Inversion

What causes this “inversion”, cuts off my forward flow?
Takes good things of my lifestyle, and makes them press in so?
Instead of forward movement to milk-and-honey-land
The desert trail's beneath me, and in my mouth is sand.

To others we've a lifestyle, the envy of the world,
Here on this green oasis away from troubled swirl;
Yet pressure's in this blessing, it presses down on me,
For somehow there's inversion of weather over me.

I know full well the reason, (he saw it at the first
When I took him the photos, way back before the worst;
Said, “Self, now there's a fellow who's going nowhere fast,
Till he turns around his marriage, and gets a job that lasts.”

Now as I look it over, ask, “Well Stu, what you think?”
I answer from the shadows, I've been out to the brink
And back here many times now, lost sight of sandy trail,
But I have not succumbed yet – He somehow will prevail.

I might not be the smartest, or brightest in the box,
But I have sought some answers, results of which are tops;
Enriched has been my living compared to where I've been,
And life has poured to others who on this trail I've seen.

I've grumbled like the elders with Moses long ago,
’Cept not through heat of desert, my home's in land of snow;
‘Hard done by's’ been my mantra, I've acted out of that,
But bounced back, kept on going, like satisfaction's cat.

“The Quest ”, my chosen pathway, (not wisely but too well?)
Like Barker's Pioneer Types of Paradigms from hell;
I've scrounged my many pieces from parts right off the shelf,
From dumpsters, and the landfill, and made a few myself.

I've jury-rigged the answer, field-testing as I went;
The vision clear in right-brain what answer to me meant –
“I see a church renewed now, with missing pieces found,
Sustaining what we had there six weeks (then hit the ground).

Like Will and Orval's airplane, it flew, but not for long;
They knew they had a winner, their hearts were filled with song;
They poured into their efforts resources that they had,
Despite the fact that round them the rest of life looked sad.

That's me -- not an inversion, more gratifying's been
Postponed into the future, for vision I have seen;
The question is, “where to now?” I want to try it out;
I've played it out in fiction, and learned from that, no doubt.

But like that time at White Bear, with student project tests,
I want to see it fly now, get kinks out for the rest;
Not done with piles of resource, where anything will fly,
But out here on the prairie, where people live and die.

To take a church that's hopeless, within a hopeless town,
And work there, being hopeless, not smartest guy around,
For average are the people, like me, I'm thinking ’bout
Like Law who wrote that book out, together we’d put out –

 A gift for other people, as well as getting on;
That's how I see us living, a larger context song.
It's ‘rural-in-the-urban’, improving life out here;
A better way of living, enriching far through near.

It's not I have “the answer” for every little thing;
More like that missing gasket which life to engine brings;
The rest works well, no problem, sustaining's what I seek –
A changed perspective's impact, to strengthen knees of weak.

It's simple – “Apostolic”– the part I could not see;
It's been around for ages, like learning-style of Cree
We harnessed out at White Bear to turbo boost those folks,
And got results terrific – though rest went up in smoke.

I feel like back that winter, “We need to test it out;
Clear out its little wrinkles, field-test with student routes;
Get right before enlarging its scope and scale as scheme;
Have fun this summer doing the projects where they're keen.

Ah! Maybe that's the issue – developmental cash
We used to bait the fish hook and harness things at last –
Incentive to move into another way to go,
Within their present context – they'd win and we would know.

So – how to hook some people who want to forward move,
Without a lot of hassle, that barrier removed,
So life flows out far better than what we had before?
They'd win within their context, and we know even more.

That speaks of advertisement for candidate thing church;
One hopeless, in a context they feel is in the lurch;
One wanting to move forward, to try another way,
To do their lives together, to see a better day.

Next move I think is my one, like on that winter day:
“Outrageously outspoken and flaunting what we say,
Let's press into the future and all the rest let go
See if it flies – I think so – but then we all will know.”

So what would be a next move, equivalent to that,
Which presses to our future, like satisfaction's cat?
Advertisement is one way -- it's how I set my books;
Resource I bring to table, like cash to students looked.

The concept's in the structure of how we do that task;
Not out there as an option to “take it on” or “pass”.
Life's in the seed that's planted, it's in its DNA;
It's cleaned up, fit for planting, new crops are formed that way.

I am the seed that's planted, the geometric curve
Clicks in till more is growing like sower's scattered word;
Soon crops abound and flourish, the research left behind --
Food for the starving millions – deep joy there will be mine.

All right! Let's throttle up now, and down the runway fly;
Gain altitude and airspeed, nose upward to the sky;
There's bigness in its smallness, all pilots learn like this,
Then graduate to liners – trans-continental bliss.

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