Vietnamese Toe-Nail Clippers

I’ve been searching and finding there’s nothing but searching, searching for something to fill

In all of my finding I’m finding there’s someone who loves me to sit and be still

It’s in you, it’s in you

I’m in love with a saviour who saves me to love me and loves me to stay by his side

I love to sing all the songs of his goodness I’ll sing them the rest of my life

It’s in you, it’s in you

I love how you know me.

I love how you hold me.

I love how you set me free.

I love your love.

It’s in you, it’s in you

-Second Circle

The One that Got Away

I have always mulled over the idea that songs need to be found. Maybe songs already exist and they simply need someone to find them, write down the notes and then sing them.  As someone who is aspiring to write music that will be meaningful and beautiful at the same time I have tried to find those songs that want to be sung, and it’s not an easy task.  Some songs that I thought brilliant at the moment of creation sound flat and dull when I re-sing them a week after their discovery and then I’m sure that I can’t write music at all and never will be able to, which is why last night was what it was.

I couldn’t get to sleep for the longest time and then at last I began to slip into a semi-conscious state.  And while drifting between the two worlds of reality and dream world a song began to play in my mind.  There were violins that swelled in perfect harmony and my own voice was singing these words that I can’t remember and it was such a beautiful song, I tried to hum it aloud but I’m not sure if I managed to do even that.  Desperate to make sure that I didn't lose this song that I had found quite by accident I told myself to reach over and grab my voice recorder and hum the tune into it so I could remember it in the morning, but before I could capture it, it escaped me and I fell fast asleep. 

          I wish I could remember it but I can’t bring it back; for now it drifts…where?  Waiting for someone to find it so that it can be sung?  Will it ever be sung?  I hope I find it again.

Beauty

Lastnight i wanted to be part of nature.  There was a massive thunder storm and the sky had turned a murky grey and I grew restless and wanted to be out in it but I had to sit still because I was watching a movie with my uncle and sister.  Then after the storm had passed there were still remnants of lighning in the distance and the sun was setting but because of the murky sky it had turned a deep red, resembling a smouldering fire that was slowly being snuffed out.  This orb was divided by a streak of the storm clouds and so the sun looked like two suns which were setting horizontal to each other.

              The beauty that it depicted struck me as painful because I wanted to be part of it but I couldn't.  I could sit on a hill and admire it from afar, but I could not eat it and therefore be satisfied...although I did want to eat it.  I wanted I suppose to possess it.  Insteresting.  Perhaps that is why some kinds of beauty hurt so much.  They hurt because sometimes they do not allow us in, and so we can only stand back and try to create our own copy of it that we can possess.  For me it is writing this blog entry, or taking a picture, writing a poem about it.  So now part of lastnight belongs to me.  It belongs to me because I have remembered it and have written it down.  But the magic of the moment, the beauty of that blazing sun against the storm clouds does not belong to me and so I have to let it go like so many other things in my life.

              Similarily there are times I want to be that close to God and I can't reach him.  I can't be part of Him because of one reason or another.  Then there are times that God completely engulfs me and I know his presence is with me and that is beautiful...I can hardly stand the joy.  I want more of those times.

       I think God leaves these pieces of himself all over the earth and when I'm struck by something beautiful it really is because I am struck by God's beauty.  And when I can't be a part of it it hurts...it hurts because I was meant to be a part of it completely but because of the sin that has divided us from Christ I sometimes feel seperated from this beauty...it is sad...but then there are moments when He does come and then there's the future when He will come and that beauty will last forever.

Another Day at the Office

Box #210 I can’t seem to find you

So I sit and wait for the time to turn

To 4pm so I can be free

From this silence that hangs

Like a broken chandelier

 Box 290 working papers

I guess I’ll put some tape on the slipping sides

But I’d so rather sit here and dream

Of other times

And the times to come

Like gargoyles we sit under florescent lights

The blinds are drawn

Fingers tapping up the sum

Accountants and lawyers

Numbers and papers

A dragon sits on his gold

Collecting his pennies

And counting his digits

 Arid smoke arises…

I’ve realized while sitting

In this cave

Hunched over boxes of files

And numbers of numbers

One thing…

I will not be counting numbers

Or boxes

Or files

Or sitting on gold

For the rest of my life