Tag Archives: God

Sun Day

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Birth again the sun,

may it crown the edge of the earth,

and spill glory and cast shadows

behind all it paints.

 

May we remember from where

this light bursts and fills

the land in golden revelation.

May we squint in gratefulness.

“God makes a huge dome

For the sun—a superdome!

The morning sun’s a new husband

Leaping from his honeymoon bed,

The daybreaking sun an athlete

Racing to the tape.

 

That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies

From sunrise to sunset,

Melting ice, scorching deserts,

Warming hearts to faith.”

Psalm 19:4-6 The Message

 

 

Conversations With God Part Two. Fear.

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How are you feeling today?

What do my feelings have to do with anything? I thought truth was the ultimate.

I care about your feelings, and I Am the Truth.

Another tension I suppose.

Your suppositions precede you. I am pleased you have taken time to rest and think of Me. I think of you too.

More often than not I don’t feel the connection. It’s easier for me to think about You than engage with You. In the past it was easier for me to talk about You too. Now I don’t feel like talking about You to others so much. Deep down it feels like talking heads. I judge and project my experience on others. Little conversations rattle in my thoughts like…”If they only knew how disconnected I feel toward God they would walk away.”

Projections will get you nowhere. But authenticity will. I heard you tell a few people you were struggling when they asked how you were doing. I can communicate to you through others you know.

You seem to miscommunicate through others as well. I have slowly pulled away from possibilities of the influence of others, both positive and negative. There seems to be a parallel between that pulling away and the retreat from trust in You. I see the deception of becoming an island where I think my books and poetry protect me. You are the Rock and I am the island. Does Rock smash island or does island wrap Rock?

What do you think? Does playing paper, scissors, rock (or Rock, island, relationship as it were) bring a sense of comfort or purpose or hope? Don’t be afraid.

Afraid? Afraid of what?

Fear not, see the forest for the trees. Resist the temptation to follow one snowflake during a blizzard. Embrace the mystery of who I Am.

Are you saying I am a spiritual deconstructionist? Have I dissected you like a frog in a slowly warming Petri dish until You came to a boil? Have I killed you?

Fear not the dark night of the soul. I am not scared of the dark and I will come to you in it.

I don’t get it. How the hell did I get here? How did perfect fear cast out love? How do I turn the Titanic around? Help.

It’s time to let go of the rail. Time to jump ship. Why do you want to turn a sinking ship around? Remember the opposite of faith isn’t doubt, but certainty. Do I really expect those who follow me to be doubtless about who I Am?

I am afraid of You.

Oh, Jerry, you are so close. Fear and fear. One word that can be bent in two directions. Fight or flight. Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you.

That has not been my experience.

Think. Remember. Fear has diffused you from entering the pain again. There were times when you let go and allowed your heart to break open to Me. Granted, those times are fewer and farther between. When your mother came to be with me was the last great outlet. Even when you betrayed another your heart didn’t throb under my willing hand of mercy. You brushed off your knees to go it alone.

I’m tired of going it alone. I see those closest to me slipping on their autonomy from You to make sense of this world. Many are scampering to find a coherent whole. Is there such a possibility?

I Am.

Conversations With God Part One. Hurt.

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I am calling you back amidst the pluralism and disparity of your mind. There is truth and you must turn to seek it again. Don’t Pontius Pilate Me. Don’t ask the question and walk away before getting a response. I am Truth.

But there is so much to trail off into. So many ways to justify everyone’s point of view.

You don’t have to be in charge of justification. Doesn’t the word sound like it belongs to Me anyway. Your intellectual energies are draining you into a ubiquitous ocean. I know the beginning from the end. I know how far the east is from the west. Sure, humans are like little gods in My image. Each one bears My imprint and My love reaches to each heart. But the turning of hearts to Truth is a mystery. I set every human free, freedom they sometimes use to blind themselves from hurt, fear, and beauty.

Hurt, fear, and beauty? What?

Yes. Odd threesome I know. The hurt comes early in being a human. Usually it starts with some little oversight of a parent that awakens the longing.

Longing?

Yes, the longing for more, for better, for possibly another world. Remember what you said you wanted on your tombstone? ”This Isn’t All There Is.”

Yes.

