Blue

Blue,

Blue earth,
Blue sky,
Blue moon,
A duck egg,

Blue,
Blue, blue eyes.

Blue sea,

Blue.

Blue,
Down and dark,
Deep,

sad, lonely,

hiding,

bowed down,

Blue.

chaos,

untaimed,

rebellious thoughts

driven,

diving,

a plummeting,

all consuming

dark,

death,

blue.

Blue,

you became blue
You are blue,

you are my blue
You join my downwards
heartfelt,

tears,
You,

who mourn,

shedding tears,

falling like grace

footsteps to my side.
I am joined
You came,
You know,
never alone,

you,

are blue,

within,

without
Blue.


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Dark

There are clouds,

they steal the sun,

they abscond with the light,

they ridicule, they taunt and tease,

unrelenting,

unremitting,

dark, angry clouds.

say to my soul,

stay close,

don't fret,

for the day shall dawn again,

the first light will announce the promise

of new and wondrous things.

as I lie, murmuring and muttering,

cloaked in the dark,

let me pause,

let the sound of my heartbeat,,

the rise and fall of my breath

remind me of the miracle of life,

this treasured gift of being,

and this journey of darkness surrendering

to the hope in Your light and Life.

Jesus is at the door

Take the time to be gracious,

take the time to be loving,

take the time to know the truth,

take the time to recognise your own shortcomings,

take the time to be accepting,

take the time to be merciful,

take the time to be forgiving,

take the time to feel,

take some time for your soul,

take the time to be silent,

take the time to listen,

Jesus is at the door.

Take the time to see,

his hands as they wash your feet,

take the time to see

his tears falling for a friend.

take the time hear

forgiveness' cry of anguish

take the time to hear

his ennobling words to the poor

take the time to feel

his eternal journey to your heart

take the time to be silent,

take the time to listen,

Jesus is at the door.

The Power of Your Love

The Power of Your Love II
Music ©: 1992 Word Music
Words ©: 2004 Geoff Bullock

Verse One:
Lord I come to you,
Let my heart be changed renewed
Flowing from the grace that I've found in you.
And Lord I’ve come to know,
The weaknesses I see in me,
Will be stripped away
By the power of your love.


Chorus:
You hold me close,
You let your love surround me,
You bring me near
And draw me to your side.
And as I wait
I’m rising like the eagle
And I will soar with you
Your spirit leads me on
In the power of your love


Verse Two:
You unveil my eyes,
You let me see you face to face
In the knowledge of your love
As you live, in me.
You renew my mind
As your will unfolds in my life
In living every day
In the power of your love

Verse Three:
Lord you’ve come to all
With hope that shines to light the way
As mercy soothes our souls, healing every heart.
Love that sees the tears
Overcomes our darkest fears
Grace that lifts us up
In the power of your love

Why rewrite the lyrics?
Why tamper with a song that has so much history?
I suppose the answer is because of "this history".
At the time when I wrote this song, which was late August 1990, I was being driven by a desperate need to prove myself. My life was captivated by guilt, and my guilt was a captive to a shattered self esteem, and that self esteem was at the mercy of my obsessive striving and perfectionism. I had to "come to God" more, the "weaknesses that I saw in me" demanded continual penance, and no mattter how I cried "hold me close" I always felt as if I had jumped out of the arms of "Grace and mercy".
It wasn't until late 1996, when my life collapsed around me that I could find the time to realise that I could never "come to God". The Christmas story was surely God's "coming to us", and, in that coming, he had made the choice to "hold us close".
It was with this revelation that grace suddenly started to make sense, and the song needed a rewrite.
The miracle is not "our love for God", it is "His love for us". Our "worship" is not a celebration of "us coming to God", it is our overwhelming awestruck thankfullness of "His coming to us". These grace filled arms that hold a rebellious mankind safe and secure will never let us go. His hands, scarred with religious nailprints, hold us with a love that burns brighter than the universe of suns, a love that refuses to respond according to our deeds, a love that answers our darkness with overwhleming light filled love and life.
My faith has changed.
I no longer base my spirituality on "what I do for God". I am now intoxicated by the all that "God has done for me".

