Paradox...

I'll fly by the wrung of the spinning recoil

and taste the temper of time

when bull-backed relapses invoke a response

a turned table that's taken and mine

so hold back your passions and beat back your tears

and stand tall to face what you've done

Too bad ours is over with out hearing cause

too bad I'll be standing alone

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Some terrors bought back by a teller of chance

a love-song two-faced into black

Cause its never as easy as its may to appear

and their judgments are quick to attack

I should have stopped dancing when the music turned off

and I should have turned off the noise

Cold-cocked with surprise now the secrets awake

undone by your right to be poised

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Guns loaded and lonely she might pull you in

and pull you down on her chest

Right to wrong fancy the bottles is full

and I'll raise it

here's to wishing you, Best!

Forgiveness and jealousy are signature friends

Pent up in license and loss

The row that you traveled has seeds left to grow
and the better for having a cost

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Meant to...

A block from home

And far from here

The linger burns my throat.

A fit of fear

And wrung out tears

That sting of shadowed smoke.

The pangs and fillings

...cloud nine fall

A ring wrung round your neck.

Icarus

In replayed paid

And broken promises. (this is your heart break)

Cause I never meant the things I said and you think that you would know it

And you never meant the things you did and you think that I should know it

The crux and candor

Bridge and break

The wash of better dreams.

A mix of force

Your loss of voice

Will build a better thing.

But the long lost fight                             (is bitter biting and fits of lightening)

Blind-eyed might

Is a fixture on your wall.

You’ll tell yourself

And tell yourself

The Devils got a fall.

Cause you never meant the things you said and you think that I should know it

And I never meant the things I did and you think that you would know it

But these

Terrors are forever

Invested in your head.

They are figments

Of a past appeal

Robbing your investments

Ending starts

Refining charms

From death in absolutes.

But standing taller

Filled with power

Are bits of what you'll lose.

Cause I never meant the things I said and you think that you would know it

And you never meant the things you did and you think that I should know it

Mine is smaller

Pose or falter

Or buy myself a drink.

And hope the bruises

Light their fuses

In final. release.

Cause you never meant the things you said and I think that I should know it

And I never meant the things I did and you think that you would know it

Bridge:

Maybe it’s a chapter where the best is yet to come

Or maybe its an ending that has. just. begun.

Update and Blessings

Hope this functions as an encouragement!

Heart-break and wonder, respite and diagnosis; who knows how to settle on what decisions solve signature interruptions in the “plan”? As I see it, the particulars are the confusing bits, the pieces that have splintered corners and puzzled edges – not answers to materialism but what exactly to do with our change, not puzzlers on who sustains the universe but whether or not he wants you to go to Korea, not what is love but why did she give and then give it up? Suppress the particulars all you want, but in the end all of us are in a real world accompanied by a number of affixed universals, if only death and taxes. Truth is, I don’t think we will pride ourselves in dichotomies; we will act according to what we know or what we perceive. I know that God is good and that His mercies are not only new every morning - they are forever! This is a sustaining truth for me.

I count the last few months as some of the most confusing and rewarding moments I have ever had. God knows that had I followed on the same trajectory with the same cycles, I would have found myself more dejected and subsumed in a powerless vacuum sucked dry of strength all because I had stubbed my senses on an idol.

It is better to have loved and lost, than to never to have loved at all, they say. I am not so convinced! There is no greater disturbance to the psyche than to have felt the terrors of abandonment; to know that someone is committed to you in spite of your issues and then to feel the poison of rejection seep into your soul. She bites you everywhere you can cover only to invite you to respond ostensibly. In the end the cycle forces you to watch the living-thing you had worked so hard to create bleed out – the relationship. Its more complicated with confessing evangelicals, I think. We have been informed that commitments are binding and that forgiveness is accessible on any level - because of the work of Christ. Truth is, human commitments and forgiveness involve two people and you only need one to inhibit the process.

This is precisely where the tensions have brought me; spring loaded with doubt and posturing - hoping that I can find a way out of the senseless debilitating nightmares. Problem is that they are not only nightmares - the triggers are in the food, family outings, movies, etc. In my mind I can see her, chat with her, chat with others. We are confessing and crying, arguing and loving but it is all a dream upon a dream and the more I give in to the hope for Christian resolution the more I am told its forbidden fruit just as poisonous as the love delusion that tripped the trigger.

Even more, its paradoxical because my sentiments are estranged. I have had a more productive move forward on the heels of this senseless release than I had while blistering my back and starving my appetites... buried in the desire to revive a connection that was being cut without explanation. Its as if the either or is forgiveness or justice. Like I wish that there would be a hearing and judgment would be made so that I could know what to repent of and or to see her pay for these offences in an objective way. Its muddy and I want closure.

Once more (And most paradoxical of all), I find it particularly amazing that God can so wield events and happenings together that good emerges, exuding from soars. I don’t pretend to understand it but I can say that my tolerance for pain and heartache have been tested and found wanting. I want to say that God is my portion! He is my strength! His kindness endures forever and He will finish what He started. Its that I want to want to... some days its a grace that I have made it through at all.

In recent months I have been trying to ween myself off... trying to forget and forgive, etc... I have needed to move past the relationship, as it were, in order to keep my head above water – some days I am more of a swimmer than a plank. This is the marvel - the evidence that God has gone before me and met me with His kindness.

My story at this juncture is to tell of Gods kindness! After leaving Israel, the plague on both our houses slept while I felt the tender familial connections at the funeral of my Aunt Erma. Drama did not piece meal my time with friends in Michigan before my brothers wedding in Iowa, nor did it damn my attempts to get up and find work in NC, SC, GA, WA, and BC. He met me with his kindness! Long hours with friends over tears and tea, I have reflected on the goodness of God extended to me in my darkest of days. I am sure that there will be more heart break and trials, but His mercy endures forever!

