FWIW...

you wrote, "i'm not strong. i was afraid."

::

another believes we should read the old testament in the same way we read plath, or listen to radiohead, or any other writer for that matter...for these prophets with their mad images, their meanings obscured by millennia and miles... so forget it's the WordofGod and just let them tell their story...

::

another said that christ exists in the place beneath words, to witness the pain of another and be helpless to do anything to take it away... you can do nothing but be present to that pain and sit it out... day in... day out... to be 'here'... down in the dark gethsemene depths that lie under the moment...

::

i wept as i dreamt of the crack opening, the fault line widening enough for me to enter in... to walk with terrified steps into the deepness of your own sorrow and fear...and even there in the cold dark to steel all my courage to reach out into that inky blackness so pitch i could not see the shaking hand that i offered... but i reached out all the same... because to love the precious humanity of another is to live with risk... knowing there may not be another quivering hand waiting to grasp your own... faith so often looks like recklessness... but i believe in a mighty grace...

::

i wept. was it for you or for my own powerlessness? was it for me and the risk no one would come? but there in the dark, i heard these strains of promise come unbidden from whoknowswhere...

::

free of the fear
free of the fear
and that's the game even if no angels came
one day to be free of the fear

on the day that i feared
an angel appeared
in the field where the beast never came
and the angels had words
that i'd never heard
words that like arrows take aim

free of the fear
free of the fear
and that's the game even if no angels came
that they'll be free of the fear

i believe i would stand
to the right of the hand
that held back the night for a time
but fear of the night
will hold back the light
like a thief at the scene of a crime

free of the fear
free of the fear
and that's the game even if no angels
came
one day to be free of the fear

one day, one day
the beast from the field will
be torn

free of the fear
free of the fear
and that's the game even if no angels
came
one day you'll be free of the fear
and they'll be free of the fear

free of the fear

Words: john stewart
Music: Lies Damned Lies (reid, butler, irvine)
Album: Lamentations, (1996; sticky music)