untitled need to write

[I don't know why this image grabs me of late]

As I travel
down this strange path
I wonder if the safest way
is shut
I wonder
if I've wondered too far off
as a song replays several of it's lines
hauntingly to me
questioning me
"what do you want?
what do you want?..."
dancing it's way around my head
have I burned a bridge?
is it the wrong one?
am I the one:
"...get your head out of the mud, baby.."
was written for?
is this You, asking?
am I in a zoo?
[is it of my own creation?]
are some of my thoughts
not thought out enough?
a man speaks on Sun.
he speaks my language
the language of music
the language of song
am I a song?
is my story/song a good one?
can you use it?
in our dance...
am I trying to lead?
or have I finally let you lead
or am I full of led?
it's from you
I wish to be fed
even if everyone else thinks
the things you use on me are wrong
I've never found you to make a mistake
[even though I've felt like one]
well...
while I'm dropping lines from a song
I want to be like the girl at the end
as long as the dreams I have are
written by you
in a "g clef" or just as a story
I really want my story
to be in harmony with your great story
my song to be in harmony
with your "theme of the cosmos"
[..& yeah, I "wanna dream out loud"...]

by b.e. noll
[with lyric lines borrowed from the U2 song: Zooropa]

For Matt

I want to post on last Sun. [it was very powerful]. I also want to post on Lent.
For now though, I will post on "this week". Today is my Father's birthday. No matter how old I am, I'm still his kid. We had a wonderful weekend of being together. Lunch on Sun., ENCOUNTER on Fri., & a move on Sat.
Sadly, my friend Matt lost his father on Monday morning.
My earliest memory, is of when my mother, lost her mother, to cancer. [36 years ago, Jan 2nd...I was 4] I remember coming to her, in her room. She couldn't even speak. So I did what I saw Dad do, I held her. When Dad came home, I told Mom I was going to get him. This was the beginning of our family's "group hugs". We just held each other, for quite a while.
My Mother has an old Bible. On the blank pages she has quotes written. Like...
"This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book."
one of my favorites, is from after her mother died.
"Death is not the extinguishing of a flame, it is the turning off of the light, because the dawn has come."
so, hear is a poem, for Matt. [& it's ok if it takes you a while to read this poem &/or post]

to see you again

a new hole
in my life
you
absent
our last good-bye
to last longer
than I would ever plan
to ache
more than expected
I say good-bye
to the shell I once knew
knowing
all the while
the real you
is no longer in there

while I bear much pain
small comfort
that you no longer experience
what is so loud to me now
in your absence
your laugh
now caught
in my memory
I hide it
in my vault
in hopes of remembering it
till I experience
time
outside of time
with you

this
here, then
is our final
good-bye
I cry
I ache
I long
to see you
yet I know
that while this is
our final good-bye
I long for
our final
hello
in a land
beyond time

B.E. Noll

songs... always seem to help me through. so, here are a few...
my favorite Rich Mullins song. [we are not as Strong as we think we are]
Karen sung this at her husband's Father's funeral [she is lead singer of Over the Rhine, her husband is co-founder] Angel Band.
Amy Grant has 2 wonderful songs that have "nursed" me through some dark days:
Better than a Hallelujah
Somewhere Down the Road
My friend Donnie doesn't like this song...when I hear it, I always think of my sister-in-law losing her twins. U2 Walk On
Chris sang this last Sun. ...I love this song [& it's forecast to rain tomorrow]
Healing Rain by Micheal W. Smith

Yahweh,
please walk with Matt & his family tomorrow
surround them with your peace
grace, & unmeasurable, unfathomable,
indefatigable love
Thank you for sending
Jesu to die,
and yet return to life
so that death
can be put
on the endangered species list
thank you that one day
death will die
and no one will morn it's passing
thank you Yahweh
for making a land
where good-bye
is obsolete
thank you
for being you
& loving us.
please bless Matt & his family with sleep tonight
and through the coming days.
amen.

Dad also writes [just not often]. and Encounter

hey, a quick note to family & friends. on page 15 of the above booklet is an article on his latest trip to Guatemala. Written by my Dad. it'll probably be in pdf format soon on LW's "art @ LW blog" in the near future.
Dad, Thanks for writing.
LW thanks for sending [thank you to those who went with him].
Yahweh, thanks for keeping him safe.
DeAnn, thanks for asking him to write, & printing it.

My Dad doesn't write often... I get any writing ability from both of my parents, though. Yeah, I'm a proud...child.
Thankful... for both of my Dads [my Earthly one, & my Heavenly one]

Enounter was wonderful!! I need to get some sleep, yet as I experienced tonight's encounter, I thought of 3 songs from Neal Morse's One disc. Which has an overarching theme of The Creation, fall, & redemption of mankind.
enjoy...
Cradle to the grave [featuring Phil Keaggy]
Parts of this song seem like I wrote them.
"sometimes I wonder, why I was born at all..."
Father of forgiveness
Sung from the father of the prodigal's standpoint.
"who's that
up the road?
the child who went
his own
way
is back
among the living
let's take him back
to the beginning..."

Reunion
I've seen Christ's followers fight each other ...a lot. So I really love the last part,
"on our knee's, with open arms, we worship in one spirit....
make us one." It's a very celebratory song...

May His grace drip from your fingers,
B

"Lending Dad"

My Dad has been going on short term missions trips for a few years now. It does make me nervous sometimes. However, he always seems so energized when he comes home. He will be in one of the booklets that will [hopefully] come out on Fri. night. Talking about his experience in Guatemala.

