Today's Storm

Birds fly in the face of our storm, but we sit and stare in awe, primal memories mesmerized, knocking on our universal door of consciousness, unconsciously locking us in place with counterpointed time to the moment Noah said a final goodbye and the heavens raged. Through the thunder's roar,we remember -- relieved, comforted by promise of a rainbow. Morning passes into afternoon within rivuleted force until evening when the pelting softens and drops not fury but fans out into sprays that gentle our minds and dance like points of diamond-dew through the signpost trees; responding simultaneously the birds reappear out of invisible mist. They sing and flash their wings in ablution and we exhale the seed of warning, turning back into life as usual -- forgetting the past and the promised fire.

Listen

God shows up in unexpected moments:
A thought heard in the wind of our own breathing
becomes answered prayer, as its meaning finds us --

dancing off sunlit tips from morning leaves,
singing in feathered joy in birdbath splashes,
beating inside the words of a song that won't leave our heads,

God comes to us through
the touch of our days in sight and sound--
His picture of All-That-Is, painted in moving light
                  for us;
His song, creation, playing a symphony of cosmic
              harmonies
                 for us.

Why is it that the grand story we are living,
         God's History in motion,
        is so easy for us to miss?

Is it the sameness of reliability,
    of  anchored reality?
Wrought from the greatest love,
is this earth He made Himself and gave us dominion over
too grand for our minds to hold onto in its power --
in the miraculous and interlocking beauties of life itself?

Are our senses dimmed by the lives we've made?
Is the Holy Spirit's whisper too soft, too gentle in tone,
against the demanding world with its pressure, its loud rush
for things -- for positions and possessions instead of relations?
Do the strident voices of 'Do it now! Have it all'
little by little, pressure by pressure, beat our
       battered hearts to stone?

     Those whispers from God, those sacred moments
when He's answering that question that we asked in prayer, do
we have time to hear it, to see the answer working in our lives?
 
Here's hoping -- here's praying -- as our bodily temples
are intersected by God's loving answers, that we find (as when
we were children still with innocent eyes to see and ears to hear)
our way back home to bird songs and wind, to pictures in clouds --
to angels in the sky -- to our real selves -- to hear God's whisper --
            to feel His love and to follow His will
     in the joys of our moments -- today and everyday.

  "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:5-6.

Sundays after Church

Sundays after church, how universal a feel in these robin's egg blue days of children's laughter and barbecues. To share in watermelons and hotdogs, and in kayaks and paddle boats, and through sand-in-my-eyes and ants a' plenty -- to share in the sunshine of family circled love, after filling up and out with God's good Word, how thankful I am for the beauty that graces our joint Jungian moments in the sun. I treasure them as memories, place them inside my book of paged life to dry and keeep as reminders that life with all its troubles is good; that a child's laugh can curl up inside your heart and heal any tears, and that "a little child shall lead them."

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.