Tag: spirituality

Letting Go

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Mountains, Poetry, Sky9 Comments

And Forgive Us our Debts

Nothing left to give.

Look into my empty sack,

my empty jar.

See my cold black torch.

How am I to live?

I cannot pay back what I owe

‘til I get payback for my lack.

And they took it.

They squandered it.

They spent my joy on riots.

They spent my innocence on games.

They threw my peace on the bonfire

and danced around it.

Let go

I’ve squeezed my eyes until they bled,

I’ve held my breath

until my heart pounded on death’s door —

still I cannot disappear

into the disheveled dirt bed

And here you are

–and you want more.

How dare you?

How dare you, God?

How dare you?

How dare you shove

your saber hand into my chest

and divide spent spirit from sullied soul

to reach the hissing python.

Let go

I can’t let go!

It’s only anger —

it’s only hate

that coiled around my crooked spine

enables me to stand up straight

and curse them!

Let go

Aren’t you gentle Jesus

meek and mild?

Go take your love to some purer child.

And stop that!

You’re hurting me!

Let go

They poached my song!

They caught my rhyme!

They raped my soul!

They took my time!

They grabbed my mind

and jammed it on a fearsome pike –as a warning.

They took my gates forever.

I’ve damned the light

and sealed the sash

with dark green plastic meant for trash.

What good are thickened walls of stone

when the door’s been burned to ash.

Let go

The bill’s right here;

I have kept track.

My hands will tighten ‘round their necks.

My hands are strong —

they’ll not be slack

‘til I get everything I lack.

Give it back!

Give it back!

Give it back!

Let go

You let go!

I’m offended by this “loving hand”

that feels more like a gunshot wound.

Let go

I can’t let go!

I won’t let go!

I don’t want to let go!

They owe me!

Let go

Help me.

Let go

You know if I let go it will kill me.

I know

It’s hard.

I can’t fill your hands until you empty them.

Who is going to help me?

I am.

(This poem was written about one of the toughest steps in healing from chronic depression  –forgiveness. To me forgiveness is about letting go of legitimate debts owed me and allowing God to supply my needs.)

April buds

On By Charis PsalloIn Trees and forests1 Comment

We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.

-Mairead Maguire

Seek, seek, seek the Lord

On By Charis PsalloIn MountainsLeave a comment

Perplexed.

I feel perplexed a lot.

I don’t have the answers to all of life’s problems, or even most of them. Ater I have tried the same old solutions that didn’t work last time (is that not the definition of insanity?) I keep coming back to the same plan of action that does:

Seek the Lord, seek the Lord, seek the Lord.

When will I learn to make this my starting point?

When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence. And if, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God—who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty—and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him. But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God’s help or not. The man who trusts God, but with inward reservations, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the wind one moment and driven back the next. That sort of man cannot hope to receive anything from God, and the life of a man of divided loyalty will reveal instability at every turn. (James 1:2-8 Phillips translation)

Can you relate?