Be-Cause

“You've every tool that's known to man”,
She says (and grins as best she can)
For “life’s just lived, and work’s just done”
Is how she's lived since life’s begun.

That's honest – better that than the folks
For whom all feelings must be jokes –
“Upbeat, gung-ho, and positive –
On upper notes is where to live”

Life's good, but there are low notes too –
Those days and seasons when we're blue;
Dishonest, this society –
‘Don't be yourself, just be like me –

‘For if you lived your life like me
All would be well, just try and see’;
Malarkey that, so phony ’tis –
‘Don't be a slouch’; ‘don't be a whiz’;

‘Don't be quite well when ’round the sick’;
‘Don't be depressed or talk of it’;
‘Don't give expression to the real’
(As if to live, some life you'd steal).

Are folks afraid that they might die,
Their lives will fade when we are high?
‘Some middle ground's the place to be
No somberness, excessive glee?’

Maybe the truth is, I don't fit –
‘Third culture kid’, the cause of it?
This place is mad to fit right in,
Denying places each have been.

So what's their norm – this holy grail
Which they pursue like dog its tail?
There's no one ‘normal’, it's a myth,
How futile their pursuit of it.

For me a norm is honesty –
I in that star direction see;
I don't live there, for no one does,
Just get direction in my cause.

“Be-cause” assumes we honest are
 As we pursue our northern star;
At end of day to say “I am”–
For me, that means an honest man –

And have some ‘cause’ for which to live –
Some deep abiding truth to give;
Of all the gifts that flow through me,
Truth is the base – give honestly.

For hope that's built on faulty stone
Is shaky sand to build one's home;
Hope, in the Lord, on truth is based –
On that alone I run my race.

We need not fear the truth at all;
God can address both great and small
Bits of reality we face
As we live out our earthly days.

Freed up to face each truth always,
Both good and bad throughout our days;
God helps us pat our lion's mane –
Cubs soft – mean, hungry – just the same.

So we can choose, not hesitate;
In truth to walk, with folks relate;
Not pulling punches, phony me,
But walking humbly, Lord, in thee.

navigation