From my book of poems, "Love Himself Loves You"

COLORED SUN OF SKY ABOVE

Oh, Sun-kissed sky of early dawn,
Of lilac mist and perfect pink
I peek at you through curtains drawn
But fail to flatter you I think.
Bright, rapid colors take my breath.
I stare in awesome wonder
As rose and yellow-orange palettes
Throw color schemes asunder,
The lavenders have turned to gold.
Soft clouds now traced in red
With tints both pale and bravely bold
Show brilliant sunbeams overhead.
The One Who builds kaleidoscopes
Must know I love this sky.
As He lifts me to morning hope,
I dare not question why.
So, colored Sun of sky above
Take heart when clouds are gray.
Your rising opens awesome Love
To warm the darkest day!


MIND OF THE CREATOR

This Creator mind imagines images.
But we create clarion-colored canvases,
Of muted murals or proud portraits.
Soothing, shocking, satisfying,
Stained slates of illustration. Fresh images.
Yes, we've collaborated; we ourselves created
Images.
Carefully carved; meticulously molded, perfectly painted
Welded wonders. Textured textiles.
Striking statues. Bold bastions of bas-relief.

Creator is Master of the written word,
so we elaborate in ear-tickling tales
Filled with astounding adjectives and violent verbs.
Our hands produce and machines construct
Scintillating sensations, titillating tome. True images.
For we have fashioned finely fabled
Images.
Of ringing rhymes and pleasant prose,
Accurate, admirable accounts, or
Fabrications of far-fetched fiction.

The image of the Creator.
That sixth sense ability
Of talent deep inside yearning to be loosed
Hoping to be unleashed to form original works;
To frame and cast, compose and shape. Real images.
Red-hot, radical and revolutionary
Imprints on humanity.
These images.
From author, inventor, sculptor, engineer
From weaver, painter, poet, pioneer.
Duplicating our Creator’s creation.
Contriving composites and divine designs
To formulate, manipulate and stimulate
Our images.

God, help us contrive compositions and divine designs
From author, inventor, sculptor, engineer
From weaver, painter, poet, pioneer.
Red-hot, radical and revolutionary. To view images.
As New images. True images.
The “You” images!


JUST LIKE HIM

I am destined for dominion on this earth.
I'm created for His glory. I am destined for His love.
He made a king and priest of me and said I am His 'son'.
He fashioned me to be like Him, counting value, knowing worth
There's power when he starts on me, and power when He's done.
He never looks at what I've earned or what I may deserve.
But He teaches me to minister and shows me how to serve.

I know no other little god could ever hope to be
The everything this Mighty God
Is in everything we see.
He's in everything in earth and heaven, in every little cell.
He filled up every tiny niche
And conquered earth and hell.
He has made His very presence known
Where lowest demons dwell.
He is all and all and more to come with all eternity to tell
What words will always fail to say,
He is far beyond description in every single way.

Yet, when I talk to Him and pray
I know He listens just to me
This splendid, glorious, wondrous God
With angels at His beck and call...
With His astounding majesty
Can tune His awesome concentration
To my static frequency -
Because He's made Himself at home
Inside the likes of you and me.

I am destined to conform to what He's like.
I’m created in His image. I am born to be like God.
My capacity is God-like, from beginning to my end.
He is teaching me infinity. He is lifting up my sight.
I am fashioned in His likeness. I am born to be like Him.
I'm a prism from His glory. I'm a candle from His light.
I live just for His glory. His own purpose is my life.


