the way you look means nothing unless your heart is first beautiful.

no better way

it is a simple thing
coffee in the morning, or a note to M, P.S. Psalm 27
this is the way of us--no better way

God in the room with you in the morning-
the candles, the notes on the wall, don't mean much compared to
God is in the room with me

the word coming a live and speaking to those places
that you have allowed to become drained
--no better way

prayer taking it's legs to the doors of those
you've begged for until you see your words
take action and people start looking lighter
and freer
and they are
--no better way

we cannot become too distracted to break bonds
to hear
to love

because success is not wrapped up in education
or what my hands can achieve
but how well we have loved,
but how well I have loved God through what my hands can achieve
how well we have loved
the God who made us and lives in us and loves us
and the people He points us to

Nothing is mine. - Acts 4
the spirit demonstrated in power, not in persuasive words. 1 Cor 2:4-5
giving up our gods of gold for (Ex 32)
the real God, who directs us to drain out the darkness of our hearts
and restores us with life, a good God, a providing God, a giving God
a real God who wants to hold us
He will

we don't belong here
its simple, like that
we don't belong here
--no better way

Press on toward the goal of the upward call of Christ Jesus - Phil 3

you will understand

so, you've got it. I knew that that vision I had of you like a firework was true. No turning back, only beauty from here on out, it only gets better. Sure, times of suffering, but they are all called by name so you can turn them right around and change this world. If we had no hands that had experience in the hurt of the world, we'd have no change. You will bring change. God has this thread and needle in his hand, and he is using it to heal your heart. He doesn't even need the thread, the needle, one word and you are made new. You asked. He's giving. beautiful. It will be like that the rest of your life. Keep believing. God has these great big ears and he's always listening. Keep speaking.

I feel like you must have this.

"I have been your Lord your God... there is no Savior (no one who saves) besides me. I cared for you when you were in the wilderness (wild and uncultivated region, as of forest or desert, uninhabited, wasteland, any desolate tract, as an open seas, a part of a garden set apart for plants growing with unchecked luxuriance, bewildering mass) in the land of drought I cared for you. (When you were satisfied, you forgot me.) Return to me, the Lord your God. You stumbled. Take words with you and return to me. In me, the orphan (the one who feels she/he does not belong) finds mercy/compassion/love/kindness. I will heal your lack of faith. I love you freely. My anger is turned away from you. I will be like dew to you. You will blossom like the lily, (a white, pure flower). You will take root like the cedar trees of Lebanon (known as a strong steady tree that does not produce cones until they are between the years of 20-40: pollen cones produced in the summer, pollen shed in the autumn--Lebanon is know for it's cedars: their flag has a cedar tree in the middle of it). Your shoots will spread out, your beauty will be like the olive tree (olive trees are known for their silver leaves so when the sun shines on them they glow, also a tree known for it's steadfastness). Your fragrance will be like the Cedars of Lebanon. Those who live in his shadow will raise grain (will be fruitful), they will blossom like the vine (I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me as I abide in you - John 15) You will be known like the wine of Lebanon. What more have you need idols for? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like a luxuriant cypress, from me comes your fruit.

(Hosea 13 - 14, parts paraphrased)

2. It's simpler than what we all think, I could maybe change the world by responding to the hopeless graffiti on the inside of bathroom stalls--a woman's call of fear and lack of self worth. Love does not exist? Is that what you really think? That we are just like animals, a pitiful existence just like the rest of them? I'm just quoting you and I've got words for you sweet-heart, it isn't like that. Post-it notes could change the world, I'm thinking. America is crying and leaving themselves wherever they can, inside bathroom stalls, in their careers, who will give an answer?

.

3.
I'm trying to recognize your name, looking at your face
it doesn't look so different
but three years
it does something to a person, doesn't it?

you clung to me for three months, and I've misplaced your name but I can see
the Jesus I know so well planted in you
and I have all eternity to remember
so time, names lost do not matter

a poem everyone should have on hand

"O you whom I often and silently come where you are 

that I  may be with you,

As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the 

same room with you,

Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake 

is playing within me."

-Walt Whitman

I was french pressing coffee

this a.m. at 8
and Jen tells me
Wayne died three days ago
murdered by the man who lives in his homeless home with him--
someone must've found his body in the campys by the railroad's off Ann st.--
Kathy told Jan.