The future's kiss

Light dances across the bay,
Gentle waters, hiss and sing.
Children screaming, running around
In excited circles
Their playful footprints
Joyfully drawn in the sand.

There is a little bird,
He must be hiding in trees,
But his song rings out
It's tune a joyful ode,
So free and so alive.

Me? I am gently sitting,
I am above it all,
My perch, my nest,
Here I am,
And it is altogether wonderful.

Another bird takes the second verse,
He has drawn closer
As if he has read my words,
And I am sitting here,
Breathing, living,
Heartbeat, hearing,
Alive,
Yes so alive.
The pages have turned,
A new day has dawned
The future has embraced my today,
And in so many ways
I am alive.

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I'm grey today

I'm grey today,
I'm sad and withdrawn.
My soul feels so heavy
My mind spins and turns
I'm looking for answers
I'm struggling to see
I'm so grey today
My hope hides her face.

Life dances and sings
Life is silent and drawn
Life is so human
That we fight on our own
Yes, I know there are answers,
Don't remind me to see
My ears have been deafened
By the taunting and fear.

I'm grey today
Even though there is light
So bright is it's shining
So deep is the love,
Yet life is more complex
Than the shallowness of words
I'll take time to return
To the surface again.


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Incarnation

The Incarnation, God becoming man, defines God in such a way that it challenges every thought and every concept concerning deity. The Royal Family travels with kid leather toilet seat covers! World Leaders travel in their own planes, with their own chefs. Rock Stars refuse to play unless they are provided with a multitude of “ego-enhancing” paraphernalia. Super Models stay in bed unless absurd fees are paid.

God spent nine months inside a Jewish Teenage girl!

Grace! Even More grace!

For every broken promise:
grace.
For every dream that died:
grace.
For every failed work:
grace.
For every broken life:
grace.
For all of fallen humanity
grace,
For our shame, our pain,
our troubles, our strife,
our tears, our fears,
all that we cannot do,
all that we fail to do,
our rights and our wrongs,
for our very best and our darkest worst
grace.
for you,
for me
grace.

Transition, "shining or reflecting?"

I tried to stand tall,
stretching as high as I could,
gathering all that I had
into one bright light,
holding it aloft
for all to see.
Perhaps,
if I tried with all my might,
I could be a beacon,
a lighthouse or
a spotlight,
but,
no matter how hard I tried,
all that I had
was the brightness of my shining,
a fading, failing brightness.

It wasn't until I had
stepped down from the pedestal
of my own making
that I realised
I was bathed in your shining.
My brightness was now
a simple refection,
the pedestal,
gone.

You cover me

You Cover Me.

When all is lost
and fears have won,
you cover me
you cover me.
when darkness strikes
and light grows dim
you cover me
you cover me.

and in the midst
of my troubled seas
where storms may rage
overwhelming me

you cover me
you cover me
oh my Lord
you cover me.

when I am lost
love's light has come
you cover me
you cover me
the darkest life
love flooding in
you cover me
you cover me.

and in the midst
of my troubled seas
where storms may rage
overwhelming me

you cover me,
you cover me
oh my Lord
you cover me

We need to understand that there is a huge difference between art, and spirituality. There is nothing wrong with good art, performance and the rest, but we need to point people to the source of their spirituality and make the definition clear.

What we are seeing now is the ART of worship.. it 'feels' good because the art of worship is very effective in making you feel good.

But, it is not worship. It is art about worship. True worship has nothing to do with music, just as much as love songs have nothing to do with love and loving. I believe that true worship is in our response to being unworthy recipients of grace, which is the only way of receiving grace. We can never deserve grace. Grace is freely given and freely received. Becoming gracious, living in and by grace, extending grace and becoming gracious costs us everything.
Sing! Dance! Clap! Cheer!... but always remember our source of inspiration, our foundation of confidence is in the way that the 'living self portrait' of God, Jesus, bestowed grace on a horribly sin stained world.