Creative Corner #9 -- Eternal

words by Brett Allen and Sean Taylor
music by Brett Allen
Recorded by 22FIVE on the CD Paint a Picture

Get out your watercolors
And paint a picture
To show the world
That You're eternal

Sing out a melody
Whistle in the windsong
Sing it through the trees
To say that You're eternal

May You be glorified
Jesus, You are the Lord of our Lives
May You be glorified
Jesus, You are the Lord of our Lives
May You be glorified
Jesus, You are the Lord of our Lives

Bring out the words of power
Make the rocks start shouting
Give us willing ears
To learn that You're eternal

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Devotion

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. -- John 1:1-5 (KJV)

God is such a big God, with all those "omni" words that describe him (like omniscient, omnipresent, etc.) that he doesn't really need our help to make the world realize he's there. The universe itself is enough to get the point across to those with ears to hear and eyes to see. (That's a theological concept called "natural revelation, for those keeping score at home.)

Even a quick look through his "tool kit" will show that he's got so many ways to draw attention to himself. Scripture not only tell us about the physical creation that he pronounced good, but also points to his power to touch both the lives of people in groups (as with Israel and the covenant he made with his chosen people) and individuals (his sheep know his name, we are told).

As believers, we tend to get bogged down in arguing about God and trying to dissect all the knowledge we can about him and so often fail to just enjoy his presence and love him and -- even more important -- be loved by him. We get wrapped up in the "what we're doing" and "what we know" parts of faith and completely sidestep the basis of that faith -- the very knowable, very experiential, very close and very real person of God.

Our job is simply to acknowledge him, worship him and bring glory to him through our lives. Personally, I rather do the shouting myself and not even give the rocks an opportunity.

Creative Corner #8 -- Unfit for a King

Unfit for a King
words and music by Sean Taylor

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because here was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 (KJV)

Manger straw must have been rough on your newborn skin
Mother’s pain to welcome you
Father’s tears as he holds her hand and hears you cry
The smell of waste was everywhere

Dirty men from nearby fields to greet you
Dirty sheep stumble behind
Mother’s care as she holds you close to feed you
Shepherds leave, the filth remains

You deserved the finest palace in the land
And swaddling clothes of finest string
But when you came you cut through all our twisted values
And revealed this crazy, mixed-up world…
A world unfit for a king

Vagrant child in a city filled with travelers
So unnoticed by them all
Foreign kings bring you your only presents
Your mother treasures all these things

You deserved the finest palace in the land
And swaddling clothes of finest string
But when you came you cut through all our twisted values
And revealed this crazy, mixed-up world…
A world unfit for a king

Creative Corner #7 -- Ki Wone

Ki Wone

Brazen Truth
Stepping through Clio's book
Seized the hearts of some,
Their minds and hands
And, forcing the pen along the page,
Began to write.
Inspiration.
They named it so
Though the service was immutable,
Fixed before the first struggling cries
When Truth drew breath into
Time's infant lungs.
While others
Danced their secret initiates
Under night's unclosed gaze,
Dreading against all hope
To touch the emptiness, failed,
And named the emptiness gods,
Truth laughed
At the creatures of dust,
Fashioned himself in their image,
And let them touch
The very thought
Of who he was. 

©1995

My poetry and early short stories are available in Gomer and Other Early Works.

Creative Corner #6 -- Thank You, Mr. Prometheus

 Here's another that has never appeared in print before. Just for you, faithful readers.

Thank You, Mr. Prometheus

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
-- Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969

Jupiter laughed
When man first sparked flames for himself;
(Sure, his public face was aghast)
With his eyes upon us
He rested
And waited.

Just yesterday
Jupiter took Juno's hand,
Lead her to Olympus' edge,
Spread his hand across the canopy;
Then he kissed her
And waited.

1994

Creative Corner #5 -- Yoke

Here's one that has never appeared in print before, a blog-exclusive just for you.

Yoke

(It is said that children who have been
abused have a greater likelihood of
becoming abusers themselves.)

She is a drooping rose
Weighted by the rain
Hunched,
Leaning above a younger bloom
Careful to pour out her burden
Beyond the newer pedals.

