Destination

Destination

I want to go somewhere

Exotic, beautiful, wondrous

But the problem is I would have to go

Travel, drive, fly

Hours of monotony

Mounds of money

Time

Isn’t this the modern dilemma?

You are told life is all about an adventure

But there is a price to be paid

So I get to choose to be a nothing

Or a somebody who is exhausted and broke

Discovering that all of these travels 

Aren’t always what they are made to be

If I don’t change what is really going on

Within

I have to go beyond this time

Touch eternity

Eternity traveling in me

All these things take peace to see

Peace to hear

To know

This is where I want to go

12/30/18

Slumber

Slumber

That time between the worlds, secession

Where sleep is dream and wake is a question

Where our souls get closer to where our spirits dwell

And oceans wander and the deep does swell

Where light and life and echoes cease

To be just yearnings and are released

There the call of wonder comes

It beckons for the light of sun

Yet is saddened by its appearance for

The soul does long and cries for more

Of the time between the worlds in slumber

Worlds where what is not is number

Worlds where what can be are living

Worlds where what we need are giving

Everything our heart desires

In living waters and spirit fires

We step into a flowing river

That brings us warmth and makes flesh shiver

Until it seems it is no more

Where last week’s sky is this week’s floor

And all of this wrapped up in time

To walk along in slumber’s rhyme

Is to be so close to heaven we can taste it

Daydreams in Nightmares

Daydreams in Nightmares

Sometimes I just stare out the window

I get into a place where there is nothing at all

Nothing permeating my mind except what is in front of me

Even that slips off into a surreal mist

I see the birds sunning themselves

Drying off after a good bath

Finding the crumbs from last night’s outdoor dinner

Cleaning the porch more thoroughly than the children have ever done

A dancing web, the rising sun

Is the only framework this vision will ever need

The morning routine chases the birds away

The children stay inside to play

In the realms of entertainment and imagination

I seek an end to this daily frustration

While the birds are trying to alight again

Trying to find their place back in the scene of things

I walk in lands with golden rings

Every single one of them a strange distraction

Distorted views and a dark refraction

Seem to be the norm 

But my hope is warm

To the coming of the seas

To the faithfulness of the trees

Standing as they have always stood before

A beacon to an open door

Which leads to secrets of the universe

These poems of a post modern man

Seem so difficult for me to understand 

When they are grappled with the mind

Unleash the being that sings beyond all time

Enter into the vision of rhythm and rhyme

One will then know the dark from the difference

Reclining

Reclining

I could sit here in this chair all day

Pondering the mysteries and wonders before me

And when the day is over and done

I am deeper into the struggle than ever before

Knowing less but feeling more

Closer to You than ever before

Closer to me

I can watch the sweeps dance across the waters

I can see the ducks resting in the rain

As I sit here in this recliner seeing it all

Writing out a simple refrain

I sense I am walking to something deeper

Something beyond the dark and the pain

Though I am more still than I have ever been

The rain keeps on falling and falling

The water keeps on accepting the earth

The sound of its music brings laughter

Its moisture brings clouds in the mirth

Heightening mirth more than ever before

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before, still even closer to me

The wind has joined in with the laughter

The grasses now see they are green

It reminds me that my heart is a flower

It blooms in the realms that aren’t seen

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before

Ever closer, even closer to free

I see

K, Duane Carter 3/24/12 

Slumber

Slumber

That time between the worlds, secession

Where sleep is dream and wake is a question

Where our souls get closer to where our spirits dwell

And oceans wander and the deep does swell

Where light and life and echoes cease

To be just yearnings and are released

There the call of wonder comes

It beckons for the light of sun

Yet is saddened by its appearance for

The soul does long and cries for more

Of the time between the worlds in slumber

Worlds where what is not is number

Worlds where what can be are living

Worlds where what we need are giving

Everything our heart desires

In living waters and spirit fires

We step into a flowing river

That brings us warmth and makes flesh shiver

Until it seems it is no more

Where last week’s sky is this week’s floor

And all of this wrapped up in time

To walk along in slumber’s rhyme

Is to be so close to heaven we can taste it

K, Duane Carter 12-22-10  

I was going through some of my older journals, just looking at where I was at last year and thinking over the past year, and I found this.  It sparked something on the inside, so I thought I would share it.  I pray it sparks a flame in you also :).  Happy New Year.

