2001-Offering Envelope Side 2

Partially sanctified, Father.
Is that why I doubt?
Is that why I follow without compass?

Partiality is blessed.
Blessed partiality; craving...to desire is blessed

To enter Your presence, Father.
To bring back to You the wisdom, peace and goodness
You sent out in me.
Wholesomeness--to be full before You, Lord.

2001--Offering Envelope Side 1

I threw my emotions out into
the streets, out there with the
wisdom to know they came from you.
Oh, I feel suffering.
You must have hidden that one
in my pocket while my false logic
threw my infant belief out with the bathwater.
Challenged, I feel that too,
but I am not surprised that
You challenge me; surprise me.
Order my pride till it has no more foundation to stand.

It comes as no real shock
that my most dear loved ones think I'm foolish,
pitiable because I chose to listen;
to listen to Your Spirit.

Speak Spirit; speak to my foolishness; speak to my undoing.
And as You continue to abase me; speak to those I love;
speak against their foolishness.

A Continuation of the Beginning in Strict Denial of the End: Because of Jesus and Pablo Neruda

We are the two gathered in His name.
We are the one flesh.
We are.
He is.
We are: the vine and branches;
the shepherd and sheep;
the lover and beloved.
We are.
He is.

After the Airport

Solomon is nothing; and all his songs, caucophony.
The stars are empty, the sea is no mystery.

But you, you are my long forever.
I cannot see beyond the joy that waits in your arms.
Your hands stretch out around me, holding my fear
as if it were only a drop resting in your palm.
That is where I am, cradled, covered, knowing your strength.

Your joy is my joy.
You are my continuation; I am yours.
You are wild; I am beautiful.
You are romance; I am the prize.

Instead of Fear and Worry

simplicity is the beginning
the boiled down--the revealed
how I long for simplicity--not ignorance--simplicity

but peace is bought; not earned
bought like white robes and a new name
it is bought without money
it is bought with everything that I think at some point was mine
how ridiculous

I own nothing
I claim nothing as my own
I am nothing

maybe humility is the beginning
maybe it's the middle too
and maybe at the end of all things...
after I have drunk the cup down to the bottom
I'll find humility--the only thing that won't be burned away

Thodupuzha Centre Full Gospel Church One Day Women's Conference

I see my Delta blues, my motown melody, my 1, 3, 5 fits well without a steady beat
and I can sing all over the 12/8.
They are so much in earnest, hands striking
faster and faster until a cry emerges,
rises from somewhere in my inner man.
It is the same cry I make so many times when I am desperate;
when there is nothing left;
no dream, no hope, no pretense, no fight
and I have to grieve this world: the death that is and will come.

Firstfruits

He is the root ripper, the supplanter, the transformer. He is the farmer who should receive first of his crop, best, first, prime. And the fruit is the reflection, the mirror image, the progeny of life, of truth because He has usurped death. He is the blessing and the blessed to make us the blessing and the blessed. Mangos from figs, miraculous nature of God.

Full Gospel

Now is the time of our need;
the road of desperation marked in creased faces intent lines and hands.
The new song hangs over us, the kingdom gains,
our credibility dies; the head covering a burial shroud.
Two fingers clenched against a thumb;
nothing can stand against Jesus and the testimony of my Indian brother sitting on the floor,
and the Spirit who presses and settles truth deep into my inner man.

Meditation at 8pm

Death itself is a quick change of situation
from life to death--quick change
It is the grieving that demands so much time.
Slow, painful memories of the letting go.
Deliberate choosing of closure feels like betrayal;
seems like heart amputation, but it is the seed opening;
grief is God's emotion, and He is no stranger
to the death of a world who is stranger to Him.

Communion

Sunsets are red in India;
they settle in around quietly
giving way to florescent lighting and bugs;
to conversation and singing;
to stories and prayers from one pilgrim to another.

This is communion: masala tea and cake,
and we remember;
break out the pictures of Ebeneezers and tell stories of how Jesus is with us.