Trust – It's All In Me

Looking out into the distance
I wonder what is beyond the horizon
Out in the yard, we build our outer strength
To prepare for the war that’s waged within
“I am worthy”
For my body tells me so
And all I am here is a body
A body of evidence
A body of work
A body made for work
Nothing more and nothing less than a body
I just am what I am
And no one gives a damn
They don’t want to understand
That more than a body of work, I am
A Body of Intelligence
A Body formed and informed by Divine Intelligence
The same Intelligence that created the stars
Made maps of my scars
Came near from afar
And drew closer to me than breathing
Made knowledge out of my believing
Taught me that giving is receiving
Never forsaking or leaving
Grief more intimate than all my grieving
Descending into the depths
Soul bleeding
On the mission of retrieving
The part of me I lost
When I believed that all I am is a body
A body of evidence
A body of work
A body made for work
But I am more than a body
I am somebody
A member of the One Body
Undeniably valuable
By the virtue of my being
My eyes are now seeing
Beyond the horizon
Noticing now
What I couldn’t see before
There is no wall
There is no door
There is no one keeping score
I am imprisoned no more
But I am not free
For I am my brother and sister’s keeper
And giving is receiving
I can go but I’m not leaving
Until you see what I see
We are somebody
A member of the One Body
Undeniably valuable
By the virtue of our BEing
A Body of Evidence
A Body of Work
A Body made for the Work
Of giving form to the Divine Intelligence
The same Intelligence that created the stars
Made maps of our scars
Came near from afar
And drew closer to us than breathing
So that seeing can become believing
Joy can replace grieving
When one leaves we’re all leaving
Going out beyond the Horizon
To discover what we were made for
Amen

Photo by Kirt Morris on Unsplash

I pour my self into You
Trusting You will never spill me
Never fearing emptiness
Because I know You’re here to fill me
The terror known by many folks
Who can’t contemplate Your Promise
Is dissolved the moment I witness You
So I give it all to keep me honest
I don’t want to pretend to Trust in You
Only when for me it is convenient
Then as soon as I don’t get what I want
Realize that I don’t mean it
To me Trusting You is its own reward
In fact it’s my only Treasure
Because anything that does not have You there
Will never stay together
From the beginning and to the end
From the first and to the last
Without You nothing that seems to matter
Ever truly has
Nations continue to come and go
Things that were enter non-existence
While people pretend to get it all
Through selfish one sided resistance
A horrible error in calculation
No one can hold their breath forever
Whether you last exhaled or last inhaled
The project of breathing is both together
And that’s what this world’s forgetting
Perhaps some of us never knew it
Oneness isn’t the strongest wins
It’s polarities congruent

Whenever I write a poem, it is the fruit of weeks if not months or even years of spiritual labor. I don’t write to influence. I write to express. What emerges contains every part of the process that you would witness in the natural process of growing an actual fruit tree. And I never give way to the temptation to pick the fruit early. When it’s ripe, it falls on its own.

As the video explains, this poem was born out of two months of struggling to write about trust and a bout with a short term unwellness that rendered me extremely contemplative. What the video doesn’t say was that for most of the three days that my body was fevered and in pain, I was repeating “Thank you God. I love you.” as if it was my breath. I did this in part because of a practice I developed a long time ago based on James 1:2-8 where adherents are advised to count all of our trials as joy. And the other part is that I imagine that most people’s conversations with God are about asking for things they want to come in and things we don’t want to go away. So, I just decided that I would not ask God for anything and just be thankful. Besides there were a number of times when I was a pastor that I would suggest to people that they say “thank you” as a part of their process. So, I had to take my own advice.

Now, before you get into this video, let me me warn you that it may come off as a little irreverent. It isn’t meant to be. But, it is meant to make folks think. It is meant to challenge you and to basically call out where I think our lack of trust is leading us. I put this out here in trust. I guess that is where I will leave it.

Category: Trust

Body of Evidence

Trusting the Process