A Random Act of Poetry for Marcus Goodyear’s prompt at The High Calling: “write a poem about one of your struggles, but be gentle with yourself.” (See Marcus’s entire post here.)
These dunes are really a horde of orphans,
every grain of sand abandoned, dropped off here
by its mother, wind, who only carried it
as far as [...]
It can be good
to look back,
analyze,
wonder why,
learn.
But after seeking
the explanation or cause,
I turn to look
forward and ask,
“Father, how
do You want me
to respond?”
After the Why, Lord?
comes the What now?
(For the One Word Carnival on “Reflection” hosted by Peter Pollock. Visit Peter’s place on Dec. 28 to read more posts on Reflection!)
When you look back at what’s behind
and remember everything vile you did,
every one you poisoned
with snobbish arrogance,
disdain and disrespect,
jealousy and unforgiveness,
aloof unkindness
When you remember the moments,
the minutes and hours you wasted, the hefty
chunks of life that you could have
spent better that day, that year
When you keep looking behind
and hear what you shouldn’t have said
and turn [...]
For the High Calling Blogs book club:
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Laura Boggess leads our Sep. 20 discussion on chapter three, “Concrete.”.
We were backpacking in September, so I should have expected it. Everything was dead, or dying. Branches wilted and drooped. It was [...]
For the High Calling Blogs book club (2nd post):
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die,
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Laura Boggess leads our discussion on chapter two.
I remember high school. Life was predictable: the first bell rang at 7:57; I knew to expect Physics for 2nd period, Accounting for 5th, and [...]
I think of trees and reach up,
wanting to touch green leaves.
I want more than to touch, I want to be
the tree, the kind of tree
that even in soul-scorching heat,
even in the droughts, long droughts, can still
reach down, roots reaching down past
cracked and rainless ground, down
to deep places where water waits
and my leaves remain
green and very [...]
(I was revisiting this from my private journal dated 6/17/2008 and thought, why not share it? Some processing I did back then . . .)
I am seeking the Lord’s face as I learn how to live with past failures and confessed sin—that, after recognizing and repenting of failure, I would move on rather than [...]
January clouds
break
into new
clarity,
new
stability.
Could this be yet
another
“New Me”?
I can
think
again,
and breathe
without
that catch,
and smile
new
lines
into a face
looking up
but this time
not because
I am at rock
bottom
but because
my Rock
was holding
me
all
along.
********
(A High Calling Blogs Random Act of Poetry)
On wintertime Saturdays (and sometimes fall and spring if there was enough snow), we go cross-country skiing. When our first son Derek got cross-country skis for his third birthday, we had him practice “skiing” on our living room carpet. Then he skied in the backyard.
One Saturday we decided he was ready for the [...]
...to Know-Love-Obey God
