Our hearts are restless 'Till they find their rest in You [1] Oh perfect Halcyon If blood must be spilt May it be spilt with You [2] Oh God of Empathy [1] St. Augustine, Confessions of St. Augustine, Book I, ch. 1 [2] 1 Peter 2:20

Behold the agitators The restless insurrectionists [1] Convict them for the title The only name you find so egregious [2] Justice is blind by nature But hatred is only merited with open eyes [3] What is the cause of your animosity? What Crime Did we commit? The wicked hide their shame While these men make guilt their banner [4] I wish that you would mimic The souls you put to flight What other crime is punished so incongruently? Sentence us for our confession While denial is cursed with acquittal [5] Arrest for an accusation On the grounds of words heard through the vine [6] Pry perjury from men Your idle sandals show are innocent [7] Murder calls for the gallows Martyrs will wear their honor on their necks You show your own impotence You know that we’re innocent Investigate The mother of villainy But she’s not the harlot that you perceive Her detractors Quickly become her children [8] Those who hate her soon find themselves Lying at her breast [9] We won't be crippled by bitterness Our weapon drawn is forgiveness We know well the scent of the dead and dying corpse [10] But we’re redolent of true life and it’s source [11] We may be captives in a cell But captivated by the Author of freedom [12] Though confined in solitude We rest in infinite embrace [13] I wish that you would mimic The souls you put to flight I wish you could have their freedom Barring their chains [14] Our Crime Was Being named [1] John Peter Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Matthew, note on Mat 27:22 [2] Tertullian, The Apology, ch. 1 [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Justin Martyr, The First Apology, ch. 4 [6] Pliny the Younger, Letter to Emperor Trajan [7] Emperor Trajan, Letter to Pliny the Younger [8] Tertullian, The Apology, ch. 1 [9] Cyprian, Epistle IX, ch. 4 [10] Tertullian, To the Martyrs, ch. 2 [11] 2 Corinthians 2:15 [12] Tertullian, To the Martyrs, ch. 2 [13] Perpetua, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, ch. 1 [14] Acts 26:29

Bite the heel but the body won’t taste death [1] This beast is the final test I’ll face [2] I may not be worthy to write my name Until my hand is severed from the wrist [3] Though the breath is divided from the chest May your dirge be Unified [4] Pray for me,  That God may give me strength That I wouldn’t run in vain [5] Pray for me  That I might bear the Name Not unjustly, unashamed Christian [6] Place a thorn in the side of the ribcage [7] And feel the pain shoot throughout the limbs [8] The feet Will move Swift to healing The hands Bereaved Will stop the bleeding [9] Eat me alive let not a morsel remain [10] Eat me alive Let not a morsel remain Tell the churches that the fate overtaking me flows from God [11] Don't prevent me from fulfilling my call on the road to Rome [12] I'm incomplete My training has just begun [13] Let me see their teeth I may be eaten by beasts But I'll be swallowed by heaven [14] If I can endure then maybe I can embrace The title adored by angels To bear the name means to elevate The sacred corpus above my body If my bones are scattered around me May they become pillars in the church Pray for me,  That God may give me strength That I wouldn’t run in vain Pray for me  That I might bear the name Not unjustly, unashamed Christian [1] Genesis 3:15 [2] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, ch. 7 [3] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians, ch. 1 [4] Ibid., chapter 14 [5] Polycarp of Smyrna, Epistle to the Philippians, ch. 9 [6] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, ch. 3 [7] 2 Corinthians 12:7 [8] 1 Corinthians 12:26 [9] 2 Corinthians 1:4 [10] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, ch. 5 [11] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, ch.11 [12] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, ch. 6 [13] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 1 [14] Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, ch. 4

