Creation. Birth. Life. Death. Every. Single. Day. This is how the story has gone. No day goes by where you and I do not die. We were dead before we were born, because we were born to the dead, who were born to the dead, who were born to the dead. Because death begets life that is dead from the start. How can the dead come to life again? How can what has passed be renewed?

We’ve become a museum filled with relics of the past, as excavated and elaborate coffins line the halls. No curator can bring this place to life; we need a creator; A fresh breath, a fresh breath, a fresh fire to burn it all down. We like our relics and we clutch them with our death grips and we try to take them out the door with us as the fire consumes. But our corpses are highly flammable, and they yearn to come to life. The dead are alight, but will they be alive?

Recreation, reignition, rebirth is a painful thing, but the real pain is on the one who gives the new life and not the newly born. For how can the dead complain? Are they not already dead? Yes, the dead want to be alive again, and so they begin to listen. A whisper grows. The creator speaks. We come alive, not again, for we were never alive. We come alive, for the first time. When love moves, life begins.

“Oh it’s true I’d do anything to have you back,

So long as I can return with my pride in tact”

Oh the look upon Your face as an answer You return

“You’ve still got a lot of lessons left to learn,

Because without humility, you will never yearn;

Don’t you see, my son, that’s what you must learn,

Until I AM all you have, all else, yes, everything, must burn.

We’ll gather all the ashes, and place them in an urn,

Along with all your dead ideals like ‘love is something earned.’

You can write your name on an ivory plaque,

Your own epitaph: No Turning Back.”

“But, but, but…” I say—and you reply “away

With your excuses; they’re none of my concern.

My child, I watched you go astray,

But you are mine, and I shall have you return.”

I say “if you want me God, you’re in for a fight;

If you want me take me; wrestle me tonight.

“Do what You must do,” I said, in a final undefiant act.

I need to know if you are real and more than just abstract

You touched Jacob’s hip, and I feel you take me back.

Postscript:

It’s better to be broken and Yours than wholly my own

A grace I’ve never known before; to the world it must be shown.

(c)2011, jsm

Desperately, he seeks approval

For removal of his helplessness

Yet incredulous, he can’t accept

That he won’t be swept under your rug

A hug might be the spark plug

The caffeine in his coffee mug

The first shovel that has ever dug

Into his drug addled heart

-jsm

(this was gonna be four lines, but they were running a buy one get one free special, so you get eight)

I do not fear spiders. I do not fear snakes. I do not fear heights. I do not fear the dark.

I do fear having lived out my life and not having had something to die for. I fear dying without having had something to live for.

And I do fear being alone. I do fear burning my bridges.

So I try to keep all my bridges up and supported. I am so busy holding them up, I forget to cross them. And really what is a bridge for if not to cross?

What is one to do when they both love and hate making decisions?

I do what any logical person would do. I fill my days with mundane and meaningless decisions: What should I eat? Should I get up this morning? What should I wear? Should I read the news or check my messages first? Should I…? Should I…? Should I…?

So I get a cheap fix from what will never ultimately be important. Like eating toaster pastries for breakfast, grilled cheese for lunch, and ramen for dinner. It will fill you up but never truly feed you.

Decisions. I need to make some—throw them in a pot, turn the heat to high, make them boil. Let stand until ready to serve. A meal fit for a king.

I think I’m going to adopt these four line poems as a writing discipline for myself. Something to serve as a bare minimum of practice to write every day. It’s something to both challenge me and be fun. I’ll, of course, continue to write other stuff, but if you know me, what I need most is discipline to write something everyday. So there it is.

I don’t claim they’re any good; they’ll probably mostly be unimpressive, but at the same time, less can be more. I hope you’ll enjoy them for what they are. Even if you don’t, that’s plenty ok too. I will be tagging them all as “Four Lines”

Inspire me, please, because I’m where I don’t want to stay

Inspire me, please, because we’re two months from May

Inspire me, please, because I forgot how to pray.

-jsm

I’d play it every day.

Everyone’d be happy,

And our smiles always stay

WordFlyer.Tumblr.com

That post brought to you by two cups of late night coffee, a stomach full of hot sauce, and a hatred of doing mundane homework.

My personality and interests have changed dynamically in the past 6 or 7 years. Somethings are consistent, sure, but I am not who I used to be—I still love God and Jesus; I love my church (actually, I’m less cynical of it than I used to be, wow); I buy lots of music; I enjoy sports even though I know they’re meaningless; I am far too self-conscious about what people think about me; the list goes on. But, I’m also more cultured, wiser, sure of myself in task-related areas, less introverted (though still hardly extraverted), more experienced with heartbreak, more open to new experiences, and more myself.

But back to the original topic… I mean, really, I could just create another blog somewhere that I didn’t tell my friends about (heck, only a few real-life acquaintances know of this one anyway). Which makes me wonder: Is my self-censorship out of fear of what others might think, or is it out of fear of what I might think of myself?

Unmovable. Steadfast. Fruitful.

It would yield a miracle harvest. Bring sustenance to the hungry as it taps the nearby rushing, crashing, living river.

But a survey reveals… a field of vegetables.

Vegetables everywhere. They cover the ground and they do nothing.

Above, they are starch. Uniform. Rows, columns.

Though they are filling, they are not fulfilling.

And below—the bitter roots.

Like potatoes grown in the same field for years and years.

There is bitterness and it allows space for nothing but bitterness.

A food that starves itself out.

The feeble tree is unfed.

It would be an orchard.

It could be an orchard.

But it is lost in a dirt sea.

Man cannot live on bitterness alone.

The tree is dying.

Someone, get the Gardener.

–JSM