BUT NOT BEYOND REACH

In the ignorance of a novice searching for God
I fell into the slippery pace of discontent...
Never satisfied with my life-station,
With my walk, with my call.
On bended knee was I ever begging God,
Ever seeking His favor...
Sands of a silent season
Not knowing His righteousness
Nor that I could receive it without effort.
Glorious God! Intense Inspiration!
That God that I so wanted - seemed so beyond my reach.
Months melt into thick, sticky years chasing God,
Always striving, Always trying. Always beyond reach!
Then I saw Love one day in a friend.
She had simply asked Him and received.
So I also asked and I waited...
Around the corner came the day of joy
When God-Love took me, captured my heart.
His rivers of living water rinsed my past.
Scrubbed me, washed me, and I was clean!
I saw Him as Love! I saw His love for me!
His tenderness, His earnestness. Acceptance without condition!
Generous Giver! Munificent Maker!
Love: His liquid, glowing ember; His warm, wooly down.
When I left the fluff and stuff of Religion far behind,
I seemed to whirl on spirit-Winds of effortless joy.
No self-induced works. No earning my way.
Nothing to attain. Nothing to deserve.
No more languishing in soft, frothy beds of self pity
Buried in deep, furrowed pillows of remorse.
No! Just letting go and leaning on His strong
Everlasting arms of love.
Gladdening, gratifying.
Leaning on Jesus' works. On what He earned.
What He attained on the cross. What He deserves.
Only leaning. Only believing. Being in Him. Being with Him.
Lavish Lord! Resplendent Resurrection!
Christ of unsearchable riches,
God of fathomless depth -
But NOT beyond reach...for now I’m His and He's my own!
And we belong together!


GOD’S FAVORITES

I am God's favorite.
And you're God's favorite, too.
The good things He has done for me,
He'll also do for you.

We're all God's favorites.
He adores us, yes, each one.
It is because we are His kids,
He's made it such great fun!

You are God's favorite,
But I'm God's favorite, too.
All that He has done for you,

He'll bless me with that, too.

We're all God's favorites.
He loves us like His Son!
He paid the price and sacrifice.
So, all the work's been done!


I AM THE PROMISE CHILD

I’ve been pardoned to perpetuate
a life of brilliant trust,
Yet, here I am on arms of those gone on.
Silent, long forgotten
Soldiers of another time
where life was sweet and sane.
I’m not alone, but oh,
the pain of loneliness, of business
grabs me by the neck and strangles me.
I settle low and pull my fears
around me like a cloak together with
sweet memories of softer days
and reveries of joy.
It’s good to ponder and remember
mid the murmuring I mutter
as I pull myself together,
not in fretting nor forgetting
all the moments of the past.

But in focusing and fussing
on the circumstance
that’s causing what I’m going through,
I tend to cope
when hope can lift my chin and raise my eyes
to look outside myself.
Outside my shell, my cell of choice
To activate a part of me that’s hardened me.
I long for statuettes and paintings
down the long hall of past to counsel me,
To tell me what to do, to lead me on.

To guide beyond these
cloistered walls of safety nets.
Immense regrets sweep over
me. I am ashamed.
And yet, I know the blame is not just mine,
For there’s a history of centuries
of silent sin of sloth
and indolence
that vilify the family
and make a mockery of me,
this family history. Thank God,
I'm born again of Spirit King.
Now, my heritage is God's. I am
created in His likeness
and I strive to be like Him.

So, I am deep, consumed in awe
of those now watching me.

Their goals are different now,
Advancing me to better things I will attain.
I do believe that I have gained
their trust this time.
I will prove that I am
all they have desired for me to be.
I think their eyes look happily
on me. The past is gone,
I will succeed for them.
I am their promise child.


THE IMAGE MAKER


The Image Maker - a book I wrote
describing the supernatural power of my Lord.
Unlike the bitterness of man,
God lovingly propels the porous paint of love
He lavishes on us tones and shapes
To change our hearts,
That we would be like our Lord.
That we would be in one accord.

The colors of His palette are as awesome as a sunrise over water
or a field of fresh flowers after rain.
He floods our souls with liquid,
Bright and brisk as luminous sunrays
Splash golden glow and white
On the mural of our dear Lord's bride.

God fills the shallow places with honey-colored love so thick
It oozes from our canvases,
Slowly seeping onto others,
Intensifying their lives with devotion
With warmth and fervor and raw emotion..

The Painter of the Universe splashes pigments in our lives
As though He were forever
The Artisan of Fervor -
The Creator of all Color!
He waves His magnificent hand.
In air He carves a sculptor's groove
As rainbows follow this skillful move.

With ardent zeal, He moves His great brush through the entire earth,
Colors responding in riotous rhythm:
Reds of living passion.
Oranges of vim and vigor,
Yellows of eager enthusiasm,
Greens of brilliant hope,
Blues of tranquil peace,
Purples of royal victories.