The Precipice

The Precipice
I sit here at the edge of a precipice
Six inches away from a fall to death
With everything in me telling me I am going to die
All fear and anxiety and foreboding rising up to join the party
Showing me visions of the grisly fall
The grisly landing, and the grisly death
But I refuse to move; I refuse to move
For the view is so grand and so glorious
That I know I am looking at a reflection of God’s glory
And suddenly I sense Him sitting right there beside me
And fear turns to awe, and I know I am not going to die
And even if I do it really won’t matter
Fear and anxiety and foreboding scatter
As He enters with me into a conversation
That has no words
And the meaning of it is so deep I cannot even comprehend it
Yet I know His life is going deep within
I know His life is going deep within
So deep that no devil, no fear, no sin
Will remove it, though they surely are trying
But there is an end to this selfish pity and sighing
And I will just rest here, right on the precipice
I will just stay here resting in the Presence
I will just know that He is tending my heart
Even as I am walking back home

K. Duane Carter 10-20-09

Your Own Back Yard

Sometimes to find God you have to take a walk in your own back yard

You have to quiet yourself, and open your eyes to hear and your ears to see

And you have to listen and let yourself be

And allow Him to make all of the difference

Sometimes He will begin to dig to the roots

And always your heart He will woo and pursue

Whatever He says, whatever He does

You will never leave that place the same

He simply whispers His name

And shows it to you in the colors of fall

He gives you His all

In the picture of the leaves at fall

Yet one has to take that walk in his own back yard

To hear this, to see this at all

K. Duane Carter 10-12-09

Western Civilization's Biggest Blunder

We modern people think we know so much of the natural world, yet we hardly know anything at all. Think about the depth of knowledge and wisdom from the subatomic world and then expand that into the vastness of the universe. Think of the wonder of the cellular world and then expand that wonder into the majesty of the humpback whale. Think of the diversity of ecosystems around the world and all that it takes in winds and weather patterns to keep this all in balance. Yet God knows and understands all of this. All of this falls within His field of expertise which is, well, everything. And then go on to consider that even in the midst of all the wonder of the natural world, there is a spiritual one that is even greater and more magnificent than the natural one. Here is our greatest deficit, and the west’s greatest blunder. To our utter detriment, we have almost completely ignored the spiritual world. Sadly we have ignored it to the point of even denying it exists. Why? The answer is because we cannot use rationalism to discover it; the scientific method is powerless here. So instead of searching out how to discover it, we have ignored it, or worse denied its existence, and this has caused us tremendous loss. We have ignored the world where our true purpose lies, where our true meaning is, and where we truly live. We have completely lost touch with this spiritual world because we have been taught that if the scientific method cannot discover a thing or demonstrate a concept, then it therefore doesn’t exist.
So we have died as human beings, and we have become mere animal. In a way, Nietzche was right: we have “killed” God. What is more right is we have killed our capacity to know Him.
But God is not dead. No, He is alive and well. Not only is He alive and well, but also He is in quite a good mood. He is in such a good mood that He is ready to unleash His goodness into the earth. Those who are ready spiritually will see Him, those who are not will try to explain it all away. To be ready for Him we must be ready for a spiritual world. We must realize that God is far and above the scientific method. That is one thing that has completely baffled me about the embracers of naturalism. Why would anyone want or need a God that could be boiled down by the scientific method? He would be no better than us. And why base the entire meaning and purpose of life in the scientific method? Why? The scientific method cannot discover ANYTHING beyond itself. It is limited in its scope. It is a powerful method, yes, but it is limited nonetheless because it is bound by the observation of limited man. And even if the knowledge of man obtained by science reaches incredible peaks and we can explain emotions and behavior and thought and soul, it will still not be able to touch the spiritual world at all. And because the scientific method cannot touch the spiritual world at all, then it cannot be used to prove that the spiritual world does not exist. Even simple logic shows a universal negative cannot be proven, so we cannot cry “the spiritual world doesn’t exist” because science cannot touch that world and it therefore cannot comment on its existence.
We have suffered tremendously as a people for ignoring the spiritual world. In our quest for knowledge (which isn’t necessarily evil in and of itself) we have ignored the very world where the deepest mysteries and greatest wisdom reside. We have ignored the world where God Himself dwells, and we can readily see the results of ignoring this world by looking at our cities and their spiritual and moral dilapidation even in the midst of growing material splendor. As the glory of steel and money and luxury increase, so do the terrors of murder, theft, divorce, drug abuse, and child abuse.
So when are we going to wake up? When are we going to see that in order to meet the world’s needs we are going to have to enter into the place where science and humanism cannot possibly lead us? When are we going to begin to ponder the existence of better and more incredible worlds and beings? And in that quest when are we going to begin to see that we have missed the mark on an incredible scale? When are we going to see? When are we going to see?