I watched a man once, with broken soul –
as he hobbled about looking for handouts.
He claimed the darkness for his friend –
yet the Light was forever following behind him.
Author: ShariLynn
~ This Mere Dust
I am but a breath, a mere word spoken,
And soon forgotten.
Like the dust that blows easily –
In a soft wind it is scattered.
Who can know such a One?
Those whose lovely deceitful smiles hide
The false flattery of their mouths?
They say what they do not mean and
Their actions are far off from their words.
He has blinded their eyes and hardened and
Benumbed their callous hearts.
But who are they who have set me in derision?
Does the strength of their hand profit me?
These mere men – whose ripe age and vigor has perished.
Like a rabble brood: they jostle me and push away my feet
Casting up against me their ways of destruction.
Oh, How they break up and clutter my path!
Yet they have no helper – No power to trample this dust –
Who is He who has raised me from the dead?
Who has freed me from my burial wrappings?
There is no Rock like my God.
For He is the Lord of knowledge
And by Him actions are weighed.
How many times have I been filled with words;
Yet the Spirit within me constrains me?
You have saved me from the snare of the wicked.
You have made my ways a highway of pleasantness,
And all my paths a way of peace.
I have watched the ways of the wicked, like a deep
Darkness, they do not know over what they stumble.
They walk by the light of their self-made fires
And of the sparks that they have kindled for themselves.
Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
I will seek out those who contend with me,
But I shall not find them; they shall be as nothing.
Where is the talebearer and he who sows strife?
The whispers of such separates even close friends!
And where is the evildoer who gives heed to wicked lips;
And the liar who listens to mischievous tongue?
They fled the rebuke of the Lord like chaff before the wind.
Who is he who will condemn me? All these sinners,
And who among you will cast the first stone?
I have searched and poured over the scriptures diligently,
Yet the beauty of the words do not contain Life,
It is the giver of Life that produces the beauty of the words!
All these things taken together, shaken up, measured out
Have not equaled to the fullness of the Lord!
A man can receive nothing except as it is granted
To him from heaven – there is no other source.
But boundless is the gift God makes of His Spirit!
Thus, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven
Over one wicked person who repents than over Ninety-
Nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.
Well let the trumpets blast in heaven!
For out of His fullness I have received one grace after
Another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing
And even favor upon favor and gift heaped upon gift!
ALL FOR ONE WICKED SINNER – THIS MERE DUST!
What would it take to fly?
How calculatingly insidious the evil intentioned ones have crept into our homes, into our minds, and thereby caused us to disregard our emotional compasses. Have we traded love for logic and discarded each other so unobtrusively that we have lost ourselves in the process?
It is a sad time when we value an intangible belief over the individual. You can stand before me, with all your overblown rhetoric and spout your ideals with great vigor, but you will never, ever be able to laugh, hold or cry with those dissipating words. That kind of lovelessness flees before me in an empty vapor.
I have no time or energy for those who hold so strongly to a belief that they have set up between us like a barrier. If you build a wall between us, you can be sure that I will simply step away. My heart bears no destructive forces for the breaking down of walls that others have built – when there are so many people who are eager and receptive to love.
If you were brave enough, you could examine your own beliefs. And if you were strong enough, you could eliminate those that did not serve you. But a fortress does not feel secure without its walls, and what would become of you if you made yourself vulnerable to your own fears?
I wonder – might you plummet to the very bottom of your own heart and bleed out every lie you’ve ever believed, only to find yourself so light and free that you could then fly?
~~ Transformation
…………………. As I see you, So Am I
I have created each of you in my likeness
The saint and sinner alike
Attributes I ascribed you
Dolling out praise and condemnation
As though it were you who chose your role
If I can now, only forgive myself for these atrocities
I might recreate you – born anew
And fill you with a sweet new wine
The nectar of which we both might equally partake
For it is only through you that I see my transformation
Since you have always been my measure of who I Am
~~ Your environment will always reflect back to you who you are being. If you want to change your environment, you must first change your being.
Blindness
How can a memory create something new?
I am propelled forward by what has come before
I refuse this – this stagnant propulsion.
I’d rather go nowhere else, if not somewhere new
I would just as soon be still and die right where I stand
Than continue down this path of sameness!
