming dawn.

How desolate we are

my people in their homeland

running as gazelles with the hounds

at our heels and hungry

like goats from the wolf.

The children cry out and the mothers reach

to silence them

using the weight of their soft bodies

to muffle their own heartbreak

and in the midst a voice is crying,

"My son, my son.

My only son!

He is lost in the darkness

and cannot be found.

Oh my heart, my son.

My son, my sorrow."

The darkness deepened.

The women silenced their weeping

in the face of this grief

and then in a gentle crescendo

joined with the broken heart

swelling together their sorrow,

"How broken we are in this place,

so lost and far from home

with death in the shadows

and sorrow in our hearts.

How broken and who shall understand

the depth of our suffering?"

The single voice rose again,

"My son, my well beloved son,

The darkness has taken him

but look!

He rises again with peace in his hand

and light upon his brow.

Come my people gather to him

he will take you up in his hand

placing you in the place of joy.

Look the dawn is rising

the night is no more."

May the light of His Presence burn like the sun.

(For Burma)

IV

Blessing

Blessings be

Upon the One who taught my tongue

what blessings are

the One who said "Taste, taste and see

see that I am good."

Sweeping me up in the explosive power

of his oceanic love

and this explosion did not destroy

but redeemed, purified

pulled me through flames

to emerge

gasping laughing loving

whole

for the first time.

Lord you taught me to give

now teach me to take

take deep draughts of you

like air after choking

water after running.

My heart feels drained

each drop pushed loose

in conduits long dug to faraway ears

distant reaching hands

and its your love that taught me

your love that gives me words

but I've run myself dry

straight into the ground.

Dust to dust.

Ashes to ashes.

Lord i have wept with the weeping.

Will you teach me to laugh again?

I am a gaping mouth.

The only thing left in me i spend

to call out blessing.

Blessings upon the LORD,

the One who blesses beyond belief.

Bless him my soul.

Bless me my All.

In the light of your presence I bless your name.

III

O Lord how slim the sliver of my understanding!

How poor I am in stores of wisdom!

If I were wiser still, I would stand

on the streetcorners with open hands

calling out to the crowds

begging for wisdom, for news of you.

How great my pride, it beggars me,

eating away at my hunger for righteousness

stifling my thirst for wisdom

leaving me with a swollen belly

the false fullness that is the mark of starvation.

I cry out to be stripped of it

as of a shameful garment, a mark of shame.

Cleanse me of this sickness

purge this disease from me.

Leave me pure and broken

driven  relentlessly by the hunger for you.

Let the desperation for a taste of your grace

make me as one called crazy

as one who weeps in the streets 

for a sorrow no one sees.

Place your burning in my heart 

and leave me to blaze with the need of you.

I know that among men I am most foolish

but still in my foolishness you have blessed me.

You have taught me what wisdom is

and have given me the hunger for it. 

Let me O Lord be swept away.

Make me wealthy in the richness of your presence.

II

The fear is this

that at the dark moment

I will flash into true being

a deep shadow deep even against the encroaching black

and where it was thought to find light

instead thrown forth like a banner

is the breadth and depth of my depravity

the key is in the lock

the lock oiled these many days

with the sweltering sweat of a thousand small fears

a hundred little hurts and stabs

and lo i fear hearing it in the midst of the crowd

the animal voice crying out among the startled

among the saints and the saved

and then this screech of a snarl

carrying with it all that heavy fears of the dark eyes

I conceal when I smile

and so I run and I beg you

Oh Lord my strength close in around me

build your might around me like a tall tower

your love, thick walls keeping me still and silent

in the safety of your strength

How strong O Lord your right to strike the wolf

that masquerades inside your flock sweating salty sin

strike and strike again, cleanse me of this festering sore

this rank impurity

Come, O Lord, let your wrath fall upon me

and amidst the pain too I will be in Your glory

in the blazing revelation of who you are

and how you love

striking the children you love

not to spoil the child but to redeem

to put him in the way that I should go.

I fall silent in the hope of your presence. 

I

The things I have seen O God

I do not understand.

The things I have heard Lord on High

they are beyond me.

How can I with my aching head

take hold of what you have done?

How can my twisted tongue

speak  clearly of your great deeds?

Let your grace O King reach

even unto this stumbling thing

stretch you hand to I, a mere shadow of a shadow of your glory

and open my mind to your wonders.

How weary I am of my clumsy questing,

my questioning tongue that fails

even the simplest of queries

and leaves me searching in the ocean for a stone.

How feeble my efforts,

how weak my arms in reaching for you. 

The distance stretches beyond what I can fathom

double that and double again. 

How far you are O Lord above my understanding

how great beyond my grasp

leaving me as though blind and deaf

before the magnitude of your majesty. 

Even the things you have shown me

I do not understand

The things you have told me

I cannot comprehend

Teach me O Lord the beauty of your presence!