I met Wayne once
he bottled up legions of voices in his body
hid beneath the cap of his hat and looked out into this world with
bothered, exhausted, dark eyes
quoted scripture to Brad, the beatitudes loud enough during Tony's prayer
we wondered who was in there

pulled a knife on our Joe one saturday night
Wayne, the tortured man that only God coulda cured
only God can cure any of us

Joe told me Wayne stuck his finger under a passin train once
so he could walk to the hospital bleeding
to get some drugs

_______________

I'm beginning to understand, [I barely understand]
the chains of this world that we have all been sent to fight against
our role as warriors, walkers of light
prayer, wow, I am beginning to understand prayer and it's incredible power

Guess what? God is really real

I see Him reshaping Don, Joe, Jeff, Marv, Steve, Roger--soon to be, Jules
those mighty hands of His that I am only beginning to love
mighty because
the rocks in their chests, my chest, your chest: becoming pools of water
I see the spirit bubble up within: Living water

And I see it, now, our highest priority in this life is to simply

love the God of Freedom
and then use scripture, which is sharper than a sword (Hebrews 4)
to cut the chains
that bind
the
sleepers

(Isaiah 58. )

______________________________________________________________
(Yesterday)

torture
(so I call it, daily)

leaving the boiler room is really why it's hard to go --
I want to be a part of this fighting here:
for people's souls, the capturing of hearts,
God is so good at romance, isn't he? and
it's hard to go where your heart is not
daily

Jeffery was perched in the smoker's nest
smoking
asking
where you headed?

I say, I'm off to school, the joy of my being, the torture of my year
he says

I'm sorry for your good luck

2.
it strikes me how blessed I am
how different I have it from other people who wish they could just go back
no choice but to just begin where they are now, gray hair
not even a week sober and
joyful

He, clearing the sidewalk out front that we never knew we had and
uncovering the green grass
(the exhausted brown grass trying to cling on, cling on, cling on
kind of like his alcoholic demon, so willing to kill the growth beneath or hide the pathway)

he probably bagged it, (the grass, the demon)
and set it out back where it'll get carried away on trash days
he might have to re-bag a few times, we'll help him re-bag a few times,
it's what we do because it's what Jesus' does, until we have a clean pathway
among other things



he'll get there if he isn't already and we'll get used to seeing him around
asking for paper towel, shirt tucked in now, hair cut, clean shaven, inviting his friends to participate in freedom
[which kind of makes me feel like maybe I should learn from him]

it's amazing what a few days can bring a person
and I believe that for everyone
with God

__________________________________________________

With God, all things are possible. - Matthew 19:25

Grand Rapids home becomes Boiler Room community ministry for addicts, homeless, others

Posted by Charles Honey | The Grand Rapids Press March 14, 2008 22:00PM

Categories: Editors' Choice, Top Photos

Press Photos/Emily ZoladzFrom left, Stockbridge Boiler Room intern Danmike Thompson, Chelsea Gentry and Sarah Howard pray before leading a Saturday night worship service. More photos

The little room is lit softly by candles flickering from a cross on the floor and electric stars hung in the prayer closet. A dozen people sit in silence, eyes closed, until Chip Youmans' rugged voice calls out to God.

"Father, I want to lift up my brother tonight," he says. "Tomorrow, he's gonna be in a place he doesn't want to be. As much as it's gonna hurt, I just commend my brother to you. Take care of him."

Next to Youmans, Marv Hite sits with his head buried in his arm. He is scheduled to return to Kalamazoo County Jail the next day for violating parole. He hurts knowing he will have to leave this place, the Stockbridge Boiler Room, where he has lived since New Year's Day.

Youmans knows his pain more than most. He has been in jail. He is a former cocaine addict, while Hite is a recovering alcoholic. Here, in a house of prayer on Grand Rapids' West Side, they have found a home as spiritual brothers.

Tony Tendero and his wife, Jennifer DeGraaf Tendero, transformed the house at 713 Fifth St. NW into a neighborhood ministry.

This night, as every night, they pray, sing and read Scripture for an hour. They are joined by other Boiler Room residents, college students and whoever else shows up.

For Youmans, the prayer tonight is a little more intense.

"It hurts to see him go, and we'll wait for his triumphal return," prays Youmans, 38, putting his hand on Hite's shoulder. "We'll be there to pick him up."

"You better be," Hite says.

The others laugh softly.

Tony Tendero holds a Bible in his hand, quotes Scripture and praises God's faithfulness. He and his wife founded this modern-day monastery centered on daily prayers.

"Perfect love drives out fear," Tendero says. "I want to praise you for the way your love is emerging, even in the teeth of it."

