Prisoner of the Glass House

“Don’t throw stones” said the sage so well

“If in a house made of glass you dwell”

But a different tale I think he’d tell

If he’d been raised in my crystal hell.

WHERE…

I never felt a breath of wind

No rain, no snow, no sleet

Not even a pebble to stub my toe

No grass to stain my feet.

What secret sin could I commit

In this prison where every inch is lit

And the world can see every time I spit?

While an inch away my inquisitors sit

Peering into my prison of glass.

Prisoners all, through the walls we stare

Quick to judge and unable to share

With our hearts concealed and our actions bare

In our spotless palace of glass.

So our deeds eschew what our minds embrace

We dare not go where our feelings race

Shouting ‘TRUTH’, a path of lies we trace

And ‘holy’ we call the best poker face

In this twisted dungeon of glass.

Kept alone by walls we dare not break

Enslaved by chains that we will not shake

Entombing our hearts where the will not break

Immune to the love that we try to fake

Frozen fast in our cell blocks of glass.

In this sterile world, with its pristine curse

My charade grew better and my heart grew worse

Long prayers poured forth from a soul half dead,

My heart dreams crash round me, their wings made of lead.

But I helped build this prison myself.

Yet through our halls one man walked free

Blemished past laid bare for us all to see

Free to hug and to laugh, get annoyed, even cry

If this life was human, then zombie was I.

And TRAPPED in this prison of glass!

Of the touch of his God I heard him tell

And it tossed a rock through my crystal cell

A rock called hope touched my vacant shell

While around our heads, in shards it fell,

That hideous prison of glass!

So I told him my life’s tale in all its woe

Fear slave of the God I didn’t know

Choking back the emotion I couldn’t show

Dreaming of places I dared not go…

Yes, THIS was my prison of glass!

My ‘God’ was a bully who’d take me to task

His, a gentleman friend– whom I’d only need ask

And choking up sobs that for years I’d held bound

I begged ‘Him’ for whatever this friend of mine found.

And I felt rushing LIFE where before– only glass!

I sob, I laugh, I babble thanks

As walls collapse of rage and angst

My God– no more in black and white

In vivid colors, warmth and light.

My prison’s shattered– I have flown.

And if as we walk through this earthly veil

At an unseen wall you see me quail…

Rejoice when that relic I finally pass through.

To my newest found freedom raise your glass (or two).

For a ruin is all that remains today

Of my hideous prison of glass!

And if one day as I’ve left these shards

I meet one trapped in his house of cards

Then joy from my broken heart I’ll show

And a rock through his glass prison wall I’ll throw.

That the God who is LOVE

We can feel, we can know

I was once past feeling,

I know,

I Know!

Micah Kohler —7/21-8/09

The Kingdom of God

O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;--
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,--clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!

- Francis Thompson

God finds us where we are.

(Genesis 32:24-28; Matthew 14:25-29)

Searcher of Spirits

Searcher of spirits,

Try Thou my reins and heart;

Cleanse Thou my inwards part -

Turn, overturn, and turn.

Wood, hay and stubble see

Now spread out before Thee;

Burn, burn.

Worker in gardens,

Dig around my hidden root,

Let branch, leaf, bud and fruit

Respond in quickening life.

Seek out the canker there -

Cut out and do not spare

Thy knife.

Savior of sinners,

Out of the depths I cry,

"Perfect me or I die -

Perfect me, O Patient One";

In Thy revealing light

I stand confessed - outright

Undone.

O to be Holy!

Thou wilt not say to me nay

Who movest me to pray;

"Enable to endure."

Spiritual cleansing Fire,

Fulfill my heart's desire;

Make pure.

- Amy Carmichael

My Heart Leaps Up!

After taking stock of all the good and bad things in my life and trying to write them all down on this blog - I just keep remembering more and more I could add - (Sitting on my favorite pair of sunglasses: not cool!). But adding and re-editing my blog to make room for more complaints is kind of...tacky. I know it's better to have more reserve. But adding a wonderful thing I remembered is fine, right?
I'm starting to get a little sick of winter. So is everyone around me. I'm tired of waking up everyday to a stale, glowing, gray sky and a muddy, dirty, snow-covered landscape as far as the eye can see, not to mention the cold. I'm doing my absolute best, but I'm starting to feel a little, SAD. But, coming home from work last week with my sister, I looked up over the stark, skeletal trees of the forest, and saw a rainbow glowing in the pearly gray sky. It was faint, but it was a burst of color and so beautiful. I have never, ever seen a rainbow in the winter.

It was a gift.



My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

- William Wordworth

Happy Tuesday night!

Make Me Thy Fuel

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the crucified)
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God

- Amy Carmichael

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied to don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thought your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and distaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools;
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build them with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count on you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a man, my son!

 - Rudyard Kipling, 1895