The Art of Understanding

The Art of Understanding

I have to be honest with you,
I didn’t get it.
Not at all.
Not even a little bit.
But I tried an ancient trick of old.
Of New.
Of talking to the One who has always been
And always will be.
The one who knows all things;
The portrait of Revelation.
I asked and cried and probed and questioned.
I sought and ran,
Dug and buried.
Running baths to cleanse my soul,
And to spend some time
In everlasting water.
I found some peace.
A little bit of healing.
And a lot of understanding.
Bitterness turned to lemonade
And malice to empathy.
Frustrations are working they way
Towards forgiveness.
Strawberry Jelly takes a while to set.
Step by step,
Inside the One who is Love at its’ finest.
So many nights you spent,
hurting yourself to cope,
longing for a bit of freedom.
A release from being so alone.
Your strength was your weakness,
And your weakness, your strength.
Control at any cost.
You know your Father’s name,
And he increases your bank balance.
How you wish he would increase
your sense of self,
your sense of ‘loveability’.
Oh how that would increse
your love-ability!
You and your mum are bezzies.
What a laugh you have!
Pity you won’t let her
see your night-time tears.
You join in with her feminist rants,
And watch the odd TV programme.
Do you know she loves you?
Where oh where did your assurance
Run to...
That relationship you had
At oh so young an age
Was called manipulation.
Used and abused and misused and confused.
Played for a fool.
You quickly learned how to stop caring.
Took up the building profession, didn’t you?
Everyone everywhere envy your walls.
Or do they just stare at them in
Astonishment and dismay?
The Israelites longed for freedom.
Slaves no longer.
But it was too big a risk -
They longed for the familiar.
No wonder when you find yourself
Amidst the good.
The great.
The godly.
The gracious...
You run.
And long for the familiar.
It hurts, but you can harden yourself.
You’ve learned it,
So you can control it.
You didn’t understand those green pastures too well.
So in this ancient old-new tradion,
Of speaking to Love,
I will hope unswervingly that you find them again,
Regardless of my seeing it or not.
Notice the grace.
Learn the new place that is available for you.
Strawberry jelly takes a while to set.
Bless your soul.

Beyond Modern Religion

Beyond Modern Religion

Storing up so many things,
Underneath my barricade-heart.
Often feeling so unhinged,
At a loss with where to start.

Perhaps there is no starting point,
More a mesh of views and thoughts.
In all ways so intricately joint,
Ideas desiring to be caught.

Writing in a consumerist age,
Modern-capital as a foundation.
Ranting of flaws on my objectives page,
Of what might be holy frustrations.

Everything is boxed and labelled and sold,
Even people, beliefs and God.
Loss of reality to a system of cold,
religious, modern, material fraud.

There is still hope, all is not lost,
The Kingdom of justice prevails.
Blessed are those who search for truth,
They find freedom through wood and nails.

Some must have doctrinal foundations,
Theological stances for walls.
Debates, divides, denominations,
And Judgement for any who fall.

Others have learned how to soar,
On the wings of mercy and grace.
No longer the captives of internal war,
Fully alive with both purpose and place.

Don't live captured by everyday-guilt,
Nor shadowed or enslaved by shame
You are covered in His righteousness quilt,
And baptized through His beautiful name.

You're not a heretic because of your thinking,
Nor a heathen because of your doubts.
Your struggles do not mean you're sinking,
And your Father will not cast you out.

Seek first His Kingdom of living hope,
And keep your eyes fixed on above.
Remember no-one is beyond the scope
of His acceptance, mercy and love.

Masquerade Ball

I hope you’re enjoying your masquerade ball,
You’ve always longed for it after all.
Where everyone must wear a disguise,
With hollow words and covered eyes.
Bulletproof barriers around your heart,
Assuring that no-one can have a part.
The secrets of your mind enclosed,
Inside the place where nobody goes.
Once upon a time you let yourself love,
A girl who was bright with the light of the dove.
She took off her mask to look at you well,
And as time passed her prisons fell.
That girl had a fear of being betrayed,
Of you opening her then walking away.
But still she danced inside your embrace,
And trusted your aura of sensitive grace.
It didn’t take long for that aura to change,
Twenty-four hours for it all to go strange.
It wasn’t the change that caused love to die,
But the refusal to speak or to laugh or to cry.
The girl only wanted to show you her care,
To carry you with her support and a prayer.
But up shot those walls which had started to fall,
Turns out you weren’t so prepared after all;
For someone to walk with you from day to day,
And help chase the evil and fear far away.
Better to stay in control was your thought,
And the consideration you gave to her heart was nought.
So now you’re living your farce of a life,
With smiles on your face and a heart full of strife.
You better hold tight to your sense of success,
Because soon comes the day when all you repress,
Will surface in one big tangled up mess,
And you will once again long for that girl,
To gently console you and brighten your world.
But she has been trying to fill up the space
That you left when you vanished without a trace.
And the hurt she was caused cannot be explained,
But she has learned how to close up once again.
She would love to enwrap you in warmth and light,
But she has forgotten how to let up the fight.
So the next time you want to enter inside,
The sign on her heart will read ‘Access Denied’.

