When my spirit is thirsty
Parched from the days of endless strife
Look around for a little wine, some water
Anything that might satisfy
See, I’m still out here in the desert
In a world full of restless souls
All the sadness, lives in turmoil
Dried up my senses – can’t taste no more.
Then you say “come and drink”
I say “why, what for?”
You say “I’m all you need”
I say “I’ve heard this all before”
I fill my cup with so many distractions
Lead me astray, yet I deceive
Myself with haughty notions
Of what my life could really be
I’m still not willing to surrender
To you, a foreign deity
Without sitting down at the table
I’ll taste your cup, but don’t expect me
To turn from skeptic to believer
Without a moment between you and me
When I can lay it all before you,
The hurts I still can’t seem to let go of –
Then maybe I’ll have that drink.
You say “I am the living water”
I say “I’ve heard it all before”
You say “I’ll be here when you’re ready”
Maybe one day, hopefully
I’ll fall down to my knees, and say
“I need you Lord”
11/12/18
clc
Shut Up!
I don’t need to hear you. I need to see you.
Our words are full of our own desires and twists to get what we want. Subconsciously or consciously. They are used to debate, to cajole, to turn other’s opinions. Guilt. Sternness. Overbearing. Sweet. Even sometimes the tender and kind words get mixed with the vitriol of seeking our influence over another.
How many times have I said things that I didn’t mean, or worse, things that I could never follow through on. I am working on this. If I say I’m going to do something, there’s stuff, life that often creeps in and rearranges my schedule. My priorities have often swayed like the wind. I hate it.
Words are fickle, like a flaccid member. And whether you are a politician, religious leader, father, boss, mentor, they are often the first line of a subtle abuse that most of us have practiced or have had transgressed on us. They hurt, sting and unlike the rhyme that we were taught as children…. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, they do hurt. They damage. They get into our thinking, especially if you don’t know yourself well enough, don’t have the capacity to set up appropriate guards to keep words from really eating you from the inside out.
But this isn’t about words. It’s about something much more important to me as of late. Showing Up.
I look back on the hardest times, the ones that much of this blog is written around, and see a trend. Alone. Dark. Hard. Even when certain people were in my life, there wasn’t a person who understood. And let me be the first to admit that I’m really damn good at isolating when I’m sulking, hurting, angry at God, bitter…
I’m trying to break that trend. When little man was taken in January, I reached out immediately to the two friends that were closest. Adam and Nate, along with their wives Jessica and Maegen, dropped everything to be there that day, and in subsequent days after. But that was a first. When the kid’s mom died, I tried to do everything myself. I wanted the weight, the burden, not sure if it was out of guilt or an overstimulated need to be in charge. When I ran hardest and deepest from my faith, I did it alone, often finding myself in harder spots because I didn’t make a phone call, or just show up at a friends house.
So here’s the deal. If you show up for me, your’e special. You’re loved a little more by this jaded heart and I see that I matter to you. I wish I did this better for my friends. I’m pretty rotten at times. I say things I want to do (with good intentions), then end up having to bail. But those of you who have sacrificed your time to be around me, like Adam giving his time to go on a bike ride the other night, because I just needed to expend some stress and breathe, you are beautiful people.
And then there are the times when a group of people shocks you. They all just come through the door. All of them. The ones you needed to be there:
Nate
Maegen
Adam
Jessica
Diana
Amanda
Dabbs (DCS Baby!)
Sarah
I cried on the way to get my gear for the performance. Tears of disbelief turned into reality. I had invited a lot of people to hear me try to get back into this singer/songwriter thing I’ve always toyed with, but hadn’t done in over ten years. But this group, well they’re special. And every lie I’ve always believed about people not caring or being willing to show up just got blown out of the water. I still have to work on me returning the favor, but those people have in many ways over the last year given me a better sense of hope, trust (the biggest one) and sense of family.
Thank you for just showing up!