I did not come to be guided and molded by what was already here
Nor did I come to be a follower of the dictates of others
It is because of this that I have lost my clarity of sight
To travel the unknown is to be veiled in darkness and uncertainty
From this point forward, let me go in blindness
I will be the spark that lights the way, one step at a time
And to all the hungry travelers I meet upon my way
With your slouching shoulders and your drooping mouth
As you crouch along your safely lighted path
I will scream a song of death to you as I go by
Perhaps it will be enough to kill you where you stand
And you too can rise in blindness bearing witness to a world anew!
Vexation of Spirit
I can see Solomon from where I Am
In this time of mine so far removed
Yet there he is none the less lamenting
What a travesty that him and I could
Not meet and cry between us
All the useless trappings of man
I would demand – “show me this god of yours
Who gives wisdom knowledge and joy”
Yet he would not see Him in Me
Because he never caught the wind
Though it Be inside him all along
For all his wisdom – did he never
Think to look there?
Deception
Her name was deception,
And she wore the mantle of pretense like no other.
There were daggers hidden in those pearls of white
That smile cuts deep – beyond any place of earthly healing.
She brandished her manipulations veiled in compliments.
Each one a burrowing maggot of uncertainty,
Rotting the flesh that once thrived.
Killing relationships, one by one,
Her own insecurity driving each death!
~ And the fishing! Oh, that fishing!
First she lured you in with carefully crafted concern,
And once that bait was taken, she jerked the line
That she so callously tethered to your heart!
The hook was torn with malice as she tossed you away,
The love she scorned left swirling in a pretty pool of red!
~ And the reflection! Oh that hideous reflection!
For the first time I see what I had refused to see!
Her face! Not the phony, pretty, pretending one,
But the one behind the lie – with the grimace that she hides.
It is marred by derision and fear. Now I see
That awful, suspicious, cold heart of wanting!
~ And my outstretched hand in a state of pause!
I wanted so much to believe the lie.
How I wish I could unknow a thing – To put back that apple!
But now it can’t be helped.
One day I will surprise that liar.
I will strike that fakeness, and watch that porcelain
Mask shatter to ruins at my feet
My red palm dripping into a pretty pool of red
Revealing at last that things which are seen
Are not always made of the things which do appear!
Proverbs 17:4
Wrongdoers eagerly listen to gossip;
liars pay close attention to slander.
The Storm
Some are like the fading of leaves
Once green, next burnish red – soft feathery bright
Beautiful until gone when a swift wind erupts
~~~~~~
Only the evergreens can’t be cleaved
They are bound firm, unshaken – even in a storm
And the storm always comes
The Only Seed is Love
I came to the shallow grassy moor
Where the stagnant waters stilled
And the stale air the breeze did wield
Stoned me with the heaviness that it bore
Crestfallen as I had come to Be
Flowing away – my strength did yield
I found myself falling – dying on that field
Laden with grief, and nowhere to flee
Down I went kneeling in those untamed reeds
As all my worldly notions – they were killed
In the emptiness that found me – Truth revealed
“The only seed is Love, it fills all needs”
I was alighted in that moment on the moor
Where my life was stopped, and stilled
My heart brimming with mercy as it healed
And Loved me with the heaviness that it bore
Fly to Heaven
I watched that last leaf as it took its final spin
She danced to the very end, that one
And I marveled at her glory, her now golden brilliance
She spent her youth in summer, dazzling in the sun
Playing with others who had joined her there in that tree
And when the wind beat upon them all
There was no sorrow found in the tumult
Instead they used what was sent, joining together
Creating a music of their own
And me, in the hammock listening to the Divine
It was the harmony of heaven sent down
It was for me that she danced on that limb
Being as grateful as I was, I couldn’t help but tear
Each season brings new joy, ushered in by a departure
Reaching, always reaching forward as it comes
The world is always making room for more
There is never a taking away, only an expansion – a growing
I can feel it – the world Loving me
As she takes away, she also gives
I ponder this as I watch my summer friend take her leave
It is a slow and dazzling descent –
Graceful, full of beauty – without remorse for the end
There is only a pure thankfulness emanating in this moment
And the earth feels it, and responds
The fierceness of the wind startles me, like a funnel of fury
She grabs hold and lifts, lifts, lifts!
And that final dance finds no end
As that fiery brilliance flies home to heaven.
