Wet

* * *

...Right under your nose

Right Beneath Your Feet,

Tapped

Percolating up to the surface

of this once dry desert

wetting your ground again

trickling around your feet

Springs Surfacing

There, all along...

Around your ankles now

Flowing Again...

Swirling around

Your waist

Your torso...

And now you swim

and float

and are carried

Looking Up

You Smile again,

As you are Born

away,

to

All Things New...

* * *

"Joy and Gladness will be found therein,

Thanksgiving and the voice of melody"

-Isaiah 51:3

The Walk

+

Sometimes I think
He's not as task oriented

as we've made Him out to be...

Sometimes I wonder

if He just wants

to take our hand

and enjoy a stroll,

Maybe He gets tired too

and wants to simply

sit a spell,

and share a little beauty,

then to stroll some more...

not to arrive anywhere

in particular,

but just for the joy

of The Walk

+

Dig

The "Dust Bowl", Great Plains Region, 1930's

* * *

...And all those years,

this Aquifer 

of a 

thousand

million

years,

Brimming,

Full

of

Water,

Right 

Beneath

Their Feet...

Their eyes were wasted

looking longingly at Clouds....

when all they had to do,

was Dig.

* * *

"The Kingdom of God is within you"

Luke 17:21

Choice

+

The bowl of soup we hold to

with such terrifying tenacity

Beg for, like Oliver,

as though we were orphans

and not Beloved

not Chosen

As though we did not belong to the King

As though everything He has does not belong to us

Fearful of spilling one drop to the ground

as though it were our lifeblood

as though this viscous sustenance

was the be all, end all....

And all the while we buy into the lie,

 a Feast lays before us

Our Birthright of

 Fullness, Favor, the very Faithfulness of God

If only we would loose

our shortsighted grip

on this gruel, this counterfeit,

the enslaving ephemeral appetite

If only we would close our ears

to the enemy's "Did God really say...?"...

God did really say,

and He said it to Bless,

not to curse,

to Bestow more bounty on us that we can hold in a Lifetime...

Esau would've given everything for the choice we have,

Jesus did give everything, so we would always have this choice.

Choose Life.

+

"The thief does not come except to steal, kill, and destroy;

I have come that you may have Life, and have it more abundantly."

-John 10:10

Breathe

+

Come Away

above all the noise

away from the din of competing deities

apart from hirelings

who do not know

The Heart

who would rob you of

Communion

with The One

who made your soul

to mingle with His,

so much like His...

With abandon Return

to unashamed unabashed acceptance,

an abolition of fear and fig leaves...

Breathe Deep

The Other

and become Breath once again,

for all who are starving for air

for all who are gasping

for The Beloved

+

"I have Loved you with an Everlasting Love"

-Jeremiah 31:3

funny ...

~~~

"I casted around a 100 times.

Nothing.

Casted Twice.

Two beautiful trout, back to back.

Casted another couple 100 times.

Nothing.

Funny how it works."

~~~

(a note received from a friend tonight,

unintentional poetry.....the best kind.)

elder brother

+

Just as we are unaware of the blood and breath 

continually coursing through our veins and lungs, keeping us alive, 

so the elder brother lived on his father's mercy, 

required it as much as did the prodigal son.

It's just that the prodigal son, upon his return from death, 

having been gone for such a very long time, 

needed a full blown transfusion, 

full blown CPR.

That's why the Father's mercy looked excessive to the elder brother,

Even though, at the end of the day,

It was the same blood and breath that kept him alive

+

Unbroken?

+

Isn't it worth all the Breaking?

The Chiseling

Every Excruciating blow dealt

by The Great Sculptor

To Become

To Be

The heart after His own Heart

The conduit to His Heart

for everyone who will gaze upon me,

who will come

to the brightness of my Rising

Every eye that will look upon me

and see

God

+

"Arise, Shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord rises upon you."

-Isaiah 60:1

Finished

+ + +

So much ground covered

Soul searing soil which seemed insurmountable

Terrain which towered over us

Heartbreaking in its apparent invincibility...

But look behind,

See,

This Way we thought impossible

impassable

utterly implausible

Now threaded with our footsteps

taken one by one

by one

by one...

and Finally,

It Is Finished.....

Now,

It Begins...

*** 2015 ***

+ + +

"Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has the mind of man conceived 

the things which God has prepared..."

