Sometimes life washes over us like the floodwaters from which we emerged(1), so we watch the sun rise on a new horizon We turned our backs on the world shaped for us and instead made a home for the poison that we hold within our hollowed bones. Because we would rather cling to the cancer that slowly corrodes our core identity no matter the cost than suffer the pains to cut out our toxic behaviors and thoughts (2). Taste and see the suffering of your children who have no safe place to hide (3), and we deny our neighbors suffering to bury them beneath our pride (4). While certain companies act as a cigarette of black smoke to choke out our world’s breath (5), we wait for a light to come and burn out the shadow of death (6). We turn to our faces up for answers to a sky that seems to constantly grow darker, when to save pennies we watched the burning sacrifice of our immigrant daughters (7). So we make appearances to sanctify ourselves to our neighbors all the while our society is a crumbling tower of broken Image-bearers (8). I know that the past is a heavy thing to carry around as a burden, and I know that our churches are little more than hollowed halls of what we used to believe in (9). But I hold onto the hope that this process of healing gets easier the further we go (10), and every dead thing in our lives can provide new room to grow. Maybe those shattered fragments of the innocent children we used to be can still act as the painted frames of glass we put up as windows in these manic cathedrals for our loved ones to be able see. Your brokenness does not take away your beauty. And just because you hurt now doesn’t mean you’ll never be free. Someday we will all be gone, someday we will all be at the end of our fight. But even in those times you don’t know how to be strong, I pray you still let in a light (11). 1. Ancient cultures worldwide tell stories of a cataclysmic flood. Catastrophe and surviving it are deeply ingrained in our collective cultural heritage and as these narratives explore topics of hardship, I hope you remember the stories end with the tide receding. The story ends with hope. 2. A. W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God 3. Psalm 34 in light of spiritual and sexual abuse in the church 4. Holocaust denial is still a position taken by individuals and organizations worldwide 5. CDP Carbon Majors Report 2017 6. Silent Planet - Darkstrand 7. Triangle Shirtwaist Fire 8. T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland in contrast with Genesis 1:27 9. Postchristian culture 10. Dante - Purgatorio 11. Jamie Tworkowski - There is Still Some Time

Looking back on all the memories of how you blossomed into the person you were is a great peace but an even greater hurt Just because we saw the beautiful thing that grew doesn't make it any easier to put you into the dirt There is no peace in death, only silence, and there are no words to say Watching them lower you in the ground to the place your body will lay No wonder I feel like a part of me is dead because the hole you left in my heart is about the size of the hole you made in your head

You can spend your days burying the past to get to each moment to find a hope you expect You keep brushing dirt off of your shoulder until you realize your buried up to your neck squeezing each second out of that hourglass watching it fall like water through the cracks chasing shadows on the wall hiding hope at all costs grapple alone with only yourself giving voice to only your faults Crippled by who you were not reclaiming who you are has left your future in the past Shadows flicker in and out each one quicker than the last Unlearning who you were is still loving yourself Watching your life leave you behind Fixated on finding an answer that will allow you to leave You made the mistake of romanticizing your shortcomings but never giving life to life

Our progress in arts and sciences across our cultures have gained us much But we’ve also learned to dissect and dismantle everything we touch It’s worked it’s way into our view of the stars, the sunrise, the waves crashing over the sea, the cry of an infant We’ve turned our wonder into a form of calloused acknowledgement We lost our sense of wonder in the pain And the sound of our heartbreak has shut out the sound of the rain I know this life can get heavy and the weight that presses on your back start to make you break I know what it feels like to feel empty I know how it stings to have to keep going when you feel you’ve taken all you can take There’s a lingering pain in losing ourselves that years after finding ourselves will continue to sting And I’m still not sure where we are in the grand scheme of things But I did learn a lesson from a magician I’ll carry with me til I die You see, for his work his only goal is to take simple objects and make your eyes lie And no matter that we know a coin is a coin and a card is a card We still choose to put our own sense of wonder in our heart At the end of the day, we know all their trinkets are not special So even if we hold our jaded natures hostage to the same standard What if we gave the earth the same grace we give the man with a card trick What if our purpose was more than trying to overcome a cultural panic Find some beauty in the rain as we look for peace past the pain For all the days you want to give up, I hope you still find the strength to breathe a cleaner air I hope you reach out and find good people who are happy you are there I hope you lose your fear in the forest’s greens or the seas blue I hope the sunset stills inspires beauty and awe in you Even if you don’t know why your alive, I pray you still see a painted sky