[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Who do you say that I am?
I heard, WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
I AM, YOU ARE
who I am when I fall apart,
when I have… nothing. left.
but the shell of an earthen vessel
beneath my chest
will my heart still pound like life so loud?
my ears ache - ‘cause your eyes
stare into mine and ask
WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
I AM, YOU ARE
well, I know who you were when I was
5
and I don’t know if you still stay
confined to the flannel-graph and a
cartoon shepherd sketch outline, I
colour in your robe with my crayons, red
wax pushed to the black line
wax is my heart now melted on the inside
next to my
bones. out. of. joint. parched. roof. of. my. mouth. tongue.
sticks and I’m
too dry to proclaim - what
faithfulness?

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM
your face close to mine I felt that breath at 15 
hot and pulsing like fire on my
cheeks,
if
I’m just a story
what do I believe my author speaks?
I used to believe I was in a love story, and by love I mean
the sequel, the falling out of love story
so I fluctuated between wanting to please
and wanting it ease
-y. I heard you were the easy life
I mean, not easy but maybe
I can pretend to forget about my
hulled out heart here and not have to
do my part here, and accommodate a few brick walls here
just uncomfortably, comfortable
So I stayed here, feet up and I said you were alright here
like that old picture, dusty hanging off a nail behind my door
I don’t remember what I put you there for.
I wanted to believe in heaven but still keep you hidden
like my heart, you can have this part and maybe my timid tendencies
but I want to keep
vanity, self-protection and ease

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
I’ve heard stories about your distance and that my sin
creates this chasm
So by now maybe my grand canyon of a life has
pushed you away for good,
I used to hope so, I used to hope
in everyone leaving like the last
So I could feel sorry for myself and say “See, He never comes through, He doesn’t care He doesn’t hear.”
But you did and you do and you kept on coming over and you kept on coming through
So I couldn’t deny all the distance wasn’t you, my feet
were the only ones running.
Keep asking me:
Who do you say that I am?
Who do you say that I am? I am you are
You don’t stop asking
Cause one day I’ll get the answer right.

Hotter and closer, you’re almost inside of me, but
This time you’re laughing
because you’re not threatened by my hiding
Fear, like a fig leaf over my well,
Who can hide anything in the sunlight? And even my shadow was to weak to conceal
what I thought kept you from me.
You see and you laugh
because I thought you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me
and drag me through the mud home
But it was more like the smile of a confidant father
waiting for the silhouette of his prodigal son
Who can hide anything in the sun?

WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?
Now I’m almost 23 and I’m not sure Ive got it all figured out but
I’ve learned to stop figuring it out
trying to learn to stop fighting doubt
stop fighting my enemies it took me 23 years to find out they
could never kill me
Give way to this breath you’ve been, breathing into lungs, piercing eyes
sharper than the tip of a sword through your
side
Death crucified, when I step out of the way of my own life
not mine, because, Who do I say you are?
You are I am
And I am because You are
Pull me off that rusty nail, behind the door, dusting myself off I want to pull you out and show you off
Bathe me in identity
Clothe me in your love
I’m not sure I’ve got it all figured out but this is what I’ve got so far….

(C) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm
Music; Signalling Through the Flames - The American Dollar

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Rediscovered this old, poor recording of mine, of poem turned spoken word.. by now this would be more appropriately titled ‘309 days’ ago (or so).  We’re always fluctuating, gaining and receding like the tides, when the water’s low and the seabed’s dry, don’t let it be any indication that we’ll always stay that way because we won’t always stay this way. And God’s too good to give up on us..
—-

