The Wilderness Hard Times

“I took care of you during the wilderness hard times, those years when you had nothing.” Hosea 13:5 (The Message)

Ah, the wilderness, the place where another human soul is days away, either by travel or because of broken relationships. The place where there is scarcely food or drink and where, though depopulated of people, creatures like scorpions, serpents and beasts have made their home. This is the literal wilderness to which God refers. When Israel was in the barest and most barren place, God took care of them.

pragmatism

pragmatism

(“Dear friend, don’t copy the evil deeds of others! Follow the example of people who do kind deeds. They are God’s children, but those who are always doing evil have never seen God.” 3 John 1:11)

Pragmatists hollow the riverbed the quickest way,
one slope-bank to the other. Years to follow feet will tread the
earthen dam eased dry and accessed free, proving their peninsula.

Downriver of the earth-pile, the styles have changed,
fish aren’t fried, and likeable souls furrow their brows
that an apex undebated, such a clear focus unabated to everyone
could finally benefit, imagine that, only the upper half.

Without Knocking

“And this is the confidence we have resting on Him, that if we petition anything in agreement with His will, He hears us.” 1 John 5:14

Communication is the key to most important relationships. Most family counselors and books about marriage focus on communication. Knowing how and when to say the important things are crucial to relationship growth. And, giving time to honestly listen to each other is equally essential.

Give it a Rest

Give it a Rest

(“Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are.” 1 John 3:1a)

We know how hard you’ve worked,
and how loudly you run that vacuum machine
careening into the table legs to make your point.
No one has ever noticed food on the floor like you do.

Give it a rest, son, let the best give way to the
love that’s done more than your chores (duly noted)
will finish today. We hear you put the cleaning brush away,
the cabinets close loudly, your exclamation point.

Give it a rest, daughter, let the mess whisper like a
pile of dead leaves God let sit months until the following spring.

We know you know much, how much you know is punctuated
by your opinion pressed against the best ideas, even when
you came into the conversation one breath between a comma
and the final question mark.

Give it a rest, brother, let the silence attest to how you
and two or three, know less than cement opinions that
wall out hugs and empathy. You know we know that
you don’t know it all. We know less than we know and
still are blessed.

We know how frightened you’ve become, and loud words with
concrete argumentation stone you silent or sting you
to grind your teeth with words you’ll take back later.

Give it a rest, sister, let the decibels suggest your distress
is full of woodpecked holes you never asked for; meet
the agony with less anxiety recoil, instead let the silence

Within the loved child that you are, let the dust settle and
the words fall upon the floor. You are more than their agitation
and your itch to set everyone straight. A child of love, the King
has named you; the whisper of the name more certain than
the shouting of the exceedingly sane.

An Unchanging Promise

(“This is exactly what Christ promised: eternal life, real life!” 1 John 2:25 [The Message])

Anyone can make a promise. There are promises of health if you just drink someone’s juice product. You can lose 50 pounds in 2 days if you use the most recent weight-loss gimmick. Men and women promise to live together as husband and wife, “forsaking all others”. Friends graduate from High School, and, before moving off to college promise to make sure they will stay in touch.

No Fooling

“If we say that we have not sinned, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth isn’t in our hearts.” 1 John 1:8

Have you ever struggled with a loved one who had a medical condition and wouldn’t admit it? Perhaps they had constant, sever pain and hid it. Finally, after seeing them grimace time and time again when doing some simple task like leaning over to pick up the newspaper, you realize something is wrong. They admit to you that, not only is their pain severe, but they have actually battled it for more than a year.

All Landscaped with Righteousness

All Landscaped with Righteousness

(“We’ll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.” 2 Peter 3:13 [The Message])

I never knew all their names, the roses in my North Dakota
garden bed. Five bushes lined the driveway, from the velvet caret
to summer-noon yellow. Each winter I covered their delicate roots and
with three or four making it through the winter, I thought myself blessed to
replace the rest when spring lately warmed their cradle.

I’m no gardener, make no mistake; someone else had planted them there,
left for my adoption. Fed, watered, pruned and gifted; front yard
July mornings urged the new canes to catch up with the few.

The best blooms never saw more sun than a day or two, given away
to my wife, my daughter, and sometimes to an accidental hello;

Plus my kindergarten friend across the street.

Sad, a few weeks later,
that the rose I fetched her had “died”, I’d pluck another,
sweet pink laced with white as milk. I think she gave it to her mother,
(roses are never meant to be hoarded or collected like coins or stamps,
but displayed in ways that say the person who receives even one
floral masterpiece is more beautiful than the gifted blossom.)

Just before winter crumbled the remaining hips on their canes,
sad eyes stared me down one morning again about the previous rose’s demise.

 I could not help it, but told her, no lie, I would bring her a rose,
next summer,
that would never die.

As soon as the frost departed and left its home vacant for warm loam
crawling with life and enrichment, I rushed downtown to where
the local vendor displayed spring’s best wares underneath a warming tent,
and searched for the best, never-die rose, for a 5-year-old who would
know the difference,

And, paying with my mud-knuckled fingers, hurried to her house,
dug half a hole and knocked on the door. She giggled, her mom smiled,
and my little friend and I planted the best place for a rose to be:

Right out front, for all her neighbors to see.