-1 Corinthians 2:9

The Last Word

"In The Beginning was The Word"

John 1:1

+

The Word

Which became Light

Which dealt the deathblow to darkness

In The Beginning

Still speaks

Still shines

Still writes on our lives

Authoring and Finishing

Our Story

in

Light

The deepest night

is no match

for this Dictum

The Word goes deeper still

In The Beginning

In The Middle

In The End

Light will have The Last Word

+

"I AM The Alpha and the Omega,

The Beginning and The End,

says the Lord God,

He Who Is

and Who was

and Who Is To Come,

The Almighty

The Ruler of All."

-Revelation 1:8

...Let there be Light, a Hanukkah blessing...

"Let There Be Light"

-Genesis 1:3

+

The lengths we will go

to procure this primal need

even synthesizing it

with phones, tv's, trifles,

these cubic zirconia counterfeits of what was given "In The Beginning"...

which fall into our stomachs, our base appetites,

but miss our Hearts entirely, where the true Hunger lies...

The True Treasure

Buried under the impedimenta of our lives

Waits for the soul, the seeker

who will not settle for 

smoke and mirrors...

Our deepest selves Know,

and still seek Him

and will not be satisfied

with sparkly substitutions

ersatz ephemeral fulfillment...

We Hear, through the din of false diamonds

True Light

Tireless Beacon Calling us Home

Bidding us Follow His Voice

Out of darkness,

Into our 'Let There Be' Beginning...

+

"What you seek

Is Seeking You."

-Rumi

Faith

+

Remember what was shown you

The Glimpse Given your Eyes-To-See

on the Mount

those High Places

that Day...

Hold to Heaven's View

Gifted you

Choose the Lens that Lifted you

that Lifts you

that will Lift you

into Landscape intended all along

Navigate by this View

Do not settle for the simple way

the base elements

ubiquitous

easily attained

Hold to Wings, My Love

Hold to High Places

Choose the Way where there seems to be no way

The Sacred Ground your beautiful feet

were Created to traverse...

Lift your eyes, Love

Raise your sights once again...

Faith, My child!

Faith!

+

"We walk by faith, not by sight"

2 Corinthians 5:7

Dew

"I will be like the dew to Israel."

-Hosea 14:5

+

A gentle thing

An Annointing

Arrives quiet

Anticlimactic

After such a Long night...

Such a Long

Long

Night

Settles, feather down soft

Soaking

Covering in halcyon Healing

Culling deep Grief

Barest Touch tending to

the bloody blows endured

merciless, devilish destruction

and dark deeds done

finally spent

Silenced

Displaced by this Delicate Dictum

Blanketed in this,

Morning's Benediction.

+

"The night is far spent"

-Romans 13:12

...

+

I Love you.

-God

+

Dots...

"Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, before ever they took shape, when as yet there were none of them."

-Psalm 139:16

+

Dots, like a constellation, run through our lives,

Seemingly disconnected

Disjointed

Their place against the black sky

Deceptively random

and Irrelevant

but Zoom Out

and See

A form emerges

A cosmos where there was only chaos

Method where there was madness

Something to steer by

Events, previously unrelated

become a Path

Providence, thought fickle and heartless,

becomes a Master Planner

What makes no sense

What tears out our hearts

What brings us to our knees

when looked at through the lens of the long run

becomes 

Meaningful

Wait for it,

Have a little faith...

The Finger that flung out the stars

Will one day

Connect all the

Dots

+

When the fog lifts...

"When the cloud was taken up from above the tabernacle, 

the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys."

-Exodus 40:36

+

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep..." is what Frost wrote, an eloquent word picture of what this Life so often looks like...

I'm not sure how "lovely" I think it all is.....sometimes it just feels "dark and deep" and not so lovely, not at all.....sometimes it just feels menacing, unending, oppressive.....sometimes I feel closed in and claustrophobic, barely seeing the hand in front of my face, holding to the tiniest thread and semblance of a path......Could this really be The Path?  

I want meadows, and clearings, wide-open spaces and lookouts that let me see for miles......not this plodding, this panting, this praying for daylight.......

