Know this - I am.
Know this - I can.
Know this - I will
and know this - I will, with you.
And yes, that's a promise,
Oh, I'm serious.
You can be sure of my presence,
confident of my grace.
Come and together
let's change this place
for the better.

Come
and take a double touch of His grace
on your tear stained face,
hinging on His mercy
coupled with His ability
to not assume, to not barrel past,
but to rather ask (and twice ask)
with a balm of a voice and intentional hearing
and His long compassionate waiting.

Come
and take a double touch of His grace,

Jesus wasn't one for placing His touch 'in passing',
but He placed His touch with presence -
His was an off-the-fence, no-pretence full in the face presence.

Come
and take a double touch of His grace.

He held back from the passing pack and exercised the knack of knowing to look back, going far enough to reach a truer understanding,
to reach out with both arms and so allowing
Him to encompass all previous experience of heavy handed mishandling.

Come
and take a double touch of His grace.

For He knows that truthfully the healing is secondary
to the placing of true medicinal touch,
to the reassuring brush
of acceptance,
to the knowing that you've received close hearing
and closer grasping -
a meeting of more than minds, a confidence of souls truely entwined,
standing embracing and only releasing once we have the assurance of knowing
that we've been double-touched with honesty and that we're twice as much connected fully
and gracefully with the One who truely never turned from anyone's face.

Come and take a double touch of His grace.

Not pen to paper nor digit to key,
but eye to eye and hand to hand,
with a firm grip on our reality.

With half-empty mouths and full-empty ears,
we understand that its has to be us
voicing our two converging histories.

Exploring what it is to be you,
what it is to be me
and what we two can be together
in the next chapter of our come-together
unfiltered, unashamed and unheard stories.

Compromised
between original and possible
losing the beat and a little of the rhythm
even the form
as the pulled words
fall afresh,
short of English,
far from the tree,
but cousin enough
to retain alikeness
and still echo a piece of me.

No.
Not ornamental,
more fundamental.
Not sentimental,
but rudimental.
And when I wear it
it's very much an intentional
statement of who I am,
how I live
and who I worship.
So, no,
not simply pretty,
but pretty much essential.

I drank in the portrait
of the lady on fire
wondering how
the master kept his eyes focused
and his heart unmoved
as he captured the moving anguish of her beauty.

My two ears are red
my ten toes are blue
at this time of year
warm days are few

Whoever you're with
this valentine's day
keep your heart warm
and keep flu at bay