Time to Be Holy

Every day, same plan, 
same game every day:
Eat a little better, work a little harder, get a little smarter, make love a little longer.
 
The internet algorithms got us figured out,
a clip, an email, a picture or a twitter
la petite mort
a thousand little deaths has our 
veins thumping for another. But don’t bother
that your life is stringing you out.
 
You say I don’t have time any more
But it’s time to be holy
It takes time to be holy.
 
Don’t just hide in the garden with Jesus.
He’s out here walking the streets. 
We’ve got to go with him through the scum and the mud
use our skin as collateral.
Let him cut through the media hum
buzzing and fuzzing up your brain. 
 
We’ve got to feed on His Word instead of 
feasting on our feeds.
Keep up his pace, steady feet,
steady heart,
steady faith.
 
The more we look at him, the more we’ll look like him.
It’s time to be holy. 
Take the time time to be holy.
 
We keep calm and carry on as we sail on through this storm
Even though Jesus is strutting on the water.
Keep your eyes on him as you sink
beneath the waves
he’ll pull you down through the bottom 
into fountains of love.

My Manger

My God, my hope
My nothing less 
Than all.
Come quick, come fast
And land again amidst the roiling swell
Burning dove of Zion,
Reigning kind and friend to men.
 
Hunker in my hurting heart;
Make refuge, 
Hiding, humble in the crowded cave.
Boom out to all with ears to hear
Your joy for all the worlds:
You’ve stayed your hand,
You’ve stayed with man.
My God, my God
Come dwell again in me.

Wormwood

If a am a tree I am dead
Dried-up wormwood,
Eaten through 
With homegrown lies—
A dirty dearth of earthly material.
Burn through me;
Cut me down.
Grow your fresh green shoot
Up through my roots
Reengineer ancestry
And plant me by the stream
That feeds the boughs which 
Blossom in the eons.

We Wait

There’s a trembling in my bones
that shudders to the beat
of a windstrung song and shouting throng
and a hundred thousand feet.
For my Father comes in power
and he’s coming for the weak and waiting.

Will you come, Lord God, in quiet thunder
and echo throughout empty spaces
places
of decadence and desolation?
Will you come and burn with fire fury
the tears off of our faces?
For those who hear you coming
put our ears down to the ground to feel the earth shake
and wait,
we wait for you, our coming swift salvation.
The king of a thousand armies calling
in the thump and wink of a heartbeat.

Eyes forced and held open in an act of trust while
desert dust is flung in our faces and our eyes 
water freely
bleary and fainting
droplets hissing in scorn-filled heat.
Here together with arms held and up high,
forcing breath out weakened lungs
to the angry sky,
a "Hallelujah!" chorus is
our unified cry–
as we wait