Mem’ries from beside the Water-bed

September 13, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Crumpled bed sheets, crumpled life
Crumpled woman upon the floor
Another night, another fight
Her son standing at her door
Numb and tingling all at the same moment.

Sobs and sucks of a snot stuffed nose
Invites the child inside . . .
To hold her, to love her, when no one else does.
He can’t even look at her when she cries.

The tears of mama are salt in the wound
of his seven or so years of life.
The smell of her Revlon-colored hair
Recalls the essence of the source of her pain:

Quote “marriage” to this weak quote “man”
Takes happiness from her grasp
The half-cocked smile of this half-cocked man
Turns the knife . . .
ever so slightly. . .

What comes to mind upon first entrance
of his face into my thoughts?

A reed swaying in the breeze
Dead chaff moving with the forces around it
Weakness, passivity, and pissed-off pessimism
Define that which I call “daddy” and what she calls “pain.”

Sometimes God Doesn’t Just Manifest Himself as a White-Bearded Guy in a Robe Bowling During Thunderstorms

September 8, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Church Hill – no where else, God only above;
His warm arms hold me, His right hand leads me –
into peace and security and satisfaction and joy.
The personification and perfection of what is meant by
Home, what is meant by security, meant by hope, sustenance.
I feel His hands on my heart, my life, my strife,
Everything.
His warm arms surround every part of me.

But does the child have that?

In the Big Easy now the Big Difficult,
Can the arms of mama make the world a better place?
Will the waters recede at her touch? Only that
Which flows from his eyes can, will she brush away
With gentle tender arms, to
Soothe her sobbing son’s visage: blood-
Shot eyes peering from the black around.
Hunger pains. Hunger for Home, Security, Hope, Food.

Where are the arms of God there
that hold me so close and dear on my Church Hill of Calvary?

The arms of God are there in fact,

with dark, bruised skin,
a single shirt,
mud-caked legs,
tear-stained eyes,
and pain-shod memories.

He is there.

In fact, in a more real way than on that Hill of Church;
He is in every kiss of nappy head and ashy skin.
Indeed, both on Church Hill and in those waters,

there are truly just one set of footprints this day . . .

“On Fuel & Family, and the Costs Thereof” (a poem)

September 8, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

The cell burns from within the pocket
As the needle caresses the crimson “E.”
Justice questioned of the Almighty God
Over inevitability.

Car slows down, it’s time again
To press the speed dial “8;”
Re-bridging two worlds, renewing the scab-
Mom thinks all too late.

The red of the nylon vivid in hue
Tied to the basement rafter;
The blue of the note written on the washer
Heralding the hereafter;

The white of the face of dear old dad
Before kicking the chair from under him;
The brown of the sheriff ,came just in time,
To ring the bell and blunder him.

The images haunt the every thought
As gas necessitates the call
$2, $2.07, $2.75, $3
Causes this one to fall

Back to memories of screams and fights,
Of baseball bats and tears.
OPEC forces one still a child
To confront his darkest years

First once a month, then once a week,
Now once every couple of days.
Mileage doesn’t mean so much
anymore. . . .

Crude incites cruel making distance hit home

The sins of the father.
Justification.
All he’s good at – selfish ways.
Never really seeking the God of this earth
The only thing to save him.

Laying down a family at the altar of his god:
His excuse, his past, his illness, his, his his
Never hers
When she’s deserved it all.

One desires not to talk about it, one never does. Living away, detached from the reality, still hurting.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Tears of pain, fulfilling a role one never meant to fulfill:
surrogate husband to a broken mother.

Making a man of the child but still hurting her in the process.
Just . . . don’t . . . know . . .

Satisfaction and faith in Almighty God
Restores order to it all.
My only real Daddy in this entire world,
No matter “what” I have to call.

One strange paradox defining my world:
Joy, satisfaction, abundant life!!
Amidst all the pain of family hurt –
The constant signs of strife.

Provision not the source of belief,
Rather a recent application.
The value I hold, for my Lord, my God;
Mirrors the gas price of this nation. . .

Copyright© 2005

Peace, Peace

September 2, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

The hard followed by
The soft . . .
Then the long . . .
The pleasant crescendo of the hard.
Ending on the candle going out (“ps”)
Coming full circle once more.

“Perhaps” is the most beautiful word in the world.

Possibility, room to grow.
Ambiguity, all we know,
For now we look as in a tarnished mirror
But then we will know fully.
Until then, what can be achieved?

“Perhaps” is the most beautiful word in the world.

Depraved, Deprived, De-prosed
The human condition not fallen
Rather plunged to abyss.
Redemption our only chance,
But who can save oneself from drowning?
Can salvation come when it’s against one’s nature?

“Perhaps” is the most beautiful word in the world.

Now sanctified, glorified, satisfied, beside you,
Inside your glory.
Wide-eyed to the sin inside I’ve died to
in your name.
Then one lost is now one found
Wanting to worship, praise, adore, please, obey, trust, honor, love, sacrifice, just be
for the mere fact of who He is. Nothing more. Nothing else needed.

From the state I was can I please an infinite being?
Be made into His likeness?
Be molded to his purpose?
Commune with him forever?
Let him become my satisfaction above all,
pleasure beyond pleasures,
joy of joys?
Can His joy really be made my strength?

