my will be broken

in the forest of experience

the leaves of my heart

rustle wildly in the storm of emotions

the bark of faith keeps me grounded.

reason and actions keeps me safe.

for love is an act of the will

even in the dark storms of emotion

and loving God with abandon, with surrender,

is the only way forwards.

my will is stubborn, obstinate, and self-absorbed,

curling in into myself.

break my will, Jesus, and let yours be done

I am free

Sinking in the black quagmire of despair,

in the swamp of anxieties and 

endless self-absorbed thoughts.

Woe, woe, woe is me.

Like broken shards of a faded mirror,

my broken heart lay upon the dismal soil,

endlessly reflecting myself and my brokeness.

Woe, woe, woe is me.

But one hand, wounded, pierced, bleeding for me,

a Man full broken for love of me,

reached for me and rescued me,

placing me upon the mountain of His love.

And He looked into my eyes

and I looked into His,

and was I redeemed by His love.

I do not worry or fret for tomorrow anymore,

tomorrow's problems are solved by Christ,

God of tomorrow, God of all time.

I think of only the solution not the problem.

You, Lord, are the solution to all my problems,

You are the answer to all my burning questions.

I no longer am bothered

by the dark nights or consoling days.

I no longer look at my brokeness.

I no longer think of myself.

I think of nothing but of God,

I do nothing but love and rejoice and exist in Christ.

For the love of God is mightier than all my brokeness.

I am at peace.

I am free

On my way to church

The sunlight on my face

The light on the city streets

The yellow leaves on the sidewalk

The sudden smell of autumn

The gust of wind rustling the fallen leaves.

On my way to church,

This sudden beauty ambushes me,

With the breathtaking, blinding brilliance

Of the sun at its zenith,

If only for a brief moment.

So too you blaze brilliantly towards me,

In the Eucharist.

Light light light

Lord, thou art light unto my darkness

This is Your love.

This is how You've loved me,

Lord Jesus Christ

Anguished Cry

Today I cried out to myself, and imagined,

(Would it be God telling me something?)

That at my deathbed

I would cry out with anguished heart

That I had not written the words 

God asked me to write

(Or that I had not lived out my days 

In the noble ways 

God asked me to live)

And so I now write, and now live

Before the descent of intolerable regret

Ruminations of a Homesick Poet

I

brain-dump my feelings

and my thoughts

and my worries

onto this page of white. somewhere,

someone, somehow,

has managed to create that

same recognizable sadness in me

that I once felt 

(was it a decade and a half ago?)

when I left one country for another,

leaving all my close friends,

that same gasp of sadness

that I felt on the plane after takeoff

and I realizing that I am now heading

into a life all on my own -

fully supplanted were the ties, the roots,

the friends, the familiarities,

gone at least for now that familiar

sight of pleasant landmarks on the way home

and what is home now

what is

what is home

when all I feel is rootlessness and the 

ruthlessness of a migrant's raw homesickness.

I will soon move on to the next chapter of my life,

and will have to bid farewell to all I have known.

how it hurts

I cannot have what I have always had, forever,

I cannot be where I have always been, forever

I cannot have those who were once my friends

always near me and always friends, forever,

aargh! this I know but how it hurts

how it hurts to let go

of that branch

I have always held, close to my heart,

how it hurts and wounds

my bleeding heart.

presently I am left alone with my thoughts,

or shall I call them emptiness,

and loneliness, and melancholic homesickness -

that homesickness of one 

who constantly longs for home

but belongs nowhere,

uprooted and rootless.

home is for me, it seems at times,

nowhere and never

and do not dismiss this quickly

as the inevitable ruminations

of a melancholic daydreamer

for this is the raw scream and cry 

of a human being who once lived upon this earth -

do not dismiss this my story,

nor dismiss any story,

of any human life upon this earth,

for our songs and hymns are all different,

our journeys look alike but are magnificently different

when we rise to meet God

and journey with him. 

so,

Lord have mercy

    Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

and I suddenly realise

I can find home

only in You,

God,

if only I would let myself in,

in into Your outstretched arms.

and this strengthens my heart,

and I am suddenly healed, uplifted

I miss my home, my family -

I miss you Appa, I miss you Amma,

I miss you brothers and sisters - 

I miss the friends that have moved on,

and the thought that everything I now know

will soon move on just as

everything I had previously known

has moved on,

intensifies my homesickness

nothing will always be the same,

nothing will always be constant and unchanging,

like the ideal home that I long for,

but You, O Christ Jesus,

You will always be there for me

with Your Love, with Your outstretched arms.

You, Jesus,

    are

        home

Cooking for five on a lazy Sunday arvo

I wake up at 2 pm today. I groan.

I feel so exhausted. 

If I hadn't had to cook for five,

I would've slept much longer.

It has been such a long, tiring week at work,

But I need to do it every week, along with my husband,

To support the kids. My husband's still sleeping - 

Snoring, and my three beautiful kids are lost in their own dreamlands,

Sprawled sleeping on the bed.

As a mother of three, life is hard,

I think to myself, but I can't stop, I have to,

I want to, go on, rain or shine, regardless of how I feel.

Love is an act of the will.

I wish Joshua had woken up early

And prepared some food, but he's still sleeping -

Snoring. I head over to the kitchen with a sigh.

I peel up some potatoes wearily,

Boil them, mash them up,

Get some steak ready, and stir fry some veggies.

I put in some dough I'd prepared the day before

And shove it into the oven to get some bread.

I go to sit a while in the lounge, exhausted.

After more than half hour, the bread ends up burnt and quite horrible.

I look at the burnt bread in my hands,

And then at the spotless host in the hands of Christ,

In the painting of the Last Supper in the dining.

I look at the clock. 4.30 pm. 

I bin the burnt bread, and yell, "Wake up everyone!

Get ready for Mass, quick!"

From the crucifix near the clock,

Christ who can feed more people than there are in the world,

Looks at me with kindness and love.

In the distance, in the town, the church bell rings.

It is time for Mass.

In the Fleeting Moments

Crossing the road, 

I wrote about You.

"Jesus is the answer".

Who else would I think of? 

Who else could I write of,

In the fleeting moments of this busy life,

But You