The Image Maker is yet Creator
Extraordinaire, continually working
On His greatest masterpiece!
That canvas/man of you and me.


WHAT WILL THE POTTER SAY?
(To be read aloud)

The clay pot that first got itself up on God's wheel was unwilling to give Him an inch.
Yes, that clay tried to hide from the light that shined brightly over the Great Potter's bench!

Pot was going so knowingly opposite - totally going away from God's care!
It was grudgingly nudging Him, not really budging yet... .head in the dirt and feet in the air!

A product of earth, the color of dirt, the clay was already marred.
Not willing to change, and stubborn of heart, the clay had become cold and hard

That clay pot, so shy, would, cry, "Qh Master Potter, oh why did you make me this way?"
But, God said to the red pot, "Shall what I have formed question what I will do with your clay?"

(A mixture of mud, a pot that held sin, a mess that knew not how to pray,
Would argue and gripe and say to its Maker, 'oh why have You made me this way? '...) ??

"Does Potter, the Father, not have the sole right to make of your knotted old lump
A jar from the common used only for lowly use - now in My hands to become...

A jar more than ever before could have held the fine things that I see in yourself:
A blessed container that's grander and finer than all of the pots on My shelf!"

The stubborn red dirt, the unyielding old clay, the pot that had held only bad,
Became soft and warm and began to let go of the past that had made it so mad!

Then, Great Potter, the Father - now roughly, now gently, forming and shaping His way,
By His hand, oh so grandly -- now molding and kneading that brave little pot of red clay...

That product of earth, that color of dirt, that lump that had been very wrong,
Was now willing to change and was softer of heart, and was coming quite nicely along!

The Lord smiled a smile now, His mildest and tenderest grin as He shaped the soft clay.
God caressed it and dressed it in shimmering gold as He polished and shined it, He'd say:

"Little mixture of My love, li’l pot that holds Jesus, li’l jar that holds My great faith,
You have humbled yourself, you've allowed Me to form you; now you shall pray and obey.

"Then I, Potter, the Father, prepare you for glory, for noble potential - you'll see!
For behold the gold molding is now full of power - to be used to bring honor to Me!

"For it took both of us, both the Potter and clay, to form this fine vessel I've got...
It's a beauty, a prize, a pleasure I treasure, formed from the lowly old pot!"

So, if you're in the pure fire, refining and smelting and hurting - it's but a short while
'Til Potter, the Father, says. "Well done, My daughter... My son. .. My sweet golden child!"





WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEAUTIFUL?

What’s wrong with Beautiful?
In the shifting, whirling, bustling
Pace of new Millennium,
Midst sophisticated, slick, sardonic,
Gabardine and wool of pin-stripes.
White cotton pleats, pearl-buttoned shirts,
Starched stiff and stuffy.
Black heels clattering on marble tile
Echoing in hollow, hallowed market halls.
Atmospheres of business, empty busyness
Upon the shale of scales. Profits, losses,
Filing figures. Void of feeling.
Without name, without shame. Ugly!
Affluence, indifference, the ambiance.
Perchance, the terror of this modern world
Is monetary gain gaining dominion,
Gaining momentum.
Cold, calculating, computer analysis
Is brainwashing, Brain drowning.
Causing death. Causing shame.
Who will see? Who will know?

Who will miss daytrader, clerk, financial whiz?
Who will mourn politician, secretary, janitor, CEO
From heart attacks? From money woes? Ugly!
Whatever happened to Beautiful?
Buck Rogers taught us not to totter
On the brink of speculation.
Are the prophecies of yesteryear now here?
And how did loveliness diverge?
When we need harmony to be revivified,
The softer side, the friend’s concern.
The dreamy walks by water’s edge
Silver-blue, still and smooth.
Quiet nights, silent strolls.
Mirrored moon moving slowly.
Hazy days. Lazy ways.
Where went sidewalks, porches, rocking chairs?
Roller skates and strollers, kitchen smells?
Who’s our neighbor? What’s his flavor?
Is he sweet or sour? Let me know!
Where is Beautiful? Oh, God, I miss her so!