“Perhaps” is indeed the most beautiful word in the world.

Selah

Via de la Rosa

April 26, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

It seems every night, before I lay my head to rest,
I ask myself
“how can I look at myself in the mirror?”

How did it all come to this?

This reflection is a snapshot of a fading glory
whose holiness
lies dying upon the sinking horizon of dusk.
—–
Has my spirit met it’s West?
Is my cup dry and cracked?
O God I pray to you above
to renew the joy of my salvation
that I once knew and loved (which was you)
—–
Complete slavery and submission to the world
are the new banners of my cause.
Going down for a new breath of air; feeling free
as the shackles tighten
and my breaths get shorter.

How did it all come to this?
—–
Has my spirit met it’s West?
Is my cup dry and cracked?
O God I pray to you above
to renew the joy of my salvation
that I once knew and loved (which was you)
—–
How did it all come to this?

I just want to be able to look in the mirrir again.
I just want to be able to look in the mirror again
and to see you face instead . . .
—–
Lord, take this cup from my hands and let me
pour myself into it.
My last stand is here and know as I cry to be
a lighthouse rather than the waves.

I will either fail or conquer
die or live;
but either way
I’m yours

This I give for you, bearing my tree through my
“Way of the Roses”
enduring the thorns and spittle upon my face.
This I do for you.

It ends now.

Father,
into your hands I commit my spirit.

It . . .
is . . .
finished. . .

Outward thinking

April 26, 2005January 13, 2014 / Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

As most people know, I am a very dangerous mixture of a person.

First of all, I am an intellectual (this list is not in order of priorities of what I identify with more, it’s just for the sake of rhetorical flow) that feeds off ideas and knowledge; what makes me an intellectual rather than a pure nerd is that the knowledge I seek, discuss, and find I actually apply it to my life and adjust my behaviors accordingly. It’s not quite just simply memorizing useless facts. This gives me the storehouse from which I can pull info to tell people certain things.

Secondly, I am a Christian, which by its very nature gives me the responsibility and burden to tell people certain things.

Thirdly, my primary spiritual gift is as a teacher, which allows me the ability to tell people these things with a certain sense of authority (only from God, of course).

Fourthly and finally, the single adjective that can describe everything about me the best is the word “passionate” which gives me the desire to tell people certain things from that storehouse of knowledge in my head that so affects how I look at the world.

In short, I talk. A lot. I think I assume that others are like me and everything they hear they apply to the “big picture” of their worldview much like someone would apply a puzzle piece to a puzzle. That ‘s how I work. Don’t assume that I’m just constantly changing opinions. No, everyone knows that I have convictions. Rather, as is the case of spiritual truths, I believe the best way to understand God is to try to step back and apply each new truth you learn in your relationship with Him to the big picture of who he is. Most people hear a good sermon on God’s justice and then they proceed to fear Him until they hear a good sermon on His grace, after which they begin to just love Him and thank Him. I think in order to worship all parts of Him, we must be able to apply all truths, and all bits of knowledge to the big picture of who He is, not just as a long list of attributes on paper.

Anyway, my point is this. I have noticed in myself a definite spike in the level of discussions I’ve been having (both in quality and quantity) with Christians on deep theological concepts. a-millenialism vs. pre-millenialism and Charismatic/Pentacostal movements vs. Cessationsts have been the biggest topics. A lot of people don’t understand why I’ve been doing this; they continue to tell me that outside of salvation, this stuff doesn’t matter. That’s true and not true.

Where it is true that saving knowledge does not require a perfectly correct set of doctrinal beliefs, as I said above, each of these things affects our worldview – the filter through we which we see/feel/do all things.

So right now I am laying it all out there for everybody:
Though I spent most my life in a pre-millenialist, cessationist church indoctrination, I have since found those things to be unbiblical and incorrect. The truth, as I see it in God’s Word of a-millenialism and the full workings of the Holy Spirit have changed my walk with God in a way that I wish everyone could experience.

Finally, I come to my point of writing all of this tonight, including the preceeding poem (actually, they’re song lyrics, but I just put some loose structure on them and called it a poem). Those two theological things have for the first time began to give me the proper view of my spiritual walk: IT’S NOT ABOUT ME!! It’s about the Kingdom of God. Used to I was driven to evangelize out of fear for my friends, now I am driven by purpose – because to evangelize the lost is the only reason why I am still here on Earth rather in Heaven with God; it is my reason for living. That’s why I entitled this post “Outward thinking.” Because that is where we must all arrive; to a place of outward thinking where God will use the “foolishness of our preaching” even in spite of being “the chief of sinners.” God’s Will will be done in this Earth, and if I am to live up to my purpose, I must give God the chance for Him to execute that Will through me.

“I just want to be able to look in the mirror again and to see your face instead.”
“I will either fail or conquer, die or live, but either way I’m yours”
God I love you so much and fear you with all my heart. Help me not to get so wrapped up into intellectualism that it substitutes for you, because nothing can adequately do that. Help me be a true Christian that doesn’t obey you to get control or leverage, but rather obeys you to get more of You. Use me and my foolishness for your purposes O God.

Amen.

–Paul<