Overlooking the Rain Forest

There is much unwritten about the rain forest. The sky, for instance, where does it say that the stairs to the clouds begin here in the wound of the rainbow? Where does it warn that romantics will be over-indulged here, encouraged to covet robin eggs and wrap themselves only in sky? This blue converts the self-respecting honeybee From performer to dancer Because really, there is no need for applause. It is false to believe that unless the dance is done correctly, the others will not find food for the hive. Everywhere here is God’s feast, Its abundance unavoidable, Sweet to the point of purple prose; a stumbling block to the clinician wanting to live up to the law. All those William Stafford elephants, urging me to freedom, to truth, to smallness have arrived here. Before me sits an enormous bowl of rain-drenched sun. And out of reverence to the God of the sky, who is also the Sea God and the God of the Poor and the Rich and stars too many to count, I will be grateful on this God-stocked morning – for every betrayal, every misconception, every failure, loss, argument, death & violent awakening that brought me dumbstruck to His branching arms and His indigenous mind. Here I sink into my romantic propensities and do not founder. To all the if onlys and what ifs, God snaps back and says, “I told you so.” “You weren’t so wrong.” “Your desire is warranted.” “You aren’t a Polly Anna, a cry baby, a whimp.” This place both widens and answers my inexplicable longing, By its very filling creating yet a deeper thirst. Here it is useless to deflect the compliment, the lavished undeserved gift of gratuitous beauty. One does not crave untasted fruit. Somewhere before I have tasted this. Not the me of my body but the me passed down through Eve, Proving something even grander awaits. I will lift/levanter/inclinacion my eyes/ojos unto the hills/Colinas, from whence cometh my help/remediar. My help comes from the Lord, the Maker/fabricator He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over Israel will neither slumber or sleep. Even still, I am aware of death; can I actually stand by your bed, while you go from living to dying and trust beyond your sad transfiguration – your affirming face caved to a slack canvas completely abandoned, forced to consider how I might continue on without you, knowing what happened to you in your last hours would someday happen to me? Only I wouldn’t have you to hold me. Or what if it is me first? I don’t want you to see me slowly dissolving, unveiled, becoming a caricature. If only to stand in the arch of this rainbow long enough to be scored by its colors and carry its mark home to you, wishing you would always see me this way – awestruck with color, small-waisted, hair blowing, firmly planted in joy.

Mother's Day Prayer by Barbara Lyons

Heavenly Father, Jehovah God, from whom your whole family in heaven and on Earth derives its name, we thank you for motherhood. We thank you for what it reminds us about who you are. We thank you that you understood first the joy of anticipating your perfect family. We thank you that you understood first the pain of losing your perfect children to sin and death. We thank you that you understood first the pregnant advent of centuries as your redemption formed. We thank you that you understood first the pain of delivery in water and blood on the cross that those children might be born again to you. We thank you that you pursued first the blessings and difficulties promised of adoption. We thank you that you modeled first a mother’s love as you gathered Israel, then the nations under your wings. And we thank you for your grace that covers our failings as mothers, The grace that makes us all your children, The grace that covers your church, which is your body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

A Great Place to Live

Thoughts

Male and female, created He them.
The male is given all the apparatus
to know a woman…and as he exhibits his
knowledge trust is
presumed upon her.
If she grows
cold is it for
lack of covering?
Or has she chosen
winter’s indifferent
arms rather than the
deep warming that
would undo and possibly
abandon?

God's Currency is Relationships

The Yellow Suitcase

.......The way is surprisingly rough. She doesn't mention the hills, ignores
the ruts, sees only small declivities, no ditches, no peaks, certainly no cliffs.
The road narrows, erupts with trees. An unexpected wind sweeps down.

The Image of A Pearl

I woke up this morning with the image

of a pearl in my mind:

a tiny sphere brought into being by an irritating

grain of sand within the house of a muscle...

a space where competition between a foreign

and a resident thought spar to arrive at something

both beautiful and kind.


This is an image of instruction for me.

When I find myself in the realm of competition,

I will lean kindly into that which irritates by its very

essence of otherness.

I will seek to embrace this other thought rather

than muscle it out by wit, criticism and/or ridicule

and wait for the pearl of new understanding

to roll sweetly into view.

Regrets

As a young woman you seemed
a red flame in a kind white field.
Your eyes orbed, magnetic,
Gathered me in your wind -
blowing
blowing
blowing
through the cracks of me.

I, a reed, a chime, a swinging bell.
Saved from among tiny begging mouths,
I licked the spoon of you
believing in the more
the more
the more.

Of course, we swallowed us.
Your kind arms, so light in youth,
Sank in the dark of me -
your fleece of teeming questions.

After the children,
I took to the desert,
hooked on veils,
my face crushed flint
sparked your traveling flame.

I've had an ongoing internal conversation
about Lent prompted by a World Vision Video about LENT...wondering what it means to sacrifice and it seems like the word sacrifice implies a painful relinquishment of some kind. In Biblical times it was the death & burning of a spotless animal, which seems barbaric at best. If the "thing" had lived it would havebeen a source of income and/or pride. "look at my beautiful ram, don't the curve of its horns catch the light in a pleasing way, and look how it follows me around and looks to me for its food & protection and just think I own it, aren't I clever or priviledged to have the good fortune to have come across such an amazing beast?" But now is now and animal sacrifice smacks of pagan ritual and rams aren't all that impressive compared to iphones & income & Weitsmans & Wazumas. So what would sacrificing entail if it were something I give up and in the process gain? I figured out it is DOUBT. I'm going to take any idea that gets me off the track of hope and refuse to give it credence... 40 days of believing that not knowing anything about anything is God's plan for keeping me out of the loop of anxiety and protecting me from all the pencil pushing political pissing contests and allowing me a stint in the Land of Milk and Honey... It will be hard in that worry at a time like this might give me at least a slight semblence of wisdom afterall isn't almost everybody spinning around the withering whinning wrat-trap (WWW) for the ideology that best lines up to their own wounded world-view in order to think of themselves sane and up to credible snot? Seems like it. So anyway, that's my new idea for Lent & what I intend to sacrifice. What about you?
Have you thought about it?

“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Prayer of an Old Chimney

Oh ignored Carpenter, Over-looked Yahweh,

Thank you
for giving
me what my smoke-filled eyes
mistook for loss.





For sustaining my conflagrating arrogance
until every defining board,
every weight-bearing rafter,
every imperiled shingle
I false-claimed as trophy for gain,
smoldered to foddering ash.

By the power of your soft-petaled
will you forbore
my ill-conceived fire
and suffered the flames
of all my self-victimizing stories.

At last I found myself redeemably alone.

Thank you for reclaiming what only belonged
for a season to me,
However grieved by the loss of your hard-won
but now gone structure,
You conceive newness in my widening cracks.

What once was a conduit for smoke and a cradle for flame
Is for now a cistern for light and a trough
of surrender for whatever is meant to become.

Surrounded now by what only You can build
And only You can nail, I wait for transformation.