The Jangly Sky

The Jangly Sky

(“And I heard the altar saying, ‘Yes, Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.’” Revelation 16:7)

The sky above me was jangly while the
sun sent spangly shadows between the trees
darting between leaf and leaf in waves and unruly
particles.

I pondered swiftly the ways our puzzled faces
looked when carrying what we thought we had lost
between us like luggage on the floor. We left it to
the microscopes to explain it all.

We tried to disguise our worried visage, we begged
our distrust to dissuade us like rain on the desert floor.
We had heard the words come from the distant past
and we pretended to understand it at last. We were
foolish.

We let our fears of going outside capture our guarded mind.
We listened to the clanging caught between windchimes and
crows. We pretended to know the answers while we
started the afternoon with the same doubts. We were
disingenuous.

The sky stayed the same throughout the waning day,
the sun scooted over a degree or two seeking the western
horizon. Underneath it all we remembered deer in the
front yard and rabbits in the back. We were
persuaded.

We admitted we had run short of easy answers and so,
simple as we were, we let the light play across our faces.
We moved, quick and stealth, following our canvas thoughts
to their storied end. We knew now that every view would need
to bend.

We Took the Backstreets

We Took the Backstreets

We took the backstreets too often
trying not to be seen, hoping not to be heard.
We were convinced that everyone was happier than
we deserved and so we made the shadows our friends.
We deserved nothing brighter than the alleys,
or so we thought. The spotlight blinded us and sent
us scattered across the way. What would they say when
they saw us dressed so differently from them, handsewn
rags from mediocre wardrobes. We never thought the songs
were for us and so we never memorized the lyrics.

We took the long way home nearly every time we
returned. What would we say to those who thought
they knew us and paused to chat or ask us questions,
or insist we swallow some offered food with them.
We should have trusted them. But we had trusted others
and their food nearly poisoned us right in front of everyone.

We had no way to measure the honesty of the light we met
along the way. He had no means to assess what harm there
might be in giving them space within our shivering minds.
We had been treated as paupers before, morsels received from
clenched hands. So we found ourselves suspecting every
motion from shoulder to elbow to hands.

We would give anything to walk through the neighborhood,
stop at the cul-de-sac and chat with the children and puppies
with eyes happy to see ours. We would throw our hearts wide
open to let the better words lodge as their parents saw us and
laughed along with our improvised conversations. Maybe the
light can shine again, maybe we can come out of the shadows,
take the front road and not the alley. Maybe the pain we
experienced
was inflicted by people with as much pain as ours. Maybe
there was a place to play like sunny afternoons in meadows
that musically laugh the healing songs of human bonds. The
clash we once felt might be the beginning of lively moments of
daily discovery like a child finger-painting the sky.

A Patch of Sky

A Patch of Sky

(“…so that you may know that the earth belongs to the Lord.” Exodus 9:29b)

I looked up at the patch of sky above me;
I looked out at the swatch of green before me.
I saw clouds pulled across the blue with kite strings;
I saw myself imbedded in a shadow box of early afternoon breezes.
Sometimes it goes without saying that certain stories need to be told.
Sun or rain,
the words can be heard in whispered portraits of the day.
A doe crossed the road just beyond the cemetery
and disappeared into the stand of trees and brush.
She didn’t know I saw her. She sauntered like it
all belonged to her.
I walked toe to heel hoping to get closer to the
next one that crossed my path.
The air was thicker today, and I heard the
blackbirds say there were still hours to stay
in the middle of the afternoon.

They Begged the Sky

They Begged the Sky

(“Go and learn what this saying means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13)

Hidden beneath the aftermath of tsunami spirituality
are humans caught underneath the rubble.
Some think they deserved it,
some only came to observe it,
But most made up epithets to throw
if they ever surfaced above the fray.
Every day I meet another victim with
bruises on their arms and contusions on their hearts.
All they needed was someone to talk tenderly
while the fire lashed like a hungry tiger.
All they wanted was someone like them,
or even someone pretending to like them,
or, so it seems, someone less dreamlike.

