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

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

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

Reflection - haiku

 

 

 

*

 

let me reflect You

to a world who's eyes are starved

for the True Beauty...

 

*

 



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

 





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.

 

*

 

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

 

 



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

^*

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...

 

***



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



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

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

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

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



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 Word.  Sitting, 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

 

***

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

Come away....

"Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves

and rest for a while"

-Mark 6:31

 

+

 

Finding stillness on a planet that never stops spinning

straining against its centrifugal force to find solace

to find Center
 

The ripples subside and my soul becomes glass

reflecting to me my inmost thoughts

my deepest dreams

my Path with impenitent precision
 

This precious hiatus, this fulcrum

Away from earth's frenetic flood

Where Lost becomes Found

Where the riptide of reason recedes

Where the sanity of the Still and Small resurfaces

and the Communion born of solitude is restored
 

Thus filled

Thus stilled

I emerge

 Resurrected

Ready once again to re-enter

the round rhythm

of another Day

 

+

 

"Rise up, my love, my fair one,and come away"

-Song 2:10

True Love

***

 

"Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so...."

 

...for the bible tells me so

 

not "for I've followed Him flawlessly"

 

or "for I've been so faithful"

 

but simply,

 

for the bible tells me so...

 

Love's barometer is not set (or upset) by our behavior

 

He loves you because He loves you because He loves you

 

not because of "good works which you've done"

 

not because of anything you've done

 

(or not done)

 

but rather because of who you are,

 

namely,

 

His

 

His creation

 

His chosen

 

His child...

 

Jesus loves you this I know,

for the bible tells me so.

 

***

 

"I have loved you with an everlasting love"

-Jeremiah 31:3

True Love II

 

+++

 

utterly broken at His feet...completely at His mercy

no question of my guilt

witnesses abound...

 

Tensed against the inevitable onslaught of stones

eternity elapses

as I wait.....

 

One by one

He takes them on,

staring them down,

daring my accusers to lay a hand on His beloved...

 

In that look their own stone worthy sins

surface next to mine

my death sentence is suspended,
His is sealed

 

Then,

there is silence

The only sound that of footsteps

fading into the distance

 

There is You

and  there is me

 

Breath bated, body braced,

I await judgement

 

but once again

 

and again

 

and again

 

I find Mercy

 

+++

 

"I have loved you with an everlasting love"

-Jeremiah 31:3

 

Fallen

 

+++

 

Tumbling down this rabbit hole

Broken and bloodied

Darker and Diving

Till I see no more

The Light

The Way out

 

Uneasily at home

In a place far from Home

I long for Life

But cling to what is known

Cry out for rescue

But cower from Your reply

 

This once sure footed shepherdess

now in need of Your staff and rod

Come despite my foolishness

my failings

my fear

 

and find me

 

+++

 

"Never will I leave you.  Never will I forsake you."

-Hebrews 13:5

To Life

"I place before you this day life and death...Choose Life"

-Deuteronomy 30:19

 

Talk about things that go without saying.....this direction seems superfluous in the extreme, a no-brainer extraordinaire, like being told to choose the plane with wings versus the one without.  Do we really need to be told to "choose life" over death?  Rich fulfillment over decay?  Apparently God thought so....

Why this bent in our make up, why this hitch in our mental hardware? 

Perhaps because the choice for life often requires, ironically, a death to oneself, to what one knows, to what one has grown accustomed to and familiar with, and therein lies the rub.

I, like Job, wasn't around when these things were being decided, when this contract was negotiated....

...but I know the One who was.....the One who was willing to die so I would have the choice to live....

I don't pretend to understand it....

 

but I am so very grateful for it.

 

may we all have the grace, courage, and strength to Choose Life.

 

***

 

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it"

-Matthew 16:25

Onward

 

 

+++

 

Squinting into the haze ahead

Straining to see a semblance of...something...

Tentative letting go
of threads which tether me to what I know...

 

My once courageous heart recoils

leaning back into a leek and onion legacy...

preferring marginalism to manna

the monotony of the perceivable

to the miracle of parting seas

 

But His unswerving vision

sees the forest in spite of the trees

He knows the way I take

And is determined I should take it

 

For all my looking back
and the lure of illusory retreat

There is nothing now

but a pillar of cloud

and a Red Sea
in which yesterday is drowned

 

The past is no longer a viable port

and so I press on

into Unseen
and Unknown,

Trusting this Hand that Shepherds me on

to one day lead me
Home

 

-E.A.A. "Hindsfeet"  1/11/13

 

+++

 

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them."

-Isaiah 42:16

 

New

 

+++

 

Genesis beckons

into Journey beyond

what we have known

what we can see...

 

into courage for Crossing

from death into Life

over our Jordans

into all that will be

 

Our souls are laid bare

as the past falls away

we long to be clothed

with dawning of Day

 

Life will not be bested

so brave steps ensue

He gives beauty for ashes

 

All things will be made New

 

+++

 

"The Lord God is my strength,
and He will make my feet like hinds' feet,
and he will make me walk upon mine high places."

-Habakkuk 3:19

 

 

Incarnation

 

"In the beginning was the Word...

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..."

-John 1:1, 14

 

+++

 

As in the beginning,

The Word still seeks

safe harbor

in hearts that

would become

willing wombs...

 

These hearts of dust

become Heaven's creche,
bearers of Gospel,
Word, again, becomes flesh

+++

Merry Christmas dear ones,
love,
Elizabeth "Hindsfeet"

 

"Then Mary said, 'Behold the maidservant of the Lord!  Let it be to me according to your word.'"

-Luke 1:38

lamentation

 

 

+++

 

hearts hang,

battered,

half staff

 

with Jesus

we weep

 

+++

 

"Jesus wept."

-John 11:35

 

while my heart cannot wrap around the grief
of the Sandy Hook tragedy,

my hope is in my very small way to weep with those who weep,

and in so doing,

bear with them their grief

 

-e.a.a. "Hindsfeet"



Beautiful Fall

 

~***~

 

Live

 

Live this Life

 

We linger but for awhile

But Oh! How lovely the lingering can be

When we allow it to be

 

When we are freed from fearfully grasping

hanging on too long to moments past

clutching tightly to the present

weighed down with angsty wringing of hands

with shoulds and could haves and would haves...

 

Allow Love

Allow Joy

Yes, allow even frivolity

fearless leaps

new beginnings

second chances

 

We linger for such a short while

then we flutter

and fall...

 

Live so that in the falling

there is no longing

no looking back...

only a knowing

that Life was Lived...

 

Live so that when you fall

your fall is not tragic

but a tantalizing display

a dignified denoument

a fearless fluttering

a beautiful fall

 

Live

 

~***~

 

"I came that they might have Life, that they might have abundant Life"

John 10:10