Pour it Out

“But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have not drunk wine or strong drink, but I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.’” 1 Samuel 1:15

There is pain and desire so deep in the human heart that words fail in expressing the anguish. I have friends whose two-year-old son has just been diagnosed with Leukemia. This just a month after being married and the same day as the transmission went out in their car. What can they say that adequately describes their state of heart?

So Loved by God

“Meanwhile, we’ve got our hands full continually thanking God for you, our good friends—so loved by God!” 2 Thessalonians 2:13a (The Message)

Greg and Ann are friends we have known over 25 years. The sad thing is that we haven’t seen each other in almost 20 years. Greg is an enthusiast. It doesn’t matter what he tackles; business, sports, or the next church project, he dives in headfirst, swims till the end, and shouts encouragement to everyone along the way.

Fields on Fire

Fields on Fire

Set our fields on fire, spark or accelerant;
ignite our desire, let it burn beyond the heavy brush
and let it rush in a controlled burn consuming, down to bare earth,
each dry and dusty remnant of yesterday’s harvest.

In a cauldron smelt our ore, in Your foundry
refine us sweeter to the core. We have guarded our
oxidation, our patina only shows our age.

In your kiln collect finish our shape, in Your furnace
fire us freer to belong, light years from the place we’ve become.
Stamp us, your imprint, your handprint, solid as heat,
blazing and glazed with your glory.

Let our fields, rid of the dry, accept the rains, the splashes,
the lightning, the flashes of brilliance that coax the grain
green as spring and
ready for late summer harvesting.

Let the river run overflowing past the burn’s black and ash,
let the fawn drink at dawn, the barn owl nest, resting at dusk,
and life return where fire cleared the brush of previous
generations.

Jaw Bone Hill

Jaw Bone Hill

(“When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.” [I.e. the high place of the jawbone] Judges 60:19)

When we toss aside the tools like
Dixie cups that children drink
we litter the waysides with our excess ego.
Then we name it like a monument, neither
to God’s glory or later progeny

But to a jackass’s jawbone.

We erect the highway signs,
“historical marker ahead”
and people stop their cross country
caravans
to view a craggy wasteland where
a simple man who could not keep a vow
for more than a day
cast aside the homemade weapon like
a Frisbee.

A thunder man with elephant ego,
a passion man with voracious thirst,
a hot sand man with unconscious feet,
a swirled head man with indifferent creed

Yet led and finished each deed,
and after, still a miscreant of disregard,
grace settled where, in the final place,
there were no more jawbones to be found.

Breathe With You

Breathe With You

(“We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.” 1 Thessalonians 2:8)

I would wait forever until sunlight replaced
the rain of tears, the claustrophobia of clouds
that dropped upon your nerves as you stood
at the threshold of the auditorium that held
the next experiment. Storms come from nowhere
while sunlight dances beyond the threshold
in the auditorium where
she smiles like a beauty queen
wiser than all the students of meteorology:
warming globally or aging icefully.

I would breathe with you, slowly, each weekend
the drones followed their pipers, leaving you to
be better than following, wiser than magnetism,
surer in your skin, improvised, without/within,
based upon the classics; a spark, not a conflagration;
a starter, not a copy of every day lived by thousands before.

I would carry your bags daily, sweat or chill,
until you knew the steps, rep after rep,
and left me behind one day to fly away
into the cloudless sky. You are the choreographer,
the lyricist, the weather’s director

Flying where few have begun,
walking in and out of the sun,
singing what rarely is sung,
and, closing in on the last day,
but barely begun,
I’ll watch you far beyond those
with party lines and worker days,
because your dream lasted longer than
the storm. Your dance twirled final and
first until,

Beginning and uncertain, you
heard the curtain close, the applause and laughter,
the sun leaped up the next day after,
you had flown above the clouds,
softly aloud, and landed exactly
where your heart could wander and love
forward of the crowd, a leader, a teammamte
and master, unscattered by paperclip
anxieties, and a home for the next few
who needed to hear their souls were created
a masterpiece, no print or copy;
a home decorated for the next few
who you knew were just like you,
and more unique than sunrays or snowflakes
a million times over.

Keep Listening

God’s Message; “Guard my common good: Do what’s right and do it in a right way. For salvation is just around the corner, my setting-things-straight is about to go into action… Make sure no outsider who now follows God ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class. I don’t really belong.” Isaiah 56:1, 3a

Why do people classify themselves as “conservative” and “liberal”? It seems these labels cause divisions more often than they define anything. And, do these labels help our spiritual life at all? Here God says that we should be careful to guard the common good; doing what’s right and doing it in the right way.

God Will Repay

“Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he committed toward his father in murdering his seventy brothers.” Judges 9:56

Abimelech was an unsavory character who decided to take the throne by killing all but one of his 70 brothers. He wades through rivers of blood to accomplish his desire for power. The lone surviving brother Jotham, tries to warn the people that supporting Abimelech is a bad idea, but the people ignore him. They make him king and Abimelech reigns for three years.