Recent comments by presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann have stirred up the discussion about gay marriage once again. While speaking to a group of high school…
Poetry
24
April
2013
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Lori, I think Paul, Peter, and Martin Luther King were no different than us in their internal battles, yet lived ...
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I love this poem! I'm the coward. I'm the seeker, wanderer kneeling at the foot of the Throne, asking ...
2 Comments
Sometimes I perform the popular, seek to satisfy the status quo because it’s socially easier to pretend to be like “them”. Sometimes I crave acceptance, even though it costs my soul. I was created custom-made by God, with ideas unique to me, perceptions that fit no one else that I alone can abdicate. Then I think of Jael in Judges 4 who defied her husband’s allegiance to follow the God of Israel, risking absolutely everything in response to God’s command. I think of Paul and Peter and Martin Luther King, honoring their beliefs over rational safety. Am...
20
December
2012
when the pain is deep and the intimacy cheap when the fear is real and is your only meal She is there, Her motherly care, whispering Her kisses into your ear though you can’t hear, feel Her breathing Her love into your fear, She is moving in the deep pain: the blood red dripping from the cross, a love stain in your heart is His heart so take heart, dear heart and bring that smile you danced with in your soul last night, dig that dance into that hole: a seedling will come Her winds will cause it to grow...
24
August
2012
Being single is not alone. Whether by choice, or force, or no other option, times of solitude aren’t isolated. We all have – in fact, need – times in our lives where solo is “what is” – chances to reinvent, or reverse what’s wrong, re-fill our “giving well”. But restoration never happens when we buy the lie of isolation: no one else is there. Not only is God ever with us, but other hearts are eternally intertwined with ours, with laces of love, or horror, or sweetness or penetrating pain that never goes away. We were created connected...
06
August
2012
Preface: Lately, I have been contemplating who will be in the kin-dom of God. In the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus said that those who will come into the kin-dom are the “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” After reading the rest of the kin-dom parables, and watching Beasts of the Southern Wild, this is the poem that sprung up within me. ——————————————– god calls the lowly, the foreigner, the strange, widows, adulterer, the prostitute and the middle manager working to survive to rest god desires the misspeller, girls playing house and abused mothers, beggars,...
25
April
2012
Maybe, Education is not a contest. Seeing how many tomes and theories we can load into our brain. Maybe, Education is a fine set of carving tools. Creating new pathways, Clipping off unneeded wood, Opening new spaces, Discovering beauty in the tangled mess of a burl, Sanding the rough places until they are soft, pliable, porous. Emerges, The solid beauty of a worked over piece of art. A person being formed....
03
March
2012
In Matthew 4:19, Jesus said, “Follow Me.” “Follow” means to pursue the one in front of you. But later in John 15:26, Jesus said he would send us the Helper, the Spirit of Truth once he ascended to the Father. The name “Helper” is translated from the Greek word “Paracletos” which means “one called alongside to help”. Here’s a poem about my sidecar travels with God. Road Trip You always take me out of my comfort zone. Do I take you out of yours? I feel like you write “Problem Child” on my report card and let the angels see...
23
February
2012
Kindness. Kindness, one could say, is one of the ways love paints itself on the world. An act of kindness can be imprinted on our lives and impact us for years to come. In honor of this season of love, I remember moments of kindness. And in remembering I notice the impact of kindness in the past still emanating and touching me. How will you engage kindness today? Wheelchair Key The wheelchair was the golden key. As old and sketchy as it was, fake brown leather on the back and bits of rust on the handles, showing its years of...
18
January
2012
22
December
2011
In the carport are some shelves that store old cans of paint, odds and ends, and needs-to-be-sorted-out junk. Behind this assorted barrier, several families of small birds have built condos for raising families and sheltering from the cold. Last spring, God sent me a visual aid through a couple of feathered babies. They sat in the middle of the carport, eyes wide with terror, unable to move even when I got near enough to touch them. Obviously this was their first or second flying lesson. They had figured out how to get down, but not back up to home. And...
06
December
2011
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The problem for me -- in me -- is all this rah rah fanfare that is supposed to be about ...
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It hit me Sunday that one of the reasons I doubted "everything" about God as I grew up (I'm developing ...
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I appreciate what you said, Ray. I've come to accept that this is the way it is for me, ...
6 Comments
Prepare to hear a blasphemous, un-American confession: I don’t care about Christmas anymore. God knows I used to, and I have the ornaments, lights, and Christmas cookie recipes to prove it. So what happened to me? Did someone I love die, and I’m still in grief? Yeah, something died, alright. The celebration in Christmas. All the rah-rah, happy-happy, be of good cheer. I’m not jaded because of commercialism these days, though I hate it. I am seriously pissed that stores are putting up Christmas things two weeks before Halloween. What’s next? Santa on the shelf before Labor Day? Over the...
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