Overflow

You love me in the sunshine’s warmth on my shoulders, in the winds rustle of

the ginkgo tree outside my window,

Ocean waves methodically rolling

in and out

in and out

in and out.

Before all of these were created, you loved.

Before sands were poured from your hand and the mountains were shaped, you loved.

From dust you breathed life into man,

and to crumbs I will eventually return.

Walking along First Avenue at night sometimes the heaviness that I carry throughout the day seems to lift.

When I’m walking alone among the masses

Furrowed brow, zoning out, zoning into myself,

zoning inside to what’s safe and familiar and quiet.

But even there, deep within me, within who I really I am,

who I really long to be- I am not satisfied or enveloped in security

unless I call on you.

And, somehow in the headlights and streetlights and cigarette smoke escaping the lips of boys wearing backward baseball caps sitting in sports bars at 9:00pm –

the reality of needing to surrender to God’s grace seems to come into focus.

My prayer is to return

To realize the joy of my salvation

To live outward and not inward when I awake tomorrow

Cracking my eyes to the sound of sirens, car stereos, honking and clanking aluminum cans

You died so that I could become fully alive

To brake the chains and experience transformation.

And when I refuse to accept this life, this freedom, this purpose that you have for me

I’m saying your birth was for nothing

and so was your death.

I’ve been choosing to live in the shadows,

in the gray-

where the birds are scared to fly and

their song is a repetitions murmur

Make mine a life that matters

and a past that doesn’t.

Make all these things I do and say

an arrow pointing straight to You.