Haiti Bound

For Caroline

Most people spend their lives running away from trouble,
others getting into it.
Only a few choose to run towards other people's trouble,
fewer still seek it out for His sake.

Those few are the rescuers -
 the remnant who go when no one else will.
Whose faithfulness testifies to God's mercy and love -
written in the story of their lives.

Sometimes it's hard to see them - they are so few -
obscured by everyone running the other way.
But I can.
For they are beautiful.

Texas is Weird

I had a classic Houston moment last night. I ate dinner at the bar at Oportos in midtown between a Dutchman who liquifies natural gas on a first date with a Waloon journalist who just moved from Luanda and an off duty Cuban chef by way of Buffalo out with a Guadaloupian (opian? ipian?) engineer. We were served by a Parisian bartender who just moved here from New Orleans and a second bartender who swore he was Mexican but I think he was just a Tejano embarrassed by his lack of exotic street cred. The shrimp piripiri were very good but they inexplicably put mint and those stupid juniper berries in their Gin and Tonics. Which were pink. I kid you not. I told them about my high school locker trauma with tall dutch girls, and that my mostest favoritest Waloon of all time was Tintin. Texas is weird.

On politics

When people ask me what my politics are, I say Christian.  When they persist I either say I'm an avant garde conservative or a reactionary liberal depending on which answer I judge will make them most nervous.  I believe in timeless truth and infinite love. I believe that truth and love are not opposites.  Indeed in the person of Christ they become one and the same.

That means the only source of true love is Christ. That the only source of the love we give others is Him who first loved us.

Everything Everywhere

Lord, I'm never alone,
wherever I go, you're there.
It's a double edged truth,
but truth all the same.
You're everywhere I go
and everything to me.

I went home the other day.
Been years since I left.
But Mom talked of You
like You'd never gone.
But how can that be?
Because you were always with me.

With me in my tears and
with me in my fears 
With me when I was wrong
and headed way down.
You're everywhere I go
and everything to me.

I don't see You but
I feel You everywhere.
Filling everything
with life and hope.
Even when I can't see.
Even when I can't believe.

With me in my tears and
With me in my fears 
With me when I'm wrong
and headed way down.
Lord, You're everywhere I go
and everything to me.

Lord, I'm never alone,
wherever I go, you're there.
It's a double edged truth,
but truth all the same.
You're everywhere I go
and everything to me.

You woke me up

You came and woke me up
To say you'd  had enough.
Enough of the loneliness and the fear.
Too much of the road and not enough of here.

But the hole in your soul is too big to fill.
And mine is bigger still.
I don't have the love you need.
And I never will.

We can't fill our souls with us.
Tossing holes into holes.
My empty can't fill you full.
And we both feel so alone.

I've heard there's a man with love to spare
who died and rose again.
Maybe if I can get his love.
Then I can share it with you.

He came and woke us up.
To tell us He was enough.
To banish our loneliness and fear.
And to make our pathways clear.

And my hole is still too big to fill.
But he filled it all the same.
For he died to fill us up with love.
And he forever will.

Yes he rose to save our souls for love.
And he forever will.

.

Look at me.

Look at me. Can you see me?
The real me?
Every day I trade my honor 

for nothing but dross.

I say I'm free
but I enslave me.
See that bird she's free.
I want to be like her. 

See my soul through all the dust?
See how I treat myself?
How can you believe in me?
When I'm not even free?

I want to to be free.
I want to be free from me.
He said that to save my life
I must give it up.

Look at me.
Really look at me.
I want to be free.
Lord, set me free.