From: guay@fraser.sfu.ca (Tim Guay)
Subject: Journey
Summary: A Christian poem offered as sharelit
Keywords: poem, Christian, sharelit
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:44:04 GMT



                   JOURNEY OF MORTAL DUST
                              
                          by Tim Guay

                         Copyright 1992
                              
Eight hundred times the sun risen and set.
Since the day my Lord I've met.
Who set my course a narrow path's traversal.
Many and hard the lessons learned.
In my difficult struggle heavenward.
Like Dante through hell I've traversed.
Confronted by the foul stench of my sordid sins.
Tortured by conscience's fiery sting.

Struggling, as a fly in a web, to cast off binding chains.
Chains of iniquity, pain, and guilt.
Forsaken and forlorn, to God I cry.
I love you, give me your burdens
my Lord responded, pitying mortal dust.
Little of my burden can I give oh Lord.
For too tightly bound by chains of guilt and fear are they.
Help me with these sorrowful chains.

These chains, thirty-one in number when my Lord I've met.
Each of 365 links, forged one a day.
Shackled together by fear and hate.
Polished by self-pity's tears.
Shed throughout my sorrowful years.
Link-by-link I've forged these, link-by-link I shed these.
Each broken by the hammer of God's trials.
Against the anvil of my soul.

Mortal dust surrounds the essence of the spirit.
Blown by the winds of change.
The breath of supreme good.
Yet buffeted by the contrary winds of wordliness and fear.
The things of this word are but tinsel's worth.
Yet a shiny lure for mortal fish to bite.
Dark envy, ravenous greed, shallow materialism.
Danced through the turbulent seas of my mind.

From within and without, avarice's folly is seen.
Is happiness in material gain.
No, in the love of God and good friends is happiness.
They that pursue material gain chase empty air.
Away from the heavenly fountain of happiness.
Does wealth add a day to life.
No, but its pursuit will cost a few.
God's hammer falls, a link is broken, a chain is shed.

Vanity, vanity, insecure vanity.
Toil endlessly to buy the latest.
Toil endlessly to be the latest.
Toil for power and prestege.
We race to build the biggest pile of moth-eaten rust.
Toiling to forge the shackles that bind us.
To this worthless world.
Distaining the Divine treasury eternal.

Fearfully insecure, hide from the world.
To be what we're not.
Masks we wear, to hide our pain and fear.
Hidden behind brave, trite masks.
God knows, his sight penitrates all our masks.
Hide not from others, nor from self.
Cast off the masks, be real.
Break off insecurity's fearful chain.

Envy, a futile feeling.
For it is but the other's trappings one sees.
And faulty supposition that from pain the other is free.
Can one see the other's agony.
And the turbulent currents of their mind's seas.
How vain to suppose that to one
that pain is a unique possession.
Cast off this chain that God's hammer broke.

Crys of agony from a throat of woe.
Agony from self-pity's dagger thrust.
Feeling the victim.
Feeling that life's unfair.
Self-centered bewailings.
Time wasted dwelling on life's horrors.
And not on how to solve the problems.
Stuggling to disentangle myself from this tearful chain.

Self-pity, a crippling waste.
Not trusting Divine providence.
Vain selfishness.
Flagellating self. Waste. Waste.
Though free, gloriously free.
I still trip over self-pity's chain.
God, dear God save me from me.
And help me rid myself of this chain, once and for all.

Lungs struggling, clogged.
By that demon Nick O'teen.
A hazy tarry chain forged 40 links a day.
Enslaved this mortal dust.
A harsh master demanding obedience.
With God's help and a friend tried and true.
I rebelled against master Nick.
And this broken chain from me I did kick.

Oh habit's slavery, mankind's bane.
As sheep to the slaughter, we innocently approach.
A siren's song of hidden slavery.
Then trapped in a habit's snare.
Woe, woe, woe, booze, drugs, tobacco.
Has driven many to the grave.
After many years a slave.
But God proclaims an emancipation decree.

