LaterComesQuickly

the echoes from my words
break the walls we stand within
i try to say “i’m sorry”
but the echoes break again
crying and disjointed
i’m losing touch with what i’ve held
faith becomes soft slow suicide
like tossing pebbles down an endless well

speak no more, color silence gold
face the mirror and face the fool
don’t speak again, just ignore the need
become the knees you fall to when you believe.
be quiet when you bleed

my problems seem to multiply
by the time my voice hits my ears
it doesn’t take too many words
to face off with my fears
i try to say so much
because i so fear being misunderstood
awash in all my insecurities
words don’t do the drowning any good

i can’t promise anything but love
but you’ve heard my voice too much today
miles make the lips so difficult to replace
so maybe memories can suffice…

song notes: i am not necessarily the best lyricist, but i usually have a specific reference in mind for every line i write. some of it is very easy to figure out (even if you don’t know me) and some is very personal and specific. i believe i should explain one piece of this song so that no one gets a wrong idea about my faith or my perceptions of God.

“faith becomes soft slow suicide
like tossing pebbles down an endless well”

i was having a conversation with a friend, concerning the the situations surrounding this song and we were talking about faith. sometimes faith is an empowering thing…and other times it feels like jumping out of a plane with no parachute. i made a reference about it feeling like throwing rocks down a well that has no bottom. at times, faith feels a little mysterious, some deep thing that humans can’t understand, much as it would be difficult to understand why you don’t hear these pebbles hitting water or the bottom of the well.

“soft, slow suicide:” well, at first it was just a line that kind of wrote itself. but as i think about it more, its true. faith doesn’t kill you, but it is a process that requires you to lay down more of yourself each time you exercise it. in situations closest to your heart, it really can feel like suicide, because all the workings of your mind and the passions of your heart want you to act one way, but your faith guides you down a different path…you just “killed” yourself and went against your nature.

a more amusing trait i’ve noticed about how i write is that i frequently switch who i am directing my words to in my songs, sometimes line by line. usually its either God, myself, the listener or a specific person that this song is to or about. i may say “you” and mean a person, the next line, “you” means God and the next i might just be talking to myself. i said i had a purpose in what i write…not that it makes perfect sense…

i find in my life, moments that are crystalline in the clarity they bring yet are somehow lost in moments or days to the weight of the world. my attempt to even write this has been plagued by such inconveniences. these moments illuminate in a light different than just an “a-ha” but bring to mind every dreamed accomplishment and provides the will/ability and confidence that they are not only plausible but completely promised in delivery. analytical thought renders them laughable, but they breathe hope to the spirit which, in my experience, only comes from Spirit. theses moments fill my chest with a inflated weight that requires the outpouring of all things spiritual and creative. they ring of the Divine greater than the sum of time spent within the walls of the Church, yet i recognize the presence of God as surely as any whisper of worship at the moment of His revelation. i find them in a movie or a song. i hear them in the notes of music that ring in my ears moments before falling asleep, that i could never play or conceive while awake with instrument at hand. i hesitate to call it something as simple as inspiration because inspiration itself pales in sheer depth and scope of one second in this mode.

i will never claim to have a very enlightened understanding of God, yet i know the echo of His voice from the times that i’ve felt Him lead me. and these moments resonate with the Character of Him that i know. they require me to continually aspire towards my greatest character and to achievements that, in the time of common days, would never seem possible.

i mentioned finding them in created things, which may seem tainted as they are not found in direct communion with the creator. perhaps this is by spiritual lacking in me or by some purpose completely unknown to me. the drive to write all of this comes from a movie that i saw today, the name of which can go unmentioned not because of a need to hide the source of my inspiration, but because it ultimately doesn’t matter. there is a type of movie or a type of song that inspires me because beyond the script, the actors, the ticket sales or the nature of the artist, there is an underlying current of something spiritual that touches on the nature of man and his aspiration to realize life in its truest form. a silence that comes after every word that bleeds to be spoken has been spoken. the instrument that is quieted when the composition of heaven has been realized. the brush that is set aside when the masterpiece has been finished. not with ego or self-appreciation but when even the earthly creator whose hands, will or talent has been utilized in the creation process, stands back and silently worships at the feet of the Divine inspiration.

