The Trackless Path

If I had a great balloon, I’d travel

This way and that, and up and down,

And throughout the world, from nation to nation,

And from people to people.

I’d float it into the hole on the top of the earth

And visit the ones who live inside.

And I’d take it past the stratosphere

Into the open expanse of space,

Not because I had some appointment to keep,

But because I wanted to wander off

And follow the need 

To amble.

And I wouldn’t tell the Martians I was coming.

I’d just show up and pretend that I was one of them.

I’d wander the streets of the alien towns

And sit in roadside cafes

And watch the people,

The alien people,

And soak up the thing they are.

And then I’d find the downcast Martians there

And put my arm around them.

I’d make them feel that I was one of them

And pretend that I was theirs and they were mine.

Yes, if I had a great balloon, I’d travel far.

I’d make the universe my passion.

And I’m not so sure that that is wholesome.

Perhaps there are reasons for the bounds 

That ties us fast to this little earth.

I don’t know. But one thing is for sure,

My heart flies upon a great balloon,

It wraps itself around the downtrodden 

Of people, alien people, not like myself,

But like myself nonetheless.

And I think that that’s ok.

Remember, when your project 

To do a thing for God goes wrong,

When the church never rises from the prairie,

Or the community of Saints 

Falls into disarray

And confusion,

That the City of God is not made by earthly hands.

It is not a thing, not a place. 

It is not made of lumber or brick or mortar. 

It is made of people who have come through great tribulation.

And the pillars that hold up the temple therein are people.

And the gates to enter therein are the names

Of Jacob’s dysfunctional family.

And the New Jerusalem itself is simply people

Why else would He write the name of New Jerusalem upon them

If they were not that very city that was prophesied.

And by this we see that the great work of God 

Is not the thing that you build in his name,

It is the thing that you become in the process of trying.

He does not need the earthly things he asks for.

He needs your obedience when he calls.

And the purity of heart that results

From coming through “great tribulation” in His name.

Rev 7:14…these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

Rev 21:12-13 …a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates

I am inclined to sell what sells if it is honest, aren’t you?

And to sell plenty of it so that I can let it rest

At the end of the day

And focus on other things.

After all, I am not smart or clever.

So I had better not try to speculate.

The sun goes down and I want to go to sleep. - Imagine that!

There was more peace in books.

We have lost something 

By displaying motion 

Pictures.

Beneath the sea there are things 

That we don’t know about.

In the unfathomable cold

Of the Ocean Deep,

There is peace,

Peace for you and me,

Peace because we don’t know what lives there,

Peace because we cannot see the things

That swim in the unseeable dark

Of the Ocean Deep.

Yes, there is peace 

In the great tumult of the waves

And the currents that move like highways

In and out and through the thing that we call the sea.

Yes there is peace. And the master of all that is unknown

Sees the things that we can’t see and makes his home 

Amidst the chaos of the thing we can’t perceive.

And for that reason, there is peace

In the things that we don’t know about.

Even in the dark of the unfathomable Ocean Deep.

If I want to connect with Him

I resist the impulse to fill the void with noise.

I sit in silence. But even after all these years, 

It still burns sometimes.

There is a planet where the sun never sets

And it is gold all over.

There is a planet where the light shines from every stick

And the buzzards lay light-filled eggs that glow all over.

There is a future planet,

And on that planet, there is a man whose vest shines 

Like the sun at noonday.

Yes there is a planet where light is everything

And we are going there one day

If we can only leave this world behind us forever,

Leave this world behind forever.

And I am going there today.

Will you come with me

To the planet that shines upon the world of yesterday

And beacons to those who want the light

More than the world of darkness.

Yes, the golden light-filled planet

Shines bright in the heavens of my deepest faith-filled thoughts.

And I see it. I will see it.

And you see it. You will see it.

It is coming for us today.

Yes the golden light-filled planet 

Has come for us today.

I used to try to be good.

But I don’t do that anymore.

Since I don’t know what is good.

God is good. That I know.

And I trust the thing that I am

Because I am not my own creation.

And it seems that though I am not good

That goodness still visits me to spite myself

And I am grateful for that. 

And yet, I also do not throw off inhibition

Because I do love goodness.

I love each lovely thing

That I have always loved.

I cling to every beautiful virtue that I can.

And I let go of the things that I can’t cling to

Trusting that in time they will come to me

To spite my inperfection. In other words,

I believe that He is doing a work in me

And I trust the process.

Everyone wants their marriage to last forever

But to have a forever marriage,

You must stay married

Even when your spouse renigs.

And to do that you must know by the Spirit of God

That faith will do the trick.

And only God can tell you that.

And not everybody is willing to pay such a price.

And not everybody believes that God can make it known.

But for those who do, and those who know, I broach the subject.

For the Adam and Eve relationship functions upon certain principles.

And if we are ever to return to the Garden of Eden,

And to that love which bound our first parents 

In an eternal, never-ending, union, 

We must consider the stuff

That makes it up.