They saw the fires, they felt the missiles,
they were stung by needles, they were facing
the needless pain they never paid for.

They begged the sky, they dug into the earth,
they doubted their worth, they were left in the rain
to dry.

After a while they gave up talking at all.
They were hermits of necessity,
they were monks hiding in caves.
They used to speak like lullabies;
they used to sing like the summer.
But now they are out of practice,
they recite monologues to themselves.

Everyone thought they were fine,
no one ever thought it was a crime to
leave them solo for so long. But they
stood with their backs to the wall looking
for someone that sounded like home.

And they begged for mercy to rain
on their parched tongues, they hoped for
grace reminding them of sunrise. They
watched for someone to bring them news
of the day.

An Unvarnished Sky

An Unvarnished Sky

I didn’t expect to go out again today,
the rain reminded me to sit with a pillow under my back and
a quilt around my lets. The call of a friend woke me from
the scratches I was reading in the book and my malaise,
and I took her to pick up her vehicle being fixed 9 miles
up the road.

I have all the time I want. No one wakes me up early,
no one demands my time mid-morning until late afternoon.
The rain spoke most of the day, but I had trouble interpreting
it’s call. Weeks ago, I wrote further ahead in time.

The sky was unvarnished and paintless,
the pencil mast of a sailboat etched the horizon.
I thought of warm waves, countless days
when the warm sun and wet sand were all I desired.

All my days have regressed to mediocrity;
happy hours meet sad sandstone head on.
Like a stream whistling from the hills I
sometimes wish alone felt more like sanity.

I didn’t expect to go out again tonight,
I spent the day centered on myself. Not
selfish,
but sifting every emotion through a sieve of
old beliefs and common words that
leave me mimetic. I can lose myself in the
music for an hour
and be back to brooding by the next
wink of morning. The sky is just a canvass
for my unpublished masterpieces.

The Sky Drips Like Honeycomb

The Sky Drips Like Honeycomb

(“But God now unveils these profound realities to us by the Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 2:10)

There are arms you cannot see,
ideas that seem like nonsense,
handy jargon always out of context.

I once imagined everything and then
was hemmed in by corners higher than
sight for me.
But the walls, now translucent,
become clearer when words are replaced by
unexpected dreams
of universal dances like a day in August,
like old friends limping while the music laughs
like angels.

The sky drips like honeycomb for those who will see it.
The leaves shade us from recently honed blades that
try to explain the dangers of passive resistance.

Just once (I am lying, just all the time) would you please
join us
on the picnic grounds where children play,
where peaceful dragons give rides to anyone who
will believe?
Fainter than day we can leave our insistence behind
and roll down the grassy hills, tumble down the
embarcaderos to watch the seals do the backstroke.

I still find it difficult to
to write lyrics about imminent events.
Once I knew I foresaw them, or at least a prophet had.
Now it is merely the stream that cools my feet this moment,
this day, this space between parentheses.

The steamroller has been garaged in the shed;
it is the day of gathering, the day of feasting instead.

When the Reservoirs Run Dry

 When the Reservoirs Run Dry

(“You let our enemies trample us; we went through fire and flood, but now you have brought us to a place of safety.” Psalm 66:12)

What to do when the reservoirs run dry?
What to see when the sky has pulled away like
a yoyo on a string?
What to say when pressed for faith?
What to sing when the melodies fade?

We shall wait.
And we shall set our tables with bread
in our narrow alley.
And we shall shower rain on the scrub brush
and the listless.
And we shall not be asleep in our though the
heat lulls us.
And we shall listen to the rhythm of seeds and
seedlings.

What to do when fear is a language
adopted by masqueraded sheep?
What to feel when cattle are thin and
blame is the only offer?
What to see when seeing has been discarded
for shades of lies? Why walk the streets of
gaslighting or original sin?

I will begin again. I will sing this verse instrumentally.
I will wail. I will whisper. I will let the shorter days pass
like chaff. I will sit with you, if you ask,
as long as all I am.

Our bread will be for both and our wine
shall be for laugh or crying. When the reservoirs
run dry
we will fill our cisterns with the rains from beyond the
sky.

