Tuesday, December 31, 2013

The Walk...


 

**
 
Walk with me, My love
over this threshold,
into New Day...
 
Trust Me enough to loosen your grip
on what has gone before
Trust that there are good gifts still ahead,
not just behind...
Those Gifts I carefully chose
and gave to you are yours,
and will *always* be,
the Gold of those Gifts
has been skillfully
and wonderfully
woven into your very makeup...
integrated into your innermost beautiful being...
 
so leave off with fearfully, needlessly clinging
to something that is,
and always will be,
part of you...
 
...there is more building to do,
more I want to ingrain in you,
dimension still to be added
even more Beauty I want to bestow....
 
More than you can ask for
More than you can expect
More than you can imagine...
 
Oh Beloved of mine,
Let me open your eyes to see
Let me gently take your hand
and Lead you into even more Good,
 
Walk with Me, my Love
My Treasure
My Child,
 
There is still so much Good...
 
**
 
"The God of Heaven Himself is with us;
we His servants will arise
and build."
-Nehemiah 2:20
 

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Gift III

 
 
 
*
 
fill me
with the fullness
of You
 
envelop me
in Your
embrace
 
tie me
with cords
of loving kindness
 
give me
as You were given
to the world
 
until I, myself
Become
Gift
 
*


~**~
 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Bridge


**
 
How graciously You share with me
 this space,
In Your Stable
In Your Kingdom
 
You teach me to be,
in both,
equally at Home,
as You are,
seamlessly moving
between the two
which are really,
and always,
One
 
Both hinds feet and High Places
are needed...
ashes and Beauty
relative obscurity and Royalty...
 
I am Your tender touch,
with one hand cupping the face of Your beloved,
with the other cupping the Face of Heaven
 
I am the golden scepter
held in Your steady Hand
extended toward your beloved
banishing fear
conveying Your call
to Come
to Breathe in Your Presence
to know the Kindness of their King
revealed in a Carpenter,
a Foot-Washer,
in One Who left Heaven
to hold Earth,
 
to form a Bridge,
 
and to make of us,
 
Bridges.
 
**
 
Merry Christmas,
from one beloved to another...
 

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Gift II

 
 
*
 
so I pray, "Be Thou My Vision",
thinking to see
into Realms Unknown
and Mystery
and Things secreted away...
 
...but instead - or consequently -
I suddenly See,
Sunlight
diffused through my morning window
Golden
Moving like Water...
 
and the Beauty of it
makes me smile.
 
*
 

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Gift

 

 
 
*(
 
250,000 miles to the moon,
500,000 there and back...
 
...amazing the lengths the heart will go to Love,
the capacity for which it's been graced
by a Creator Who Understands,
indeed Who formed the heart
for this very Purpose...
 
to Love,
to Be Loved,
to hold Love,
like an acorn
holds an oak tree...
like a stable
holds a Savior.
 
Wishing you God's Greatest Gift
this Christmas,
and *always*,
in the million miraculous ways
He makes Love known...
 
*(
 
"I have loved you
with an everlasting love."
-Jeremiah 31:3


Sunday, December 15, 2013

wise men, seek Him

 
 
 
+
 
we move
amidst heaven and earth
hinds feet and high places
ethereal, untethered to terra
the Lovers...

we who know Him
are not always found where you'd expect
just as He was not found where expected

not under some steeple, but in a stable,
in loathsome obscurity
among forbidden things...

we speak, as He did,
not always from pulpits (vulgar barrier between Beloveds)
but at lakesides, firesides, tablesides.....
if you would find the extraordinary
peer into the ordinary...

You who seek Him
seek Him also where you would not;
seek Him in the places that scandalize your faith
and free you from dead dogma
look up from your pew
and see Him also
en plein air...
let not your walk with Him
be trudging and begrudging

but Dancing, Flying

Know the One who would be known
not as a prop in your precarious presbytery,
 
but as the One who's power is purveyed
in nothing your house of cards can hold.
 
+
 
"For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power,
and the Glory,
Forever."
-Matthew 6:13
 

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Beauty

 

 
*
 
Oh heavy heart
Let Me sing softly to you
Let Me soothe you
and remind you
of what you know,
what maybe you've forgotten for a moment...
 
That candlelight is lovely
especially in the
Cold and Dark and Night
That Love persists
even long after...even when far away...or not yet...
 
That hearts can heal,
falling leaves are lovely,
and that against the backdrop of a winter sky
silhouetted still standing Oaks,
bereft and stripped bare
are still one of the most beautiful sights to behold...
 
Oh My heart,
Remember Beauty.....
 