83 Days-
I read the words I wrote once, once I believe was 83 days ago, or so,
when your wind whistled tunes meant only for me, for only I could hear that
brilliant symphony
83 days ago, or so,
I walked through the grocery store and I swore I wasn’t me, but you
you were really me,
you were really inside my footsteps, not my footsteps anymore
but the pace of heavens heartbeat
I read the words I wrote once, once one Sunday
when I did all I could to keep myself from jumping in front of the choir to declare,
“He is so much better than what you sing about and He is so much sweeter than what we talk about here.
I know.”
I know because 83 days ago or so,
I knew that I knew that You lived in my veins and my only worry was that they were too narrow to contain
You glory.
That the abundance of Your presence would somehow bring me to Your pearly gates too early
It was only 83 days ago or so
Your Son beamed through my teeth and people stopped to ask me, “How did you get this way, your heart so lively?”
“He’s the colour your eyes search to see, how we can’t explain the depths of space or map the movement of the sea,
He’s the laugh you share with a friend and the power of grace to save both you and them,
He’s death and rebirth
He’s the removal of a veil
He’s warmth in a held hand
the Captain, wind and sail.”
I’m remembering as I read the words from 83 days ago, how
I didn’t pray, each breath exuded prayer
and gratitude
I didn’t preach, my eyes screamed of Your possibility
I didn’t debate, Your truths to precious to waste
I didn’t study, You taught me everything in skies and lakes
I didn’t “make time for You”, You were each second that I lived
I didn’t have to point Heavenward,
Heaven bled out of every cell, glance and word
And everyone wanted a part
A sweet plagiarism, you shared the diction of your lips
and made my mouth move in congruence to tell of your faithfulness
My beauty was pockmarked but I still had the courage to say
That You still saw it all as Good, for we are all still made.
And that was 83 days ago,
Call it cynicism, but it’s hard to gaze on goodness forever
When doubt is a friendly enemy, and stands more eager than my endeavors
I can’t remember save these words I’ve written,
The feeling I used to sing about, off key, cleaning my bathtub
And the way I spewed utterances in languages angels dream up
that was 83 days too long ago.
It’s easier today at my desk to study, and write down words that mean nothing
It’s easier to talk about You now, and map You down to conceptions
Of what someone else once knew
And what I read in a book once
And what a preacher went through
Now I speak sentences to ask for things when I can find the time
“Lord, I need less pain, more opportunities,
..a sure sign”
I’ve learned to speak so effectively, everyone nods and understands
But no one there will ever stop to wonder at any mystery inside of them
Because now I can look past a child eyes
and not even think to see You inside
I can walk past a man sleeping in the street
and not even stop to feel my own heart beat
I don’t believe you change just like
83 days doesn’t change when the sun will rise
instead it’s the tilt of the earth that affects our time
so 83 days can’t make You less near
but 83 days have made me feel less here

And I guess this is my confession as I remember
my old strength - YOUR old strength
Timeless as the weathered ages,
Thank You for these 83 day old pages
Thank You for reminding me, remaining in my bones
Forgive me for the times that I’ve forgotten that I can always come home.

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm
Song: You Are My Home - The Sleep Design

“ The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross  (via thatkindofwoman)

(Source: misswallflower, via thatkindofwoman)

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Who are You?
How do you see?
and what can be written
to equal the sum of our years?
and where is the timeline
that keeps the imprint of my footsteps? 
Did you see 3 days ago
when I sat in that hospital room
and said out loud that I was angry at You? 
and that Your promises do nothing to
address the reality of our ache, but are the definition of
brokenness themselves
Or do You prefer the memories of when 
I shrugged the worn wineskin off my back
and smiled
and turned my face to the sun
and felt you filling every limb with 
the blood of heaven
pulsing too quick through my narrow veins
Or do You still see me when I was too young
to get myself into anything
that could not be fixed with an orange pop and maybe
some superglue, when doubt hung on the hangers
that only adults could reach
But I am an adult now, they say
And I am not supposed to believe this way
Or do you have something else in mind?
Am I in your mind 40 years from now
When the spotted skin of my hands, loose, shows some sort
of wisdom in its cracks?
A wisdom that will finally override the fear of my selfishness  
Then with white linen
Will I have proven myself to be true?
Is it just the culmination of days that
lends us our pardon? and rolling of years
that affords us maturity? is the gift of
our staying here to labour through the night
simply, age?
Or does age just offer us a longer time to 
build up our libraries, facts 
and erroneous volumes of notions
of You
But what do you do with a girl
Who feels You so deeply but cannot see you
I feel You so deeply, 
Your talons dug into my flesh at birth
and my skin has already grown over Your grip
But where are You in those whom I love?
And how can love mean anything when mine
doesn’t reach far enough?
Did it reach far enough, when I was 10 and still able
to make my dad happy?
Will it reach far enough when I don’t know anyone I know now
and when I can do things on my own 
and feel a little less dependent  
But will You still get all the credit? 
How do You see? Really?
I mean do You see us like lilies their beauty 
precious because they’re fleeting
Do You see us like warriors, our battle wounds
something like your own?
Do You see us like waves, reliant on the next one
and following obediently the orders of the moon?
Do You see us like children, clear eyed and smoothed skin
not worn by life and inherently always worthy of someone’s
affection?
Do You see us like a clear day? Or like the switch in a violent
mans rage?
Are we real to You? Or characters in Your story?
Are we good to You? Or burdens to Your glory?
I meant what I said when I said I didn’t think You were true.
But thats no fault of Yours, the trueness I’m seeing through
Is just a fiction of my own
The joy I was told, was confused for satisfaction
The peace I was told, was confused for knowledge
The love I was told, was confused for control
It was none of these.  
So You are not falling apart, my Love
But my stories are.
So You have not lied to me, my Heart
But my formulas have
So You are not untrue, my King
But our interpretations are
And You are not distant, my Strength
But my ideas are getting to be
Your arm is not to short nor your eyes to weak,
my own however, may be. 
And You are not unjust
But my conception of how I can make You make me happy
was.
So to You, Your will, not mine
be done
And who am I to say you didn’t make my life 
the right way?
And who am I to believe, that the created can see farther
know beyond
and tell precisely
the Creator how to carve His art
(for I have never held a gouge in my hand)
or the Sailor how to set His sail
(for I have not been a day at sea)
What colour to choose for sky, 
(if I have yet to see one.)
Or what Love should look and feel like,
when all I’ve thought of love
was actually 
a pursuit of gluttony
So to You, Your will, not mine
be done…