Please Look at Me (a reworking of Psalm 13)

Please Look at Me
a reworking of Psalm 13

(“But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance.” Psalm 13:5)

I sent a letter, I tweeted a tweet, I posted it and messaged it and
none remembered? How long? Forever? No faces show up to
share a smile. And all the while, You, the One who says you are
crazy in love with me,
never show up!
So I’ve stored up all the junk in my life. The padlock is broken,
the rent is unpaid. And every day my anxiety fills the dusty corners
behind the cardboard boxes and ashy picture albums.
How long, damn it! How long? My mind is being wrung like
a dishcloth, then run under hot water and wrung again. And
my friend, (I thought) has all the cards. They have the weapons,
I have my tears.

So, will you please look at me.
NOW
god? My eyes are grey around the edges, red from the crying
that has emptied all their defenses. I would rather sleep,
no, rather sleep and die. Then I’ll no longer fight for the love
of friends
or companions. And they can say they won the big round this time.
My shakiness only confirms their assumptions. I cannot stop the
shaking.

Don’t tell me I’ve been wrong by relying on your love Divine one, I need
joy
so deliver me from the harsh looks, the mental crooks, the shivering
hooks that keep pulling me back into doubt and deep cavern darkness.
I am still alive, so I suppose you have treated me generously. But today,
I just don’t feel like singing.
I just don’t feel like dancing.
I just feel like a call from a friend would

Open my sky again.

The Hole in the Sky

The Hole in the Sky

(“…love one another earnestly with all your heart.” 1 Peter 1:22b)

I must apologize; I mistook the hole in the skies
as sabotage. But it looked like a hole on the frozen lake
augured for ice fishing and attracting northern and walleye.

But I looked again and there it was, a square, directly above my head,
where the azure had been sawn with equal sides. I would not have
noticed it,
but I was watching hummingbirds hover just opposite my face
and ascend like tiny bottle rockets to the uppermost limb
of the old walnut tree in the yard. Then two flakes
of cottonwood snow
drifted higher by and I followed their floating trajectory.
One dipped and circled the tree and rose again toward the logging
road behind my house.
The other rose on the currents like the ascension.

That is when it appeared, this grave dug in the sky.
How was I to interpret such a vision? Who would explain
such a thing?
I waited for an angel, I waited for a messenger,
I slept and waited for a dream, I woke and waited
for a vision. But none would come.

And the sky stayed punctured. And, afraid the whole earth
would leak through the hole, I panicked and turned up the heat.

I am only alive to describe this to you because
nothing happened to deflate the blue above or the
green below. It was just a hole and nothing more.

The few who saw it too presented their theories and
dissertations to a panel of judges at a table strewn with
flags and bibles. The first said the moon had broken the sky.
The second said it was the end of rainbows as we know it.
The third, oh the third was persuasive. An act of God,
to be sure, (except, the author interjects, wasn’t the
pre-hole sky an act of God too?) An act of God, he said,
dropped the mic, and put up a tent just outside of town
to wait until we all got sucked up through the hole or
fell into the one next time that would take us to hell.

I am still unsure why the sky was punctured. I am not sure
it has stayed that way.
I know what I saw, and my testimony is true.
I do not know its significance, only that I wanted to
share it with you and
maybe call some friends to talk about it over drinks tonight.
None of us know much anyway.

A Sky Waiting to be Filled

A Sky Waiting to be Filled

(“Are any among you suffering? Let them pray. Are any cheerful? Let them sing psalms.” James 5:13)

A sky waiting to be filled with
tears of pain
or
songs of joy. It surrounds everything.

A friend’s gaze sitting on the swing
waiting
to reflect back anything
in your heart today.

The breath moving and silent
carries the human cries from
within the infinite soul to
the eternal ground of being.

Angels may hover, they may not exist,
while some insist on squeezing confessions
out of the unbelieving.

And I hope to simply be satisfied with

Being seen.

How Old is the Sky?

 How Old is the Sky?

