The Center

“(Stay) right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!” Jude 1:21 (The Message)

It takes true skill to stay within the circle of someone’s love. We may continually question their motives, or doubt our own appeal. Either way, we find ourselves setting traps for the person, testing whether their care is genuine. Or we push them away, as if to prove we were never within the reach of their love.

And Most Remembered

And Most Remembered

(“These are the stains in your love-feasts, as in your company they shamelessly gorge themselves; rainless clouds they are, carried along by winds; fruitless autumn trees, twice dead and uprooted.” Jude 1:12)

It was true, the banquets often lasted too long,
but not from verbose speeches and lengthy awards;
it was the people who would not leave for love of
a place to call their own. Their own homes damp,
their kitchens ravaged by dust that settled upon their poverty.

It was true, the banquets never solved the source of heartaches,
but they reminded (the bread with the wine) each diner of
the better time now within the refuge, inside the comfort
of unlocked protection and embrace. Their own faces
showed the joy at the tables and bounty in their voices.

It was swift, the aroma that switched from pleasure to scorched,
but the beginning of the overdone courses was slow to come out of the dark.
They hugged as well as they had at first, smiled the same gritty teeth,
but hazards implied their overheated eyes lusted authorship,
(their songs, their recipe, their work, their cutlery)
and might take the whole kitchen home unless applauded properly.

It was true, there were fewer at the tables after the fruitless left,
the clouds that mimicked showers, the dead pretending life;
but the joy rose higher, the wine flowed freer, the bread was
shared unhindered

And most remembered why they came.

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.