To See

I'm lying to you
Today I don't feel anything
empty
like the corn silo I used to sit in.

Today I feel overstimulated
the clutter all around me gathering
like a crowd, searching me for answers when
I don't have any.

Have you ever felt like gathering all your belongings
in bags and tossing them
over a bridge
just to see what's left behind
when you have nothing?
I'd like to do that today.
I feel cluttered, suffocated
crowded by all these superficial answers

I shake my head
If I could go back to that corn silo
where I used to sit on the bottom of a bucket
just to hear the silence, to be alone
feel the quiet in the dark
I would.
This clutter
these false, superficial solutions are making me dizzy.

I don't know what it is
but the more I start to look around me
the less I see.
The more I stimulate the less I feel
anything.
I want to get rid of it all and start with nothing
see who I am when I take away
all the meaningless babble
all the superficial solutions to my
boredom, restlessness,
lack of answers.

You see, I have this bible in my hand
and I know the answers are there.
All the answers.
Yet I sit here in this room with things that have no
context?  No..
purpose.
I have this bible in my hand and it's telling me
"Here I am,  I have your answers!  I have all you need!"
It's crying to me asking me to get on my knees
and give it all back.
It's telling me
"I love you!  I am your Father, I am your Life."

Maybe that's what I heard in the corn silo
in that silence, that soft reverie of my
small footsteps
clanging off the tin walls.
That I didn't need anything but that silence
I wouldn't find answers in all the things
that I used for so long to define everything I thought
that I was.

This bible in my hand tells me,
"You are Mine."

I feel restless in all this clutter
It would be absolutely ridiculous right now
to go downstairs and get rid of everything people have spent their money on,
for me.
It would be a waste.  It was already a waste.

I yearn for spring, my new beginning,
Where I can take my restlessness to the highway
all the things I might need in the back of a pickup truck
strapped down like a foundation to begin upon.
Tonight I feel overstimulated...
cluttered.

Let me take a minute to tell you...confess
When I younger I used to
play "orphans," pretend I was a little kid who had nothing
but the clothes on her back.
I used to believe I belonged in a monastery somewhere
in a room with a bed and a desk
a bible, pen, and journal.
In silence.

This bible in my hand
says, "Be patient.  I will take you home soon."

I want to make the noise stop
all this clutter is making me dizzy.
All the things that mean nothing
taking the place of the one thing
that means everything.

This bible in my hand says
"This is what the world looks like
when you open your eyes."

I saw a vision once in the midst of prayer
I started to cry.
I've never cried so hard, or so long.
I saw these millions, billions of people,
hands splayed, crying...crying...
and they were so lost.  I cried for them

I see through the solid, I see through your possessions
your clinging to people who can never love you
the way that you want to be loved.
Endlessly...we want to be loved endlessly
and it was offered to you
long ago
in blood
on a cross on Calvary Hill.
Yet it lays there, the offering,
and your fist is closed.

You collect these things, your image, your definition,
your anger, your misplaced disappointment,
your endless chatter and complaints
your sense of self from everything that is made to replace
that which cannot be replaced.
You hold on to your vanity, you hold on to "why doesn't anyone love me?"

I pose this question to you, you who sits among your mental and physical clutter:
Is God's love not enough?

Ly Hansen