One—A lifeshattering event, One that marks a place in your life indelibly into Before And After And in the moments after it happens, when you’re still dealing with the actual crisis, You feel numb and focused, Practical and maybe a little shaky, But you seem so strong because you’re getting through it, Making decisions, Choosing how you will remember this moment For the rest of your life Two—the immediate aftermath When the main crisis is past and you have time to process things From the safety of your home or a place where you have gone to rest, The reaction, When your mind and body first realize Everything that’s happened There’s shaking, There’s crying, There’s nausea, There’s a host of other symptoms that combine to tell you one thing: This is not okay Three—Shock Everything is a fog and you are not sure what time it is, what day it is, Or where you are Somehow, you manage to continue to live and perform basic human function...

The wind is picking up speed The flames are starting to fan I don’t know where this will lead But I know where it will end And all around me the world starts to panic But I’m okay because You have led me here And this is all exactly as it was meant to be For today I know Your Salvation will appear So I will play in the hurricane I will dance in the big storm From raging fire I will reign I will joy in being born For today I am made In the fire I’m being formed After thunder comes cooling rain Yes, Your provision takes a hundred forms So I will trust You today For the pain of the flames will fade away when we see what they’ve wrought And the tempest and the hurricane bring me all You’ve got So I will sing a song of praise to You who are here with me Together we shall fan the flames so together we will see As we play with the hurricane.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful garden in which all of the trees bore rich fruit every month. There were flowers of every color and scent imaginable. The earth itself was a rich dark brown, and the grass was a soft as feathers. In the midst of this garden was a single poisonous tree. This tree did not look any different than any of the other trees in the garden. Indeed, its fruit was just as beautiful as all of the other trees’ fruit. Its branches were just as strong as all of the other trees’ branches. The leaves provided shade as cool and delicious as all of the other trees’ shade. But this tree alone could kill you. One day, a young man was walking in the garden and he found that he was hungry. Looking around him, he saw the beautiful flowers and felt the soft grass, but he found no fruit-bearing tree of which to partake. He continued walking in the garden until he came upon a grand tree. It was great and tall, and its sturdy branches were burgeoning with delicious fr...

They say weeping endures for a night, And joy comes in the morning, But sometimes the morning doesn’t come, And it’s then that you realize You were never dependent upon the sun for your joy, That glory is not limited To the hours of the day when the sun does shine, And that there is as much value In the night as in the daytime, And so when morning never comes, And you float out into the infinite cosmos Far away from the sun you used to orbit, You find that there are other lights, Different joys, And yet all with the same Heart and Nature, New worlds and systems and galaxies to explore As you discover that The light is in yourself as much As you are in the light New stars appear on your horizon, And visions not yet dreamed Are held in your hands as you release the gravity That held you in bondage to the only sun you knew, Now you are unlimited, Not held in place by gravity, But an agent of your own making, Held in place solely by...

The church building was not old enough to be on the historic registry, but old enough that two or three generations had passed through its pews. It had seen better days but was by no means falling apart. The sanctuary was always well-kept and efficiently cleaned by the church secretary at least once a week, and the classrooms—though sparsely furnished—were miraculously well-ordered for being inhabited by children under ten for at least two hours every Sunday. Even the “youth room” for adolescents with its outdated video game consoles and heaps of board games with missing pieces had a certain homey cleanliness.               Every Sunday, without fail, the pastor would come in after the choir sang exactly two hymns and the church bulletin was read verbatim. He would open his Bible to a passage from the New Testament and read through his outline, always ending with an inspirational quote, a poem, or an illustrative anecd...

For all your life you have been told You can never pay for what you owe So you struggle and strive, work yourself to the bone Trying to pay back a debt not your own For Love does not ask for remuneration And Yahweh never wanted any kind of payment For the fullness of Love that He’s given to you, And He never claimed you owed Him any fruit He said you would show yourself for who you are By bearing the fruit that abides in your Heart, But He never asked you to prove your own worth And He never said you were under a curse ‘Twas religion who taught you and told you these lies That you had to make up for your previous life And prove that you had any reason for being By building up monuments to your new King Go and save all the nations! religion did cry, By putting them in bondage, adding to our lie, Like the Pharisees seeking out one proselyte And making him two times the son of the night Build up the Kingdom! religion commanded Using yo...

Tonight,                                                                                                              I had someone ask me if the pain were any less Now that it’s been six months since the loss, The biggest transition so far of my life, And I realized for the first time That this pain will always be this deep part of me, It will never be any shallower— Though perhaps it may seem so as I grow bigger— It will always be there ...