We, the Mystics, proudly arise In this Age of Aquarius as is our time, We are who we are; we don’t apologize For moving beyond and living our lives We, the Mystics, Will make you uncomfortable, For we do not conform to standard doctrine or theology, We do not fit within prescribed boxes that history and tradition have made, But we believe only that which we have heard from the very lips of God And we build our worlds upon Him, upon Our Love, upon who We are Instead of everything we’ve ever known We have journeyed with you, among you, beside you, And we will continue to do so, But we will also go on, launching out in our coracles from the ship that brought us almost all the way, As we reach the edge of the world in this theology that can go no further, Still, we paddle on in our tiny little vessels, For we will not ever cease to seek the greater things, the revelations, the face of Yahweh, We shall learn to see Him in all things, In ever-deepen...

The trees are dragons made of leaves and dancing lights That flicker behind them from streetlamps that come on as the sun sets, They stare at me through my window, But I do not fear them as they smile and snort and wink, I enjoy seeing the faces, Blinking at me in the twilight through the windows of my home, Their soft beauty and the calm tranquility Meshing together in the gloaming, And I love this time of night, The peace of the darkness reminds me That there is no reason to despise the times When the light is faint And the darkness prevails, That I can see such beauty and humor in the darkness, Just as I can see it in the cute little dragon made of leaves That winks at me through my window.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered I could worship Yahweh as well with secular music in the background as worship music, That He is the same God on Thursday as He is on Sunday morning, That I could feel Him all around me in my living room as much as in a church sanctuary, That I could find caring, Yahweh-hearted people in my workplace as much as in a gathering of believers, That I could see Him in a little boy who is decidedly not Christian as in the most pious of pastors, That I could know Him in Hell as well as in Heaven, Imagine my surprise when I saw Yahweh in the darkness as much as in the light, When I found Him after having to enter into places they all told me He would never go, When I knew Him as deeply and purely and personally in the valley as much as on the top of a mountain, When I learned that I could show His Love to others as much through joking around with them and cussing as I can by praying for them and receiving their prayers, Imag...

At first there’s only shock, The incredulity, spending hours convincing yourself that This is really happening and there’s no going back, The physical reactions as your body struggles to process what your mind cannot comprehend Then, there is grief, But grief is a complicated being, Especially when tempered by trauma, And it’s not as simple as being sad, It’s a combination of shock, anger, sadness, fear, That incredulity is still there Because “how is this possible” and “this has never happened before” And it hasn’t, You’ve never lost this person before, They’ve always been there, been alive , And now they’re not And with trauma and post-traumatic stress There are panic attacks and anxiety loops And wondering if the other shoe is going to drop Now that the shoe has finally dropped and shown you how many shoes are hanging above your head right now, fully capable of dropping at any second— A sword of Damocles for each and every person that yo...

“Choose joy,” Oft-repeated advice that, on the surface, makes sense, Dig a little deeper, and it can be very unhealthy, Dig down to the depths and it can be beautiful, “Choose joy,” It does not mean To suppress negative emotions, To cut off the parts of yourself that feel pain, Isolating them behind a wall even as Fortunato, left to console himself only with his wine while he died a slow and painful death in darkness and isolation, was walled away from the world by one who could not stand him, To pretend that everything is perfectly fine when your mind, body, and spirit are screaming at you That you are in a place that requires knowing sadness, loss, anger, grief In short, choosing joy does not mean to choose not to feel pain, It does not mean choosing to ignore the facets of Yahweh that can only be found in the depths of destruction, It is so much more It is recognizing Yahweh in the darkness as much as the light, It is enduring the manifestatio...

Some days it’s fine, And the trauma is only in the back of my mind Underlying the beauty and the goodness that is in front of me And other days, Everything triggers a memory of something I’ve lost irrevocably Or brings up the horror of all that I’ve seen And I taste the bitter more than the sweet That’s life, Anything else is a lie Mountains and valleys exist for a reason And there is a purpose for every season And we are not destined to strangle our lives Into one of them or the other And I think part of the problem is That we were taught that pain is not of Yahweh, That He is not to be found in the suffering and agony As much as He can be seen in the joy and glory, But oh how shortsighted! For Yahshua Himself went straight to Hell To show us that there is no such thing as captivity To be found there And every valley is exalted, every mountain brought low, Not because our lives magically become perfected After we achieve this point...

Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not Reepicheep… But even when the waves are bitter and deep, We must press on toward the Utter East For there is our passion, our reason for being So forward on ships laden with hearty fellows We progress through distractions and waters below Pressing onward and onward, though other men bellow Saying “turn back,” “that’s not true,” “you will be brought low” Great perils await us on this frightful journey, But also great vision and glory and life And our ship will be helmed with assiduous turning As we press on beyond what everyone else calls right The waters are brackish, are dark and disturbing, And every league filled with all things unknown, But what is the purpose of beginning a journey If we’re just going to turn back halfway and go home? Yet there at the end, a light in the tunnel, The waters turn clear and the salt is no more Here I must venture out into my coracle Leaving behind all I love on th...