(“He is always striving in his prayers on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in everything that God wills.” Philippians 4:12b)

How old is the sky in your world?
Have you measured the path from the slight frost
on early spring grass?
How old is the sky in your world?
Did it start its infancy before you were born,
or come into being the first time its light hit
your eyes?
Our lives are slender. We are taken in by
every sleight-of-hand
that tells us
the universe has always been young or round,
with pyramid tops like geodesic domes. How
old is the sky?

In case you didn’t know
there are more creatures unseen alive
than watched by you or me. There are more colors
that tie us together like birthday gifts. There are
more books to read than there is time. There
are
fewer aromas more suited for contemplation
than mildewed pages and brewing coffee.

We are merely pennies in a universal economy,
we are the bent pitches of native flutes,
we are rain where we hope for sun,
we are bored before we’ve ever begun
to examine a single leaf and the tree of
diversity
from which it springs.

Everything is a straight line,
everything is concentric,
everything has acute angles,
everything has circumference.

The waves crash like cymbals,
the waves wriggle like earthworms,
the waves bend like rainbows,
the waves flash like popcorn.

And all that matters is,
how you, my neighbor,
are doing on this variegated day.

Under a Single Sky

Under a Single Sky

(“For the High and Exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy says this: ‘I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed.’” Isaiah 57:15)

The corner is no place for someone like you.
The shadows are not your home.
The teeth of the cavern,
the shards of the abyss
are not the place prepared for you.

And yet we put you there.
We never meant to.
You didn’t fit in and we were not
elastic.
And now we have moved on and left you
behind
to take more drastic measures on your own.

You belonged at the table.
No, you belonged to the voices that are
rarely heard;
the colors, the genders, the spectrum, the splendor
of intervals between the tones. You
stopped speaking when
you were not heard.

Your prayers were interrupted by syncopation
we rejected.
Your pleas were dismissed. We left you
unprotected. And then designed our bylaws
to exclude the rest that came behind you.
We did not mind knowing you;
we could not risk the questions that
fell from rafters like concrete on our heads.
We assumed you knew that too.

Do they still call it a remnant? That leftover
fabric, that unused yarn? It always made me think
of leftovers, the last thing left in the kitchen.

How can we know you if we insist on a quorum,
how can we hear you over the small talk of majority?
How can we encircle you? Tell us this time and
we will remain silent. We have put down our pens,
closed our notebooks and want to join you.
We were not allies, we were pedagogues and
insisted you learn our lessons.

A few of us are grieving.
A handful are shattered that we preferred
leaving to learning your story.

Let us sit in the corner with you,
visit the cavern and study the abyss.
We have smashed our clocks, our scales
buried in the rubbish of our myopia.
And if you do not speak,
we will not depart this time. We
will sit on damp granite stones,
pour the wine in a common cup
and pass the moments, the minutes,
the hours, the ages,
where the divine dwells like incense,
where our souls revere the placement
of one to one. The you, the i. The we,
the us. The just and unjust under a single
sky.

You Belong

 

You Belong

(“I will turn darkness into light in front of them. I will make rough places smooth. These are the things I will do for them, and I will never abandon them.” Isaiah 42:16b)

You belong to the earth,
you are a child of the sky,
though others may not see your worth,
your soul was made to fly
above the echoes that have exploded like
cannons in your mind.
You were made to walk in shoes that fit,
that shine, that warm, that find the winding path
where you belong. The beach cabin where
your mind is at home, where the waves echo the
beat of your heart, where the sun rises and speaks your
name
as more beloved than your ears have yet heard.

I would walk the solar system round just
to bring more starlight to you.
I would record the voice of heaven just
to bring more music to you.

The songs were written before your breath,
the lyrics are honey, caramel and cream. The
stars danced on the day you were born and
tonight will celebrate once more.

You belong to heaven,
you are a child of the voice
that spoke the worlds whirring in the void.
You are the first thing on heaven’s mind,
the last ever left behind. Your feet
leave prints on the sacred earth
for others to follow the way with you.
Your voice leaves whispers in the holy air
for others to hear and speak back to you.

I would collect the oceans just
to let them soothe your weary heart.
I would gather the sunshine just
to let it warm your winter hands.