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm

              “…All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.” Hebrews 11:13

Song: Moksha by Caspian

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

stop-listen-and-learn:

Levi The Poet - Leviathan Grew Up Inside of A Broken Home

Seventeen years younger and as carefree as you can be, that tricycle rolls around Date street – over all of his father’s worries. How he smiled when he saw that tricycle! How he smiled when I saw that tricycle! How his heart melted over his bipolar soul when his seed learned to ride that tricycle!

Bicycle! How he smiled and his smile grew wider as he ran behind that bicycle – holding the seat of that bicycle – while his seed screamed, “Don’t let go of me and my bicycle!” How his chemicals got the best of him when he finally let go and his [in]dependant son learned to ride on his own. How his seed pedaled further and further down the street and he watched, and he would have like to believe that his eyes beamed with pride, but they beamed with sadness and those wheels kept on spinning past need and dependency.

I picture. I picture my father, healthy, healthy, sitting next to my mother behind a closed bedroom door where I can’t see… and he stares down at his hands and he buries his face in them and he’s wondering where the time goes – where the end of four years left him without a bike to hold on to, while his boy rides the red and silver memory down the street, wondering where his gift of a bike that he can’t hold on to anymore will take his boy.

I hear his chemicals rip apart at that feeling of being wanted that he kept close to his heart, and he can’t take his eyes off of his cracked fingers that his seed doesn’t need to steady the seat anymore, because his boy can do it on his own.

I wanted to tell the tale as detailed as the demons did with those four white walls as their canvas.

Well, my father’s father was a failure! And his mother loved her lover more than she loved her sons. My father is nearing the end of a good fight that he’s fought since the beginning: a far better man than the one he feared he might become. Glendora will always be the place his brain fragmented, and China will always be the place that he felt whole. Beijing will be the place the devil tried to fight it, and my mother will always be the keeper of his soul. Well, I just want them to grow old together, to sit on the front porch of their home together, to laugh about how my sister was the far more responsible child; to reminisce of how much we’ve grown.

You’ve still got to marry me and my wife, and you’ve still got to walk your daughter down the isle and give her to a man that you trust enough to take care of your little girl. You’ve got to see the smile on her face when she sees the smile on mom’s face when she sees the smile on your face as you give away your world. We’re all riding our tricycles, bicycles through these streets and we’re all gradually letting go. I know it doesn’t make it any easier, but you are not the failure that your parent’s were and I’d have never learned to ride on my own.

Well, how frail are these bodies! (And with your hand turned against me…) We blossom like a flower and then whither in the winter and like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear. If I hold my head high, you hunt me like a lion, and even if I try, I can’t feel you when you say that you’re near. My days fly faster than the weaver’s shuttle, and they end without hope. You, my lucky man, have been privileged to joy and cope in the same suffering your savior claims he knows! And who are you to challenge your creator? Surely resentment destroys the fool, and have you ever commanded the morning into daylight’s transition into evening’s cool?

All I know is that we’re all houses that someone crafted for a reason. Some of our paint is chipping, and we weather with the seasons, but all of us branches are prone to decay, so was it an honorable man or a cruel hand that made us this way? I am a house that creaks and groans, and all of my bones shake. I’ve got a cornerstone that I call my own, but I stumble on it every day, and the one that makes me a home, the builders rejected and threw away. On some days, I am tempted to follow suit and uproot my faith.

