Tag Archives: Vision

Squint. Sometimes It Is Nessesary To Gain Focus.

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I didn’t want to.

Eyes wide open toward the sun.

The gold had thinned out

toward the deep blue of forever.

Where was the end of it?

Sculpted clouds insisted I look away,

their majesty butting in with finite beauty.

Grey smudges in and around fine lines.

I was driving toward the end of day

but I didn’t want to.

Photo: Thunderstorm at sunset

I pulled over and waited.

The gravel road ceased its grumbling.

Trees, like sentries, stood attentive.

The End of Days walked

my way and took my hand.

His eyes, like the sun, shone a path

before us and a finger pointed up

to the blue eternity.

I saw with a squint

the joy of true friendship.

I still feel an arm around my shoulder.

beautiful photos - beautiful pictures - красивые фотографии

 

Updraft. Heat Waves.

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The airstream adjusted north

like a snapping of a belt

and warm currents of wind

pushed the beads of sweat

across my temple.

 

Crows and turkey vultures

ride the updrafts as surfers

of heat waves up and up.

Theirs is an effortless span

as they gather warmth under

 

wings and glide on a mobius,

stripped of gravity,

and stoked with grace.

To them, the horizon

curves shapely across

 

like a woman with child.

How I long to be lifted up

to float on a precipice

and draw concentric circles

from a point of grace.

 

 

“But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

They spread their wings and soar like eagles…”  Isaiah 40:31 The Message Bible

 

The Way I See Sometimes. It Ain’t Pretty.

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I misplaced my rose colored glasses.

The world is in a hand basket on its way somewhere.

The world is all that it is cracked up to be.

Cracks, cracks, cracks, and the humans are racing

to tape and mud and sand and prime.

 

He’s got the whole world in his hands

and I wonder if it is getting a little too heavy.

God so loved that an only Son came

to carry the weight on his shoulders.

It broke both of their backs along with their hearts.

 

At times all I can see is from Solomon’s perspective.

Oh, I am not wise. I am not even that smart.

If you will please open your Bible to the book of Ecclesiastes (Insert preacher voice)

you will see it is not a song of Solomon.

It almost sounds like a solemn dirge though.

 

I think maybe Solomon, for a moment misplaced his glasses too.

All that talk about vanity and vexation.

“To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under heaven.”

It is under heaven alright, because the list gets heavy.

 

Death isn’t rosy.

Pluck is a take away.

Thou shall not kill.

We all have our breakdowns.

Even Jesus wept.

Mourn.

Casting stones.

No hugs.

Loss.

Throwing away.

Tearing, rending.

Shhhh.

Hate? Really?

War. What is it good for?

 

Okay, okay, those are only the dark seasons.

Did you forget that my Elton John rose colored specks is missing?

Maybe I should have my U.V. shades on anyway under all this sun;

The kind people wear to funerals dressed like men in black.

 

If all I see is reactive attachment why would I want a clear view, really.

If all I observe is moral breakdown and despair, reserve me a padded room.

If all I blankly stare at is dis-ease and patients while I put a compress on compassion, please forgive me.

If all I look upon are sacred hearts broken beneath a cross, go hug your mother while you can.

 

It’s all under the sun and it is vexing.

Faith, hope, and love are naked without sunscreen.

Without Son glasses I squint and see men walking about like trees.

Why Do I Write? Thoughts from a Writer’s Retreat.

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“Pick a word, any word, and I will tell you the Greek word…” was spoken by Gus from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

Words, they are what we humans use.  They spill from us usually before we can walk.  Simple words form from our rolling tongues and our parting lips.  My pastor once described them as containers.  Our experiences pour into our word containers and give meaning.  Pick a word, any word right now.  Got it?  That word to you will invoke images and understanding particular to you.  The general meaning will hold true.  Red is red.  I see my mother’s orange red hair first.  You might see a red dot on the back of sneakers.  Associations run as deep as we are old.

God’s first recorded words were “Let there be light” and it was.  If God had a mouth that parted and closed, oh how I wish I could have read his lips!  Instead I read the results of the power of his words.  A creation set in motion through words.  My sense of wonder is aroused because he said something.  Then, to add a cherry on top, God infused his image in me.

He placed words in me.  They are words to be spoken and written to set recreation in motion around me.  Those words carry possibility.  Syllables of light can set aside shadows of unknowing.   Although life can be fragmented, a complete sentence of God’s image in me can open things up.  God has something to say and I do too.  Yet, like a child I point to God saying, “He started it!”

It began about fifteen years ago.  At a conference someone prayed over me and the Spirit of God melted me to a point where I was saying through tears, “I have something to say”.  Then a few years later a poem read in church moved me.  Verse describing a field of various named and unnamed foliage pointed me toward a freedom.  God let me know it was o.k. to pick words from a field of vocabulary and shape sentences like a garden.  Then the nick-name “John-boy” was placed on me from my Abba (See earlier post titled Name Calling).

If you are a writer you understand what I am saying.  But these ideas can be attached to any vocation given by God.  Personal examples come to mind.  Joe the mechanic, Luke the tech, Dan the pastor, Pete the nurse, Pat the administrator, Shelby the number cruncher, and Barbara the mother operate out of a giftedness and passion.  There are numerous examples and I wonder how many popped up for you as you read this.

This weekend when the question was posed “Why do you write?” I thought of Eric Liddell.  In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric’s sister was getting worried that her brother, called to be a missionary, was getting sidetracked by a passion for running.  His response to her was tender but unwavering.  “Jenny, Jenny, you got to understand, God made me for a purpose.  But he also made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure in me.”  Eric ended up going to the mission field after he glorified God through the gift of running.

What about you?  Do you feel God’s pleasure in you?  Does a personal calling or vocation sound foreign to you?