Hear My Prayer

I’m in distress, a test at best, causing me stress I’m blessed, something that I must confess, a mess; my sinful essence amidst your holy presence, revealed by your luminescence, I feel your omnipresence! But woe is me, like the prophet said, I’m more dead than dead, for I’ve been mislead by myself! I need help from the Mighty One, I am undone, Lord, let your will be done! Here we go, not slow, just a constant flow of the things I’ve done wrong since you told me to “go” this I know, Lord, I’ve spurned your blessings, yet all my regretting never teaches me lessons I need to know! It’s been too long since I’ve picked up a pen, while all the time ya boy kept stumbling in sin. I’ve taken your grace and I’ve spat in your face, God-I’m so evil that I’m cursing in haste! What makes you love a piece of CRAP like me? When I miss the opportunities you’ve given me the vision to see! Dear Lord Jesus, the sinner’s savior, please change my behavior, teach me to be like you! I’ve deserted your word, I’m beyond absurd; I’m broken, you’ve spoken, let my faith be awoken! TO the glory of Christ, by the will of the Father, who decided to bother, and listen to this pathetic prayer, written in sin’s lair, with fear and reverence knowing I’m not alone, let me keep giving You glory until you take me back home. Amen.

Maschil

Is being sad and mad really a fad? Or could our mind be in a state that’s really bad? Maybe it’s because you never knew your dad. Maybe there’s some love you never really had. Maybe there’s abuse you hide inside your heart. Maybe you see no end, and don’t recall a start.

Do you ever cry and wish that you would die? Do you feel that what you’re told is always a lie?

When you went to look for God did the church push you away? And make you feel like you didn’t belong there anyway. And did it make you feel like no one was left? No one who understands your pain in all of its depth.

This is my contemplation, something man has faced ever since creation-question life from its very foundation, but do we know that our frustration is keeping us from elation?

There’s so much more to life than this because something greater does exist though we may be thrown amiss from life’s abyss.

It feels sometimes my mind, I can’t find, like I’m clouding up my message…with all of these rhymes, yet behind this black ink is a man who’s entwined to this pain that’s exclusive to the race of mankind.

How do you know who you are, if you don’t know where you’re from? And how come life is so hard for some? Yet violence was exhibited to the True Son of Man, ill with the plan rooted deeper than the rocks in the sand. Look at His hand-eternal scars that show the love you demand and fulfill your every need? Dawg I promise He can! Look at your eyes, tears falling like rain from the skies, He’ll wipe your tears away and then He’ll call you His prize, I hope you realize-this is the Truth, I got no reason to lie. It’s just what I feel, and I can promise it’s real; emphatic thoughts fit to call it a Maschil.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace, He took my place, and one day I’ll see His glorious face

It brings tears to my eyes, the fact that He died, this is the night that I cried

But what does He need? He’s the antithesis of greed, In Him I see

His unconditional love for me; I suck at life, in constant sin and strife

No wife yet sex tempts me, like pillow fights, yet He loves, I’m alright

Lord cast my sin from Your sight, this night I’ll see His fervent might

And in Humility gasp at His exalted height and in awe ponder how He

Comes down like a kite; to mend my shattered soul as I tremble in fright

He’s Jesus Christ, do you know Him? The Lamb of God who fought the ultimate fight

He’s my King, vindicator, who wraps His arms around me tight

Do you believe me? He supersedes me! He’s the reason I write!

He prepares my hands for battle, sits me on the saddle, my heart’s addle

Because my sin rows me away from God like a paddle

That’ll get you upset, don’t fret, our sin is not a threat

Cause on the cross Christ smoked it out, like a cigarette

And no longer a silhouette of the father of lies

But in Christ we’re made sweet like honey from beehives

God is beyond time and space, yet Israel is His chosen race

And we’re included in this place cause Christ came to replace

Our disgrace and embrace our soul with His Gospel, of Amazing Grace

The Untitled Work of My Soul

I believe in rap. It is the conduit between the soul and reality. It shows how noise works by design. It is an expression; it molds words and sounds into meanings that are inexpressible any other way. Its very essence is passion.

In terms of music, it has given me a home. Back in 2000 I was in Houston, Texas at a Christian bookstore where I was introduced to a group of guys who changed how I viewed this genre, and more importantly, my faith in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It was a group who called themselves The Cross Movement. The way they used words was unlike anything I had ever heard; when the tracks were done I was so moved that my eyes were filled with tears. Many people don’t understand this genre, and at the mainstream level today, neither do I. However, there are some people who hold true to its origins, and eloquently show its art form. It’s poetry in music, and I can prove it; please don’t be turned off by those who abuse it.