You built up your identity as a failure, gave ear to demons, legions, screaming, “Some father you are! Some husband! Some friend! Some pastor! Some man! Some lover! Some Christian! Some brother! Some son! Some change that you turned out to be in the end!”

Just look at the work of your hands! (Left dead to survey the damage.) I wanted to paint the picture as detailed as the devil did with those four white walls as his canvas.

But I finally believe that God is going to heal my dad! And it took a long, long time to get here, but I’ve heard rumors of rest for the heavy-laden, and you do not have a savior unable to sympathize with your weaknesses. There are liars inside your mind that you lay claim to control your life, and there are monsters inside your heart that have dug in their talons and become a part of you; but there is mercy every morning, and to the burdened, there is rest, and that promise overwhelms the deepest bouts of doubt and consciousness.

All I want is for joy to replace to the pain inside those irises. And all my dad wants is to ride his bike again! The one with the basket on the back that I sat in as a kid, and we’d ride by the fire stations and the firemen would blare the sirens for me from their fire trucks, and I would know what it was to trust and practice faith like a child! Do you remember what it is to become as a child?

I know you’re ready to go home, but if you could withstand the tests of time, oh, Job will sing out in the choir that we are the blink of an eye, pleading: there is rest! And this is not who you are, the way the light is not characterized by shadow, the dark, or the depth of his scars, saying: “Oh my pain is significant, but it did not make me savior, in resurrection you are made in the image and likeness of your creator.” Be joy! And may it be for the glory of the Lord, because, God if there is a point to this, I don’t see it anymore. But I believe in sovereignty – in something bigger than you and me and history and the way these generational curses seem to rip apart at the seams of our family.

Oh my God, be rest.

“Bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease.  It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured. And by the way, that is very important.  Human beings judge one another by their external actions.  God judges them by their moral choices.  When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the Victoria Cross. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

It is well to put this the other way round.  Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those who we regard as fiends.  Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power of say, Himmler? 

That is why Christians are told not to judge. 

We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material.  But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.  Most of the man’s psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked.  All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others.  We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was.  There will be surprises.” 

           -C.S. Lewis (Morality and Psychoanalysis)

Jesus has been hidden deep within me.  He has made His home in my heart - I understand what this means finally because I understand how this feels finally. 

He has chosen the paint colour for the walls on the underside of my skin, hung His curtains from the windows of my eyes and moved his bed into my veins.  His shoes lay by the door and His scent is down every hallway.  Dusting off the neglected shelves and picture frames of my mind, drawing down the cobwebs from each crevice.  He is freshening the linens and mopping the floor around my feet.  I see the flowers He tenderly planted so long ago finally blooming, orange, yellow, pink, in the window-boxes outside.  The once crippling threat of foreclosure dissolves more each time I stop to hear Him dance from room to room, basement to rooftop.  He has always been in here, dancing.  I can’t stop thinking of You when I lay down, I can’t stop seeing You when I walk down the street, I can’t stop remembering You - even when I forget to remember You, I can’t stop feeling you inside, I can’t stop finding these new love notes left on my mirror, in my coat pocket when Igo out. 

The mortgage has been paid in full and the eviction notice torn from my door. You are here, always. And I finally believe You are never leaving.

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

(Just some foolin around!)

Upside down.
Bound.
Open UP.
Let me unwrap this porous heart that’s wound
itself ‘round every HINT of a notion of life
Smothering the beauty meant only to be a guide
Into a slavery much worse than what I’ve read
about in history books
The history I’m enacting is the poverty in hungry looks
the reacting of a ravenous mouth finding food on
marauding fish hooks
Applauding all I’ve done to keep myself closed
and callous saying “No, I don’t need your sympathy
I am not weak,
I am not lonely,
this hook through my lip is not hindering me”
And so to further strengthen what my father calls ‘disease’
And what I believe
is humanity and my own bound heart simply -
d e c i e v e d.
Because sometimes I feel like I’ve never received
enough Spirit of Love to extinguish all my timidity
And where’s this abundant life I’ve heard of
When death threatens everything I’ve loved?