Tendero and his wife, Jennifer DeGraaf Tendero, moved into the teeth of it three years ago. They sold their farmhouse in Ada Township to move near the Basilica of St. Adalbert and across from the Child Discovery Center, where their son, Max, went to school.

This is where they believed God wanted them. Today, they are sure of it.

What's cooking in a Boiler Room? • Boiler Rooms are simple Christian communities -- also called "millennium 3 monasteries" -- based on love of God and neighbor. They encourage communal prayer, learning and creativity, hospitality and serving the needy. • The first Boiler Room was established in 2001 in a Reading, England, pub complex. A handful of others have sprung up elsewhere in England and in Kansas City and Calgary. • The name refers to the power of old-fashioned steam boilers to drive machines and produce light. Nineteenth-century preacher C.H. Spurgeon attributed his success to prayer meetings often held in basements while he preached. More photos

Last fall, Tony quit his teaching job at Grand Valley State University and they started the Stockbridge Boiler Room, a community ministry for addicts and the homeless. They rely entirely on donations for their income -- and on God for everything else.

The ministry evolved from a week of nightly prayer with friends and neighbors. By week's end, no one wanted to stop praying. Thus was the vision of the Boiler Room planted like the mustard seed of Jesus' parable.

If you think they've made a great sacrifice, Jennifer begs to differ.

"It has been the most joy we've ever known, living here," says Jennifer, 37, sitting next to the wood stove in their plainly furnished house near the Boiler Room. "To live for a purpose that's so much bigger and worthier than yourself is a joyful thing.

"We both feel so blessed, like, how did we get to live this fantastic life?"

Their answer is simple: complete trust in God.

That is the reason Tony was willing to give up his job teaching writing, with tenure, at more than $50,000 a year. It is the reason the couple is raising four young children in a low-income neighborhood beset by drug, alcohol and gang problems.

So far, contributions have maintained their pre-ministry income. They don't solicit donations, though contributions may be made through their Web site, www.stockbridgeboilerroom.org. Two donors support them monthly while other gifts come at random, such as the anonymous $13,000 donation they recently received.

'Relentless trust'

Every day, they see evidence of God's transforming power in a neighborhood they have come to love.

"This was the work we felt called to," says the soft-spoken Tony, 41.

Jennifer is more emphatic: "You either believe God is the God he says he is or you don't. That doesn't mean you never have any questions. But there is this relentless trust that you'll be OK."

That trust prevails at the Boiler Room, a house across the alley from their home. They bought and renovated the former crack house with donations from three families who supported their vision. The Tenderos also received a start-up grant from their congregation, Crossroads Bible Church of Walker.

Mark Adams, known as "Popeye," right, shakes hands with a neighbor during dinner Saturday night. Adams, who is homeless, says the ministry has helped him a lot, providing a free meal once a week and a place to worship.

A half-dozen men live there, three of them interns whose job is to help others kick addiction and live for God.

It is working so far for Marv Hite.

"This is home," he says. "It's where I belong. I got drunk on New Year's Eve, and I ran from God to here."

Now, he's fighting to put his drinking days behind him and keep God front and center.

Living at the Boiler Room helps him do that with daily prayer and Christ-centered 12-step meetings. He plans to return after serving a short jail sentence.

"I didn't know what a real friend was till I came here," says Hite, his forearms covered with tattoos.

A growing trend

The Boiler Room is part of a growing international community emerging from the 24/7 prayer movement. Boiler Rooms are small communities based on prayer, serving the poor and spreading the gospel. They function like early Celtic monasteries planted in the midst of urban need.

"We want to dismantle the ideas people have about what it means to follow Jesus and rebuild some ancient way of life here in this neighborhood," Jennifer says.

Her title is abbess; Tony is the abbot.

Prayer is the fuel of the Stockbridge Boiler Room. Periodically, it hosts a week of continuous prayer, including one that began Friday. Over Easter weekend, it will host more than 50 people from other Boiler Rooms and 24/7 ministries across the country.

The Tenderos preside over a nonprofit ministry run by a governing board that includes neighbor James Remmelts.

Remmelts lives across the street. He used to live with Youmans, and the two threw loud parties with plenty of drinking, women and arguments.

Says Youmans, "It was literally like heaven and hell. Heaven over here with Tony and Jen, and hell over here with me and James."

Youmans was a "full-blown cocaine addict" at 19 and spent 13 years in prison for crimes including armed robbery and felonious assault.