You matter more, a princess, a daughter,
than you have ever been told, than
you have ever remembered.
And now believe (oh if I could embody the word)
Beloved is your title, your name, and has always been
the place you belong in heaven, in earth, in sky, in song.

This World and That World

 

This World and That World

(“Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world.” Ephesians 1:3)

I wandered through dreaming and waking,
a visitation of images, stories and places
with characters combined and double cast.
It seems I had won the lottery but lost it
within moments of the next scene my mind conjured.
This world and that world all contained within the
neural impulses
that fired without my command.
My head was leaden, my will forbidden from acting,
and my pain binding me to my bed.
Yet, an hour after waking, far into the long afternoon
I saw the reflection of the pink and clearing sky
in my neighbor’s window.

While I slept unwillingly, I heard phone conversations
and my daughter’s voice coming in the front door.
Yet none of this could move me from the
isolated paralysis that bound me to my bed.
Still, moments after rising, (the same hour as
the pinking clouds)
I saw the neighbor’s Siberian Husky watching
the same sky
from the same window

And the sun and raindrops fell
as evening approached.

I was glad I
never draw my shades.

Between the Paintbrush Clouds

 

Between the Paintbrush Clouds

(“But the king commanded…saying, ‘Deal gently with the young man Absalom for my sake.’” 2 Samuel 18:5)

Between the paintbrush clouds and peeks at the sky
we all move beneath the same sunshine.
Move lightly, for the sake of another;
step softly, for the songs of numbers of
countless birds remain unheard if we
wear nothing but our combat boots.

Between the hot-tipped arrows and the neighbor’s porch
we all wait beneath the no-mans land unplanned.
Bring coffee for the comfort,
and a chair just for conversation.
Bring children who laugh away the wounds
with their soap bubbles and endless questions.

Between the pale failures and occasional wins
we all regret what might have been.
See deeper, for the love of breath and light.
Hear weeping, the same as your own. The
circle where we dwell unwraps our faces,
deciphers our songs,
and reminds us we belong to each other.
Let it fly like dandelions away.

Above the Orange Sky

 

Above the Orange Sky

(“This is what God told us: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” 1 John 5:11)

In the regions of the orange sky
I have laid down my restless heart only to
take it up again when the phone does not ring
for more than a day.

My moments were once filled with 6-strings,
my days with a dozen friends,
and my nights with dreams of music and members
of the band.

I want to hear, “how are you” again,
I want to ask, “how is your heart, my friend?”
I want to be the voice that only speaks peace,
the fingers that only send safety in a world so
anxious it starts burning before the sun comes up.
Sometimes the fire in our minds is a hell like dying,
held up by fear that drowns the words we know the best.

I would call you up, hear your voice and know, before
the first word
that, just like the garden you water;
you are thirsty for someone to cool your brain.
We are much the same.

I have tried to water my own for so long I fear
only weeds exist where roses once bloomed.
I know it is too soon to make a final judgment,
but the smoke hazes my vision of the better day.

Will you call me up, hear my voice and say, before
the first tear
that, just like the poetry I write;
I am a jumbled alphabet waiting for someone to rhyme?
Would you give me time?

You read words that water your mind,
words that cause tears to drop upon the page.
You are fearful as I; I am thirsty as you.
Words or water, bread baked together
or broken at the table
what if the sounds we remember
of music, and names, and holy silence
shatter our reliance on tiny rules
and remind us of greater loves.

I will join you in your garden if you will hear my song,
and perhaps a dozen, perhaps only one, will join us
and hike along the trails of delight until the stars rise
above the orange sky.

On HIllside Picnics with Us

On Hillside Picnics with Us

(“There was a tent behind the second curtain called the holy of holies.” Hebrews 9:3)

Inaccessible, and how do you get there from here?
How do you ascend the throne of the one who sits
across every constellation and speaks to the galaxies
like children?

Once a year one would draw near. Yet the curtain deadened
the vision and muddled the sound of sacred rites hidden from view.
I remember pulling the shades at night so neighbors could not
see what I was reading.

