Dark Ink, Dark Nights: (in)courage

I pull out my Micron pen—it’s tucked away safely in a nearby drawer—and cradle its cylindrical lightness in my palm. My fingers curl around it like a memory. This pen is a long-forgotten relic, representing a former version of myself: a more creative, carefree version, before the burnout, before the pandemic, before my most recent battle with depression. Lost in thought now, my focus shifts back to the pen in hand. I uncap it. I study its fragile tip. But, it’s not paper I’ll use as my canvas. Instead, I touch its tip to my inner wrist, to the hollow between my hand and watch strap, and let the ink run like rivers down each crease and crevice of my open arm. The pen swoops in gentle, cursive letters: I am penning a verse, a phrase, a lifeline.

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He is More

Jesus is more

Than a tool for behavior modification.

He is more

Than an exercise in rational thought,

A prop to be put up,

A mask to be worn,

an act to adopt

on Sunday mornings.

He is not a platform to be exploited

Nor a veil of performative love,

And he is more than the empty words

We tell each other in the tempest of the storm:

Hollow,

Lifeless,

Appeasing.

Jesus is more.

He is the living word

That quells the tide;

The outstretched arm

That traverses waves,

As our lives cataclysmically beat upon the shore.

He is our

Steady

Unchanging

Truth;

The anchor for our souls.

Jesus is more.

He is the good shepherd

That leaves the ninety-nine for the one,

A ratio that even the sharpest minds

Can’t seem to add up.

But this is the math of heaven,

And maybe it’s us

Who have it upside down.

Jesus is more.

He is the light of the world,

The lamp to our feet,

The guiding Son

To our indigo nights.

He is the love too great

For the grave to contain;

Grace too sweet

For our earthly tastebuds

To fathom.

He is more

Than we could imagine.

And less

Than the evil we give him credit for.

Jesus is everything our hearts could hope for.

( so what is it you hope for? )