there's a not quite flying in your hands when we walk
and a not quite singing when you talk
when i breathe in your hair and your breath
in the dark snuggled close
i wonder at the mercy
for God is gracious and generous
to sinners like me

though the rain is falling you walk on
through the blinding and the stinging
through the tears and the shame
through all the broken promises
through so many futures unlived

home is chilly and dark
because no one waits your voice
but you know that's only part true
you know there's one who waits
one who follows
one who watches

wet clothes in a heap
more water running
but hot and at your will, not God's
you soak out the cold and in the warm
you pray for solace in the steam
and comfort for your heart
and you pray for one who hurts
because he cannot love

and you wait some more
for God's will, not yours

there is an emptiness inside loneliness that we do not talk about or explore, a longing and aching and feeling of being lost that cannot be put aside most of the time, it can be endured certainly, but it cannot be embraced, and it does not allow for prevarication, you can pretend it is not there but it does not let go the pressure, ever, it only allows you to be distracted, like drinking, the problems seems less important but you know it'll be there when you sober up

there is a fullness to love that allows itself to be forgotten, an easy comfort that lends itself to forgetfulness, a sense that we deserve the warm wrapping and the soft or callused touch of another on our face or shoulder or back, that the normal state of man is togetherness and all other states are false, or unfair at least, we have rights, after all, and this is one

this indicates we were made, not born, made, fashioned, constructed i say to you, for fellowship, with one another, with our creator, with whatever is at hand, including volley balls if modern mythology is to be belived, and in this instance we may believe it, we require a voice to say what we already know and we will settle for our own if we must, we deserve it, we might die without it

God talks quite a bit more frequently than i tend to acknowledge, and though he does not drone he did fashion us to endure all steady state situations and his talk is so frequently overwhelming that we feel we cannot take it up close all the time, in a seed, in a blade of grass, in a leaf, in the tree the mountain the bird the pet the styling of furniture and appliance, in the smell of a new baby's head and in freedom to love or reject, in breathe and in smiling and in turning on the remote a sense of God so strong your head will spin if you think on his glory too much, he designed a world we could begin to understand, enough that infra-red, a color we can't see and only feel in massive quantity, enough that infr-red will reach out through the air in the room and tell some zeros and ones to change back and forth so our television or dvd will come to false life and entertain us, probably to remove us from our thoughts of God, he gave us that option

i think lonliness is a kind of desert and fellowship a kind of jungle and the dweller of one can barely speak to the dweller of the other

we long for a touch, so Jesus touched the leper and said he was willing after he said i love you though you have suffered but maybe he meant i love you because you have suffered

i run from cistern to cistern and you are always full, somehow, so i assume you get your water from that spring of life in your belly that he gave you, so continue to teach me about how it works