believe in the fire
You must not think that what I have
accomplished through you
could have been accomplished by any other means.
Each of us is to himself
indelible. I had to become that which could not
be, by time, from human memory, erased.
I had to burn my hungry, unappeasable
furious spirit
so inconsolably into you
you would without cease
write to bring me rest.
Bring us rest. Guilt is fecund. I knew
nothing I made
myself had enough steel in it to survive.
I tried: I made beautiful
paintings, beautiful poems. Fluff. Garbage.
The inextricability of love and hate?
If I had merely made you
love me you could not have saved me.
💫
The Ghost by Frank Bidart
Some folks are sure there’s no God there—
the one, of course, who never was.
Abandon proof of what you know to be imaginary.
Instead: Have you ever known love?
Have you ever felt the wash of a stream
flowing through you from the impossible?
Have you felt a surge of self-giving
not of your own making,
toward a neighbor, a lover, a child?
Has water ever flowed unexpectedly?
Have you ever followed a silent Voice,
from a dry rock drunk deeply?
Don’t argue over someone else’s fantasy.
Believe, not in the treasure in someone else’s field
but the gem you stumble on in your own.
What mystery allures, believe in that.
What deep root sustains, believe in that.
What births love in this world, believe in that.
You may doubt you have been provided for—
but are you here? Are you breathing? Are you—
your hands, your thoughts—not a work of wonder?
Ignore the idea that has nothing to do with you.
Turn to the One who draws you into wondering,
who gives you this thirst, who is this asking.
Drink plenty from this deep-welled strangeness.
Throw your life into the fire of love
and whatever catches fire, follow that,
and believe in the fire.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
… there isn’t one of us who doesn’t need people who believe that the broken are the most beloved, that the busted are the brave, that the limping can still lead. It’s always the vulnerable heart that breaks broken hearts free. The world has more than enough people who live a masked insecurity.
It needs more who live a brave vulnerability.
We in this vulnerable communion of brokenness and givenness, will simply keep surrendering again to love because God is love and this is all that wins. No matter what the outcome looks like, if your love has poured out, your life will be success-full.
Because in the end: What matters most is not if our love makes other people change, but that in loving, we change. What matters is that in the sacrificing to love someone, we become more like Someone. Regardless of anything or anyone else changing, the success of loving is in how we change because we kept on loving.
Am I brave enough . . . to live not afraid of broken things? First steps always seem like not enough, but they are the bravest and they start the journey to where you’re meant to go. It takes great trust to believe in the smallness of beginnings.
So today? Be brave. Your bravery wins a thousand battles you can’t see because your bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too.
⁃ Ann Voskamp
#TheBrokenWay #BeBrave #LetYourselfBeLoved
A few seconds before happiness
tore poems from my heart
it occurs to me
once again
that everything is grace
both sides of the gift are equal
that to fly free and ride the shining sunbeams
means trusting your pilot completely
even in the uneven spaces pushing against us
knowing my pilot opens my soul to sheer beauty
to rivers of adventure cutting through my grids of protection
through my grasping of thin shreds
through unnecessary issues of control
I am suddenly aware
the gates to the kingdom live right here
open when I step forward
in this confident level of knowing
in this bursting moment of joy
in this perfect snowflake of eternal beauty
created just to melt unseen by mortals
forever imprinted into this worlds history
just because
all because
in every which way
because of love
✈️
Amy Lloyd
life: acoustic & amplified 