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.

Storyville Coffee Gives Away May Profits!

This is such a beautiful development. This coffe company in Seattle, which I know absolutley nothing about incidentally, is giving away its profits in May to the IJF; in addition, the company is sponsoring something like songfests with live bands in cities around the country -- also to raise awareness. I do hope everybody goes to their website and orders...The present deal is that you pay 39 dollars and you get two mugs and some packages of coffee over a period of time. To tell you the truth, I didn't check on how much coffee or over what period of time...I don't care whether the coffee is the best in the west or tastes like mud! I'd like to help the company because they in turn want to help IJF.

IJF is a foundation that helps victims of trafficking. The buying and selling of anyone, but especially the abuse of children just breaks my heart. The IJF has people who function as interventionists and then provide aftercare for the little victims. They also have attorneys who try to work within the international community to stop these creeps by attempting to get the legal system in the various countries to become more aware of the problem and to incarcerate the monsters who make millions of dollars off of their flesh trade. I don't care how the coffe tastes. $39 is not much to pay to stop a child from having to scream for help...So, please help! Both websites have alot of information. I hope people click their links alot in May...and beyond. We need to rid the earth of this scourge.

Biblical Passages

Words are such nifty things -- useful, utilitarian, all-purpose. Yesterday someone told me that I seem to have too much, (was it just alot of) time on my hands. Such innocent words, said in a quip inside a lifelong friendship. But they (my friend's words) even though said at least partly :) in jest did set me to thinking as is my wont and some would say my curse.

Time on my hands: Yes, look at them, the fingers not as straight, Solomon's rings wind deepening swirls around the wrists. Oh, Lord, the knuckles. Well, the secret is that in fact they don't hurt and that we will see them as 'protrubances of dignity,' as my dear friend Ms. Yee would say -- if her breath were still on this side of the beyond. And then she would add "shu-shu" and click her tongue not to worry about the palms' lines. I am sure they would be fronds and not lines to her anyway. Besides, on her 84 year old skin Nivea really did make miracles.

But not on mine. I don't care, though. The lines, though deep, are like a very map to me... a clean and clear chronicle of my yearly passages.

Yes, Pamela, Happy Days friend, we shared the beginnings, just girls, not really understanding women yet or how that word would come to change for us or for our children or grandchildren -- such times ... magical nights with moutons over green evening dresses and sleepovers in baby doll pajamas while we sat eating popcorn, of scouring our faces with OJ's Beauty Lotion and listening to "In the Still of the Night" and of sharing secrets from our separate "My Diary" pages!

Oh, yes, I have lots of time on these ...........and I deeply and truly and vociferously desire plenty more 'cause what an adventure my unmapped hands were heading off for way back then...and none of us truly had a clue, not really. And what is ahead??? More luscious times in Time. Mama is 87 and wow does she have time on her hands; her maps are so full, they approach the sacred. In a reverential way, I would say that both my friend Ms. Yee and my mom have biblical hands. That's what I want. Mama looks at her hands, her maps, and she knows exactly where she is.

Certainly Not a Dog!

Muffin is buried under a pine tree in the back yard; it was a good week before I could stop crying -- had nightmares, too or just could not sleep except for a wink and a nod .... and then I'd startle myself wide awake with the image of soft spaniel brown eyes in front of me. Sixteen years old, she was -- never wanted another dog.

Three years later I flinched and in bounced SugarPlum: Hyperactive, chew- everything-in-sight(including $400 glasses), attacking-you-when-you're-asleep, you-don't-go-to-the-bathroom-outside-so-why-should-I ...... SugarPlum! And I don't think we could live witout her! She yawns "I love you," howls Happy Birthday with the family, washes herself like a cat, is ferocious with children (especially the more dangerous pre-schoolers) and is terrified of plastic bags and soda bottles.

Muffin was totally black; you couldn't tell her from a shiney piece of coal. SugarPlum is tri colored, mostly white with big black patches and honey brown eyebrows. And yes, sometimes, "Muffin!" does slip out. But more often now it's "Damn it, Sugar!" So, life does go on, and it is good. Smile: Sugar owns the house and the family...and she loves all unconditionally -- including her sweet self!

End of the Rainbow

I catch the doubled rainbow in my mystic cross palm

and

flinging prisms back at you -- entwined, the couplets arc and rhyme

lending honey-suckled hues to Time --

nectar blending.

I wait inside the curve of interstellar me,

interlaced fingertips

templed in prayer

pulsing inside soul cupped beats,

goblets of gold.

Sunday in the Park

It wasn't the refrigerator cold tupperware box of freshly sliced cucumbers or the napkins sailing like miniature paper kites in the breeze that made Sunday at the baseball field crisp and fresh; instead,it was the sheaves of fairy feathered lashes flashing laughter over blue and hazel, and green and brown -- eyes of God winking through the open skies of grandchildren -- mana from heaven.