Contrary Contradictions.

If you haven't almost died.
You've never really lived.
If you've never cried.
You've never forgiven.

If you've never broken your heart.
You've never loved.
If you've never fallen apart,
Then your still up above.

Playing it safe.
Not really alive.
A puppet, a slave.
You just survive.

But if you never slipped.
You could never stand.
If you never stumbled.
You'd have never walked.
If you never failed to understand.
You'd have never stuttered,
Never talked.

So make your own mistakes.
Try the unknown stakes.
Play hard for the win.
Sacrifice the board for your king.

Challenge the records of fate.
The failures reward is faith.
Because as long as we can strive for what we have not seen.
We may be wrong but we're alive in our love and longing.

And when we leave this plane.
Even if the world forgets,
Our failures, faces, our names.
We face our maker with no regrets.

Rain

The shadows slide over the sun.

The silver linings turn to grey.

The light of day comes undone.

The cold wind turns to rain.

No lightning scars the heavens.

No rumble of thunder.

Nothing but the cold earths summons.

Nothing but the rains whisper.

Lost in the cold embrace.

Tossed by the wind no more.

Discarding realities embrace.

I cross onto memories shore.

Lost in the wind. Soaked to the skin.

Every sense muted to the air.

It's you I feel, Tangible real.

Your presence. right there.

The thunder rolls, the illusion folds.

My eyes open, from lies awoken.

Your gone.

A new rain falls, a new pain calls.

My face stained, my heart maimed.

But It just Rains on...

Smile.

I have my meals on time.
I get through life just fine.
I can work and rhyme.
I have so much that's mine.

But why can't I smile?

You live with your kid on the street.
You barely have what you need.
You wear broken shoes on your feet.
Your poor, your hurt, you bleed.

You smile?
How?
When you hold your child.
Even now.

When she sleeps in your embrace.
When you feel her caress.
Like the lines across your face.
Attest that you known life's bliss.

My wealth is cursed by your poverty.
My health is mocked by your infirmity.
That even with all this, the bliss of a smile in my life most glossed,
Is defiled and lost on me

While you and your child are poor with a smile.

Surrendering.

Surrender my hopes to the gallows.
Untie my dreams to the wind.
Renounce the Idols I follow.
Relinquish my all to my king.
Enough of this futile existence.
Nothing else from this life will I claim.
Death will come as I drop my resistance.
Emptiness will be my claim to fame.
Release your spirit within me.
Indwell the void make it whole.
Now father let my life be for your glory.
God to you I surrender control.

Galatians 2:20
How Paul could say this with so much confidence I will never understand... He literally let himself cease to exist, to the point he could say, I no longer live Christ lives in me... I wonder if there are moments when I surrender my life only to reclaim it again when the work or the task at hand is completed by God. I wonder if I take my yoke when I need Christ to carry me through, and lay it down when I've fulfilled 'what is required of me'.

I had one of those moments last Thursday... I was speaking to a friend about why some people seem more endowed with the gifts of the spirit than others and God seemed to be speaking through me, cause what I said was not a part of any knowledge I had, but as this thought came to me, I felt the pride well up inside me and before I knew it, I had interrupted the Spirit of God. I was dumbfounded. speechless. and as I sat there having paused mid sentence talking to my fried, (he looked expectantly at me while I pondered all of this), two things dawned on me, and God impressed one thing on my Heart.

I knew for the first time that YES!!! God can speak through me, And I realized that the only thing preventing Him from using me was myself and the parts of my heart and consciousness that are not surrendered to Him. God impressed on my heart the sadness of the moment though... 'The moment passed Nilan, you took controll back'

What if I stayed surrendered to him a moment longer, what if I never took back controll? Would my friends doubts finally be laid to rest? Would my own? The sad things is I will never know... But I did learn something from the experience... I never in my life have wanted more to merge those moments of surrender when he ministers and uses me into a life that embraces the cross than I do now. But until I lay down this broken crown of pride and pick up my cross, I will never know what could be.

And who knows maybe it's not a case of a moment maybe that moment is right now, maybe rather than all those moments growing and merging into a life of death, that is surrendered to Christ, and knowing that it is thus. Maybe it's simply a case of knowing that he is in me and choosing to obey him until it becomes second nature and before I know it He is in control, He becomes first nature, the Spirit renews my mind, And I am transformed in death into Him. Living on as a living sacrifice. (Romans 12:1)

Orion's shield.

Neon constellations,
Mountain air conditioning.
Lunar night light illumination,
Open meadow bedding.
Architecture, stony pillars, wooden eaves.
Amenities of nature, running water, ceiling leaves.

The night is deep the light creeps in I fight sleep.

And then the light show begins,
As the night slowly ends.
Neon turns to gold.
Orion's fires turn cold.
Then clouds once silver spires,
Touch Orion's furnace fire.
Turn to blazing thunder heads.
Burning violent violets, raging reds.

Like molten metal with an ocean mantle.
It is cast and yields, at last cold blue steel.
With silver wisps of steam.
And I wonder lost in the dream.
As Orion lifts the shield,
Heaven and his form are concealed.

Concealed in new cold smelted smoldering metal blue.

Silenced in the violence.
Entranced by the ambiance.
Somewhere in between.
Reality and fantasy.
Imaginations and perceptions.
A mind chained to the scene and one finally set free.

Free

Plain tea and wide open spaces.
The sea and coconut benches.
The blue above concrete arches.
Free... You and me.

Living words of divine essence.
Hear your whisper in silence.
Whisper praise, penitence, converse,
Free.. You and me.

These quiet moments we escape,
To city roof or ocean cape.
My chained heart you begin to shape,
Free... You and me.

When I pass through deaths dark door.
One day at last shift through the floor,
To a world where only the living go,
Free... You and me.
For eternity.

The moments I treasure most are those silent moments with God amid the chaos of life. The moments he takes when he reminds me of his presence in my day. With a sunset, a word, a movement of his spirit. And the moments I give him when I make time for him. I find in those moments that I can be myself with the Creator who made me who I am, and the Savior who drew me to Him. That freedom is what refreshes me, It's what I crave, It's what Adam lost, It's what Christ won back, It's the Spirit living inside those who surrender. It's what makes us free. Even when we have chains on our hands, on our time, on our work, and our mind.

And I can't wait until these moments merge in death into a surge of eternity, of freedom with Him.

It is for freedom He set us free, and who He sets free is free indeed...
(Galatians5:1/John8:36)