YHWH, my Father (Part V)

embrace in healing love of the father

o taste and see that YHWH is good
He comes to those who fear Him 
and rescues them;
He is near to those who seek Him
His ways are beyond the soul, the eyes,
He’s bidden us to come find Him
in all the vast avenues of life.

when the soul has journeyed beyond the edge,
that cliff edge of understanding—
and walked that downward path
to the crevices of weakness winding, 
winding down into the hole without a crown.

what has been carved over millenniums
in the gorge between life and death?
what hand has shaped the path
spiraling into to emptiness?
reason turns its nose 
from the litter and decaying;
faith shields her eyes 
from the vulgar still displaying;
the body cringes, repulsed, reflexing within;
what has happened to the soul 
in all its beauty, all its innocence?

rivers and streams once her bounty,
mountains, hills, and valleys low, 
lands, and oceans, kingdoms, skies,
every meadow, every knoll

once then, and now, is tugging 
the heart like a child’s hand
but this isn’t a world for children anymore, no,
these are the valleys of desolation
rank with bodies of indiscretion;
secrets locked down deep
rotting like a corpse secret souls keep
and never, ever open up;

heirlooms of ancestry,
walls and wounds of blood;
the friends of our community
carrying chains and chains of judgment;
the barrels of our wrath and spite
broken, spilt on the sands,
as wild animals feast on feces
our only hope, our only nourishment;

and with me, all the world, 
swallows hard the heavy lump
violated by our violation
festering still in our seven stomachs;

and we attempt to sing, to whistle, 
to whisper hope in the void below
somewhere far above the songbird flies 
as we grasp for a second note;

we fight but courage dies
torn to pieces by wolves of rote.
and i ask you here, where is He, where,
that good Father of which we once spoke?

can you even find one shred of evidence
of souls dressed, encloaked in linens, 
given freely from a wounded hand 
forever ever open?

i don’t know ‘bout you but i’m gunna find
where blood, honey, and leaven mix 
to bake bread, mull wine, 
and brew spirits strong enough 
to lift us from internal armageddon;

where open wounds speak soothing words
and affection breaks attention to infection,
drawing our ear, our eye, our mind 
into a lovely open vision,

fresh water bubbles up 
from deeper wells, deeper still
than the ones jacob built or moses spilt
through heartrocks hardened fast,

the hallways of our hearts open to a vast,
vast love, come here, come now, come on
horses and chariots with thousands 
upon thousands who bow and run all at once, 
to the voice whose beckon restores innocence 
with love-filled, tender consequences
fit for my good, fit for a king 
carrying a son on his shoulders

love touching unlovely, lifting affection, 
effecting soil into a life of resurrection,
watered with oil, nourished with light,
bursting into an army brilliant and white
cleaning, cleansing, working, building,
remaking all that’s wrong into right, right now.

and i won’t blame you, if you bow out here,
‘too good to be true’ is the sign of a wounded ear
as the gavel, the sword, the hand, and the wound,
work as one to rebuild, rejoice, renew;

as the soul’s rift becomes a landing strip
for the decent of grace in the face of our Father-
in-skin always facing facing ‘n kindly remakin’ us,
every bruise, every crevice, everything,
the soul learns again to speak, to own, to fly
higher and higher as the gaze of her Father
honors her again with mounts and fields,
rivers, lakes, and oceans,

all blowing, bowing, roaring and clapping
in her honor, the honor of honors,
to be restored in love,
to be made again in the gaze of God,

with that smile He wraps a thousand generations
in a word spoke by Three and touching every one
in one little act of faith, we (and our world) 
are released in hope, bled in love,
found and planted, entwined forever
in this never, ever ending affection,
our beginning, middle, and end.