Saturday, May 23, 2015

Shrouded

Then their eyes were opened,
and they recognized Him,
but He disappeared from their sight.
So they said to each other,
"Weren't our hearts ablaze within us
while He was talking with us on the road
and explaining the Scriptures to us?"
Luke 24:31-32


Wrapped in tragedy,
grief,
despair,

A thick fog of
crushed hopes
and broken dreams

Conceals the very one they long for.

In
The words of the Lord,

Cast
On the breath of The Word,

They catch
 A blinding glimpse of the glories,
Just beyond the mist.









Saturday, March 21, 2015

Into the Light



The Lord
is my light
and my salvation -
Whom should I fear?

The Lord
is the stronghold of my life-
of whom should I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

When we hide, we hide in darkness.  We huddle in crevasses, cowering into tight shuddering balls, childishly pleading that what we can't see, can't see us either.  

It feels like shelter, this darkness, but it's just as much a trap.  it hides the dangers well, this prison of our own making that we stumble and grope our way through.

David embraced the light.

No hiding,

no fear,

he rested,

in the fortress of The Lord.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Level Ground



My foot stands on level ground;
I will praise the Lord in the assemblies.

Psalm 26:12

In confidence,

He stands.  

Accused of treason, hated by the king, hunted by his armies.

What begins as a prayer, as a desperate plea, 

that his God,

would acknowledge his innocence;

ends as a proclamation of confident faith.

He opens his life before the Lord, to declare his pure and innocent heart.

He stands, 

apart from the grumbling and plotting of hypocrites 

He stands 

in the house of the Lord.

He stands 

on level ground.

No chasms, no stones, no precarious hills,

In the strength of the Lord,

He stands.







Monday, February 9, 2015

Rescue

Your offspring
 will be foreigners
in a land that does not belong to them;
they will be enslaved
and oppressed
400 years
Genesis 15:13

Abraham,
Isaac,
Jacob and Esau.
Jacob became Israel,
The father of Joseph.

Joseph was sold into slavery,
Rose in prominence,
And lead his family into Egypt.

He was Abraham's great grandson, I guess.  
So what had the family been told? 
What did they understand?
When they made that trek into Egypt, was there any thought beyond the hope of escaping the famine?

Did they come to consider Egypt home?
Did any one of them sense they were embarking on the 400 years of oppression?

Would they,
Could they,
Have done anything different if they had?

Do we ever glimpse in a startling solution,
the snare that it just might become?

Or are we all too willing, 
to sink into cushions of comfort 
without ever wondering what they might have been put there to hide?

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Winter Surprise



Sunshine,

Warm air,

shadow striped path,

along the still icy river.

Do I dare hope for an early spring?

Do I dare stuff hats and gloves back into the depths of the closet?

Of course not.  

It's February,

And only just at that.

The temperatures will plummet,

The winds will blow,

The obligatory late winter snow storm,

 will show up around spring break.

Forget the future.

Just inhabit today.

Accept it 

for the tease,

the promise,

the gift 

that it is.  

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Book Store



Books,

Books in rows,

Books in stacks,

Books engulfed in an ocean of words I want to sink into and melt as they wash over me.

I hope they never fade away,

These refuges of printed of words of depth and wisdom, and inspiration.

Most are probably nothing of the sort of course.  

There's celebrity gossip, and formula romance, and the latest miracle diet.

But somewhere, hidden like pearls in the sands is magic,

A book that will become a life of it's own,

Words that will meld into the fabric of my own voice until I almost forget that they're not.

I want to stay here until I find it,

More,

I want to stay here until I create it.  

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Athletic Tuition

A segment on the news tonight outlined the costs of college athletic recruiting; meals, travel expenses, even private airplanes and helicopters, to impress and lure the dazzled young high school seniors.

Thousands of dollars, on neatly displayed spreadsheets, compared the budgets of various schools and conferences.  What, exactly, was their point?  That some schools are more committed than others to drawing the best?  That expenditures are proportional to results?  That the entire system is out of it's mind?

I was too horrified to listen closely to the point they were trying to make.  Even my husband's suggestion, that maybe the numbers included the scholarships for the athletes wasn't much of a comfort.

Just where did all this money come from?

Unfortunately, I think I know.

Where was the follow-up story on the explosive growth of college tuition?

What about the one on the back breaking debt of the students who went to college for an education; the ones who weren't offered million dollar professional contracts when they graduated from school?

 Sports programs generate income too.  I get that.

Sports done right can teach team work, commitment, and responsibility.  Those are excellent and worthy goals.

But, I can't help wondering, as my children scrabble to get started on their lives, as they scrounge for groceries and rent after siphoning most of their check to the student loan companies, just what is all that money really paying for?