Category: peace

One Small Cry

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The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of sleep.

Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
and the hundred names of love are lit
as we rise and walk down the hall.

One hundred nights we wake like this,
wake out of our nowhere
to kneel by small beds in darkness.
One hundred flowers open in our hands,
a name for love written in each one.
~Annie Lighthart,“The Hundred Names of Love” from Iron String

I thought I had forgotten how to wake to the sound of a baby’s cry or a child’s voice calling out in the night.

I thought I wouldn’t remember how to gently open their bedroom door, entering their darkness from my own darkness, sorting out what was distressing them, sensing how to soothe them back to slumber, wondering if I might sing or pray the words they needed to hear, bringing a blossoming peace and stillness to their night.

When our son’s family arrived three years ago from thousands of miles away, staying with us until they could settle in their own place, I was reminded my nights were never meant to be mine alone.

As a child myself, I had such frequent night-wakenings that I’m sure my mother despaired that I would ever sleep through the night. She would come when I called, sitting beside my bed, rubbing my back until I forgot what woke me in the first place. She was patient and caring despite her own weariness, sleep problems and worriedness. She loved me and forgave me for needing her presence in the night; her nights were never her own.

So I too responded with compassion when my own children called out in the night. As part of my doctoring life, I woke regularly to phone calls from the ER or hospital and from patients during forty-two years of medical practice; I listened and tried my best to answer anxious questions with gentle understanding.

And when a grandchild sleeps here overnight, I’m on call again, remembering the sweetness of someone responding in the dark; the fears of the night need the promise of the Lord staying with us until the new day comes, usually only a few hours away.

Little child, be not afraid
Though rain pounds harshly against the glass
Like an unwanted stranger, there is no danger
I am here tonight

Little child, be not afraid
Though thunder explodes and lightning flash
Illuminates your tear-stained face
I am here tonight

And someday you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

Little child, be not afraid
Though storm clouds mask your beloved moon
And its candlelight beams, still keep pleasant dreams
I am here tonight

Little child, be not afraid
Though wind makes creatures of our trees
And their branches to hands, they’re not real, understand
And I am here tonight

And someday you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

For you know, once even I was a
Little child, and I was afraid
But a gentle someone always came
To dry all my tears, trade sweet sleep for fears
And to give a kiss goodnight

Well now I am grown
And these years have shown
That rain’s a part of how life goes
But it’s dark and it’s late
So I’ll hold you and wait
‘Til your frightened eyes do close

And I hope that you’ll know
That nature is so
The same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
On forests and sand
Makes the beautiful world that you’ll see
In the morning

Everything’s fine in the morning
The rain’ll be gone in the morning
But I’ll still be here in the morning

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A Lingering Pain

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I have left my wife at the airport,
flying out to help our daughter
whose baby will not eat.
And I am driving on to Kent
to hear some poets read tonight.

I don’t know what to do with myself
when she leaves me like this.
An old friend has decided to
end our friendship. Another
is breaking it off with his wife.

I don’t know what to say
to any of this-Life’s hard.
And I say it aloud to myself,
Living is hard, and drive further
into the darkness, my headlights
only going so far.

I sense my own tense breath, this fear
we call stress, making it something else,
hiding from all that is real.

As I glide past Twin Lakes,
flat bodies of water under stars,
I hold the wheel gently, slowing my
body to the road, and know again that
this is just living, not a trauma
nor dying, but a lingering pain
reminding us that we are alive.
~Larry Smith “Following the Road” from A River Remains

The grace of God means something like:
Here is your life.
You might never have been, but you are because
the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.
Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid. I am with you.
Nothing can ever separate us.
It’s for you I created the universe.
I love you. 
There’s only one catch.
Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours
only if you’ll reach out and take it. 
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. 
~Frederich Buechner from Wishful Thinking 

You get out of bed, wash and dress;
eat breakfast, say goodbye and go away
never maybe, to return for all you know,
to work, talk, lust, pray, dawdle and do,
and at the end of the day, if your luck holds,
you come home again, home again.
Then night again. Bed. The little death of sleep, sleep of death. Morning, afternoon, evening—
the hours of the day, of any day, of your day and my day.
The alphabet of grace.
If there is a God who speaks anywhere, surely he speaks here:
through waking up and working,
through going away and coming back again,
through people you read and books you meet,
through falling asleep in the dark.
Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves.
Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure,
but clean enough for another day’s chalking.
~Frederich Buechner from “The Alphabet of Grace

Our six year old grandson, hoping to calm his older sister’s melt-down:
“Life is life – it’ll be okay tomorrow…“

So tomorrow –
move forward to leave a mark on a new day
after tonight’s erasing rest.