Hard service this world demands.
The years' toll, our spirit's burden.
Time grinds us back to the dust we were.
Scurrying, chasing meaningless wind.
Until eternity claims our souls.
Our fate tied to knowledge.
The saving knowledge of the Divine Name.
Jesus, that precious name above all names.

Who requires only faith.
As payment for passage to paradise.
The mass of myriad galaxies.
Are but a drop in the bucket of Divine love.
Heaven's glory he cast aside.
Nailed to Judian timber with Roman iron.
For unworthy dust his blood was shed.
Even for one, he would have joined the dead.

Are we not the reason for His sacrifice.
Jew and gentile, all of humankind.
Are implicitly responsible for His sacrifice.
For if we could meet the Divine requirements.
His death would not have been needed.
Though we share in His death.
We also share in His resurection.
And share in His sonship.

Blessed theology, most sacred branch of philosophy.
Whereby we ponder the inponderabe.
And ask the unanswerable.
Oh of what use is this pursuit.
That most worthy of pursuits.
The study of the Divine Lord of all.
Study that clears the mind's cobwebs of worldliness.
And opens the mind to the bracing light of Divine Knowledge.

Oh theology, precious map.
That guides straight and true.
Past the dead-end of error and the pit of heresy
Precious map, of 66 signposts.
Pointing to the Divine destination.
Sacred theology under the Divine Spirit's guidance.
Do we study and thirst for
your refreshing doctrines.

That most terrible obverse.
Gilt-covered leaden docrines of legalism.
That hollow travesty of holiness.
Satan's subtle snare.
Vain, vain self-righteous pride.
These neopharasees act hypocritically.
Weep oh Lord, for your children in sublime error.
Repent, He cries, of this false vanity.

Oh that sorry lot, cringing, pelted.
By self-righteous stones, cast at one another.
Blindly they read your Word.
In vain presumption they usurp the Lord's judicial reign.
In vain arrogance they spit in the face of grace.
These neopharasee, bringers of woe.
Their damage wrought the Holy See.
Now they assail Luther's Mighty Fortress.

Grace sweet grace shall prevail.
Slumbered through the catholic night.
Awakened in reformation's morning light.
Sweet gift of God we humbly recieve.
For it is not by merit's sake.
That Divine love in our heart awakes.
Praise His mighty love, that he should stoop.
To live within us.

The unassailable love for mortal dust.
Not blown away by Divine wrath.
But cradled in loving hands of grace.
He asks nothing but faith.
And grants us even that.
Awesome grace marks the way.
To our Divine destination.
Grace we recieve and grace we're to give.

For as He is to us, to others we must be.
Love, love conquores all.
Love, love Satan's downfall.
A galaxy we are, drawn together by Divine love's gravity.
Oh liquid scarlet love, my Savior's blood.
Consecrating this corrupted earth.
A hand of fellowship he extends.
A hand of fellowship we extend.

His love flows to the universe's end.
A love that no sin can unbend.
A fiery love burns away what is not.
A well-spring of love floods our being.
Rejoice oh mortal dust, on love's quest.
For what we seek, we have found.
And there's plenty enough to go around.
We bask in humble awe, in Divine love's warmth.

Beautiful sentiments I speak.
Look in the mirror my mortal dust.
In me perfection I do not see.
Guilty of loving conditionally.
Loving those good to me, hating those not.
Do I act hypocritically.
True, but freely I confess this sinful fallacy.
As God shatters a hateful link.

Oh hate, that most murderous sin.
Oh hate my Achillies heel.
Chronic sin, savored with relish.
Steeped in childhood memories.
Get out of my life, hateful poison.
That poisons my thoughts.
Begrudgingly surrendered to my Lord's love.
Break this chain oh Lord, shatter another link.

Chain of hate, I yearn to divest.
God's hammer shatters link-by-feverish link.
Curse you malace, my spiritual bane.
Hope, blessed hope, illuminated in Divine light.
Hate retreats, driven out by grace.
Slowly the chain loosens.
Still, its bitter links coil around.
In God I hope that soon it will not surround.