Oh zealot You called forth for revival But your arrogance brought division [1] The spirit of the prophets  Is subject to the prophets [2] The will is not eclipsed Tie a rein around your tongue Passion can shine as a light  Unbound by hysteria Our dreams rest hollow [3] Our steps run aberrant Your spite tore down the body But the head tore down the veil [4] Don’t let your ecstatic gestures be the obstacle that they can't bear [5] Call forth that revival And spur them on to greatness Don't let your zeal be the cornerstone of stumbling [6] You deceive the hungry  And make them think that the bread has worms You scare the lambs And make them run from the shepherd's voice You revile your brothers And ridicule them as if they disdain God You are a good man [7] But compose yourself for the sake of the church Maybe God was speaking through you But your tone was out of pitch "Don't despise the prophecies” [8] But it shouldn't have led to this [1] Rex D. Butler, New Prophecy and New Visions: Evidence of Montanism in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, 46-47 [2] 1 Corinthians 14:32 [3] Joel 2:28 [4] Hebrews 10:20 [5] Eddie L. Hyatt, 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity: A 21st Century Look at Church History from a Pentecostal/Charismatic Perspective, ch. 3 [6] Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, 127 [7] Philip Schaff, Henry Wace, et. al. eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 2.1: Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, “The Church History of Eusebius,” footnote 8 on ch. 16 of book V [8] 1 Thessalonians 5:20

If you care for me, make a pact with blood I know your eyes have seen us Every war-torn face, every orphaned son Has not escaped your notice If you want to appease our mourning Enter low into this morbid story No frivolous act will comfort me Immanuel, are you a God of Empathy?  If the Word never felt the grave How could his voice have any weight? [1]   Did you speak to appease the crowds? Voicing platitudes, maintaining your distance Sing a eulogy for grief never felt A cruel front to cover your indifference  I trod on the grapes but drank only water [2] I hear those adages but we’re sheep led to the slaughter I Juxtapose Your blank-faced icon  With our blood-filled groans Arms outstretched yet cold and stoic Don’t fabricate Your incarnation here I heard the exiled say that your voice took on flesh [3] Radiant and glowing, but evidence is showing that appointed time was too good to be true [4] Because you were always being chased but never seemed to be caught [5] Slipping and running, docile but cunning you were a spectacle ephemeral and made to look like a man We should have read the signs, viewed close enough translucent, lucid seeming but a sham to make us think you cared And the twelve didn’t think it strange that after three years he still ran like a phantom, a ghost ascending into heaven [6] Descending to your birth, the virgin felt no pain and no lament was heard when they cut your chord [7] Nails struck through flesh but silence was ensuing alluding they slid through like rain through a cloud [8] We'll run to the tomb, but never cling to the voice, the breath returns to the lungs that don't have a chest for us to lean on [9] "O Kurios mou Kai o Theos mou," I long for a wound to touch in your side [10] Rest above our suffering Incapable of comforting Misanthropic deity Oh, paragon of apathy You were never there, You never cared, Your appearing was just a ploy for saving face [1] Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform, 38 [2] H.E.W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study of the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church, 156 [3] John 1:14 [4] Romans 5:6 [5] John 7:44; 8:59; 10:39 [6] Acts 1:9 [7] The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, ch. 13 [8] Acts 8:32 [9] John 13:23 [10] John 20:28

Face the sky And hear The faint conjecture of angels [1] Questioning The song of grief Of the king dismayed by suffering [2] Chalice in hand He throws the cup back [3] Though like gall it burns the throat It’s the price he’ll pay to dine with those who hunger [4] I heard the footsteps Stepping from the sea to shore [5] And I saw the winepress Fill up past The brim and overflow Humanity has heard A song that became an instrument The melody from heaven descended And harmonized with my dirge With one stride he leapt Into my affliction With one sip he quenched The dissonance in me From the precipice He descends For the destitute He resounds Existence Was a cacophony A murderous discord of mortality and wickedness But in the noise I heard a cadence Those footsteps Euphonic, keeping time Became the rhythm to the chorus of a symphony My spite lost its footing When his heel struck the earth An arm outstretched to me Was formed from the adages I had heard From the precipice He descends For the destitute He resounds When the Word became flesh The song of God became an instrument of empathy He threw the cup back And swallowed whole the chasm The separation between my face and the one who faced my pain [6] Maranatha [1] 1 Peter 1:12 [2] Matthew 9:36 [3] Luke 22:42 [4] Matthew 26:29 [5] John 21:4 [6] Ephesians 2:14