No matter what took place this day,
no matter the misgivings,
no matter what should have been left unsaid,
no matter how hard the heart,
no matter the lingering pain,
there is another day to make it right.

Forgiveness finds a foothold in the dark,
when eyelids close,
thoughts quietly open,
voices hush in prayers
of praise, petition and gratitude.

And so now
simply sleep on it
knowing his grace
abounds in blameless dreams.

Morning will come
awash in new light,
another chance
freely given.

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Dwelling in Possibility

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I pocketed them that day
the tour guide was not looking.

I nodded to myself that she
would not mind for me to hold

in my palm and carry home
such Possibility.
~Andrea Potos “Three Acorns from Emily’s Yard”

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
~Emily Dickinson

When I dwell in Emily D’s poetic possibilities,
full of mysterious capitalizations,
inscrutable dashes and sideways rhymes,
I feel blinded, get easily lost,
stumbling over this and that,
and end up wondering where she is leading me
and how far I’m willing to go.

Yet she tells me

– This –
to get my attention, hold it fast,
to look up and out, beyond, and into forever.

-This-
is what I must do when I read her carefully chosen words and dashes

-This-
is what I ask of a reader who opens my own words here

-This-
is dwelling in possibility for a moment or an eternity,
all eyes and windows and doors wide open
to grasp a glimpse of Paradise.

-This-
is our hands holding the seeds of potential for the future,
to gather, to embrace, to pray,
to prepare us for Whatever it is which Comes Next…

-This-
we do it together…

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Come and See: A Door Opened to the Light

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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 3:16-21

The issue is now clear.
It is between light and darkness
and everyone must choose his side.
G.K. Chesterton (on his deathbed)

The world hides God from us,
or we hide ourselves from God,
or for reasons of his own
God hides himself from us,
but however you account for it,
he is often more conspicuous by his absence than by his presence,
and his absence is much of what we labor under
and are heavy laden by.
Just as sacramental theology speaks
of a doctrine of the Real Presence,
maybe it should speak also of a doctrine of the Real Absence
because absence can be sacramental, too,
a door left open, a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting.
~Frederick Buechner from Telling the Truth

…my faith has weathered in a holy way;
it’s larger, gentler, especially as I have learned
to bear the needs of others,
to pour myself out at least a little bit like God does for me.
In that offering, I’ve learned a lot
about God’s quiet, ever-present nourishment.
A larger, patient acceptance has come to me.
I haven’t found every answer,
I still ‘want’ so much more of God than I have,
and yet, I also have learned to live
with the holy hunger that is the groaning
of God’s Spirit within me as I wait
for the full coming of the Kingdom.⁣
~Sarah Clarkson reflecting on Buechner’s quote above

Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin.
You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours.
You became what you were not,
that I might become what I was not.
~Martin Luther

…faith is keeping Christ before our eyes —
Christ incarnate, Christ in his ministry,
Christ giving his life on the cross for us —
beholding in Christ the very heart of God poured out in love.
John points to Jesus and says
this is what God is like;
this is God’s heart for us.
~Pastor Nathan Chambers paraphrasing John Calvin

Choosing to step through the opened door into the light is not like choosing sides on teams in grade school, numbering off one-two-one-two until everyone knows which side they stand on – the weak and the strong thrown together by random chance.

It is not like an explosive election year where choosing sides means aligning with a political candidate with whom I vehemently disagree so as to avoid supporting the even worse opponent.

This is not like a Lincoln-Douglas debate tournament where I might represent one viewpoint for the first round, and then be asked to represent the opposite viewpoint in the second half.

This is a choice of where I would rather be: in the light of God’s love and presence, or hiding from Him in the shadows.

And it isn’t only my choice,
but it is being chosen,
just as I am,
my weakness and sin and darkness
taken on by Christ’s enormous love
so that I might become
what I was not before.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Our Hopes, Such As They Are

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A year has come to us as though out of hiding
It has arrived from an unknown distance
From beyond the visions of the old
Everyone waited for it by the wrong roads
And it is hard for us now to be sure it is here…
~W. S. Merwin from “Early January” from  The Lice 

When once the New Year came to earth,
To claim his realm by right of birth,
A forest knight, the gallant oak,
Upon the pathway threw his cloak.
The garment green, now turned to brown,
Upon the bare earth fluttered down
And o’er the velvet to his throne
The New Year walked unto his own.