I long for Frost's "Lovely"......I tire of "Dark and Deep".........but he tells me the two are not mutually exclusive......the paradox of "Lovely" and "Dark and Deep", paired, purposely, quite purposely, like a chess move playing out, plotting itself, into my Path.  And the thought comes that perhaps, perhaps, all this "Dark and Deep" belies something extraordinarily, exquisitely, and unexpectedly "Lovely", which, though hidden, pervades the Whole.  Perhaps, without "Dark and Deep", there is no "Lovely"....not the lasting kind of "Lovely" anyway......

....I want the Lasting Kind.  For myself, and for all others who will follow in my footsteps, the ones who will come behind, who will also lay Lovely ground...

So if "Dark and Deep" must coincide with "Lovely", if they are the inseparable companions Frost made them out to be, and if embracing dark and deep means I will also hold in my arms Lovely, for a world who is starving for Lovely, then Let It Be.....And with Isaiah, regarding these Woods, this Life, I say, "Here am I, Send me."...

...Bring on the Dark.  Bring on the Deep.  

Bring on the Lovely.

+

"I am dark, but lovely, oh daughters of Jerusalem, 

like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon."

-Song of Solomon 1:5

breadcrumbs...

breadcrumbs

"We're all just walking each other Home."

-Ram Dass

~~

My book, a compilation of posts from this blog, is now available on Amazon for Kindle.

My friends, I've walked this path with some of you for years, 

some of you just weeks or days...

All of you have had a part in the creation of this book, 

of the Life it took on, the Breath that it holds.

  

You shone your light, you lent your perspective, so generously into my life and onto my path; we journeyed together through calm waters and crucibles, through light and dark, holding each other's hands and helping each other to see, just a little bit farther down the road.

It is with a humble and deeply grateful heart, deeply grateful to each and every one of you, my traveling companions, that I bring this offering to our table,

breadcrumbs

~~

"I am God's pencil.  A tiny bit of pencil with which He writes what He likes.  He writes through us, and however imperfect we may be, He writes beautifully."

~Mother Theresa

breadcrumbs

breadcrumbs

"We're all just walking each other Home."

-Ram Dass

~~

My book, a compilation of posts from this blog, is now available on Amazon for Kindle.

My friends, I've walked this path with some of you for years, 

some of you just weeks or days...

All of you have had a part in the creation of this book, 

of the Life it took on, the Breath that it holds.

  

You shone your light, you lent your perspective, so generously into my life and onto my path; we journeyed together through calm waters and crucibles, through light and dark, holding each other's hands and helping each other to see, just a little bit farther down the road.

It is with a humble and deeply grateful heart, deeply grateful to each and every one of you, my traveling companions, that I bring this offering to our table,

breadcrumbs

~~

"I am God's pencil.  A tiny bit of pencil with which He writes what He likes.  He writes through us, and however imperfect we may be, He writes beautifully."

~Mother Theresa

Wide Water II

+

The Water is wide,

But there are Wings...

and there are boats that carry two......

There is a light on that far shore

coming into view

The same currents that battered us,

That broke us,

bent us to their mysterious will,

now carry us

and plot our course,

into the stream intended

all along...

+

"He shepherded and guided them"

-Psalm 78:72

Lost?

"What you are seeking

is seeking you."

~Rumi

+

Apparent contradictions exist,

carefully pointed out

with our self-made scepters

our limited scope, 

based on our combined five minutes of experience we've had on this planet:

Contradictions in the Book of books,

The Word we follow,

even where God Himself is concerned....

In Reality,

There are no irreconcilable differences,

Only finite minds which cannot span Infinite Distances.

Enter the Way Himself,

the Truth,

the One who came to bridge the gap

Our Path Homeward is plotted through Paradox,

Soaked in Mystery;

So much depends on knowing the Unknowable,

Faith asks us to begin at the end, 

to find rest in the Final Analysis,

The Constant of our Equation:

that God Is.

that God is Good.

That God is Love.

If the factors you're currently considering

do not add up to this end,

keep seeking...

You will Find,

and in the finding,

You will be Found.

+

"May you be rooted deep in Love and founded securely on Love, that you may have the power to grasp what is the breadth and length and height and depth of Love; to know the Love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

-Ephesians 3:17-19

Mercy

"Deep calls to deep"

-Psalm 42:7

+

You carved and dug

Deep into me

Mercilessly

(or so it seemed)

And made of me

Your Well

in this desert

For all who are thirsty

For all who would drink

Deeply

of Your

Mercy

+

"They shall partake of the abundance of the seas,

and of treasures hidden in the sand."