You know how you check the Obituaries every day and joke with your children that you are still alive? I hear you in the silence—in the middle of night when you realize if you make it to seventy that it’s only 16 years away. I hear you. Your life has meaning and purpose, but it’s not where you think. It’s not what you think.

Well then, what is it pray tell? Where is the meaning and purpose to fill this vacuous heart?

I Am.

Sigh. I know. I’ve seen the spectrum. From spiritualizing culturally contorted Christians to vague spiritualists. The ones who sidle up to You but don’t name You. I don’t know where I fall in the lineup. I keep losing my place.

Stop looking at them. The disciples kept wanting to know who would be the closest to me when the Kingdom came. They even bickered about John, the one I love so. Martha simmered the lentils for me all the while wishing Mary would get a clue and get up and get busy. The other brother that stayed home, faithful to the prodigal’s father, ended up disgruntled. He lost the heart of the relationship. I won’t even go into the Religious leaders and their runaway lips.

But I…

Wait. Wait on Me. Hold on. There’s more. It is a conundrum I’ve allowed. The hurt usually comes from the very people you hope to connect with. It’s a given. Know that you also will hurt others. I know you don’t wake up each morning thinking about how and who you are going to disappoint and hurt. Your heart is fallow at times and My wisdom sideswipes your consciousness as you move and breath and have your being. The truth of who you are comes out when trouble arrives like the sparks that rise from a fire.

Oh, the adversity element. The “life is difficult” as M. Scott Peck would say.

Difficult yes, but spread the definition out a little. Let’s say mysterious. In the mystery of humanness, in its base elements, there rests a tension.

“Rests a tension.” Rest and tension aren’t hand and glove terms. Paradoxical, juxta positional, maybe even oppositional, but their relationship is not on a first name basis.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe in the rest and tension, one for each nostril, and out through the mouth comes mystery. I can transform what happens under the sun. It is in your heart where I do my best work. I can help you find the rest in the tension of living an imperfect world. Whether you are the recipient of hurt or the dispenser of it there is hope. Do you believe there is hope?

I must or I wouldn’t be talking with You.

The hope lies in forgiveness. To forgive others and forgive yourself is important. To ask for forgiveness and extend grace and mercy to those who ask for it (Even those who don’t) creates space for the mystery. When mystery is allowed to fill the lacerations of hurt, rest and tension aren’t so far apart. You are still “under the sun” as Solomon emphasized in My Book of Ecclesiastes. There will always be tension in the world, and when you accept it, then My rest is a possibility.

Lord, help me lie down in forgiveness, grace, and mercy.

Come. Take a load off.

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

God Joined Me for a Drink. A Sunday Psalm.

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The trickle of unconsciousness

filled the tin cup

I dragged along the bars.

I couldn’t handle the glass half empty

of hope and a future.

I drank and drank to quench

the mystery of the largess of God.

Instead, God salted the water

and assaulted my soul

with an eternal thirst.

He held out his hand

and I set the dented tin

over the scar imbedded

in His lifeline.

He looked in my eyes,

right through and down

into my arid heart.

“Here, take, drink of this cup

In remembrance of Me.”

The chalice, cool in my grasp,

brimmed with blood red wine.

I sipped and sipped

of God’s consciousness.

 

“…you have kept the good wine until now.” John 2:10

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

Brow Of Eternity

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Raised eye brows
white on pale blue
without a wink.

We, underneath
pray silent
and under stands

of trees welcome
shade as well
as the light.

Hold the swallow
wings in the curve
of today

and sing praise
of the endless sky
to the Thou of I.

“Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy house of worship, praise him under the open skies…” Psalm 150 The Message

Behold The Mystery

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When my mother took us to the lake
my eight year old cheek pressed the half down window.
Hair flew up like the cresting of a wave,
and I looked out, and then down.

And gravel lies next to the road.

The trees promenade the father out I gazed.
A slow illusion it was that I couldn’t comprehend.

Even now I will take mystery over comprehension.
I still marvel when the moon follows me home.

And gravel lies next to the road.

Over the edge of the window the asphalt
zipped by and appeared fluid like shallow river water.
The Buick was moving so fast
except when I looked out on the horizon.

And gravel lies next to the road.

Time rides like a Buick, rocking gently.
The slow turning in the distance
almost wrapping around itself.
Then I look down at the black gray blur.

And gravel lies next to the road.