1994

Creative Corner #4 -- Death of the Prodigal

Photo Credit: Chris Wozniak, 1998

by Sean Taylor

There he kneels, the old man,
Still, staring at the headstone,
Boring holes into the fresh patch of earth
Between the plastic hearts, wicker wreaths,
Flowers doomed never to die,
Perched on three thin metal legs.
I wonder, is his heart perched there
Among them, waiting for a strong wind
To push it away
To keep vigil at some other stone?

... Run, kill the fatted calf,
The one we've fed for such an occasion,
For the returning prodigal;
Cook it and bury it deep
Beside the resting child,
A feast for the damned ...

He rises, crosses the freshly-cut green
Growing between the graves;
I smile as he passes, and he tells me,
"He was my son, but he was a Philistine.
He was a Philistine, but he was my son."
As if it were my heart, I offer
My hand, a token, but he continues
Past, weaves between the stones,
Making a cross at each one, and like a prayer
Says again, "He was my son..."

©1994 Sean Taylor

My poetry and early short stories are available in Gomer and Other Early Works.

The Creative Corner #3 -- Let Not Their Plight

Let Not Their Plight

Because I love you
I will go
To the dying in a darkened land,
Not for the great need
Inside they
Feel, the yearning for infinite purpose.
No. Just because I love you.

Because you love me
I will work
In the tortured times, persevere
Though misunderstanding and hate
Is only
A reflection of the hell inside.
Stay just because you love me.

Although the needs are great
While the dying dream of life
When people yearn for love
Let not their plight overwhelm me.

Because your love will
Bid me go,
Let my response show love for you;
Send me to love them
By serving
You first, and bid me go and work
Because I love you.

My poetry and early short stories are available in Gomer and Other Early Works.

The Creative Corner #2 -- Old Fall

Old Fall

When old Fall winters himself
Eagle-like, bold, and swiftly
Gliding, wings adrift,
The eyes ahead,
Something splinters inside me,
And vanishes like old Fall himself,
Replaced by the arrogance
Of Winter, unstoppably fixed,
Immutably stable,
Coating and covering
With a blanket of frosty rest
The thin, haggard, barren limbs --
Old Fall's pretense is my own:
Calm and cunning, but never
More than a moment's
Whisper, unspoken,
From the pallorous
Death that subdues his illusion --
We are broken, pulled
Crying, led away by the hand
Of a harsh governess,
From the dream
That we are more
Than a composite of breath and dust. 

My poetry and early short stories are available in Gomer and Other Early Works.

The Creative Corner #1 -- More of the Same

More of the Same

He loosens the tie clutching his neck,
The extra pounds squeezed into rolls by the net of cheap silk.
He hates this place, these people,
The pettiness, the way they lock him
Into their definitions-not his, never his.
A shepherd? Ha! More a fool.
And he secretly hates them more as he rises
To the pulpit
And preaches love.

And the same…
And the same…

She glares at the toddler,
His face and clothes strewn with the smudged
Colors of strained carrots and peas.
She sits, turns away, stares at the wall,
Counts to ten backwards, but her anger grows.
She would like nothing more
-- At this moment -- than to add to the red streaks
Across his legs, his back, his buttocks,
But she only sits and wishes.

And the same…
And the same…

He lies alone, watching the circle-once-circle-twice,
Then up-under and pull-tight as his lover dresses for work.
He is a pariah, an evil thing,
Not deserving of such love as his lover gives,
Told worse, much worse, by the ones
Supposed to care, to embrace, to forgive.
And he hates: them, their religion, their hypocritical piety,
Their words that tell him he is less than human.
His solace is his lover's warmth.

And the same…
And the same…

She is a fraud, she tells herself,
And she files the thought away
With the oath she studied, practiced, and abandoned
When the money became more important,
When the people became names and numbers,
When the practices became mundane exercises.
She has killed, she fears, but what can you do?
You can simply obey the rules and tell yourself
You are doing the best you can.

And the same…
And the same…

The same grace blankets them all
If they care or not, if they admit it or not,
Freely offered, freely given, freely wasted.
To the liars, to the regretful, to the unredeemable,
Wrapping itself around the shoulders
Of pariahs and frauds, preachers and role models,
Salving wounds deeper than acknowledged,
Cleaning cuts more jagged than admittable.
Anything less could not be grace.

And the same…
And the same…

© 2004 Sean Taylor