Brimful of Ashes

Tie me not down this kite that glides
Drain me not the words the fight
Hold this hope till morning comes
Take on the world one day at a time

Ashes fall from our heads to our hearts
Crashing into the open big blue sky
Ready to soar three two one
Burn burn burn away

A eulogy read out at the sound of night
Death becomes sleep don't wake its slumber
A new day is beginning dawn at midnight
The faithful ones harvest at the break of light

Four words, four stories, four four time stamp
Dig it deep one twenty, feel my heartbeat
Fools and madmen, great things to be
Four brothers, four more hours, dig it deeper still

Ready to go, ready to glide
Ready to take this mountain one at a time
Warriors, ready your sword, ready your cry
Ready your heart strings keep them tight

Make what you will, Lord, make it your will
Take our hands, our feet where you see fit
Let the footprints we leave breed life
Hope, love and faith for a better world

Take Down

They want to take me down, push me from the cliff, throw me down to the gutter. I stutter, struggle to find the words to speak, while these waters come crashing over me, covering me, seeking life within that's been sprouting. I reach for the waters' edge. Beneath this daylight I can see a glimmer of hope but can't make out the detail. Woe my soul is all I hear, that familiar sound, that familiar voice that once used to haunt me keeping me awake at night, going throb throb pull a start stop, gotcha throat.

I cling to my dear life, against the new steel rails I found unwittingly, till my fingers go white and purple, my teeth clenched tightly till the sides of my head begin to hurt. If only the waves would die, dry out, recede back to where it came from. Let me go! Loose your grip, unclip my wings, stop this right now! Let me go, let me go!

Who are they anyway? Someone used to say. I dream of a better world. A world without laws and bylaws that choke the original restoration of mankind. A world that doesn't penalize you when you fall short. A world that I could breathe easy, freely.

Give me sleep with peace and dreams that heal. Give me wings to fly and soar above this crowded hour. Give me rest oh my soul, lord bring my eyes your balm to renew. Restore the courage in me, a lion that fears no evil, snares nor shifting shadows. Give me wisdom of an eagle, eyes that see through the haze, hands that pushes the right chess pieces in place.

Listening Post

Probably the first time I have ever done this. To write without writing. To sing without knowing. To record without foreshadowing. His love overwhelms, this desperation cries out to give birth to a new beginning of a new sound.

Listen to The Shepherd. A lamentation, a worship, a eulogy of the old, a birthing of the new. Requires quicktime.

Or right click and download if you be of peecee descent. *snigger*

Go tell it, spread it, sync it, bit torrent, napster, P2P it. No DRM applied. Seriously.

Mess of a million questions

I'm sitting in the middle of the week wondering where my heart is and where my head has gone. I am constantly seeking answers to this new heaven I have found. This new understanding of His Kingdom is driving me to ask the difficult questions.

What used to be neat packages of theory and future promises now look like ancient myths busted beyond recognition.

Yet, the questions don't stop. Like, if we don't live under law and we live by grace then does that really really mean that we get what we don't deserve? This life, this crazy spin around. Like, what happens if tomorrow I fall, stumble and forget to spend the sacred hour, or work takes me away and I miss out on the "blessings" of congregation - will mercy be just left overs on the table, or will the spread still be fresh and warm by the night I get to it?

What if I really stuffed up and even became a heretic, immoral blaphemous prophet wannabe, will God still be with me and have mercy on me? will He still love me enough to listen and act? What if i, in a moment of haste and anger spat upon His face, His Holy face? Will fire not consume me? Even when I knowingly go against the nature of creation ... the laws that govern this universe... laws versus grace... He made the laws to protect us, but transforms us through His grace... So which side am I living?

So how will I know I am not operating and thinking all this according to the gravity of law? Even the gravity laws of grace. What goes up must come down, so if grace be the opposite of it all, then what goes up can either stay up or come down... or become something else?

