Category Archives: spirituality

Exchanging Letters 3

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God,

I know the difference between talking about you and engaging with you. I also know which activity is easier. A similar concept is reading about writing and actually getting butt in chair and fingers dancing on the keys.

I’ve been thinking about third person. Do you observe the world from a third person angle? Sometimes I feel as though I’ve lived my life in third person. I live a shave away from wholeness, and see myself pouring the coffee, but hear no sound thereof. I report the life around me as a proof I might just exist. I joke with my family as I scan the obituaries for my picture, then shake my head…”I’m still here!”

So there’s the parallel on how I feel you operate and my own function under the sun.

Hmmm.

There are so many ways to try to reset the dislocation of my heart, spirit, soul, spirit, with the world spinning around me. But there is a simpler way. There has to be. I hear Jesus’ words “come unto me and I will give you rest.” Peter stepped out of the boat, and Thomas was encouraged to poke around the resurrected body of the Lord. I wonder which of the disciples I take after. I lean toward doubting Thomas with a dash of the denying Peter, but long to be like the disciple Jesus loved. John.

Love, Jerry

Jerry,

I see you. There is a simpler way. I am the way. Your dislocated feeling is understood. I too want engagement, not a third person detached rhetoric. I want your heart. Remember that dreary rainy day way back when? The day you walked up a driveway with a package and engaged me with a question? You asked me if I loved you. I sent a breeze through a row of pine trees and whispered “yes.” I knew you and one of your favorite things…the sound of wind through thousands of needles.

I see your fear. I feel your resistance to releasing control. I know you struggle with being labeled as one of ‘those’ kind of Christians. I got you. I get you. Bring those thoughts to me like you are doing right now. I can handle them. I Am, you know. Take a deep breath.

By the way, living in third person isn’t always a bad thing. That’s how creatives are wired. They help those whose don’t know their need to stop and smell the roses to consider doing so. I sent someone Saturday night to tell you those very words to encourage you.

Love, I Am

Exchanging Letters 2

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Dear God,

As I sit here in this moment listening through the cracked window, how I wish to sing every morning like the sparrows, and fly like the barn swallows. How I hope to enter into exactly what you created me to be. Not to draw attention, but to give attention to the space within my proximity. I want to thank you for the senses you have given me to receive the wonder of nature, and the nurture of human connection. Although there are seasons where solitude sits on a bench, and invites me to feed the birds, the thick threaded reality of relationships gives voice to this life. I don’t understand why I can be so aloof, self-absorbed, and judgmental toward others, especially when You said it is not good for us humans to be alone. I want to leave this solitary place and enter the world, pay attention, and be a giver.

Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, sinner.

Jerry

 

Dear Jerry,

I will have mercy. And love. And justice. And prudence. And, and, and. Thanks for noticing my creative acts around you. You keep using the word ‘mystery’ when you share your thoughts lately. I like that. You keep growing low among the grasses like my servant Wendell Berry. Humility will better connect you with humanity. You were made for connection, but solitude has its seasons too. How about I sit on the bench and wait for you to come and tell me about your connections with this world. I’d like that.

God

Sunday Psalm

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Slip off your shoes,

before the dew

distills the

spirit of this day.

 

Stroll the field

for evidence

between your toes,

wet blades sewing.

 

Cup your ears,

to hear the sun

paint the top

of the sycamore.

 

Praise with the white

of your teeth,

head bowed

to the forest floor.

 

Find breath in your bones,

marrow reaching,

flowing to the sea,

to the sea.

Exchanging Letters 1

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Dear God,

Sorry I left you behind. Sorry for the fear of you. The hesitant kind of fear that brushes you off and finds ways to hide behind pride. Maybe you are a big black lady in a sundress making breakfast in a secluded Shack. Big enough to hide behind. In any case I am attempting to hide. It’s fairly easy, but totally delusional.

I realize life has gotten the best of me. Literally. I bounce off circumstances and restrain my emotions. I think it started when I sinned against myself and would not repent or forgive. Wedged in a great tightness as Pooh stated.

Then my ability to receive began to wane. My dependence on emotional highs didn’t cut the crap. Beauty was fleeting and fleeing fast, because I turned my back on it and ran. I became a member of the Liars Club. I lie around way too often, and reach for the Kool-Aid as it were.

The great trifecta pressed in and I acquiesced. The world swirled around and I bought into its advances. My flesh broke out in hives, and the devil laughed and laughed.

Best, Jerry

 

Dear Jerry,

Thank you for your candor. I like the idea of being a big black lady. But I Am so much more. You are right though, there is no hiding. I Am light, and I bend around corners, under shrubs, and flow down the steps to the cellar.

I am intrigued with your idea of hiding behind Me. That is worth some exploration, as the therapists would say. What better way to stay close to Me, yet not have to look Me in the eyes. Your arrogance precedes you. Don’t worry though, you have lots of company.

I Am Love, and I love you too. There are two sides to every story, and similarly, two sides to every relationship. I never left My side of ours.

Here’s something to consider. Is there a possibility I can handle you? Think it over.

Sincerely Yours, God

Stream of Consciousness

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“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

 

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

― Wendell Berry

 

Stream of Consciousness

 

Maybe I’ve been sitting by the wrong stream.

Its quiet depth and broad shoulders

have me nodding off.

 

I sought peace away from the paradoxes,

away from the tinkering creek

of arias and punk rap rhythms

 

and water rolling over bands of rocks.

It’s time the sound of the shallows

penetrate the deep space of the soul.

 

I’m heading upstream, above the tributaries,

where water flows over pebbles,

and jigs off the impediments

 

like a singing tap dancer.

“To everything there is a season.” Ecclesiastes