Then gave the New Year a decree
To every bush and forest tree
That every growing, blooming thing
Should hail the mighty oak as king.
Yea, more, he made the king of trees
A ruler of the running seas,
In ships to bear from shore to shore
The earth’s discovered treasures o’er.

Then called he Springtime to his side,
Old Winter’s pink-limbed, blushing bride,
And bade her weave a regal cloak
To cover new the gallant oak.
And so she wove a gown of green,
The richest earth had ever seen,
And garbed anew the mighty tree
With emblem of his majesty.
~Douglas Malloch “The Gallant Oak”

I was cold and leaned against the big oak tree
as if it were my mother wearing a rough apron
of bark, her upraised arms warning of danger.
Through those boughs and leaves I saw
dark patches of sky. I thought a brooding
witch waited to catch me up from under
branches and take me, careening on her broom,
to her home in the jaundiced moon.
I looked to the roof of mom and dad’s house
and wondered if the paisley couch patterns
would change during the day. My brother peeked
from a window and waved. When the bus came,
I pawed away from the trunk, fumbled,
and took my first step toward not returning.
~Dante Di Stefano “With a Coat”

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
~W.S. Merwin “To the New Year”, from Collected Poems 1996-2011

My hopes for this new year, such as they are,
are uneasy-
untouched, yet still possible.

I wonder if I am walking down the wrong pathway.
I wonder if what I thought would be new, remains in hiding.

“we’ve wandered many the weary foot since long, long ago.“
(Auld Lang Syne)

I have taken the first step this past week,
and then another and another,
along this unknown road to the future.
Perhaps I’ll find you walking along this way;
you too may be feeling a bit lost.

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In Dazzling Darkness, An Epiphany

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newyearsice

Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year,
Wake, O earth, awake,
Out of the hills a star appears,
Here lies the way for pilgrim kings,
Three magi on an ancient path,
Black hours begin their journeyings.

Their star has risen in our hearts,
Empty thrones, abandoning fears,
Out on the hills their journey starts,
In dazzling darkness God appears.
~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
~Malcolm Guite “Epiphany”

…the scent of frankincense
and myrrh
arrives on the wind,
and I long
to breathe deeply,
to divine its trail.
But I know their uses
and cannot bring myself
to breathe deeply enough
to know
whether what comes
is the fragrant welcoming
of birth
or simply covers the stench of death.
These hands
coming toward me,
is it swaddling they carry
or shroud?
~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas

birchgold

Unclench your fists
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is his Glory Manifest.
~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany” from the Weather of the Heart

newyearsice2

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”

futuremapletree3

The Christmas season is a wrap, put away for another year.
However, our hearts are not so easily boxed up and stored as the lights and decorations and ornaments of the season.

Our troubles and concerns go on; our frailty a daily reality.
We can be distracted with holidays for a few weeks, but our time here slips away ever more quickly.

The Christmas story is not just about
light and birth and joy to the world.
It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud
that wrapped Him tight.
There is not one without the other.

God came to be with us;
Delivered so He could deliver.
Planted on and in the earth.
Born so He could die in our place
To leave the linen strips behind, neatly folded.

Christmas: a dazzling unwrapping of glory to free us from darkness.
Epiphany: the Seed of His Spirit takes root in our hearts.

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A Snowdrift Baby Who is Mending Hearts

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May the wind always be in her hair
May the sky always be wide with hope above her
And may all the hills be an exhilaration
the trials but a trail,
all the stones but stairs to God.
May she be bread and feed many with her life and her laughter
May she be thread and mend brokenness and knit hearts…
~Ann Voskamp from “A Prayer for a Daughter”

Nate and Ben and brand new baby Lea
Daddy and Lea
Mommy and Lea

“I have noticed,” she said slowly, “that time does not really exist for mothers, with regard to their children. It does not matter greatly how old the child is – in the blink of an eye, the mother can see the child again as she was when she was born, when she learned to walk, as she was at any age — at any time, even when the child is fully grown….”
~Diana Gabaldon from Voyager

Just checking to see if she is real…

Your rolling and stretching had grown quieter that stormy winter night
thirty-three years ago, but still no labor came as it should.

Already a week overdue post-Christmas,
you clung to amnion and womb, not yet ready.
Then as the wind blew more wicked
and snow flew sideways, landing in piling drifts,
the roads became more impassable, nearly impossible to traverse.

So your dad and I tried to drive to the hospital,
concerned about your stillness and my advanced age,
worried about being stranded on the farm far from town.
When a neighbor came by tractor to stay with your brothers overnight,
we headed down the road and our car got stuck in a snowpile
in the deep darkness, our tires spinning, whining against the snow.

