Your Will

Pink for blue and cans for boxes, funeraled biers and death night watches. There are times when one can't sleep, times to remember and weep when thoughts abandon and words fall and falter. But you lean inside the breath of God as you pass the bonehand potter, waiting instead for the rush that comes --of exhaled Word, of healing water; co-mingling with your heart's counterpoint beat, you bend and say "Your will not mine be done."

The Lord is at hand

    Now is the day.
Here is the awakening:
    Every morning
  the song is for us,
 the moment shines.

Sunlight prisms through windows --
         falls gently
  over mothers and fathers
   sisters and brothers
          in sleep,
      bringing awaking --
  anticipation to our faces,
    joy to light our eyes --

    Jesus comes in light --
    recharging our world.

Tenderly spirit passes through coffee
 talk and hairbrushes, caressing
        ordinary moments;
    borne on waves of love,
           Jesus calls:

 whether we welcome Him or not,
     whether we argue or not,
whether we speed past Him or not,
 deaf and blind, with no ears to hear
           or eyes to see  --
                 Still

              always:
        God is love and
           God  is now.

     Psalm 118:24

This is the day that the

Lord has made; let us rejoice

    and be glad in it.

    

One Glimpse

Have you ever thought about time? Do you consume it or does it consume you? Can you watch as it flows around you, or does it flow through you, leaving a trail of future twists and bends and flows? Back away near sleep and watch the earth form and move as it grows with human mass, the wars rising up in concentrated tips and then flowing down into smooth-lined sloughs, all brown or granite ...or then the green of spring and the stars sing a net of sparkly songs and you are drawn to one oak tree with one solitary man running his breath out and in over a silver flute as the white rabbit tips a pink ear and both join in the jig of now....and you can hear their echo in liquid tones, golden to your heart. And it's so good you cry as the forested leaves shine their happy faces back at you because Jesus swallowed time and freed us from the otherness. So, because of him, Time is not and All is Now. Amen.

It is Raining Tears

It is raining tears. My grandchildren, caught inside the spider's web until the court date, until Jesus saves. My son,cutting himself out of the cocooned strands, poison painfully draining away from his tired face, until the court date, until Jesus saves.
And I prayed, waiting for their freedom, trying to forgive the lies, trying to forgive the woman and her 'sister' accomplices who would flash the scarlet letter with self-pride dripping inside secular smirks.
But in the dark of night the oldest grandchild jumped up to investigate; awakened by suspicion and unfamiliar noise, she flew from her stuffed animal room into the hallway and saw the stranger.
But I pray and wait, heart pounding with the urge to call vengeance,but somehow holding my tongue, trying to give judgement over to God. Through the raining tears I know that there will be an end to the agony and Jesus will save.

Days of Fear and Fearing Not

Dan Lacich posted an excellent message on his blog today: It was about fear and how we allow it to gain control over our emotions...and about how God tells us so many times that we are not to be bound with intimidating/frightening emotional shackles, that we are safe with and within Him. It is not often, in my ongoing fight with self pride, that I would say I could not have said something better, or added more, or taken away a dot or a tittle, but this is one of those times. The address is http://provocativechristian.wordpress.com
I would suggest that anyone passing my way today should follow that link. The topic addresses our tendency to let fear gain the the upper hand, a timely subject as we live inside the collective mindset gripping both the country and the media today. It is a healthy, healing, and empowering read.

Just an Update for Week's End

It rained overnight.
The morning sky is
 meeting the leaves
with a light greening
on this middling day.

But God doesn't have a forgettable day
inside his rainbow palette of days.
Magnificent, this greening, this overpouring grace,
even on this just-get-through-it day like Wednesday.

Outside the flowers as in ages past,
 raise their heads and petals to the
Lord on high, drinking in the golden
nectar,.manna from God's sky.

 Suddenly this passage caught my heart:
' Consider the lilies, how they grow: 
they toil not, they spin not; and yet
I say unto you that Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.'

Underneath my green leafed canopy it was a kind day for thought,
this day out of time, with nothing to do but be itself.
So my mind fell back to lilies -- to the art of not worrying, back

to the cause of such pain and so many worries, and quick as a
bird can take flight, another passage caught my heart:
'What is the price of two sparrows—one copper
coin[? But not a single sparrow can fall to the
ground without your Father knowing it. 30 And 
the very hairs on your head are all numbered.
31 So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable
 to God than a whole flock of sparrows.'

Maybe Wednesdays are days for balancing,
for getting back to the selves we left on 
Sunday morning -- a middle time to find
again the peace that spirit brings. 

God is in His heavens and all is right with the world.
From all of us at Maple Street Church, we pray
you find peace and feel the hand of God's love,
holding your days in tenderness, all through the week.

Mother's Day

It's almost Mother's Day. Funny, that didn't used to mean much to me at all -- just a spring day with the family. Now all my thoughts seem to flow into broader concepts -- s'pose that has to do with age and time; most things do. This year I'm rather in a mood to think of Mary, the mother of my best friend, Jesus. Now she was one lady who had it hard. What a path to tread, how to raise a God, how to watch your son die before you -- and of His own choosing, His own acceptance of the unwanted cup. People say, who in history would you like to meet. I would like to meet Mary. I'd ask her how to tame the anger and the bear the pain -- to find peace when such a wrong was done. How could she have loved mankind after that? But you know she did. What was the real importance of that wedding to her when she asked her son to see to the wine? And for her, for the love of His mother, He complied although it was time out of sync. Or was that all symbolic for He is really the wine anyway and she had to know that. I would like to see her face to face and have a heart to heart. Each time I have had a child inside the birth pains I have held onto Binah, Mary -- the protecting arms that mother me and all other women who take the pain and mantle, choosing to serve as mothers. Mother's Day, yes, I will see the family and I will be tenderly and joyously happy for and inside the warmth of my own nest and nestlings, but my larger self, my ME ME will be sitting at Mary's feet and hoping to catch a drop of wisdom from a tear of joy or laughter that falls from her on her day: Mother's Day.