Grounded by these burdens one by one,
I remain stagnant.
The journey ahead is too weary with the impediments I bring.
Morning upon morning, I leave them behind
as I choose Your grace over yesterday’s stones.
And evening upon evening, I return
re-bound to the weight of every day gone by.
The sun rises upon me still here once in a while;
Some nights I look ahead not back.
Inevitably, though, when I return,
the mire encapsulates me to the earth
a little more than it did before,
and I grieve:
time lost, battles won,
a war waging that finds me worrying over pebbles
instead of glorying in the Kingdom to come.
And I grieve:
terrified to let go and
free-fall into the open blue above.
And I grieve:
for me,
from You,
every wound opening to weep;
and we weep.
Heaven and earth joined together in screams of agony,
pain bringing forth pains which only bear rancid crop.
I gorge myself on it;
Made sick upon it;
Throwing it over with every ounce of pardon.
And when it is all gone, I shuffle through,
stain over stain seeping into the marrow,
until I too am screaming from the pains
and birthing rotten flesh to nestle against in the darkness,
gasping and grasping and flailing and
obstinately refusing the outstretched.
And the army that surrounds me waits for my surrender.
To fight in my stead.
I am in the way;
I am always in the way.
Bare hands ready to battle against flesh and blood,
leaving the rulers and principalities to consume the tombs within.
I loathe every fragment of myself that is left behind
too much to leave it.
It is too little;
It is too weak;
You are not big enough to make me new.
Make me.
Make me let You make me new.
You make me, re-make me,
retake me and replace me.
Blood breeds white, suffering peace,
and death frees life to breathe again,
into dry bones and into an army of descendants
who will never know my name.
You call me by name
into the holy place,
bare and burdened and clenched
around the torment that threatens to keep me.
Shepherd, keep me.
Physician, treat me.
Lord, bleed me into non-existence
and rid me of every rancor I refuse to put off.
Trade my rags for riches and those riches for the eternal.
Let me gain death and give Christ my life,
one burden at a time.