Who hides in that tented room? Who awaits the approach one
afternoon of the year? Smoke obscures our senses, incense
increases our guesses.  We wait as we have waited for this day
for hundreds of years. Yet, though mystery is the density behind
the veil,
we long for the familiarity of family. When the curtains open again
the precious stones carried on his heart glisten in the sun. He is done
for the year. We dine together, a savory meal with god and our neighbor;
a communal meal that leaves us satisfied and still unsure
about the nature of Shekinah, glory, judgement, atonement and holy
moments which seem much too large for our containment.

But the curtain is mere fabric; the ark of the covenant mere wood and
earthy metal hammered by human hands and place silently. We stand,
and dare not breathe, and less to talk. Our children pull on our robes
wanting an explanation of the one made manna and manufacturers snow,
the one who sends the sun riding on the sky and the moon hanging like a lantern,
the one (oh the ages would tell) surrounding the expansion of everything and

hidden within the smallest quarks without names.

We sometimes miss the truth for the tradition,
unchanging incantations convince us we have met the divine.
But we do not know, or are slow to hear, that all this is play-acting,
a metaphor, a puppet show. We memorized the words and drew
our swords against any who would say different.

But here we have been invited, the hospitality of Yahweh,
the invasion of the Son into every space we thought was empty,
into every moment we thought ordinary and so unholy.
But his sandals dug the earth, his hands cupped the mud,
his eyes wandered to scattered sheep, his mouth kissed the wine.

And, if this time we will hear it, we shall know that dust is sacred
(we are built of it)
Seeds are sacred
(we begin with it)
Humanity is sacred
(we can count on it)

For the Holy one who dwelt among the cherubim
chose rather to dine on hillside picnics with us.

God Made This Day

God Made This Day

“When times are good, be happy: but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.” Ecclesiastes 7:14

Imagine yourself on a boat or small ship. You have sailed solo quite a distance and now are out of view of any land. All around is only water and a clear sky and the spring sun warmly shining down. The weather is perfect. The temperature is just warm enough, perhaps in the low 70s, and the water is still. From time to time small ripples wrinkle the water’s surface, but mostly it is smooth and unruffled.

You stare at the sky that surrounds you. Every way you turn, the color is the same. The sky is washed with the bright pastel blue of a cloudless day. You sit back to take it all in breathing the air. There is nothing of earth about it; no mud, no sand, no engine emissions. It smells like water, but more. You think that if bread could be baked of simply H2O it would have this aroma. It is so fresh you take one deep breath after another, which puzzles you. Rarely, if ever do you pay attention to your breathing. But in this beautiful moment you do.

You scan the sky again, starting at the zenith above you and begin to follow the palette of blue down to the horizon. The sky, a deep brushwork blue overhead, turns lighter as it meets the horizon in a whitewash of cerulean.

The water transforms the sky from its pale monochrome to a silvery mix of blue and green. Even with very little wind, the surface of the water shimmers. With the slightest breeze, tiny diamonds seem to burst and shine above the water. Your sense of awe expands.

As you take it all in over the early afternoon, you feel peaceful, calm and content. This is the life. This is what my soul needed. This is why I bring my boat out here. (Everyone knows you don’t really fish.) And in the sort of exclamation that only comes from a satisfied and solitary place, you exhale loudly, “I am so blessed!” And you are. And, even if you don’t believe in God, you still would probably use the phrase. It just seems right.

But in the moment of your reverie you feel the wind pick up a bit. Not much at first. You’ve been on the water enough times to know the calm moment was a rarity. You consider turning for shore, but you are not concerned quite yet. You want to embrace the day and inner peace you are experiencing.

You glance at the horizon again and now become concerned. The horizon has changed. Now, above the water heavy cumulus clouds are building. Rising high above the water with their flattened undercarriage, they are already dumping heavy rain and are moving toward you. No longer silver, both the sky and water are boiling into a deep and threatening gray.

The water is choppier as the waves increase. All waves have two attributes: frequency and amplitude. On the boat, you feel the frequency increase as the waves are swept along by the wind. Frequency is simply the rate at which a wave moves past a fixed location. It can also be expressed as the distance from one quest to another in a moving wave.

