choice

“Choose life,” God says. “Choose life.”
“Bathe in waters deep and gold
Wash; Drink your thirsty fill,” I am told.
“Choose life,” they say- they do not know
What friend to me death has been, although
Perhaps more truly a faithful foe.
Yet faithful– an out I felt alway
If ever I had to stop the pain.

"Cast it out, child, don't be so sad -

No more despair before your God.
Who in fearful mercy extends all day
Nail-scarred hands to proud ingrates!
A Shepherd awaits you just at your side
A healing refuge in whom to abide,
If only you turn from self-exile."
I hear thee, Lord, draw me nigh.

Now, if inconstant prove I to be
No longer will I hide beneath
clouds of obscurity.

Let me dance ~
like David through the pain,

Lifting heart, mind, and arms to praise:
God’s glory be this temple’s plane.
I’ll paint on canvases of air
Love’s great riches, His Holy care
Each finite motion, decided action
Be sword and solace: holy reflection
Of the one true Lord’s Great Decision.
Arms uplifted, gentle wrists,
Feet secure while body twists,
Leap and land --- you’re at the edge
Of something waiting to begin.
Breath of heaven pray thee I’d find
And in this earthly flight entwine.
Be ready in brightness Gospel grace
For many still need this dance’s embrace.

note... I wrote this one out of the experience of dance as healing for depression.

ejb

Looking for a way to forge a path

New untrodden, cutting down weeds
pushing aside branches.
A path that touches the deep
down freshness of things* called
Life. Life unartificial not
paved, painted - primped or "put-together" -
but the truth in which an ocean
of Love abides. I would dive
into it if I found it.
Little trickles tempt my pallette
so that I can say - I have tasted its goodness.
Of its Reality and my heart turns
toward that eternal country: not here.
I do not know if they love - those
who do not understand the way I want to run.
Laughing at my impulse to change, create,
but saying they always knew I would
if I succeed. But if I fail- their love
lies hidden, masked, undefined.
And I am alone again, remembering
the hidden country.
Forging my way there, calling out these
little cries that Another does hear
and watching for that trickle - a voice rather,
Presence, truly - who in my
darkness, draws near.


ejb

*G.M. Hopkins reference

metanoia

Μετανοια.

Grieve not – heart – for things that may not pass rather grieve
Cry out and mourn for all that has.
Allow thy deep-seated tears, fears, to flood Jesus’ feet
Those lies that you believed – words which you could not help but scream
When the seams of what you wanted burst and you began to bleed.
Grieve then, for then you may come to feel
Your own skin around you your own heart beating, still,
When death thought it had taken all and watched your fall
Your burst-self went to face its God.
And found in its despair Christ’s tears, fears, and blood for thee
Your self gathered in his arms, forgiven, cleansed and free.


ejb

C.S. Lewis

Nearly they stood who fall.
Themselves, when they look back
see always in the track
One torturing spot where all
By a possible quick swerve
Of will yet unenslaved--
By the infinitesimal twitching of a nerve--
Might have been saved.
Nearly they fell who stand.
These with cold after-fear
Look back and note how near
They grazed the Siren's land
Wondering to think that fate
By threads so spidery-fine
The choice of ways so small, the event so great
Should thus entwine.
Therefore I sometimes fear
Lest oldest fears prove true
Lest, when no bugle blew
My mort, when skies looked clear
I may have stepped one hair's
Breadth past the hair-breadth bourn
Which, being once crossed forever unawares
Forbids return.

~C.S. Lewis, Poems, "Nearly They Stood" (1933)