Paint, sing or write!

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”

—	Madeleine L’Engle

Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus

There is too much pain
I cannot understand
I cannot pray
I cannot pray for all the little ones with bellies bloated by starvation in India;
for all the angry Africans striving to be separate in a world struggling for wholeness;
for all the young Chinese men and women taught that hatred and killing are good and compassion evil;
or even all the frightened people in my own city looking for truth in pot or acid.

Here I am
and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;
my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love
for all your lost and lonely ones,
your sick and sinning souls,
but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.
Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you wants where you are going?”
Your love for the long-haired, gum chewing boy who shoves the old lady aside to grab a seat,
Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,
to tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.
Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain,
help your love move my love into the tired prostitute with false eyelashes and bunioned feet,
the corrupt policeman with his hand open for graft,
the addict, the derelict, the woman in the mink coat and discontented mouth,
the high school girl with heavy books and frightened eyes.

Help me through these scandalous particulars
to understand
your love.

Help me to pray.

- Madeline L’Engle

Strange how you can love...

“It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them—and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on—this desperate need—and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other.”

—	Madeleine L’Engle

Knowledge & Truth

“Knowledge is changeable. Truth is eternal. It is disastrous to confuse them.”

—	Madeleine L’Engle

Good thing God is bigger then our deficiencies!

Living the Calling of Loving

    "This is how we know what love is: 

Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?  

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
    
 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:  

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.  
  
And this is his command: 

to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.  

The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us."  - 1 John 3:16-24 (ESV)

Spare me some change

C’mon man! Spare some change.

I’m asking you for a dollar

And you can’t even spare me a look.

I ask you for a quarter,

And you can’t even spare me a smile.

You look at me,

But you see straight through me.

To you, I am just part of the scenery.

I am a stroke of color

On this tapestry of depravity;

A problem no one can fix.

But while you try to forget that I exist,

I, see straight through you too.

You say, “if they wanted they could make a change”

But I say, “If you wanted, you could make a change”

Spare me some change.

You say, “Time is money, money is time”

Spare me some time.

Hey! Stranger! Look at me when you see me!

I am more than an ornament

Or a piece of furniture that belongs to this city.

I am a citizen here too;

These quarters that you step on are part of my suburb.

What can I say?  I fell down on my luck

And got stuck in the system.

I'm not lazy, I'm just stuck.

If getting out of my situation was easy, trust me,

I’d be living in one of your suburbs already!

If I’m here, alone,

It’s because my family turned its back on me.

If I’m here, asking for change,

It’s because I’m trying to make a change to my situation;

Using your change is how I make a change in my life.

"But, this change, you’ll use for God-knows-what!" Is what I hear you say.

And you’re right!

You might agree or you most likely would disagree

Yet, who are you to judge?

You look down on me

Thinking that you will serve me better by ignoring me.

Who are you to be judge over how I will spend your extra coin?

The money that your boss gives you,
Do you always invest it wisely?

Do you constantly spend it responsibly?

You feed your gluttony, your malady

I feed the necessity of my reality

Like you, I do what I know best to soothe the cravings of the body that I live in.
Ultimately, we both aim for the same things.
The only difference is that our budgets and realities differ.

Stranger, you fear that I might spare this change on drugs and worsen my condition?

I fear you cannot spare your time making a change and help me improve my condition.

Maybe if you spared some time to show you care,

I might not need my addiction to console this lonely heart.

Maybe if you took the time to help me build and pursue a dream,

I might not need this drug to help me forget

That I’m stuck,

Cuz no one'll spare me some change.

My Prayer, Always...