I am a sucker for metaphors and am like an addict for similes. It is so easy to know of God, but yet so much more to know God. And though I hate cliché statements, this is one that strongly applies to my soul. In their song, “Off the Hook,” The Cross Movement slapped the conceited religion I had claimed all my life right off my face. The song creates the setting of a courtroom where said rapper is being persecuted by “Chief Justice Supreme Judge Elohim.” In rap form, the court case unfolds with a guy who has been convicted of not knowing who God is. Once convicted and set to go to death row, the Judge takes off His robe and goes in place of the rapper to be executed. The song is too deep to be explained in a mere paper and should be listened to by anyone who is intrigued to know more. The closing line of the song stays in my mind to this day. “Sin’s got the lock, but God’s got the key.”

A “good” rapper presents all of the parts of speech in every verse. He plays with word play, juggles with verbs, and dances with nouns. Syllables line up with beats like planets in a science fiction novel; you feel cooler than ice cold while creating verses that are hotter than fire. It is the paradox of paradoxes, a musical anomaly. Rap is a beautiful art form; this art forms words that fill an empty mind like low-lying creeks in a rain storm. Rap gives the freedom to escape from the typical linguistic rules that bind the mind; rap takes language that seems to be held captive at conveying a message and sets it free. When free, words can flow in a spiritual stream toward Truth. It gives the freedom to rap about a courtroom where I was convicted of not know who God is, yet in Grace, the Judge took off his robe and died for me. I was told about being justified out of mercy all because He loved me. What kind of love is this? It is revolutionary! This is what The Cross Movement did to my soul through the grace of God, and is the very reason why I believe in Rap.

A Relativistic Manifesto

The rasp and dreary night finally came to a close; the perverted truth that escalades the spirit through the realms of intellectual thought made it a mockery. Irony in its greatest form; I am awake and starring at the ceiling. I feel weightless, but is it from my somnolence or has reality itself been changed? Am I present in some Hollywood movie where my own personal “Matrix” has been altered? What of the world? What of Life? If I remain lying, will the endless rhetoric my mind offers me cease, or should I leave this melodramatic dwelling place? I got up.

I went to brush my teeth and realized that they were already clean; in fact, I was in no need of shower or change of clothes. I felt full. The chores of life were already complete before me. I left my dorm room to find that all the traffic signals were gone and people were driving crazy like Starsky and Hutch. It was quite a battle to cross the street from Royster to the main campus of Gardner-Webb University. I found myself entering class only to find that no one was there except the teacher who, strangely, told me to leave. Finding this odd, I walked out into a giant riot forming on the quad. There were two groups of students gathered. One group of students was completely nude and the other fully clothed. The nude group was supporting this new “world” while the clothed group was fervently against it. The emotions escaladed and eventually protest evolved into violence. It first began with punches, but punches became stabs, and stabs became death. But in all of this, there was no stability. The moral hand was all but severed. I watched in fear of my own life for what if the crowd saw my disbelief and I were to succumb to their debauchery? I just witnessed murder that was without remorse. What was wrong with this world of which I found myself a part?

Running off toward Main Street, the uncanny feeling reverberated once again. Cars were flipped over and every store was broken into, vandalized, and wiped clean of its goods. The doorway had been opened for all sorts of ungodliness. I was only witnessing the greeting room.

I dared not go back to my dorm to try and salvage my possessions for I knew they were lost by now. Nature began working in reverse. The beautiful blue sky darkened into deep red, and the sun slowly faded away. Earth was cold now. I wondered desperately what was going on. The dark sky no longer showed forth the illumination from heaven’s lights. The animals experienced these phenomena also. The birds gathered and flew down low to the ground, running into buildings. It was as if they thought they were doing everything right, but they were blind to the fact they were much too low to the ground to fly.

Searching through the debris I found a T.V. set flickering information from a news channel. “Lawlessness” was the headline. The first answer to any question I had asked all day was finally before me. This disarray was not exclusive to my college. It was an epidemic. The entire world was a victim to this plague. Money lost its value as the world’s economy collapsed because people lost reverence for all things in life. The rainforests were finally being wiped out. Charities were liquidized, not for the money, but for the sheer fact that apathy killed their soul. On and on the headlines passed by my weary eyes; so this is what we always wanted? Marginalization abroad: of government, of nature, of humanity.

Life was a question and a void was its answer. I stood there, staring blankly at that T.V. screen. A new language was being formed and every word translated into it was “death.”