-Deuteronomy 33:19

Wholehearted....

+

The Heart is enlarged in still small spaces

Multiplied in Solitide

Woven Wide across worlds when given to One…

Thus stretched

This canvas can hold multitudes,

and more Beauty 

than ever it held ashes…

When willing to wait at the empty table

For it to be filled

The heart becomes a feast

even its broken

loaves and fishes fragments

become food

and fill to the brim

the baskets

of His Beloved.

+

Calling all angels...

+

Standing on this precipice

between 

terror of Falling

and

the 

thinnest 

thread 

of 

hope 

for

Flight

.....Wish me Wings

+++

Calling all angels

Which Way...

"He made known His Ways to Moses,

His acts to the children of Israel."

-Psalm 103:7

+

The children of Israel saw the cart,

Moses saw the Horse;

The children of Israel witnessed the effect,

Moses knew the Cause

The children of Israel benefitted from second cause,

Moses interacted with the Primum Movens Himself.

We can settle for outer court living,

protected, certainly,

provided for, of course,

partaking of what has been parceled out to us in God's word

Experiencing Providence from a distance,

Or

We can Live

in intimate interaction

with God Himself

Knowing First hand the Word

which becomes what we see fleshed out all around us

We can become conduits of creation,

not just the beneficiaries of what has been created

There is More than we've been settling for

There is So Much More

We can settle for making a living, for making our way,

or we can Know The Way Himself.

+

"Show me your way that I may know You"

-Exodus 33:13

Held

+

no matter how many rugs are pulled out from under us, 

underneath,

Still,

are the Everlasting Arms.

+

"There is no one like God,

Who rides the heavens to help you...

The Eternal God is your Refuge,

and underneath are

the Everlasting Arms."

-Deuteronomy 33:26, 27

Matrix

+

It's not about how good we are, 

It's about how Loved we are.

And we are so very Very Loved.

+

"For God So Loved the world..."

John 3:16

Simple

+

We serve a Savior Who chose a stable for His birthplace,

A God Who preferred the company of Fisherman to that of Pharisees,

A Lord Who advised the rich young ruler,

not to follow hundreds of laws,

but instead, said simply, "Follow Me."

When offered a thousand rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, even His followers' first born in some twisted attempt to procure His favor,

He gently redirected their well-meaning but misguided efforts with the simple dictum,

Just Do Justly,

And Love Mercy,

And Walk Humbly With Your God.

There is no song and dance necessary to secure your salvation,

No hoops to jump through

that will make Him love you more

Jesus died an agonizing death

to forever join your heart to Heaven's,

He did the hard part

So you could keep it Simple.

+

"My yoke is easy, My burden is light."

-Jesus

Stable

+

God has a thing for stables

The frills seem lost on Him

The fancy-schmancy doesn't seem to float His boat

We have a God

Who digs

Raw and Real

Who would rather be up to His elbows

in the nitty-gritty of our lives,

than to have the wrapped-up-pretty version

we so often offer,

the one that obscures the Gift inside,

the complicated-messy-conundrum He's so crazy about.

He wants your Voice,

not your script

He wants your Heart

not an Excel spread sheet

He wants to confide

without having to cushion and clean it up

He wants to sit in silence

with one who hears anyway

When given the choice

between homogenized and humble

between white-washed and weathered

between the insulation of the inn

and the blood and sweat of the stable,

We have a God Who chooses the Stable,

Every time.

Who makes Himself at home there,

So we can make ourselves at home in Heaven.

+

"For now I have chosen and set apart this house, that my name may be there forever; 

My attention and my concern will be there always."

-2 Chronicles 7:16

Yet

"...Although my house is not so with God, 

Yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant,

Ordered in ALL things and Secure."

-2 Samuel 23:5

+

Yet

The Game Changing Word

The Difference between

serving The Living God

and any other god

This tiny word

contains the entire gospel,

contains All the Amazing Grace

we will ever need

Our Soundness,

Our Salvation,

Our Second and Forty-Second Chances

are Sealed and Secure,

 we are Covered and Kept,

Not because we so perfectly keep our promises,

But because He Always 

Always,

Always

Keeps His.

+

"...This is All my Salvation,

and all my desire."

-2 Samuel 23:5