Living with Remmelts turned out to be a blessing. Separated from the mother of his two children, James was a non-Christian when the Tenderos started inviting him over to prayer meetings. One night, he ran out of excuses not to go.

"I got up after the prayer and felt like a brand-new person," says Remmelts, 35. "Life all just changed that night. I vowed to live my life for God."

His conversion rubbed off on Youmans. Now, he's an intern who helps the residents keep on track.

"I'm only a bad decision away from being in the same spot they are," Youmans says, adding living there has "given me a life. It's given me a family I never had."

Remmelts got his family back. His kids' mom, Wendy, returned home, married him and their family was baptized.

Musicians, from left, Danmike Thompson, Chelsea Gentry and Holly Pschigoda play during dinner Saturday at the Boiler Room.

Such transformations make neighbors curious about the Boiler Room, he says.

"Most people in this neighborhood wouldn't welcome a drunk into their home like we do. They're like, 'If that's the God you believe in, I want to know.' "

God calls all the shots at the Boiler Room, Jennifer says: "We're not doing anything unless we feel God is guiding us in that direction, period."

On a late Saturday afternoon, James and his family dig into plates of spaghetti at the weekly "Love Feast" in a garage behind the boiler room. It's a time of fellowship, music and prayer open to anyone who wanders by.

"You are the everlasting God," Youmans sings as he cleans off dishes. "You are the defender of the weak. You comfort those in need."

Members of the Boiler Room pray Wednesday night.

Two nights later, he leads Monday evening prayers in the candle-lit prayer room. Its walls are covered with handwritten Bible verses and personal messages. Maps of the city and world are dotted with prayer requests. On a rough-hewn cross laid on the floor, people have nailed pieces of paper scrawled with their sins.

Sitting barefoot on the floor, college students join Youmans in supporting Marv Hite as he prepares for jail.

"Marv, God called you by name," prays neighbor Chelsea Gentry, 23. "He's not going to let you go. You're in." She smiles.

Tony Tendero stands with eyes closed and palms together as the group starts singing softly, then grows in power, to send their brother on his way.

"I will fear no evil, for my God is with me," their strong voices fill the shadows. "And if my God is with me, whom then shall I fear?"

Boiler Room founder Tony Tendero walks to the house from the garage, where the Saturday night dinner and worship services are held, with his children, Lily, 7, Beatrice, 4, and Ezra, 16 months.

the wind

heavy today
the branches yanked to the left
the smoke it rescued from his mouth
her unconscious hair that it was putting it's fingers through

I am of the wind. it comes and goes where it wishes
nobody knows where it comes from or where it is going
I am of the wind

I pass by.
the boy looks up from his newspaper
turns the page
the runner in black enters the building: no face
the professor passes me, the cement is more important than my face
his red bow-tie
I pass by.

I am of the wind because the wind is the Holy Spirit and I don't think I have lived by Him for so long, I haven't allowed my steps to be performed by Him, but I am giving in now--it's taken me years to understand that this all is on purpose and even when I think I am directing my own life I'm not so I give in now because the only time I am at peace is when you are bring-in-me-in

will he bring my steps to Africa in August? to class in a few hours? there is a purpose for my being in this room right now. This next breath of mine is God ordained. Dang. So, what is God's will for tomorrow, today, this second? God, I am giving you my feet because nothing makes sense without you leading and then when you lead it doesn't make sense to the world and I accept that

if it means I stay behind, if it means I go

because everything is on purpose with you, I see it, I told her, I see it
last week I was praying that the Holy Spirit would enter her in that extraordinary way and
I see it,
I see it
your eyes are on fire now and you're dreaming now and you're singing worship songs come morning, and his fingers are learning these God-glorifying tunes and they are coming off a little louder than his songs his songs his songs and we're thinking that guys new name should be smiley, I've been praying about that and Mom and Dad are holding hands now and Seth is talking about God and Jefferey is sleeping in the prayer room? God? Is that you? of course it's you.

