James is in a better place today and one of his last requests prior to his tragically early departure from this world was to have his poetry published online to share with the world. It seemed fitting to start this endeavor on James’ birthday, December 26. Supportive comments and feedback are welcome.
From James:
Prologue to Twentieth Century Psalms
Within the heart lies many questions that have yet to be understood or asked. There are psalms of the heart. These peelings of the heart are deeply intertwined and released at various times in our lives.
Oftentimes we sit with our minds paper or a note with the intent to wrestle with our hearts that end with pithy words and unconstructed prose. As trains, people, and days become yet another obscure marker, I hope I have not endeavored to do so unwittingly but rather with a humility of heart that opens a page into the beauty of a transformed life. In between sinews and space of life, a soul is ravaged by the inconsequential, where there are many teachers but not many learners. Viewing themselves as nomads or Bedouins in search of a river and a home not made with hands. A promise to sit beside still waters and gaze into the face of the grand poet laureate.
Psalms like poems are the songs of the heart. Each contemplating the questions and answers that end in why. Each attempting to breathe into a vacuum that siphons our soul, assuring the heart and quenching our tears in those solitary moments where each of us live. The longer I live, the longer I am faced with the pains of this humanity. These pains can take little time in grasping its veracity or our condition in order to see both the deterioration of our physical body as it marks the rise and decline.
I hope the words to come and the many similitudes of this wandering wretched soul reveal the passions and sorrows, the great joys in some of the bounties realized through the grace of a great Savior and the Father who sent him. These I call Twentieth Century Psalms.
Through this time I have had the great privilege to pen a great portion of my life through God’s grace. As you young man growing as a Christian, I experienced so many changes in my heart and mind. I had questions as I grew older. The struggles and desires all seemed at times to overwhelm, try, and convict me. I wrote these selected poems called Twentieth Century Psalms to express if not to all of us that have asked similar questions along the way who may need a time of comfort, reflection or just a reminder that they are not alone in their thoughts or feelings.
Sometimes this walk can be so daunting. It may cause us to doubt our very existence and purpose in even the smallest of tasks. Life like poetry can are filled with thing you feel but can’t quite put into the right words. But if you stay the course and believe you will find that life like poetry has a flow to it. My poetry is my life. It’s a collection of stops along the many cobblestoned roads in our lives.
I hope this small eulogy of words help you during those times. Each subject has different questions and different answers, but it is my hope that to “all our questions that end in why” we might walk through them all together in the power and presence of the one who loves us all so immeasurably and more deeply than we can ever comprehend. As you continue life’s journey my hope is that you will come to know that God’s love was meant to be enjoyed by every man, woman and child. His loving character can be comprehended through his promises, his faithfulness and in the extraordinary gift of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ.
“Come now, and let us debate your case,”
Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet,
They shall become as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.” Isiah 1:18