Never Sleeps

While a pastor on the Fort Berthold Reservation I was honored with the Indian name, "NeverSleeps". It was primarily because I was often responding to particular needs in the middle of the night.

Even more relevant, the Lord Himself, Maker of all, "Never Sleeps".

Surely you know.
Surely you have heard.
The Lord is the God who lives forever,
who created all the world.
He does not become tired or need to rest.
No one can understand how great his wisdom is.

Isaiah 40:28

Welcome to every reader. I am a simple follower of Jesus. He is perfect, I often fall short.

Showing posts with label now. Show all posts
Showing posts with label now. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Once and Now

Once and Now

(“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:9)

Once and now sometimes, hollow is my
experience of daily rain and fog. Then and
here sometimes, empty is the word that
flies in and out of my mind.
Like underneath the rocks and mud there
are moments that disconnect me from golden sayings
I want to know.

But your love filled the fellow passengers who
glide rotating on sacred places. Every step we take
is an Edenic memory. Every day another awakening;
a rising sun to replace the dirge of dragging night.

Some days feel like decades, some hours like slow
motion riders. Feeling the mainlines through the years,
casting cares across the centuries, waiting became my
posture. I struggled for clarity, a calendar with appointments
full of destinations I would never visit. Come to think of it,
most of my travels were time-bound, turned around placements
of carousel dreams.

But in a single point of time, you met me stripped of
your glory
and walk the dirt I walk, weeded the ground I weeded,
breathed the late afternoons that had me catching my breath.
You capture me with a glance; you showed me your humanity
that carried your divinity and I was amazed. Your hands, like
my hands,
You are a king in peasant garb, a royal in old denim jeans.
I am astonished with a meteor bursting through the atmosphere,
and I release my doubts, realize my jump-starts, and restore
the opening sentences that tell your story broad.

Friday, March 6, 2026

We Are Here Now

We Are Here Now

(“But whatever things were assets to me, these I now consider a loss for the sake of the Messiah.” Philippians 3:7)

I never imagined that all my work might
go up in flames.
I never dreamed that it might be the beginning
of a renewed carelessness. I had not planned on
such an early exit. I had not pictured a retirement
so soon.
I never planned on setting aside the fire which
I thought had been my all.

I think more carefully now about what comes my way.
I consider anxious thoughts and wonder why they still
can find their way to my fingers, to my gut, to my freezing
stop-motion when I am in a crowd.

Nonetheless, I am setting aside the false I that I’ve know
so long.
I haunted me and I drug me across the dirty fields.
I left me shortly satisfied only to thirst again.
I festered like self-righteousness while we rode home
in the back of the deacon’s Cadillac.

We are we now. Christ is not out of my grasp,
He is not at the tipping point of the last day of my fast.
He is within, revealing my true self in beauty I
never anticipated. Don’t mistake me; I still want I
more often than we would like. We are each other now,
fully like ocean tides and sand. Like salt dissolve in
water, we are more we than I ever thought.