Currently, I am in the process of making a decision as to whether or not to finish my thesis. This of course is not a decision I can make in isolation. My loans have gone into repayment and so I have been working to get ahead on my loans. I have applied to Frontiers – an agency chiefly interested in ministering to Muslims. I have also applied to teach English with an agency with a broad placement range including UAE, Saudi and Korea, to name a few. The first is a vocational vision into which I could place my affection! The second is a means to get out from under these silly financial pressures. The first few stages of both my applications have been accepted. At the moment I am in Australia working with a building firm with a load of different kinds of construction operations. The pay is better than I could do in the States and it’s a nice transition piece for me. A friend invited me out and I have been working for him.

Grace, Grace,

Gods grace,

Grace that is greater than all our sin!

Greetings and Update

Advent Blessings! I have been state-side for a few weeks now looking after a few family and personal matters. Having finished all the requirements for my Masters of Arts in Biblical History and Geography, I am now looking to lead trips to Israel and to get more involved with the Olive Branch Institute. The Olive Branch Institute is an Israel based ministry providing a network of support services for Sudanese refugees, Bedouin, single-parents and orphans, which includes: providing food coupons; counseling services; skills training; support groups; children’s camps, and much more.

My family has been going through all kinds of transformation - two funerals, a wedding, and a new born. All of my brothers are hitched and the kid-count is up to 5 with 2 on the way – niece and nephew fun!

I am experiencing my own kind of transition coming back to America. I am not convinced there is a suitable way to prep for re-entry, as it were. Often the challenge is trusting that God will provide in his time and in His way; this, in the face of all kinds of questions.

           

Here as a representative of the Olive Branch Institute, I have been traveling around meeting with Pastors, teachers, colleagues and friends. After being home for a time, I have taken to the road again. My latest adventures have taken me through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Washington and British Columbia, Canada intentionally seeking counsel and support of friends and ministries along the way.

While I don’t have this next chapter figured out, I am learning day by day to trust that God will finish what he started. The exciting bits about this advent season are the barrage of reminders that God condescended in His Son, a redeemer providing real means of real escape from the consequences of real sin. The affects establish grounds of faith we can live in… even when so much is unknown and hard!

Thanks so much for your support and prayers.

It is all very meaningful,

Blessings and Love,

Grace and Peace,

Seth Hague 

December 25, 2011

(Psalm 139 ESV)

O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

(Psalm 139 ESV)

Something I found somewhere...

Its over... situates endings in an uncomfortably personal sense... its terse and final... gone. The concession commits itself to the irredeemable, its drama and death. The last goes finally... griping the jugular in order to feel the pulse break.

Tell me what to make of the silence... save the whispers... or when you hear her voice as if she were near you only to realize she pushed you away... off the ledge to watch you fall...

your journey down wouldn't have been so long had you stop the cycle before it swallowed you up... tally the investments only to find that at one point everything you had was signed over... makes the fire hotter... the fire she started just to watch you burn...

thing is you still love her... why? just as much rational as she gave you when she told you she didn't want to see you anymore... the day after she told you she wanted life with you... complexities will themselves to irreconcilable endings... nothing good... nothing good...

Only sense... primitive and surviving looks for breath above the buried... scratches the surface and builds on these last strings... sad for the cut-off... more difficult to pray that mercy is granted to those who purposely handed you the hell you have had to live in... Its the catch that you either get or you don't... Getting it keeps you alive... at least for now.

Aunt Erma

        Erma Elizabeth Augsburger was born and raised in Adams county, Indian, born on February 10, 1919, born to Samuel and Leah (Shertz) Augsburger. Erma's stories survive her: stories about Leah's soap-making, knitting, meal-prep for the company of thresher's on Threshing day; and her stories about Samuel's hunger for the Bible and diligence on the farm; among many, many others.

I remember Erma as the story-telling minister, ready to offer a word of thanks to God for any little thing; I remember her as a service-ready pianist, always in her heart a melody; and, I remember her as the friend of sinners, ready to make a sandwich to break up any tension or negativity. I can still hear her voice “Do you want something to eat?” "Can I make you a sandwich?" Her appeals were tender and her company, sweet.

Whatever prompted this kind of solidarity? Perhaps it was Samuel's eagerness to get his family to every possible revival and then his intentional, biblically-driven critique of each message. Maybe it was Velma, Erma's oldest sister, who was an exemplar and Christ-exalting care-giver, community-servant, nanny and mother. Or maybe it was the ministry of Ralph Neighbors and the Gospel Temple in Fort Wayne who sent Ivan, Erma's brother, and Erma into the mission field (Ivan to the Dominican Republic; Erma to the rural communities in Ohio and Indiana.). Whatever influences God used, He wooed her to himself and captivated her affections.

As of consequence, Erma left her position at GE for Fort Wayne Bible College in the mid 40's. Her and Ivan were both sent out by the Gospel Temple in the latter half of the 40's. Erma got involved in Bible club ministries during the height of the Bible Club Movement. During which time she ran a club in Fletcher, Ohio where she met a Jean Evelyn Zirkle, who became her best friend, life-long partner and right wing in their later ministries including more club meetings, church work at Mansfield, Brazil, Rockville with the Rural Home Missionary Association, the Bookstores, and finally at Central Baptist Church. Their love for the local church persisted not because they were particularly impressed with the normative structures or the institutions but because they loved the Lord.

What made Erma so attractive was that there was so much continuity between her message and her life; between her affirmations and affections. Two weeks ago through the strains of dementia and age she managed to say two things. I love you and I love Jesus which she repeated again and again and again... I mention this because its indicative of the entire memory that she has left to us. She was unashamedly Christian and in love with Jesus. This was her story and song.