There is 
 
Still
 
 so much

Beauty.
 
*

Monday, December 2, 2013

L'Chaim

 
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord."
-Isaiah 55:8
 
~*

In our Western mindset, "suffering" is seen as inherently "bad", something to be avoided at all costs.  Our paradigm suggests if we are suffering, that "something must be wrong".  Whereas in other, more ancient cultures, suffering is seen as simply an integral and inevitable valid state, an intrinsic fundamental part of  the Life cycle itself.

No suffering, No Birth
 
When we attempt to subjugate suffering with pills, potions, drink, diversions, we stagnate in the very suffering from which we are trying to escape and stifle the intended end result: new Life.  When we resist the process, we stand in the way of the very excavation which will make room in our hearts to hold what comes after......
 
and there is an "after"
suffering need not have the last word,
if we'll let God finish His sentence.
 
When suffering is seen as some sort of stigma, we miss the opportunity, the doorway granted,
 
into new depth
 
into deeper communion
with each other
with our God
with the One "acquainted with grief"
 
we miss the Gift.
 
As we enter into this Season, celebrating the Birth which allowed all of us to be Reborn,
Let us remember the suffering that precipitated that Promise,
the death which preceded - and was servant to - the Life
Let us, in turn, see sorrow in a new light,
suffering for all that it is worth,
not as an end
but as a means to the intended end
which is,
of course,
and always,
 
The Beginning
 
~*


"I have come that they may have Life,
Abundant Life."
-John 10:10


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Thanksgiving ~

 
 
 
*
 
The incomparable Gift of Love
even the smallest Glimmer of it
No Greater blessing can pour from
the Windows of Heaven
 
The Love of a moment
- or a Thousand Days -
can fill a heart for a Lifetime,
the Miracle and Magic
lingering long after...
 
It is nothing less
than Homecoming,
this Finding
this being Found,
and one can never be lost again
once the way has been shown
and walked together...
 
the Landscape is changed forever
lush for having Love's
footprints upon it,
loamy with the treasure
lent it for awhile...
 
...such a sweet while...
 
For this supreme Grace
This climax of Creation
The Almighty's Magnum Opus
 
May the Lord make us
 
truly
 
Grateful

*

"Now abide faith, hope, and love;
the greatest of these
is Love."
-1 Corinthians 13:13


Monday, November 25, 2013

Wings - haiku II

 
 
*
 
I must know the Art
of Landing, of Groundedness,
in order to Fly
 
~*~
 
I Rest in this Place
Waiting, Watchful Stillness which
precipitates Wings
 
*
 
 Ephesians 3:17-19

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Returning

 
"In Returning and Rest you shall be saved..."
-Isaiah 30:15
 
+++
 
This Returning, This Rest
This Homecoming
Is Restoration.
 
Like an old, forgotten, Priceless Painting
is Restored,
one neglected, abused, left in dark places
too long exposed to decay
So You find me
So you still see Beauty
The Beauty originally Authored
and Intended by the Artist
You See...
 
You retrieve me out of the dark
out of the decay
You blow the dust off
and begin the meticulous work
of repairing the damage of decades...
 
You Restore my soul
You make new what must be made new
and with the Skill of a Master Artist,
You revive the original masterpiece
and return me
to my rightful place
 
Home again
with You.
 
+++
 
"The glory of the new house
will be even greater than the glory of the former,
and in this place, I will give Peace."
-Haggai 2:9

Monday, November 18, 2013

Homecoming

 
 
 
"One Thing is needed"
-Luke 10:42
 
+++
 
Our Purpose,
Our entire Purpose
for being on this planet,
is to become
the personification of
The Path we've found
from here to Heaven
 
Meaning,
True Meaning
is Found
in our finding and being found
by The Way,
in being so intimate with The Way
indeed One with Him,
that through our lives
others find their way Home
 
So many are starving to know
 
The Secret of Life...
 
The Secret of Life is living close enough to
the Heart of God
to hear His secrets,
and then to tell the whole world...
and not just to tell the Message,
but to become the Message,
the whole of our lives
becoming harbingers of
His True Heart
 
To become conduits of Christ
to a hungry and thirsty world
is the crux of our whole existence...
to become the Bread of Life
 with which He feeds His sheep
 to become the very Light
by which
He leads them
Home
 
+++
 
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
-John 14:6

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Reflection - haiku

 
 
 
*
 
let me reflect You
to a world who's eyes are starved
for the True Beauty...
 
*
 


Monday, November 11, 2013

emergence

 
"Awake, O north wind, and come, O south,
Blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out..."
-Song 4:16
 
~*
 
So many cocoons have held me
And here am I
in the newest nest
once again
waiting for Wings...
 