When you’re gone
I miss you
when you go
I miss your activity
the way you move
like a hummingbird
without wings
Your laugh
the way you lead group
your hugs
I’m glad I get to
share the blessing
of your concern for others
your energy
and “get up ‘n go”
your helping others to feel a part of things
yet
I do miss you
I welcome you back
with open arms
a glad heart
and a
“Thank you Yahweh
for bringing him safely back to me” [-us]
a thank you
to Yahweh
for ever sharing you
with me at all

B.E. Noll

I keep forgetting

I keep forgetting to link my photo blog to this one.
So here's my latest post from last Sat.
B

An "Art Bible"?

Thought I'd post here of my excitement for The Four Holy Gospels. It features paintings by Makoto Fujimura. The only other book I've ever heard of that does this is The Book of Kells. Which is an actual book. I think it's roughly 400 years old. Both have paintings representing the four Gospels [Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John]. I currently have only seen pictures of the covers of such books. And the photos of the paintings from the Book of Kells that appear in Iona's album of the same name. Hearts & Minds has a wonderful post about the book here. You can also go to Mr. Fujimura's website & watch a video/ interview here. When I get it, I may give some thoughts on this work later on...

May His grace drip from your fingers,
B

Valentine's Day & a song 4 a friend

Well. So much to say about Valentine's Day. I used to hate this holiday -even after being married! I'm not into being "made to do something". I should not need a day to remember to "date" my wife. Ok, you get how I felt. Now, though, it's more of "another chance to" spoil her. An "excuse" to come up with a unique, romantic way to show her how important she is. [as only a "strange romantic" like me can scheme it] I took a net of white Christmas lights & hung it from the ceiling of our unfinished basement. hooked up the really old Harmen/Karden receiver & four speakers to my TV/VCR/DVD through the TV's headphone jack. So we'll go down there, probably Fri. night & watch another concert. I scored tix to Brad Paisley in Hershey for this Thurs. He is a really good guitar player, & if he lived here & wasn't famous, we'd get along fine. He has a similar sense of humor to me. However, truthfully, [sorry Brad] I have to confess, I'm really not a "big Brad Paisley fan". I'm a big fan of a Brad Paisley fan.
That's what love does, though. It doesn't say "your mine" so much... it says "I'm yours" [often without the use of lips & vocal chords].

Well, for Mom... & for a struggling friend. Here are the many videos, & lyrics of the closing song from Sun. morning... first video, second, with may J. Blige
ONE
by U2, from the cd: Achtung Baby

Is it getting better,
or
do you feel the same?
Will it
make it easier on
you, now
you got someone to blame?
You say
one love,
one life,
when it's one need
in the night.
One love,
we get to share it
Leaves you baby
if you
don't care for it.

Did I disappoint you
or leave a bad taste
in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
and you want me to go without.
Well, it's
too late
tonight
to drag the past out
into the light.
We're one,
but we're
not the same.
We get to
carry each other,
carry each other...
one

Have you come here
for forgiveness,
Have you come
to raise
the dead?
Have you come here
to play Jesus
to the lepers in your head?
Did I ask too much,
more than a lot
You gave me nothing,
now it's
all I got.
We're one,
but we're
not the same.
Well, we
hurt each other,
then we do it again.

You say
love is a temple,
love a higher law
Love is a temple,
love the higher law.
You ask me
to enter,
but then you make me crawl
And I can't
be holding on
to what you got,
when all you got is hurt.

One love,
one blood,
one life,
you got to do what you should.
One life
with each other:
sisters,
brothers.
One life,
but we're
not the same.
We get to
carry each other,
carry each other.
One,
one.

personal history.
I came to this song first as a song to be sung to "religious people". There are many who just don't like me because I... "see life through a radically different lens". Recently re-listening to the whole disc, Acrobat is a song that also works for me from that time. [a pre- LW era, time. which is where the King's X lyric from a previous post is coming from as well]
Now this got old. Achtung Baby is an album that I got rid of for a while. It came out as my world seemed to be burning down. It became a soundtrack for that. I saw all the songs as about what/who I was loosing [& it never occurred to me, that I should maybe be glad...until much later on].
Only in recent times have I begun healing on a "story wide" level, & can see the songs in different ways & get more meaning out of them. It doesn't seem as dark "this time around". As I have listened to one in a marriage "sense", it seemed wrong for a song about marriage, yet the second video for the song lends itself to a "marriage image". I also see the whole disc as being about marriage.

I currently get to hear one side of a struggling marriage. A marriage ...trying not to die, while not sure if it wants to live. Full of painful questions...& doubt. Some look at my parents & think that they "make marriage look easy". Nothing worth anything, is ever easy. We don't write songs about people who did things that were easy. We don't stand up & cheer for people who did things that anybody could have done. We stand up & cheer for people who faced darkness, doubt, fear, false accusations, painful life experiences... And they said I will not be defined by this. I will not stand by & just let this continue. I will not take the easy way out.
People ask: "any good quotes on marriage?"
My Mother asked me this on my wedding day. I'm sorry that only in the past year or 2 can I truly say "YES" to it.
"Don't marry her, because you can live with her.
Don't marry her, because you can't live without her.
marry her, because no one will love her like you will."
[I've told Mickey many times, in tears, the only man who loves you more than me...
has holes in his hands]

Love is not a woman walking down the aisle in a white dress,
it's kneeling next to the toilet, @ 3:30 in the morning,
with her hair in 1 hand, & a towel to wipe her mouth in the other.
Love isn't pretty, it's pretty necessary. We all need it [whether we say so... or not].

Pastor Steve has 2 of my favorite sayings on love:
#1. If you are better tomorrow than you were today, God won't love you any more,
and if you are worse tomorrow than you are today he won't love you any less. Because God loves you to the maximum.
#2. It may be a "match made in heaven", but it has to be lived out here on Earth.

to anyone struggling tonight, hang in there. It is worth it [& so are you]
Bono says it better here...
May his grace drip from your fingers,
B