Oh Jesus,
No I don’t want your name to be in vain upon my lips
I’ll let the little courage I’ve mustered to drain from these fingertips
If You’d fill me.
Unwound.
Face down.
To the ground.
Open UP.
Let these tears water something real in the soil around my feet
that I still believe to be porous, and responsive to Your
h e a r t b e a t.
Will Your pulse raise a garden here to speak of Love renowned?
Where Your lilies of kindness and garlands of praise can easily be found
Reminding me of deaths defeat in Your 3 days underground
Well, I know You’ve always been, and no, I’ll never be disowned
I’ve been trying to buy the Treasure this field I’ve always owned
Will you accept this sort of foolishness?
This poorness in spirit?
This unwrapped heart?
Because I am most definitely
lonely,
weak,
and yes I absolutely
need all your mercy

Lord, I pray we all see
How much You overwhelmingly
carried to satisfy our need.
And how quickly You run
To love us unconditionally
It’s the only currency
We need to abundantly be
All that you’ve called us to abundantly be.

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm
Music by Red Sparrowes

We really treat grace as a scarce commodity… 
I really treat grace as a scarce commodity…

I’m just wondering why we’re all so distant and suspicious and fearful… I’m wondering why I am still so distant and suspicious and fearful.  Still.  After 22 years of teachers insisting I have a God I can trust, after laying alone on bedroom floors and feeling Love roll over me like ocean currents, after reading 2000 year old love notes written for me, after the realest, relieving God-given provision… still: distant - suspicious - fearful.

I am learning more and more that failure to give is a result of failing to receive.  I have so much and yet it seems I fail to own anything - or to own what counts it seems, for I have refused to adopt as mine that which has been offered.  I still have an instinct in me that recoils at positions of vulnerability and potential disappointment, hurt, failure and embarrassment (Don’t we all?) But in me these potentials are things to be avoided at all costs.  In haunting revelation, I know I have been avoiding the grace of God at all costs. 

Putting myself in situations where the grace of God can be manifested most potently is something I must fight to do everyday.  When we expose ourselves to the Gospel, many of the tactics we relied on for our safety prior, become revealed as the worst enemy.  The Gospel always realigns our thinking. 

Everything I am tempted to run from become the places that I must run into if I really trust God as much as I say I do.  Every smile I am tempted to withhold in the event of unreciprication,
every conversation I am tempted to clutter with insincerity or safe sarcasm,
every prayer I neglect,
every fear I fail to face,
every relationship I prematurely abandon,
every motive I defend,
every person I pass off for whatever reason we justify passing someone off for (too loud, too quiet, too needy, too cold, too loose, too self-centered, too unpredictable…)
every opportunity I shuffle past,
every inconvenience I avoid,
every abundance that I waste - I am actually wasting, avoiding and shuffling past the grace of God.  Aren’t these the temptations, in the end, that when succumbed to time after time lead to isolation, coldness and death? And hence aren’t we really saying that our God does not have enough grace to pull us through on this one?   

He is already here, more plentiful than the air we breathe.  Do we ever ask, ‘Are we allowing ourselves, in this moment, to experience as much of the grace of God as he is doling out to us?’ Are we allowing ourselves the pleasure and privilege of living in a capability and desire that extends far beyond anything we’ve ever dreamed for ourselves?  Do I live a life that screams, ‘My God is abundant in security and mercy and love, regardless of the apparent risk’? The more I allow Him in these places (the distant, fearful, suspicious places) the more of Him I receive in these places. The more I receive of Him in these places the more of Him I am able to give - to others, to myself and back to Him.  Is his grace a scarce commodity that we must calculatingly allow prioritized space for?  A delicate commerce that must be held in deposits or paid in full? Are there doors you can open in which His grace will not follow you though?  Though I have lived believing this was the case for so long, I now pray we are quick to take the step of courage and faithfulness and forgiveness and openness and prayerfulness and loving kindness remembering and trusting that His unending-no-limit grace will always step to meet us there, even in the grimmest of surroundings.

(c) Stephanie Diaz-Schumm

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

At times I’ve felt like I better worry
Like I have something left to prove
So hard to sit and let you Love me
Love never showed itself as an option to choose
Grace and mercy they always find me
I guess they’ve followed me all my days
Sit me down, take the weight off my shoulders, please
So I can come to your gaze

No one can Love me like You do
I only have eyes for You
No one can Love me like You do
I only have eyes for You

Times have past when I’ve been offended
The fire claimed everything that I own
When Love it comes I know I’ll be bendin’
To take for flesh this heart of stone
There ain’t nothing that I won’t give you
The gentleness has made me great
Your promises were something I could stand on
The vacant sign still marks my grave

Your Love’s like fire in my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart
Your Love’s like fire on my heart

/Beau Perkins