When I look at my heart, my recently festered yet revived heart, I think about what could have happened. I think about how it would probably have stopped given the grave situation right now. I think about how this mercy has led me to live above this gravitational pull seeking to drag my feet into burning flames. Yet I seem to float lightly above it, just above the flames. I feel the heat but I don't get burned. But the thought that goes on in my head is how long can i stay up here. I think about the possibility of falling, crashing into the center of gravity, consumed by the fire beneath me feet.

Perhaps I should stop looking down. Perhaps I should sop looking at my sins, my inadequate strength, my disabilities and look up, strech my neck upward and raise my hands. I still do not understand how worship can lead me out of all this but my heart yearns to sit in the temple every moment. Sometimes, i escape into the third heaven breathing upon the fragrances of His love and grace. Sometimes I laugh, cry, go through my thoughts like an escape con artist. Then when i hit back home, it surfaces. The emails, the phone faxes, the unconditional demands taking on the form of reality. What is reality? I learnt it is all about perception, in which case, am i being delusional?

Something in my heart is settled. Like there is an anchor weighing me down - sitting me calmly by the river banks that threaten to overflow and consume me. I have no idea what the answer may be. But i know for sure this mercy and grace is not a result of my doing or undoing, not the fruit of my defiant indugence, but the mercy seat of God authorising the change, shift and reset. The process feels long and I have no idea what may surprise me. I only pray for His mercy, that even if I breathe my last, that I breathe my last in the house of worship, gazing into His beauty, consumed by His presence that death becomes a pleasure.

Cling not to the weight of this world. To live in grace is to have the gift of hope. To live in hope is to fan the flames of faith. To fan the flames of faith is to dwell in complete surrender and worship to our original maker. But isn't this some kind of law as well?

The Art Of Losing Myself

These days, nothing ever satisfies. Nothing. Not TV, not them crap movies, not even those intellectual political movies. Sex on the big screen is just plain boring. Nothing. Not even money, fast cars, suggestive fun women, magazines, borders, shopping malls, nada. Nothing that used to tantalize satisfies anymore. Like the life I used to know has given up it's hold on me.

Life begins once again. This time, it's so real I can't even put words to it. I begin to fumble, like I am losing my sight yet like a blind man regaining his sight learning to cope with the new light he sees before him. I feel clumsy but I feel so elated, excited and expectant like a mother carrying her first born.

These days life is evolving into a different realm. Even the sins that used to hold me down like ten thousand pins to the ground feel like just cobwebs easily pulled apart. There is power, there is might, but there is the spirit - the Holy Spirit. Dwelling. Moaning, crying out for redemption, for restoration, for renewal for this body to rise up once again. Out of the grave, out of darkness, out of shame, out of dire desperation.

Let the mice that gnawed at the soles of my feet scurry along and hide. For there is fire that will burn and extinguish these petty criminals to shame.

Something on the inside took a shift. A kairos shift. This is the art of losing myself. To the one true God whom we can never fathom. Who cares if my fingers hurt and I lose sleep. Heaven's just round the corner.

Lasting just a minute

I feel unsettled. The nerves have set in again. I hate emails. Hate letters in the mail. Why does life come with so much maintanence without the instruction manual? I used to think it was exciting. Now I just want every damn thing to stop and let me go free.

Scot free.

Is it ever possible that God could turn this whole mess I've made around? Or do the consequences become too much that it will eventually consume me? In the past hour, I drifted between hope and hopelessness, between suicide and life. But then again, what is worth dying for? Responsibility? I don't want to be called a bad steward but I just want to throw in the towel. Set up the barracks and call it quits and run away leaving the bomb to implode. Then it leaves me with the pieces to pick up. Pieces don't make much and you can't exchange it for value or kind.

I'm upset and I hate it. I feel like a child finding out that the clue to the trail home was a decoy. Damn them decoys. But God, can you please bless me? Me, here, now. I need you. More than ever. Consume me before I get consumed by the steel beams of this world tumbling down on me. Breathe in me life and wisdom once again. I want to cross this red sea. So, please, God, part the waters.