Divine meditation.
Meditate on his awesome infinitness.
Meditate on his ultimate power.
That the ruler of the universe, God Almighty.
Cares about me, one in five billion.
Knows more about me than I do.
Awesome, infinite God.
Yet loves each mortal dust.

Such an amazing thing to see.
That the King of the universe came down.
And went through death's agony.
Rather than deny Himself fellowship with we mortal dust.
Incomprehensible love, ill-deserved by us.
Also to show the way out of the grave.
And though the valley of the shadow of death.
Into Divine eternal life.

A humbling thought, that we are so precious in his sight.
That God turned away His own Divine wrath.
And paid sin's righteous penalty.
So He could forgive without compromise.
Thus we are of priceless worth to Him.
Of such worth, that He paid his creation's ransom.
With His very life's blood.
A transfusion, to revive His perishing creation.

Imagine the universe, 14 billion light years in diameter.
We haven't found its boundry, nor likely ever will.
Awesome is this creation, far more awesome is its Creator.
Yet the Creator of the universe, values us so.
That He wants an intimate relationship with each of us.
Contemplate this if you will, and take His lead.
Love yourself as He loves you, so you may love others.
See yourself as precious, for He sees you as precious.

We of finite minds, fall into a subtle snare.
As we grapple with God's infiniteness.
Rather that viewing God one small part at a time.
Aware that we can view only a small part of His infinity.
We cram God into the mold of a finite image of our making.
An image graven into our minds.
What small faith can one have.
If one's god is such as this sorry mental idol.

Cast out this finite idol.
Contemplate if you will, a God.
Who holds the universe in the palm of His hand.
With room for plenty more universes.
Do not try and grasp all of God with a finite mind.
Rather meditate on His infiniteness, knowing
that the biggest thing you can imagine
is but an atom to Him.
We can only glimpse small parts of Him.

Divine meditation.
Awsome. Awsome. Awsome is our God.
Who always was, who always will be.
Holy. Holy. Holy is our God.
Who knows all, sees all, made all.
Mighty. Mighty. Mighty is our God.
Who set the galaxies a spinning, and the stars alight.
Humbling thoughts for mortal dust.

Guilt, the two-edged sword.
God's edge, a surgeon's scalpel cutting flesh.
To expose and excise cancerous sin.
Satan's edge, an assassin's dagger.
Thrust into an innocent heart.
Maiming, cruel, painful dagger.
The difference;
Before repentence it is of God, after it is of Satan.

Loneliness, most cruel of emotions.
A cold, empty pain.
Though God is in me, it is hard to connect.
With someone with no skin on.
Still, even with many people around.
Lonlyness can still abound.
Why is this so.
In a word, communication.

To communicate with God, others, and self.
Is the key to dispell lonlyness.
This must start with God, with His help.
Next comes communicating with self.
Can one truely know another if one doesn't know self.
No.
How can one know self.
By knowing God, who will teach you about yourself.

Divine meditation.
God's knowledge of the human experience.
Is not an abstraction, but rather.
It is from His own experience.
For He became one of us.
And shared life's travails with His mortal dust.
That He would do this boggles the mind.
That one so Divine, would share our mortal experience.

This is comforting to know that He truely understands.
Our human experience, our hopes, our fears.
When I pray, He hears with experience's understanding.
And gives replys that match.
He's been part of life's parade, and now hovers above.
One that truely understands what I feel.
And has compassion, for He knew sorrow and want.
As well as joy and plenty.

Truely, truely we are blessed.
With a most wonderous God.
A God of ultimate power, yet of tender love.
Infinite, yet intimate.
A God of righteous judgement, yet of grace.
Such a sublime Divine dichotomy.
Truely my journey with God has been wonderous.
As will the rest of the journey of this mortal dust.

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                        A NOTE FROM YOUR POET

Please feel free to pass this poem along. If you like it,
and if you want to support a Christian poet, please feel
free to send a couple of dollars to me. Your donation will
greatly be appreciated. My address is:
          
          Tim Guay
          Dept. of Communication
          Simon Fraser University
          Burnaby, B.C.  V5A 1S6
          Canada

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