Hail Mary, Full of Space

Hail Mary, full of space, the Lord is with thee;

Blessed art thou among women 

For the secret place within you 

Contained the one who fills 

The heavens and the earth, 

The omnipresent one held 

Within your maidenhead.

Descending

 I am descending - down through flickering, artificial light, beyond the reach of the sun - I am descending but I want to believe. Down through an underground of windowless space. Deep and deeper. I am falling but I want to believe that this decent into tenebrous and silent rooms will not last forever. 

Here is aluminum and steel, concrete and plastic space. A place of cold neglect and cold regret. Change the number. Delete the socials. No warning. No elaboration. 

There is an oily smell here. The air feels oily in my nose. It tastes of machines down here where the inconsistant lights flicker and hum incessantly. Malevolently like some strange and terrible rage, unfocused. Unexplained. 

I see fragmentary visions of empty rooms - vast chambers inhabited by memories. I see desiccated rats at the bottom of the elevator shaft. I hear rattle of insects with no subtlety. I hear the whisper of ten thousand slaughtered children half way around the world. 

Falling further now. Faster. I am descending through the earth or hell. Waking or sleeping and ill advised. I am descending. Falling. Beneath mountains. Beneath shadows. Into oblivion.

The Apostolic Blessing (a song)

 The pastor at my church made an off hand remark after the service this morning about having started to cycle back through the dismissal songs that we regularly use to conclude our worship times. So I came home and wrote a new one to share. 

It’s drawn from the Apostle Paul’s blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14

I’m Gone (It’s Too Late)

 Another song i wrote a few months ago. I think I was consciously imitating Dylan… 

Notes for a Future Travelogue

The oceans, the heavens, and the narrow space between life and living - I’ve seen it all. Sophisticated and experienced, a man born of a woman. Assume the

world and reality shudders. 

Now something is out there. No voice, no familiar voice. A stranger beyond. Happy reflections in a mirror. A sudden illusion makes everyone a stranger. 

Rattled and knocked. Surprised again by his heart bursting forth more breathlessly than before. Rattle, adapt. Try to understand and nothing will surprise for very long. 

This is interesting and magical, but wait and see. I’d like another change.

Through the Clouds He’s Lifted Up

I wrote a short hymn to share with my church yesterday, Ascension Sunday. And now I’ll share it with you.  In the video the song starts at about the 10 minute mark. 

This the day when Christ ascends 

Space and time around him bends 

Through the clouds he’s lifted up. 

Down from Heaven he condescends  

The grave and hell now transcends 

 Hymns of praise be lifted up. 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us. 

 All our error he amends 

 Lonely people he befriends 

 Let his name be lifted up 

 The weak and poor we’ll defend 

 The grace of God we’ll extend 

 In our lives we’ll lift him up 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us.

The Precious Irony of AM Band Preachers

I was scanning the AM radio band for something to listen to when I heard the preacher say, “the end is coming soon, my friends. Christ is coming and it won’t be long” 

I listened as I drove home from work and was alternately amused and irritated

by the preacher’s description of the ‘depravity of the godless left with their cultural Marxism and their evolution and their religion of tolerance.’ He continued to describe the ways in which this all pointed to the immanent return of the Lord and the rapture of the faithful. 

And because one must exit through the gift shop, even in a radio broadcast, the preacher invited his listeners to go to his website and purchase the illustrated end times timeline that he had written. He said, ‘It will be a treasured resource, one that you will consult for years to come.’ 

 Oh, precious irony.

In the Night (I Was Dreaming of You)

The other night I had a strange and terrible dream about my ex-wife. It left me unsettled. Not sad. Not angry. But … on edge and ill at ease. Discomforted.

I shared the dream with a friend of mine and he encouraged me to maybe write her a letter (even if I had no intention of sending it to her) about the dream and how it made me feel - as a sort of therapy I guess. Or at least an exercise in self reflection. 

I didn't write her a letter (she wouldn’t respond even if I did). Instead I wrote a song about it as I carried the mail and delivered packages. 

There was more to the dream - it was long and complicated, full of absurdities (as dreams usually are.  But this was enough to make me feel better about it