It's always you and
I'm passing up my feet to you.
every
second
every
word
to you

because I am of the wind, the Holy Spirit is in me
and that means that I will not always know where it is I came from and where it is I am going
you blow where you wish
its always on purpose
and no one has to understand it

2. I looked up pictures of wind on Google and can you imagine there were no pictures of wind
only the things that wind moved and that is how it is isn't it



3.
I woke this morning to know I have been holding myself in
you told me in a dream, like you do
I coulda let that dark man whisper at me or I could break free in the glory of my Lord
I choose the later

hiding is a sin
I am beginning to see because if I had a candle
and there was this dark shabby room (this computer lab
the house two, three, four, five doors down)
and I kept that little candle in its box
worried I'd wear it out or loose its longevity
I'm thinkin there'd be a lot of stubbed toes
blind people with their hands out, hands out, they all have their hands out

grabbing the wrong lights, trying to find their way, trippin over furniture

and I have this little candle that I've been hiding

oh God, save me from hiding let me break loose break free and become the
beauty you have put in

sure it's not about what I can do, but if you gave me things I can do
I should do them

it's not that complicated, really
DM is always saying I make it more complex than it is and there I am claimin I am
a warrior for the simple

God. here is a match. strike it. light it. move it. I've got these two legs, these high cheekbones
blonde eyelashes, this tiny voice, these eyes, these stubby fingers that Jana is always making her
fat laugh at,
I've got a couple paintbrushes and an eye for
a good picture, a love for the orphans in other countries, and a love for this city
and the babies becoming woman

I could write a little poetry about her little crumpled eyes and the baby she hides behind a shirt,
a smile--
but mostly, God, I have this heart that likes to break and hates that it cries often
but I want it to cry for your things. your things. your things.

here I am. send me. light me. I'm coming out like that little flower that indian
told me I was when I was little

bustin loose in this joint.

the painter

1.
Morning comes
the sun closing in on me
Popeye, homeless, smiling, toothless Popeye
rummaging around
the garage

you know what prompts my smile?
Popeye's "get-ge-ge" and the normality of my yelling hello as I run past to catch the bus on time and park in the nursing student

he responds with something about being a whole lot better if he had a kiss from me
oh, the place of paradise
only at the boiler room.

Only at the boiler room does the day begin with
French pressed coffee
DM preparing the day for me with a thermos,
these thoughtful people
only at the boiler room does the day begin with
two woman discussing elephants and heat, God, five page papers
my heart and next month in 40 minutes

This really is a whole place.
Peace is here.
I've found something that really matters
really
not just a temporary fix or something I might move on from next week
I think I always want this kind of life
I don't think
I know
it's paradise

April told me last night. James told me at noon. This place is peace.

Why? God is here. And until the day I die
I will not stop saying that the only place of peace
is the place that God is here.


2.
you got old, Est, you got old
suddenly

re -stapling your students canvas fabric to avoid ripples
critiquing our gesso application
hairs on the back of your neck, very used camel colored shoes
and is this 100% cotton? do you see the shape of that color?
what is the hue, the saturation? the value shift?

Spring break hit and you went to your Mother's to do her taxes
hit up New York for a couple art shows
wore the same shoes

On the weekends you come to school because there is no internet where you live and
no people either

and I've been thinking of how to show you there is more to this life
though the things you say you say very cheerfully and seem to expect the same of us

it has hit me, after watching you
that
God's way really is the most beautiful way, I'm thinking
it's delightful because it isn't a sin that it isn't good for a man to be alone
and you are alone and I can see it

it really is what we want, God and people
because it's the only thing that lasts
some of us just don't find out until we're old like you but
artist's don't get married, right? they ride bikes and wear expensive hair and have this sophisticated poor look about them--it's all part of the liberal independent way of creating
yeah, well,
this one is going to seek after God, not art or poetry or writing or music or expensive hair
she's going to do things differently because I'm learning that what counts for me is not people going oo or ahh
I just want to make the things God puts in my head because in the end it's all that matters
who we become for him and this heart
that is all we will have in the end to offer him and I want it to be tender and beautiful and seperate from people's oo and ahh

it's beautiful that all that doesn't matter. that we are loved as we are without having to put the icing on or the value shift, or the correct hue...

our hands get shaky eventually and what will you do on those dark nights, E?
will you tell yourself over and over that you were a good painter, you were a good painter, you were a good painter?

I could be an terribly good painter too, and it wouldn't matter unless I had
someone to come home to, excited to share it with
or a God to paint for

I feel awful lonely for you and your neck hair and your empty house with it's silence screaming at your ears.

I pray purpose for you.

ode to just one blog on the subject

1.

an alley cat is on the roof

chip's voice hitting every wall of the kitchen

offering a toothbrush to a voice in the shower

Sarah and Don playin on high tables

I'm typing.

there are a lot of things inside of me

a lot of things I wish I could type
with all the noise

and

summer is hiding under the bark: august is whispering at me

2.