Another neighbor’s earth mover dug us out to freedom.

You floated silent and still, knowing your time was not yet.

Creeping slowly through the dark night blizzard,
we arrived to the warm glow of the hospital,
your heartbeat checked out steady, all seemed fine.

I slept not at all.

The morning’s sun glistened off sculptured snow as
your heart ominously slowed.
You and I were jostled, turned, oxygenated, but nothing changed.
Your heart beat even more slowly,
threatening to let go your tenuous grip on life.

The nurses’ eyes told me we had trouble.
The doctor, grim faced, announced
delivery must happen quickly,
taking you now, hoping we were not too late.
I was rolled, numbed, stunned,
clasping your father’s hand, closing my eyes,
not wanting to see the bustle around me,
trying not to hear the shouted orders,
the tension in the voices,
the quiet at the moment of opening
when it was unknown what would be found.

And then you cried. A hearty healthy husky cry,
a welcomed song of life uninterrupted.
Perturbed and disturbed from the warmth of womb,
to the cold shock of a bright lit operating room,
your first vocal solo brought applause
from the surrounding audience who admired your purplish pink skin,
your shock of damp red hair, your blue eyes squeezed tight,
then blinking open, wondering and wondrous,
emerging and saved from a storm within and without.

You were brought wrapped for me to see and touch
before you were whisked away to be checked over thoroughly,
your father trailing behind the parade to the nursery.
I closed my eyes, swirling in a brain blizzard of what-ifs.

If no snow storm had come,
you would have fallen asleep forever within my womb,
no longer nurtured by my failing placenta,
cut off from what you needed to stay alive.
There would have been only our soft weeping,
knowing what could have been if we had only known,
if only God had provided a sign to go for help.

So you were saved by a providential storm sent from God
and we were dug out from a drift:
I celebrate whenever I hear your voice –
your students love you as their teacher and mentor,
you are a thread born to knit and mend hearts,
all because of the night God sent drifting snow.

My annual retelling of a most remarkable day::
Thirty-three years ago today, our daughter Lea Gibson was born in an emergency C-section, hale and hearty because the good Lord sent a wind and snow storm to blow us into the hospital in time to save her.

Thanks to that blizzard, Lea is a school teacher, serves the youth ministry in her church, and will soon receive her Masters in School Counseling.

She is married to her true love Brian– he also is a blessing sent from the Lord. Together they have their own miracle child, happily born in the middle of the summer rather than snow-drift season.

The Lord wanted her in this world:
May she be bread and feed many with her life and her laughter
May she be thread and mend brokenness and knit hearts…

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Light Upon Light – Depart in Peace

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Lord, now You are letting Your servant
depart in peace, according to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation.
Luke 2:29-30 (Simeon’s Song)

The Song of Simeon by Rembrandt

Cards in each mailbox,
angel, manger, star and lamb,
as the rural carrier,
driving the snowy roads,
hears from her bundles
the plaintive bleating of sheep,
the shuffle of sandals,
the clopping of camels.
At stop after stop,
she opens the little tin door
and places deep in the shadows
the shepherds and wise men,
the donkeys lank and weary,
the cow who chews and muses.
And from her Styrofoam cup,
white as a star and perched
on the dashboard, leading her
ever into the distance,
there is a hint of hazelnut,
and then a touch of myrrh.
~Ted Kooser “Christmas Mail”

the utterly unexpected 
a star, a light, a voice
shakes us awake
opens our sleepy eyes
interrupts familiar routines as

our hearts tremble, muscles tighten;
do we run to prepare for battle
or do we freeze in place?

the animals also
rustle and stand up-
confused like us 

they see the exploding sky and yet
they sense no threat but instead
merely listen, 

huddled together for warmth 
as unearthly music 
fills their ears.

we quickly make plans
to see this great thing, a revelation-
word has become flesh
and we have been invited 
to catch the first glimpse.
~Steve Bell “First Glimpse”

…Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow. According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
~T.S. Eliot from “A Song for Simeon”

Simeon had waited and waited for this promised “first glimpse” moment of meeting the Son of God face to face, not knowing when or how, not knowing he would be able to hold him fast in his arms, not knowing he would be able to personally bless the parents of this holy child.

He certainly could not know this child would be the cause of so much joy and sorrow for those who love Him deeply.