But Perhaps,
 
in the Waiting,
Because Of
the Waiting
 
I Fly
 
Everyday
 
Every time I emerge
 
into this hungry
thirsty
World
 
-e.a.a. "Hindsfeet" 11/11/13
 
~~~*
 
"How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel!
Like valleys that stretch out
Like Gardens by the Riverside,
Like aloes planted by the LORD,
Like cedars beside the waters.
He shall pour water from his buckets,
and his seed shall be in many waters."
 
-Numbers 24:5-7

Voce

 
"God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.'"
-Job 37:5, 6

*

God's voice
Thunders
in the
Silence
of snowfall,
 
in
diminutive
raindrops
that make up
a downpour,
 
in innumerable
autumnal leaves
quietly quilting themselves
one by one
blanketing the earth
in beauty,
 
and in 
the millions of moments,
miraculous and mundane,
that make up my life...
 
these also thunder
with the still small voice
of God
 
*
 
"...how small a whisper we hear of Him,
and the thunder of His power who can understand"
-Job 26:14
 



Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Lost and Found - A Prayer...

 
 
*
 
I tire of loss
I'm longing for Found
a little less Loss
a little more Found
 
To know You, God
sans smoke screen
sans all the
less-than lenses
that have been given me
to See
 
I want to be Amazed
Again
by Grace
by Mercy
by Second
and Third
and Thousanth
Chances
 
I want to stand
Tippy-Toed
and Wide Eyed
as I once did
as a child
full of anticipatory Delight
 
my trusting hands outstretched to Yours
waiting for inevitable
Wonderful...
 
I want to know
the One
Who lost love also
in that garden long ago
Who, with anguished Heart
and Sorrowed Soul
went looking for it,
in earnest,
Longing for Found
 
as I do.
 
*
 

Monday, October 28, 2013

Risen


~*~
 
And so the sun rises
 
Again
 
As it always has
 
As it always will...
 
...The night has had its say
 
And we listened patiently
(and not so patiently)
 
for The Lesson.
 
Duly noted, Nocturne.
 
But Now
 
It's Time
 
To bid adieu the darkness
 
To take hold the reins of Hope
 
To Move On,
 
To Lift our eyes
 
To See what's set Before us,
 
And with the Son,
 
To Rise.
 
~*~
 
"Weeping may endure for a night
But Joy comes in the morning."
-Psalm 30:5
 
 


Sunday, October 27, 2013

Gethsemane



*

Anguished soul
bent low
and bare
with the crushing weight of
The End

my view of Beginning
(or anything Beyond)
obscured by this cross
which is,
of course,
a door,
as crosses always are

but now,
for now,
tears turn myopic
all vision of morning

and with You

I weep

in Gethsemane

^*

Friday, October 18, 2013

The Occasion.....

 
 
***
 
They do Still happen
And if you're Looking Up
you see
Do-overs
and
Double rainbows...
Broken seeds 
 
become saplings
the Stuff of beginnings
And the Someday that seemed so faraway
Suddenly becomes
 
Today
Redemption
and
Re-Creation
 
Another step,
Another night
defers to
First Light
Zoom out wide enough
to hold the Song
to hold the Day
and Rise
 
to The Occasion...
 
***


Friday, September 20, 2013

Letting Go II

"Death is swallowed up in Victory"
-1 Corinthians 15:54
 
~*~

More of a pirouette than a plummet
this Letting Go
 
It can be Gentle
 
and
 
Beautiful
 
With a Soft Landing
and a Laying to Rest
 
From this vantage point
("Looking Up"
instead of
Dreading Down)
 
I See the Sun above
Feel Your Arms below
Trust the Tenacity of Life
and the Wisdom
of Beginnings...
 
~*~
 
"Oh Death, Where is your sting?
Oh Grave, Where is your Victory?"
-1 Corinthians 15:55


Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Happy New Year...

 
"In the Beginning..."
-Genesis 1:1
 
+
 
The first day of the Jewish New Year, 5774,
begins at day's end,
Sunset
tonight,
 
...where Beginnings so often happen,
 
in the darkness,
in the dying uncertain light,
in the apparent ending of a thing...
 
in the Letting Go-s....
 
Happy New Beginning my friends,
Happy Brand New Day
Happy Rosh Hashanah...
 
It's going to be Extraordinary...
 
+
 
"You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance."
-Psalm 65:11

Friday, August 30, 2013

Genesis

 
"In the Beginning"
-Genesis 1:1
 
~+~
 
You hold me through the tantrum
through the kicking and screaming
through the heartbreaking bewilderment
of me,
of Your child...
 
...till the tears finally ebb
till my heaving heart slows
till Breath returns...
 
You hold me close close close...
till all is once again
Rest
 
and I curl up into the heart of You
buried in You
broken in You
but ready,
once again,
 
to
 
Bloom
 
~+~
 
"The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad,
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose"
-Isaiah 35:1

Monday, August 26, 2013

The End?

 
"For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father knowing about it.  As for you, even the very hairs of your head are all numbered, so do not be afraid; you are worth much more than millions of sparrows!"
-Matthew 10:29-31
 
~+~
 
With every ounce of courage I have
(and with a great deal of cowardice too)
I let go...
 
..of all I have into all of You...
 
...the drop between the two feels like an eternity....
