This Good Man, Joseph

And so now comes Father's Day and I think of Joseph. This loyal man who blunted the sneers visited on Mary, this brave father who taught his own manhood as shadow example and earned the daily bread for the Son of the Father; what humble courage to embrace the adopted son and keep the Saviour safe, to hold faith with the messanger, abandoning his home to save the baby son -- the seedling life of the living Vine. What a blessing to all humanity that this father, this often overlooked carpenter who now and then is mentioned in a history or as a figurine, in vignette or a nativity, is the father that loved the Son. How blessed was he for all time,not only for the swaddling cloth, but for the cloth of honest humanity that protectively he spread and knotted safe inside the visage of his workman's brow: The daily cares of family fell from the eyes of the skilled craftsman as his storied hands built the home where Jesus lived. Certainly tendered by the touch and yet as certain Joseph's calloused hands were blessed, fingers that had the kingly honor to trace the first smiles across His face, to hold the baby Son of God -- Joseph's little boy who is our great I Am.

Time Outside Time

Softly our prayers are said and on pillowed down we lay our heads...to dream. Life somehow billows around us in the golden now of soul-to-soul, awake outside the earthly shackles, inside sleep. I am not surprised then to see my grandfather's eyes, shining again, or my father sitting in his plaid cotton shirt. I do not weep to see the sight; it is just right. And then the central theme of me switches focus and I see the circle of friends by my side, vignettes of women far and wide are near and dear inside my nights -- rays of light that sparkle and play into God's tomorrow and my new day. Space does not limit, nor place confine this precious sisterhood of mine so dearly embossed inside life's gordian but circleted knot, entwined safely together in Christ's central cross.


The wake up to prayer, the touch of morning light, we turn to our God,
facing tomorrow and tomorrow.

In the land of New Normal,
 holidays and fears
rush toward us from television and government,
but this is our country -- still brave, still free:
Still 'In God we Trust,'
 Still America Strong.

Isaiah 41:10 (AMP) 

10 Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.

There is peace, there is safe assurance in this circled Christian family:
Vignettes of men and women far and wide, lighting our Lord's lamps,
putting shadow to light and with the full armor of God, singing together
Alleluia -- Amazing Grace!

Romans 8:31
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Courageous days and nights as dark thoughts spin our way,
as in other lands, brothers and sisters fall -- lost to persecution's storm
but found in Christ as Saints, reborn in garments white,

Revelation 6:9-10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" 11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer...'

This weekend we celebrate our America!
Splashes of light from God's tomorrow cover the faithful in joy,
extinguishing fear. It is our day -- our freedom song,
still our land of liberty,
born Judeao Christian, formed after communal prayer
 pens to parchment with sacred intent.

Space does not limit nor place confine this precious fellowship of minds and hearts.
Hand in hand over land and sea we rise in song, so dearly tied in life's gordian  --
 knot -- safely unraveling but freely together in Christ's central cross.
Entwined  we pray, we sing,

"While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, 
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free, 
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair, 
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. " 

God Bless America, 
Land that I love. 
Stand beside her, and guide her 
Thru the night with a light from above. 
From the mountains, to the prairies, 
To the oceans, white with foam 
God bless America, My home sweet home.

God's Beauty

We think of honeysuckled flowers; we think of spiderweb sparkles shimmering in the morning's dew. We think of valleys deep, verdant and green, and mountains peaked with power supreme. These things are beautiful to our eyes, precious to our memories. But. The here music, the now wonder is the truth of people and their hearts, shining inside our lives: The bagboy at the grocery store with the limp who rambles on but smiles at you; the cranky lady (now a friend) at the video store with the sad eyes and old hair dyed too red; the walmart cashier who tells you about her kids through pierced lips, but soft eyes -- because you asked; the 5 toothed tatooed man at the food pantry who winks a confidence that he slips tracts about Jesus into the bags; the roadworker who flashes a hesitant sweaty hand because you waved. God's beauty is his image in us. God bless.

Community of Souls

So as I sit here on a late spring chill day in New Hampshire and with a stroke of a key from my den, safe inside these granite cliffs, I reach out to South Africa, to Chicago, to Nevada, to Florida, to the Mississipi Gulf Coast and points in-between. Such a miracle, this blending and bonding of minds and hearts and spirits. This fellowshp, this community of souls -- a priceless touchstone; the 'net,'like a net of stars, twinkles us into each other -- shared hopes and dreams, with pasts and futures, and the now of life in-between. The filigreed phantom of Dan's unicorn sightings pulls us on, soaring heart-to-heart, keeping the simple church alive in fellowship until our collective sites and hearts collide in three wonderfilled experiences with hooves beating and hearts running in time to meet in unicorned splendor Sundays at Northland online!

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."