Amplitude refers to the height of the wave. It is measured from the trough, the lowest part of the wave, to its crest. So, a three-foot wave is one that is 36 inches from trough to crest. On the boat, not only are the waves coming more frequently, but their amplitude has increased. What once perhaps rocked your boat a bit now, with the greater force of higher waves, threatens to capsize your vessel. Your perfect day is becoming a perfect storm. A few minutes before you were saying, “I am so blessed!” Now, “Blessed” is the last word that comes to mind. (You can substitute your own.)

The Teacher in Ecclesiastes wants us to remember that life is just like that. We can go on for days with everything going right, no major disruptions, our kids obey us (or at least we think they do). We love our job, we have close friends we enjoy, our marriage is, well, a good marriage. (Which means, yes, you fight, but you work it out.) You haven’t received a speeding ticket in over a month, rush hour traffic has been unusually light, and you even have enough savings to take your kids on a vacation of a lifetime. You would say, “I am so blessed.”

The Teacher tells us to be happy during these times. Don’t feel bad when things are going well. Just like the man on the boat, drink in every good thing. Enjoy when life goes well, and the storms are afar off.

But then he asks us to consider something when things go poorly: “God has made one (day) as well as the other.” Uh oh! In other words, when things get stormy and everything you believed gets turned upside down, remember, God made that time (or season) as well. It was easy for the man in the boat when the water was still, and the sky was clear. It is easy for us when finances, family and friends, health, plans and direction all seem to work out the way we expected. It is easy to say, “I am so blessed!” Because we feel blessed. We feel blessed by positive things: quality relationships, finances in good order, etc. But we also feel blessed by negative things: no downsizing at work, very little friction in relationships, etc.

Let things go bad, though, and how well do we feel blessed now? Come on, it’s just me typing this and you reading it; you can be honest. No matter how often we are trained to say, “I’m too blessed to be stressed”, we get stressed. And often for good reason. Storms can rise on open water at any moment and from anywhere. And can they in life. You lose a job. You go through a divorce. You are diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. You have medical needs that have drained all your finances. Just imagine experiencing one of those life events and exclaiming, “I am so blessed!”

But that is not what the Teacher is advising. He is not asking us to evaluate if God is in the good raise we got as well as our struggle with alcohol. He is asking us to remember that God made both days. He did not necessarily make the circumstances happen, but whatever circumstances do happen: God is in that day.

I believe this will make a difference for a lot of people. In the mid-90s I was making over $60,000 per year; more than I had made in my life. For that time our family was able to enjoy many experiences we wouldn’t have otherwise. But, consider this. While my income increased, I had friends who were out of work for years. Was God with me and not with them? Of course not. We were both functioning on “the same day.” The same day I sold $50,000 of computer equipment to a hospital a friend of mine was searching for work to support his family. But we were both in that “same day”.

I grant, when life is tough, it is really hard to say, “I am so blessed”. Here’s a clue: Don’t say it. I have just ended an entire year without earning a penny. I took early retirement for medical reasons and have been attempting to qualify for Disability Insurance. Now living with relatives, not pastoring a church, across the country from friends and a place we called home, I have found it difficult to say, “I am blessed”.

Once I considered this passage, though, I found myself able to say, “God has made this day.” Dear one, no matter what you are going through, God is with you. You may not feel “blessed”, and that is okay. Don’t let anyone put you down for that. But, if you can find a way to say, “I may not feel blessed, but I know God is with me, because He made this day just like any other,” it may bring you to a place of hope. The day everything went right? God made it. The day when your soul felt like it was boiling over? God made that one too.

God has made this day.

Stolen Focus

Stolen Focus

(“And I know God has made everything beautiful for its time. God has also placed in our minds a sense of eternity.” Ecclesiastes 3:11a)

Meanwhile the rains let up for the moment when,
looking up,
the seagull stole the focus from the cliffs in the foreground.
A white brush-stroke across the opening sky, it rose while
gravity kept us all tied down.