i do not have these moments, as nothing i have created has ever carried such weight….but i come so close to a moment where i can feel the levee straining under the pressure of some river of inspiration that rages to be freed. my desire to be awash in the flood comes not from a wanting to have something to hold up and say “i did this” but because there is some primal need to let it go through me and create something that brings worship to God through it. not for petty pseudo-spiritual motivations that are ultimately the pride that masquerades as spirituality, but by something that words do not and cannot convey. it is the worship that i cannot find in the half hour before the sermon starts.

when i wake up tomorrow, this feeling, which fades in every passing moment, may be forgotten but perhaps in reading these words i can find that spark again. my true aspirations in this mode are not things that i have pondered and decided upon but are things that i feel driven towards, often with no reason. in this i feel that perhaps it is time to remove whatever limiters than i have any control over; those being fear, insecurity, inability, duality in nature, perfectionism, an attempt to control perception, procrastination, comparison, ego, lack of faith, lack of confidence, selfishness and . in my experience every time God has required something of me, it was up to me to do everything in my power to follow the leading in my heart and it is at that point that God begins to work. this is both the thing i praise God most for and at this moment is my most sincere prayer.

Ah, yes the beginning. Lets start with some appropriate lyrics courtesy of The Polyphonic Spree

My Feelings
Are more
Than I can let by
Or not
More than you’ve got
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
You don’t see me fly into the red one more you’re nuts
Just follow the seasons and find the time
Reach for the bright side
You don’t see me fly into the red one more you’re done
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
You don’t see me fly into the red – one more you’re nuts
Just follow the seasons and find the time
Reach for the bright side
You don’t see me fly into the red – one more you’re done
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!
Just follow the day
Follow the day and reach for the SUN!

So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Luke 7:22)

Some time ago i was reading this verse (and the surround passage) and it hit me on a few levels at the same time. Sometimes when I read the bible, it is difficult to think of people as real. They seem mythical and too perfect at times. But here was a time that arguably one of the more important people in the bible displayed their humanity. Here was John, cousin to Jesus, a man whose faith led him in complete opposition to the culture and powers of the times; a man willing to criticize the religious leaders of the times to their faces…yet at his lowest point…he sends a couple of his followers to ask Jesus “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Luke 7:18-20)

John was there when God himself validated Jesus out loud as a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17) If anyone should have known who Jesus was, it was John. Yet as he sat in prison, he was weak and in his weakness, questioned everything his faith had led him to. I would almost expect Jesus to rebuke the followers of John for the lack of faith…yet Jesus does something very different. Going back a little, the first person to plainly refer to the Messiah in Jesus’ presence was the Samaritan woman at the well. As she spoke to Jesus, she knew that she lacked the knowledge to discuss things such as worship and religion with a Jew so she says, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” And Jesus says directly, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:25-26) Yet as John was plagued with doubt, Jesus replies very differently.

“So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Luke 7:22)

He wasn’t going to give John an easy answer, because perhaps even if Jesus had answered plainly, he might have still doubted. Instead he wanted John to consider the things that were happening and then decide for himself if Jesus was the one they had been waiting for. The evidence would speak for itself.

This has been in the back of my mind for awhile. It feels like Jesus gave us a description of what it looks like when God works and through that, we can validate God’s hand in it and yet when I look at the common picture of ministry that we see today… it doesn’t seem like it meets the description Jesus gave. I see ministries that focus on the supernatural…and it seems like they are flaunting a vanity and materialism that defies spiritual reason. Take one well known minister that sent a letter to his supporters requesting giving to put a down payment on a $40 million private jet (Doubt me? Sadly, no longer have the brochure asking for the initial donations.). I have a feeling that’s not exactly preaching the gospel to the poor. And then on the other hand there is an increase in the focus on poverty and the poor, yet it seems that the miracles are missing for the most part. Now these are just my own observations (well, the jet part is fact) and somewhere in my heart I long for a balance between the two. That the emotion-induced faux-spirituality is replaced by genuine miracles…not for generic head and back aches but in the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking and the dead being raised and at the same time, that the invisible line between the broken and discarded masses and the educated, weekly-tithing, shiny car driving church-goer is demolished.

It is a scary place to be, seeing things in such a way…because I have always believed that when your eyes are opened to something wrong with the “system”, you become some how responsible for the solution. I have never been afraid of the ministry, though I haven’t always felt worthy of it. Yet it feels like God is sort of prodding me with a stick, to see if I am still alive, and saying, “you have purpose, start getting ready…”