That sword of painful truth pierces into our soul, opening us with the precision of a surgeon under high beam lights in the operating room where nothing is left unilluminated.  We are, by the birth of Jesus, bared completely, our darkness thrust into dawn, our hearts revealed as never before, no matter who we are, our place of origin, our faith or lack thereof. 

God is an equal opportunity heart surgeon.

It is terrifying, this mountain of desolation, all cracks and crevices thrust into the light.   And it should be, given what we are, every one of us.

We wait for this incarnate God, longing and hungry for His peace.  We are tired, too tired to continue to hide within the darkness of our troubles and conflict of our sin. We, like Simeon, are desperate for a first glimpse of the promise of His appearance dwelling with us, when we can gather Him into our arms and He gathers us into His, when all becomes known and understood and forgiven.

His birth is the end of our death, the beginning of the outward radiance of His peace, and wide open to all who open themselves to Him.

Light upon Light.

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Year After Year

barnstormingblog2 Comments

The birds do not sing in these mornings. The skies
are white all day. The Canadian geese fly over
high up in the moonlight with the lonely sound
of their discontent. Going south. Now the rains
and soon the snow. The black trees are leafless,
the flowers gone. Only cabbages are left
in the bedraggled garden. Truth becomes visible,
the architecture of the soul begins to show through.
God has put off his panoply and is at home with us.
We are returned to what lay beneath the beauty.
We have resumed our lives. There is no hurry now.
We make love without rushing and find ourselves
afterward with someone we know well. Time to be
what we are getting ready to be next. This loving,
this relishing, our gladness, this being puts down
roots and comes back again year after year.
~Jack Gilbert “Half the Truth” from Collected Poems.

In the shape of this night, in the still fall
of snow, Father
In all that is cold and tiny, these little birds
and children…
Before the bells ring, before this little point in time
has rushed us on
Before this clean moment has gone, before this night
turns to face tomorrow, Father
There is this high singing in the air
Forever this sorrowful human face in eternity’s window
And there are other bells that we would ring, Father
Other bells that we would ring.
~Kenneth Patchen from “At the New Year”

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul…
~G.K.Chesterton from A Chesterton Calendar

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
~Lord Alfred Tennyson from “In Memoriam”

Often when something is ending
we discover within it the spore of new beginning,
and a whole new train of possibility is in motion
before we even realize it.
When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning,
unforeseen things can emerge.
And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does.
It is an opening for surprises. 
~John O’Donohue from “To Bless the Space Between Us”

No heralding trumpets –
Just softening shadows,
Timed and tracked.

Fingers of light flaring amber
Over the eastern ridge of foothills,
Caress the slopes of snow capped peaks.

So I bid this past year farewell.

The horizon’s glowing coral palette
Climbs higher, wider, deeper
Painting clouds beyond reach.

Each earthly thing bathed in gold
Glimpsed and grasped without fanfare
Yet wholly miraculous.

Too soon this day, this year, becomes ordinary again
Although it is truth:
we can be born anew, year after year.

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My Wintry Soul

barnstormingblog1 Comment

Whatever harm I may have done
In all my life in all your wide creation
If I cannot repair it
I beg you to repair it,

And then there are all the wounded
The poor the deaf the lonely and the old
Whom I have roughly dismissed
As if I were not one of them.
Where I have wronged them by it
And cannot make amends
I ask you
To comfort them to overflowing,

And where there are lives I may have withered around me,
Or lives of strangers far or near
That I’ve destroyed in blind complicity,
And if I cannot find them
Or have no way to serve them,

Remember them. I beg you to remember them

When winter is over
And all your unimaginable promises
Burst into song on death’s bare branches.
~Anne Porter “A Short Testament” from Living Things.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
~Corrie ten Boom from Clippings from My Notebook

Whenever you find tears in your eyes,
especially unexpected tears,
it is well to pay the closest attention. 
They are not only telling you
something about the secret of who you are,
but more often than not
God is speaking to you through them
of the mystery of where you have come from
and is summoning you to where,
if your soul is to be saved,
you should go next.
~Frederick Buechner from Beyond Words

While this end of the year’s darkness lingers,
beginning too early and lasting too late,
I find myself hiding in my own wintry soul,
knowing I have too often failed to do
what is needed
when it is needed.

I tend to look inward
when I need to focus outside myself.
I muffle my ears
to stifle supplicating voices.
I turn away
rather than meet a stranger’s gaze.

I appeal to our known God when facing the unknown:
He knows my darkness needs His Light.
He unimaginably promises
buds of hope and warmth
and color and fruit
will arise from my barest branches.

He brings me forth out of hiding,
to be impossibly transformed.

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