...like an acorn letting go of its oak,
 
all I feel is the falling......
 
The latent life that waits to emerge, the oak I am to become, giving shade, shelter, and strength to many, to all who come, begins to stir, even as I am broken open and buried,
covered in darkness and dying......
 
.....The Beginning.....
 
~+~
 
"That they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be Glorified."
-Isaiah 61:3

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Behind the Seen...

 
"...and the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool, was heard in the temple while it was being built."
-1 Kings 6:7
 
***
 
"...but I don't hear anything..."
 
We don't always perceive with our senses what God is building in our lives; we tend to lean heavily on what we can see, hear, touch.....but so often God's work goes on beneath that surface, beyond what we can sense in the traditional sense of the word, and too often, we discount what we can't see, we dismiss what we can't hear, we toss aside what cannot be touched.....trading the transcendental for the tangible, overlooking Heaven's Hand entirely.
 
...We assume nothing's happening.
 
So much is happening.
 
All the time.
 
All around us.
 
I submit that it is only the merest percentage of the Almighty's activity which actually registers on our rusty ol' radar...yet how often and how hastily conclusions are drawn based on that laughably limited data.  How often do we intellectualize ourselves right out of knowing the mind of God?
 
So much of our despair, so many dark nights of the soul, so much angst could be averted if we allowed for what is beyond our scope.  If we could see the bigger picture, hear the building going on behind the scenes, our ears would become deaf to discouragement, and our disillusionment would all but disappear.
 
***
 
"Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him!  But the thunder of His power who can understand?"
-Job 26:14


Sunday, August 4, 2013

Let There Be...and there was.

 
"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."
-Jeremiah 33:3
 
***

When we cry to God, God answers with His Word, and that very Word with which He answers us becomes Flesh, fleshes out in our lives.  Everything we need begins as a Word, is contained in His Word.

Man needed a Savior, the Word Himself became flesh.
We need light, the Word Himself becomes a lamp to our feet.
We need healing, God speaks a Word
Captives need deliverance, deliverance is preached, or spoken
and the Truth of the Word makes them free
 
We underestimate the power in the deceptively innocuous,
seemingly intangible Word
Yet it was a Word that created our World and the Heavens above,
"Let there be..." and there was.
 
To take it futher, John 1:1 says that the Word is God. 
Let that little gem stew in your noodle for five minutes.
 
So what is God telling you?  What is His Word speaking to you?  With what piece of Himself has God answered you?  Take some time to be still, to be quiet, so you can listen, so you can hear...

Consider the posture you take when you are truly listening for something...
 
Jesus said in Luke 10:42, "One thing is needed" referring to Mary sitting at His feet and hearing His WordSitting, being still, and hearing God's Word is not a passive pursuit, but a holy interaction with the Word Himself, wherein everything that is needed is invoked into our lives, so that Word, once again, can become Flesh, continuous creation, our lives becoming a consecrated conduit between Heaven and Earth.
 
"Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord."
-Luke 1:45
 
***
 

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Garden

 
"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse,
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."
-Song 4:12
 
~ ~ ~
 
To everything there is a season,
Seasons of confinement are followed by Seasons of release
this cycle evidenced in the smallest of seeds...
The life within, locked away,
but potent with potential when planted...
 
There are seasons when we are, indeed, sealed and shut up,
but these seasons are meant to precipitate a powerful emergence...
Even the bible is silent for four hundred years,
between the old and the new testament,
as the bow was being drawn and directed
tensed to release the embodiment of Torah into Terra,
Word become Flesh
Seed become Sight
The Messiah
 
So also our lives are meant to emerge
from seed sown
to Heaven's harvest...
We are, for awhile, sealed and shut up,
but as a means to an end,
to bloom, to blossom,
to bear fruit with which He can feed His sheep
beauty for ashes
rest for the weary
succor for every sojourning soul
Word, once again, become flesh
The very garden of God
 
~ ~ ~
 
"Awake, O north wind, and come, O south!
Blow upon my garden once again,
That its spices may flow out"
-Song 4:16

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Respirate

 
 "Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may Live."
-Ezekiel 37:9

***
 
Respirate......literally, Re-spirit......
...to be restored to life, infused with Spirit, also known as the Holy Spirit,