I used to think I knew

that day God told me something about planting vineyards

I thought I knew because
his pockets were full of the same seeds as mine

which I have found to be rare

it only made sense but most things don't make sense, I guess

maybe it isn't supposed to make sense, I don't know

things are generally different from what we assume

I like

the Jesus that got put inside in the past few

the heart becoming a tree

but the music inside of me. he has no idea.

there are no hard questions and he does not try to find me and
I find it extremely unusual and fascinating

I am not upset or bothered or attempting to obtain what they all sit and wait and seek because I don't think I am supposed to compete

you are not mine until you are mine and he will be
whoever he is

in time

it will be simple and perhaps not easy but correct and beautiful

you:

loaded with faults, [we are] but you will be neither bland nor unorganized or unfaithful

I know you already as a kind man a humble man a lover of the lowly

wish I knew your dang name

Jesus is next to you now, and so
I am not absent

when I am present I will attempt to make you the happiest of them
because I am whole and being whole is rare and so

you bet I'll choose wisely

because he will be the one that applauds Michelangelo and I

as I see the angel in the marble and carve until I set him free

this will happen with our neighbors, our sisters, Fathers

we'll have long fishing poles and short ones

and I will applaud you everyday of your life

and even if I talk myself down or hide (I'm working on it)

I know God has put in me things that I will use and I will create

it is my job to create and to love and to become daily
if I love God and people well, I have learned, I have succeeded

and if he has his hand on my hand I will paint beautiful things, hands down

I will sing beautiful songs even if my voice is small and little and at times insecure

I'll learn.

do I seem disengaged or unattentive?

Maybe it's because they are crowded around you and I am hard to see, that's okay with me

it's ok. I'm not threatened. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.

Leslie taught me that I want my heart to only contain Jesus so that when I see you I will recognize Him in you because I know Him so well
and that will be the most beautiful thing about your face

and maybe its been a long time for you, for I

I'm picky, it's true but you'll know what to say because you've sat long and hard at God's feet and he's said my name in your ear and your voice might not be steady but it will be strong

and until then know that I don't need you even if I wouldn't mind you hanging around for the rest of my life. I'm whole. I'm giving you up to that time that day that God's already carved out

Maybe that sounds valiant,
it's not so valiant,
just true
and I love things
that are completely out
of my hands

to love

I believe that at times the only solution is to reach after God and realize that all we have that is worth giving is love and the only way to succeed is to love, to love God, people, life with everything that we have inside of us. is that cheesy? I kind of think it sounds like it is, but I like it anyway. 

it's hard to do.  to love another as much as you love yourself.

I think I love myself a lot or sometimes

maybe not at all

because if the way I love others reflects the way I love myself

I suck at this.

to embrace

a person

fully

is a beautiful thing: all of them

to throw the yuck, your yuck, their potential yuck, the clashing that is happening without explanation,

to put it under a rug and chase after them and allow them into your space

the seat next to you, the room, your shoulder

it's a beautiful thing

and I don't believe its about allowing the person, but perhaps

inviting them in

take off your shoes and stay awhile. use everything I have as your own. 

I love you, Howard.

the Niger River

the sun is setting

woke up with thoughts of the blank horse at the grass undisturbed with our cameras flash

your countries dark musicians strumming and pounding the instruments on the charcoal of the rocks at the Niger

my feet in

the dark skinned man coming up going under shaking his head about 

clearing his eyes

as they sing of war and peace

voices resounding

the sun setting

the white brother speaking with the ones that are not

the sun setting

their voices resounding

feet in

ps.

there was a little bit of conversation left in our coffee mugs

and I was looking at you around my hands

the devil

does he weep

when I tie light to you?

(because that is the way of prayer, I'm learning)

-this week I want to make a vow for God

I will ask for his spirit everyday and his spirit with pour into my mouth and come out my pores and overflow from within

I want more of you God

I want more of you

my heart does not look enough like you and even if I spent all day in your dwelling place I wouldn't be nearly close so God forgive me for not taking your courts with me everywhere I go

-this week I am learning the power of prayer

God really has his ear on my drum, my voice He is really walking the places that I ask Him too and He wants to put me in the cradle of his elbow but I just keep walking without his support

I want more of you God

I want more of you

my heart does not look enough like you and even if I spent all day in your dwelling place I 

wouldn't be nearly close enough so God forgive me for not taking your courts with me everywhere I go

-I want to learn to fight for souls to spend so much time in a room with you that when I leave it is buzzing with your spirit

-I am asking for a holy passion that can separate my skin from my spirit so that every move I make with my hands, every breath I breathe looks more identical to you everyday.

no more games.