Abiding Monday

I was not sure if I was going to continue Abiding Mondays.  After all Abide was my word for last year. This is a new year. But as I thought about it some more I realized that even though I have a new word for a new year I do not stop applying the old word to my life. I add the new word, it does not replace the old. And really they go together.  To be Wholehearted I must continue to Abide.  

I have two resources I want to share that helps me in this.  One is a book I have been reading.  "Saying Yes, accepting God's amazing invitation to artists and the church" by Cindy West.  In the book Cindy mentions a friend of hers who is a worship leader, Mark Tedder.  He handed her lyrics to a song of his called

More of You

When I'm lost in need of mercy, more of you, more of you.

When I've wasted time you've given, more of you, more of you

When I've taken more than giving, more of you, more of you

And when I leave before you've spoken, more of you

When I've wandered from your presence, more of you, more of you

When I'm scared in need of clinging, more of you, more of you

As I bring this life that's broken, more of you, more of you

Which led me to seek out the CD titled "The Door" Live worship from Beijing, China with Mark Teddar and the Worshiplanet Band. It includes a CD and a DVD.  It is wonderful. You can get them both through Amazon.  

During the CD and DVD a few poems by Gerard Kelly are recited.  Here is one of them.

HUMANIFESTO

I want to be a grace guerilla, 

no longer a chameleon of karma;

the time has come to stand out from the crowd

I want to give forgiveness a fighting chance of freeing me,

to live in love and live it out loud.

I want to drink deep of the foolishness of wisdom

instead of swallowing the wisdom of fools,

to find a source in the deeper mines of meaning

I want to search out the unsearchable,

to invoke the invisible;

to choose the truths the TV hypnotists aren't screening.

No camouflage, no entourage, no smoothly fitting in

I want a faith that goes further than face value

and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin

I want to be untouched by my possessions

instead of being possessed by what I touch,

to test the taste of having nothing to call mine

to hold consumption's cravings back

to be content with luck or lack

to live as well on water as on wine

I want to spend myself on those I think might need me,

not spend all I think I need on myself

I want my heart to be willing to make house calls

let those whose rope is at an end

find in me a faithful friend

let me be know as on who rebuilds broken walls

No camouflage, no entourage, no smoothly fitting in

I want a faith that goes further than face value

and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin.

I want to be centered outside the circle

to be chiseled from a different seam

to be seduced by another story

and drawn into a deeper dream

to be anchored in an undiscovered ocean

to revolve around an unfamiliar sun

a boom box tuned to an alternate station,

a bullet fired from a different gun.

No camouflage, no entourage, no smoothly fitting in

I want a faith that goes further than face value

and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin

Gerard Kelly


Here's a link to "The Door Project" has some good info and links on it.