The final day has shown her rays The day of victory This joy in me climaxes [1] But it smells like blood to me Am I a masochist Shrouded in the guise of a saint? Today I will be fathered by God While I leave my child as a dismal orphan [2] I hear beyond prison gates Pleading for me to keep My life, but those voices Lose all familiarity [3] Sainthood now beckons me But I'm still left questioning If I'll be venerated By all while hated by my son [4] Chains are the diadems of the saints [5] The dead bury themselves [6] But mine still live My hands touched the plow [7] But I still flinch I was Given Orders from above But will My compliance Breed antipathy against The mother? The martyr? The God? I bare The name of God My son Bears The name "bastard" [1] Tertullian, The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, ch. 6 [2] Ibid., ch. 2 [3] Ibid., ch. 1 [4] Lynn H. Cohick & Amy Brown Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries, ch. 2 [5] Polycarp of Smyrna, The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, ch. 1 [6] Matthew 8:22 [7] Luke 9:62

I felt Your grip loosen around my body [1] Angels take their hold Through the arms of a stranger [2] Your breasts Still dripped [3] Filling to the brim the wounds Of the Son of God [4] Was your faith in the resurrection so strong you would choose to die? [5] And let your body fall limp before me A toppled temple In the natural eye But I watched your gaze become transfixed You beheld hope divine You moved the blade from the ribs to the side of your throat [6] I saw a sword, you saw a path to take you home And though this grief remains It weeps with admiration You bestowed In me The water in which you were once more baptized [7] A gift was given though you were taken Your death bought me my only birth rite I received The lineage Of the royal line of heaven The blood you shed is my inheritance In my veins is not a drop of cowardice You took your final steps Standing, resolved And marching, you crushed The dragon’s head [8] I watched you climb Up Jacob's ladder [9] Angels take their hold Of my martyred mother [10] I felt like a still born While you bore the birth pangs [11] I passed your knees but fell to taste the dust Can you raise my head from the grave where you fell? I fell Into the hands of the God Whose face fell upon us Then I’ll rise to meet you In the air [12] [1] Tertullian, The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, ch. 5 [2] The Apocalypse of Peter [3] Tertullian, The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, ch. 6 [4] Colossians 1:24 [5] Genesis 22 [6] Tertullian, The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, ch. 6 [7] A Treatise on Re-baptism by an Anonymous Writer, ch. 15 [8] Lynn H. Cohick & Amy Brown Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries, ch. 2 [9] Genesis 28 [10] Luke 16:22 [11] Matthew 24:8 [12] 1 Thessalonians 4:17

Swallow peace and refuge Estranged and debased Engulf the bed underneath me [1] I accept the omen The odious A flicker away from eternity [2] The hand of God Bestowed 86 years [3] Unscathed and never harmed I Acquiesce I may Not sleep Tonight Through my Burning But through The pyre I will Find my Halcyon Covered in ash Yet bathed in glory [4] Flames will be felt either way Whether flames of purging  or flames of agony [5] Now the cup comes to my lips First comes the trial then the bliss [6] These embers feel like rain to me Falling on my skin [7] These cinders don’t burn to me This flesh of mine won't singe When the coals begins to smolder My soul will simmer over with joy Angels will rise beside ash Carrying the remains of the crucible [8] The hand of God Bestowed 86 years And gave me the hope that I will rise again Every living breath sings In anticipation [9] And I’ll join in harmonizing, though asphyxiated I watch the Phoenix fly in tandem [10] With the spotless dove, fluttering in my ribcage [11] Though we flicker for a single moment The light of God is our perpetual felicity [12] [1] The Encyclical Letter of the Church at Smyrna or The Martyrdom of Polycarp, ch. 5 [2] 1 Corinthians 15:52 [3] The Encyclical Letter of the Church at Smyrna or The Martyrdom of Polycarp, ch. 9 [4] My Epic, Yet, “Lower Still” [5] The Encyclical Letter of the Church at Smyrna or The Martyrdom of Polycarp, ch. 11 [6] Ibid., ch. 14 [7] Ibid., ch. 2 [8] Luke 16:22 [9] Romans 8:19 [10] Clement of Rome, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ch. 25 [11] The Encyclical Letter of the Church at Smyrna or The Martyrdom of Polycarp, ch. 16 [12] Revelation 22:5

Does the farmer Weep when he  Plants his seeds? Does he mourn  as they fall underneath? Is the garden just a tomb for those dreams? Or does he smile at the hope that he sees? What is sown is fleeting What is raised is infinite Now we groan while reaching For the day of the Son of Man We are dead and bleeding But you are true to what you've said What is sown believing In his time will resurrect