Where can I put my stuff?
I need a place for my hopes and fears,
My television shows and craft beers,
My books and games and lusts and pain,
My car and wife and kids, all vain
Compared to the value of having
Nothing twixt me and God
Except a sheet of homelessspun.
I hate hate hate them all –
That’s right, isn’t it, if I love
God enough to make up for it?
He promises to give me back
An hundred-fold of what I lose,
Not that I need any of it.
A loaf of bread in a jug of wine,
and Thou, and Thou, and Thou…
I gave it all away, all the stuff
That filled my space and mind,
And found it all still in my heart,
Not clogging it, but the heartbeat,
The thing that actually gives life,
Put there for my salvation,
Not obstacles, but stepping-stones
And angel-wings to Heaven.
- The previous parts of this series, Climbing the Ladder on Trochaic Feet, can be found here: http://trochaicfeet.blogspot.com/
- 3.2
Those who have come to love the Lord are at first unceasingly and greatly disturbed by this thought, as if burning with divine fire. I speak of separation from their own, undertaken by the lovers of perfection so that they may live a life of hardship and simplicity. But great and praiseworthy as this is, yet it requires great discretion; for not every kind of exile, carried to extremes, is good.