2020 Vision

2020 Vision

God, I’m here, I’m sittin,

In this valley, mountains all around but the fog clouds my vision.

I thought I was on a mission

Thought this would be the year we’d rise above all of the division

But now we’re all here,

And it’s pretty clear,

Its too loud and crowded for anyone to hear.

We want to hear your voice,

But that doesn’t seem like an option, like we have that choice.

Anyone that claims to hear from you,

There’s a slew of questions we have to wade through,

It becomes so much more complicated than “what would Jesus do?”

I don’t know anymore,

Finding truth is a chore

Things I believed all my life

Have been deconstructed, I’m told its all a lie.

And it doesn’t feel like,

There’s any space to just be me, like,

The world has gotten so small

I can’t go anywhere at all

Without feeling the weight of hopelessness

Where do we go from here? It’s really anyone’s guess

The world is on fire, it feels like its literally burning to the ground

Happiness hides, we try to seek, but its nowhere to be found.

I’m tired and scared I don’t want to play anymore

Someone show me the way out, show me the door

Let a little light creep in, anything to give me some orientation

I’m trapped in this claustrophobic haunted mansion

All of these voices and faces toying and taunting its exhausting

I want to engage but the moment I look their way

They fade away

Phantoms of ideas that crumble under a focused gaze

Leading me through and endless maze

A labyrinth of mixed intentions

I don’t know who to trust, as soon as someone mentions

Any kind of topic it’s a vicious battle to determine whose simply the rightest

But not through reasoned thought and careful consideration

Rather who follows the currently correct caucus or its many affiliations

Compliancy is somehow now considered living in fear,

Debates about biology get boiled down to a simple hatred for the queer,

Gay, trans, or unborn children,

We’re all somehow expected to have fully formed opinions that are presently morally acceptable,

But any conversation that attempts to reach a conclusion ends in overturned tables.

Blocking and dissociating with an opinion contrary to your own

And yet we’re so surprised when we feel so alone

We’re all here taking up space in peoples minds

Judging relentlessly their actions and intentions despite being truly blind

To what they really need and want

Its only shades and shadows of people that we haunt

You cannot fully know or understand

The entirety of a persons personality or where they stand

Based on a box they check every four years

You cannot know the depths of their sorrow or fears

You cannot draw a conclusion about a whole

Based on a single facet of an action, you simply cannot know.

Covid 19 has us locked up and isolated,

Separated, irritated

We tried to respond with too little too late,

Now live, businesses, and jobs are lost, and we’re all irate.

Everything’s made political

But that’s not the game I’m playing though

Everything about be is not summed up in who I voted for,

This virus is not the source of all this shared hate,

Seems to me it comes from our inability to effectively communicate

All this information permeating our minds we don’t know how to process it

Constantly stimulated to the point of absolute exhaustion

We try to put down the phone and close our eyes to sleep

But our minds keep turning there’s no retreat

Anxious about everything can’t get a peep

Mulling over everything feels like its been a month but its only been a week

I can’t compete

Running on broken feet

Desperately

Grasping for anything to make me feel complete

Open my mouth but I cant speak

Cannot blink

Worried for my safety

I can’t unlink

Walls are closing in around me,

I can’t breathe.

They’re marching in the streets

Claiming they want peace

Screamin

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum,

If you want peace, prepare for war then.

Feels like it won’t be long before

The infiltrate our homes and break down the doors

Agree with me or die,

Even if its all a lie

Everyone seems to hide

Behind a mask of moral superiority

When what they’re really after is blatant uniformity

This isn’t the kind of world,

I wanted for my kids, I got four,

But maybe no more,

Cuz I don’t know how to help them navigate

A planet that changes at such a drastic rate

I’m trying to develop as a man,

But it seems impossible when I wake up ever day not even knowing who I am.

I’m trying to raise them to know who you are

I’m trying to teach them the things that will get them far.

I’m trying to model compassion, strength, integrity, humility, intelligence,

Grace, love, contentment and gentleness.

But the whole world shows them a distorted view, it’s hell bent to conform them to its image not yours

God, Damn this sin,

I’m trying,

But not my will be done, let it be yours.

And of course,

Everyone wants to know when this will have run its course,

Everyone wants to know, where are you? When are you going to stop this war?

What are you waiting for?

We who claim your name want to act like you,

But it seems pretty apparent that we don’t have a clue.

Brother hatin brother, I guess that its true,

You didn’t come to bring peace but a sword.