The Rocks

I hope you’re happy,
With your confused embrace
And the way you carry yourself.
May you delight
In the hurt you’ve caused
That you fail to realise

Or choose to ignore.

Or worse... maliciously intended.

Oh tell me please,
Do you get butterflies
When he holds your hand?
Do you see the future
With him by your side?

Dear girl, where are your senses?

You look so different now.
Who are you?

To run away
Is one of life’s greatest tragedies.
People get scared.
You frightened yourself.
You couldn’t be ruled by your heart,
So it’s better
To wreck someone else’s.

Smash!

Shatter.

The loss of hope,
Could be the title of a song,
The theme of a poem,
Or the reality of this situation.
If this array of beauty
Could collapse like a lung,
And explode like a nuclear bomb,
Then what hope is left
For humanity?

Is there victory in the end?

Does anybody know anybody?

Selfish desire are pursued after all.

There is a girl

There is a girl
Who lays down like a sunset
And glows with the
most beautiful purple haze.
She shimmers in and out
of reality
And dances on the blue
reflection of the ocean.
Her home moves along all the rainbows
And her garden lies
Buried in the snow.
People throw love at her,
And she can’t seem to tell
whether these loveballs are
gifts or weapons.
To heal or to harm?
The universe melts all around her
Like chocolate in the summertime.
She tastes like rainbow skittles
And looks like a white rose.
Her scent is better
than coffee or perfume.
She is still so likable.
But she folds like a letter
And seals like an envelope.
Just as a re-sealable packet,
she won’t stay open for too long.
This girl is soft as a marshmallow
And hard as nails.
She falls like little drops of rain
That look like tears
But they’re just water.
I can see pictures in her
Like I see in the clouds.
Her smile is like
the brightest sunrise,
And her words soothe much more than
the strongest cup of morning coffee.
She will enter your world for a little while,
But her world
Is not your world.
Your heart is not her home.
And when she vaporizes into the sky,
you won’t find her,
until the next magnificent sunset.

Poem - Hallelujah to The God

Pretty much the sequel to "The Pharisee Game".

TITLE: HALLELUJAH TO THE GOD

Can everyone break into
A loud resounding chorus
Of hallelujahs?

No they can’t

Because they were told not to sing
Until they surrendered
To a different tune
With different lyrics.

Hallelujah to the God
Who sent His Son to die
For him but not him,
For her but not her.

Hallelujah to the God
Who says love thy neighbour,
Except for that one.

Hallelujah to the God
Who prefers one denomination
Over another.

Hallelujah to the God
Who can be boxed in
And understood by human intelligence.

Hallelujah to the God
Who brings oppression
And fear.

Hallelujah to the God
Of the Pharisees.

Well I am sorry,
But I cannot
And will not
Sing this song.

Hallelujah to the God
Of Unconditional love.

Hallelujah to the God
Of peace and reconciliation.

Hallelujah to the God
Who brings life in all its fullness.

Hallelujah to the God
Who works for the good of His children.

Hallelujah to the God
Who brings freedom.

Hallelujah to the God
Who builds one church.

Hallelujah to the God
Of rich and poor
Old and young
Male and female
Gay and straight
Of every tribe
And tongue
And nation.
Of the global North
And global South.
Hallelujah to the God
Who says Come as your are
From wherever you are
And find rest for your soul.

Hallelujah to THE God.

Poem - The Pharisee Game

It's a passion of mine to reclaim the word 'reform' when it comes to Churches in Northern Ireland. A total 're-look' at what Jesus prioritised and what He criticised. And above all this, how he loved people. The following poem was written both out of frustration at how people are treated and hurt, but also out of hope that there are genuine hearts seeking to love.

Just because you can't comprehend it,
Doesn't mean you're free to condemn it.
Don't act the expert on what you don't know,
And stop putting on this authority show.
It's not all about what you think or perceive,
And the truth doesn't stop at what you believe.
Let's see if you can open your mind
To accept those of a 'different kind'.
And don't try to 'fix' them or 'pray it away',
Just invite them in and ask them to stay.
You see externals but God sees the heart,
Of the bigger picture we see only a part.
Jesus paid it all so that no-one should die,
And they could know God and have eternal life.
But we evangelicals rebuild the walls
That keep people out of God's 'Kingdom for All'.
The doctrines and rules of our denominations
Is breaking down God-with-human relations.
Jesus said people who love come from God,
So I can't help but find it a little bit odd,
That many who know the grace of the Cross,
More quickly condemn and leave people lost.
What's more important at the end of the day;
The state of their souls or the fact that they're gay?
Your priorities seem a bit off to me,
When Jesus came to set people free.
Free from all sin, all guilt and all shame,
But you keep playing the Pharisee game.
You let your debatable point of view
Warp what is undeniably true.
That Jesus loves all without any condition,
And he made a way out of perdition.
I'm pleading with you to open your eyes,
And to be His disciples and answer the cries,
Of the outcast, the broken, the poor and alone
Don't be the ones to keep throwing stones.
This side of heaven you won't know in full,
So just place yourself in His hands as a tool,
That by your hands and feet His will can be done,
And through your heart His Kingdom will come.