The Beautiful Distance (Johnny Levy, Site Moderator)

What is Weakness?

I know him well.

Weakness.

The distance between

What I want to do,

And what I do.

The Greatness of Your Name (Johnny Levy, Site Moderator)

Lord, you are my song, You are my joy,

You are my defense, my quiet place.

The chaos of the world pounds ears and heart.

My soul gets twisted up in knots with fear.

"Open Arms" (Johnny Levy)

My son Jadon

Two years old

Climbs into my lap

Like he owns the place.

"Father's Touch" (Johnny Levy)

I was an asthmatic kid
And when I got sick
It was like breathing through
A wet afro in my windpipe.
The panic, the agony,
My own lungs
Waterboarding me.

"Exhale" (Johnny Levy)

Understand this:

There will be a day
When I rise above the clouds,
When my head breaks
The sky, and savage clouds
Gray and white, will enfold me,
As I am lifted by wind, and
I am roar, and breeze, and
Sun dawning glory, and I
Will rise like the sun, breaking
The plane of horizon,
Obliterating gravity,
Obliterating reality.
Obliterating down.

"Rent's Due" (Johnny Levy)

I sometimes feel

Like an empty container

With nothing to pour.

And when this happens

My life feels like pants

That are ten sizes too big

And I am awkward and

Stumbling

Like if a child dressed up

In Daddy’s clothes

At a real life 
Job interview.

"Aperture" (Johnny Levy)

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. [Psalm 27:4]

 [ONE]
 Open the aperture of my heart
 Wide, and wide,
 I will open wide,
 To be filled with light
 To bring all things into
 Penetrating focus

 Swollen with light
 Fire in my belly

Open the aperture
Of my heart, Father

"Consummation" (Johnny Levy)

I will embrace the Sun

Though You burn me limb from limb

I was made to partake of radiance

I’m starving for Your radiance.

Like the proverbial moth

And his love affair with the blaze

Smell the smoke of his remains

As he dies in the throes of praise

"Swimming in Winter" (John Piper)

CLICK HERE FOR POEM AUDIO AND TRANSCRIPT

"Stuff" (Don McCaleb)

CLICK HERE TO VIEW POEM (OFF SITE)

"When Death Comes" (Mary Oliver)

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,