Everyone seems desperately determined to believe what they want

Blatant misinformation abounds but instead of changing their minds they double down, they flaunt

Flawed theology,

Crooked epistemology

Biased sociology

It really too bad we can’t buy common sense at the dollar tree.

And its so tiring trying to keep to the middle ground,

Knowing that its not at the extremes that truth is found,

But everyone is so convinced they have it all figured out,

Not seeming to care that being right is not what its all about

You’ve called us to simply love our neighbor

But even that has become contentious and controversial.

I want to change the world,

I really do,

But there’s only so much one man can do.

And I often wonder,

If I really have anything to offer.

In the landscape of sensationalization

I’ve come to the disturbing realization

No one seems to want to approach things with grace and wisdom.

If the information doesn’t come from a source,

They’ve predetermined to be true, they feel coerced,

Lied to or ignored

Or they’re just too busy trying to survive the day,

To contemplate whether or not there exists a better way.

“All we can do is pray”

Seems like such a cop out answer, especially from those blessed with so many riches.

We should be the ones out there digging the diches,

Working to fix the systems

That have created so many victims.

Not to get people to think, believe, or act like us,

But to demonstrate that we are motivated by love.

But then I have to wonder, are we?

Do we really believe what we claim we believe?

Or are we just taking your name in vain,

Molding false ideas of you into idols that allow us to live life our way?

Seems like the sin we face today

Is no different than the sin they faced in Moses’ day.

Yeah, we need to pray more,

But maybe we need to reevaluate what we’re praying for.

Lord,

Here’s my prayer, for what its worth.

Create in me a clean heart, and create a steadfast spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence, oh Lord.

Restore my vision

Anoint me, purge me and renew me.

For your names sake, lead me,

Not into temptation but by the still waters of true peace.

Not as the world gives it but as you give it.

Give us the strength to hold on to one thing and not let go of the other.

Teach us unity and charity and liberty and true love for one another.

Cure our blindness, cure our brokenness, cure our apathy

Teach us what it means to be spiritually free

Help us in our weakness for we know not what to pray for

And embolden us to do what you put us here for

Give us your eyes to see

Not the brokenness and sin and idolatry,

But the potential we have to be love and live in unity

Lord restore the power of your spirit and let us go into the world and heal it

Let us come together again to give sight to the blind.

To be a light where all other lights fail.

Let us heal, the physical, the mental, emotional, and spiritual sickness in our world.

For in a world of darkness all it takes to give the blind sight

Is to turn on a light.

Break us, mold us, and teach us,

To be your light,

To chase away the night,

And give the world your sight.

Cuz its not about clicks, likes, shares and agreement on social media,

Or changing people’s minds by linking them to Wikipedia

It’s not about shouting the loudest into the digital void,

Or determining whether or not they should’ve murdered George Floyd.

It’s about treating people the way that Christ treated you,

It’s about learning to walk in other’s shoes

It’s about setting an example to the believers in word and spirit and truth

Not bickering about logical fallacies, but letting your life be the proof,

That Jesus is alive and His spirit is still relevant

That he alone is the judge about the time you’ve spent

Here on this earth

Remember you came from dirt,

And it’s to the dirt where you’ll return.

It’s true we’re facing challenges never before seen by man,

But they aren’t problems that have surprised the son of man.

The power of God exists inside your being

And I think its about time we let them see Him.

Put on the armor and produce the fruit.

Stand firm and give the accuser the boot.

What are you going to gain by trying to force someone to think like you

You think you have a monopoly on the truth?

You think you have nothing left to learn,

Like you haven’t made mistakes and left bridges to burn?

It’s not about getting people to think exactly like you

It’s about living a live that points to a provides evidence of the existence of some absolute truth.

So brothers and sisters by all the mercies of God above,

Put down the weapon of the world and surrender to the God of love.

Set your mind to fearing His name,

Stop playing Satan’s game,

Look the person you most passionately disagree with in the eye

And comprehend that it’s for that person precisely for which Jesus would die.

We’re on a journey

Set for turning

Hearts that are yearning

For a bigger purpose.

But we won’t change anyone being staunch and stubborn,

We’ll change them with gentle answers and a willingness to learn.

So put it all down, everything weighing you down, lay it at his feet.

Persevere through these trials so that your faith will be made complete.

Put down your pride,

Pick up Christ,

Let us be made new in the image of the almighty.

Let us empty ourselves to the point where when they look at us, He is all they see.

And let him reclaim 2020.