the Ruach ha kodesh in Hebrew,
literally translated,
the very Breath of God.

Wishing all who are weary today
Breath
Respiration
 
Be Still, Look Up, Breathe Deep, my friends,
 
The Very Breath of God
 
***
 
"I will cause Breath to enter into you,
and you shall Live."
-Ezekiel 37:5

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

True Love's Turning....

"The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel."
-Ezekiel 1:16

+
 
Even as God desires that we "live and move and have our being" in Him, so also, God wants to live, move, and have His being within us, to live through us....to live out His Life through our Life,
a wheel within a wheel...
 
Seamless interconnection, Completely engaged with our Creator
...He moves, we move, He turns, we turn, He stops, we stop.....
 
This gorgeous intimacy, Two become One, Perfect Unity,
Our triune lives the physical, mental, spiritual expression of The Trinity, of True Love Himself...

+
 
"...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us... that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one,
that the world may know...that You love them..."
-John 17:21-23
 
 

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Come


+++

Ours is not a neat and tidy tradition, religiously speaking.....Our God seems to have a thing for the sideways, the wayward, the wanderlusts among us.....Ragamuffins and Ruffians seem to be His companions of choice...Ours is an off-the-beaten-path and back-street savior, as evidenced throughout the New Testament. 

His strategems scandalized the "saintly", His social mores turned the modus operandi of the day on its ear.....He sought out sinners' company, He broke bread with those more at home in brothels and barrooms...He hung out on the fringes with the fringes,

and they loved Him
 
He tore down ivory towers that obscured peoples' view of God - replete with marble foyers, chandeliers, and the red carpet of the day -
 
and instead built His kingdom in the stables of our hearts, ever his humble birthplace and hangout of choice.
 
Ours is not a polished prince who wants polished prose
out of a polished posterity,
I think He rather prefers the prayers that are a little wrinkly, maybe with gum stuck to the bottom; I think He wants Real and not Rehearsed......Velveteen Rabbits versus the virtuous self-righteous.
I think He wants the fresh air of imperfect friends
not the Febreeze of practiced pharisaical dogma
 
so really, if you want to be like Jesus, Come...
Come misfit and messy, Come illegitimate and exposed,
Come vagabond and vulnerable
 
That's how He came...
and His coming
changed
the
World.
 
+++
 
"Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Why don't you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
 
-Matthew 9:10-13

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Pilgrim's prayer...

 
 

***
 
"Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on..."
 
-John Newman

the 99 and the 1...

 
 

***
 
"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?"
-Luke 15:4

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Minding

"to be spiritually minded is life and peace"
-Romans 8:6
 
***
 
To be mindful of spirit......to put our mental energy into spirit.....this, Paul says, breeds life and peace.......
 
When I consider where my mental energies usually go, I would have to say they are invested rather heavily into the body, into my flesh and bone, rather than spirit.  If I were to tally up this particular investment, I would guess that the mental energy I put into, say, my waistline, directed elsewhere, could probably solve world peace....and certainly hasn't produced "life and peace", angst and self-loathing are most often the outcome, especially when carb calculations come into play.  ; )
 
I wonder then, if redirected, what the kinetic energy of a spirit-focused mind would set in motion...the seed of an acorn creates the mighty Oak.....what, if tended to, could the seed of my spirit produce into this world....if steeped in God's presence, could Word not once again become flesh?  Could the apparently ethereal and insubstantial spirit become substance for a world desperately in need of substance?  Bread of Life and Living Water, Life and Peace, for all who are hungry, for all who are thirsty, for all who long for life and pray for peace? 
 
It would seem I've placed the cart before the horse...flesh before spirit. 
Both are important, but equally important,
 is which is driving which.......

***

"The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God."
-Romans 8:19

Monday, April 15, 2013

Why?

 
+
 
....When our world gets turned upside down,
our hearts once again sucked under in grief.....
We tend to turn toward Heaven and ask,
 
"Why?"
 
I wonder,
 
If Heaven is also turned toward us
Tears in His eyes
and on His lips,
the very same query......
 
"Why?"
 
+
 
"Jesus wept."
-John 11:35
 
For the victims of the Boston marathon massacre...
which all of us are....
Lord, hear our prayer

Be Still My Soul