“Don’t you worry about me!”

Posted on October 22, 2026 by Elea Lee

No stranger to public displays of affection,

I sit down next to the entwined and ask them

What is your favorite Jesus story?

The boy-man deflects

What is your favorite Jesus story?

I tell him a story about the Son of Man raising Lazarus from the dead after four days only to walk willingly into the maw of his own brutal crucifixion

Face the shame

Face the sin

Face the grief and

Wrath of the Holy God

3 days later—rise again

I ask them how I can pray for them and she says,

I’ve got lots of people praying for me! Don’t you worry about me!

An audible conversation

Posted on October 21, 2026 by Elea Lee

I wait hours to talk to him after

“Errors occur“

And hold music good enough to dance to in the

Hallway of the doctor’s office

He is so kind at 3 am India time

Helps me untangle my returns

Asks me if I am ready for Halloween?

I tell him I celebrate fall

He says he does as well and

Hindu holidays strung out like lights on a wire

He asks me about the weather?

I tell him that it has just cooled off in Texas—beautiful and cool and he

Tells me it is beautiful where he is today too—rain so joy-filled that beauty is not enough

I tell him I think he must be a poet and he tells me I must be a good guesser

We bless each other with words

And suddenly the detour feels worth it.

Intentional “is”

Posted on October 19, 2026 by Elea Lee

Sample litany—

I cannot generate my own oxygen or rescue plan

The world is a victim of sin and rebellion on a path of steady entropy and eventual destruction

Jesus is my sure Rescuer

I need him for both oxygen and Salvation

His word, his way—his life is fully available to me through the Bible and the power of the Holy Spirit

I need to give him my time and attention and relinquish the illusion of autonomy.

I need to obey his injunction to

“(Take up your cross and)

Follow Me!”

Rayleigh Scattering

Posted on October 15, 2026 by Elea Lee

We have to rethink light

not limited by our limits—rods, cones, our presbyopic narrowing

The purple in the sky, there

Regardless of “us”

Ghosts in the peripheral

surround nonetheless

Perhaps we will be judged by them

So great a cloud of witnesses

The invisible spectrum always at our shoulders

Dust to dust

eternity

Scattering

in all direction

Painful Days

Posted on October 13, 2026 by Elea Lee

https://www.gregorymartinfh.com/obituaries/mary-baker

Pain eases with time

But does not abate

https://www.onthisday.com/date/2009/november/14

The Cardboard Person

Posted on October 12, 2026 by Elea Lee

I once knew a brave and beloved person who lived in a cardboard house.

I was recently reminded of her

Because I heard a story about a

1. Tea party

2. Bunco game

3. Bible study

4. All of the above

Where a group of humans made a single human feel

The terrible sadness of Loss

As though a person could be rendered inert through the impulse of “two or more gathered in my name”

That is the part I marvel over as I stare into the eyes of the Lonely Lamb

As the wolves do

What wolves do

When donkeys aren’t around

The Leaves

Posted on October 10, 2026 by Elea Lee

It has happened several times now—so many that

Accident is impossible

1. A flock of leaves flew upward

Featherweights in unison

Flight

2. Flurry of them cascading downward in a strong wind (like)

Snowflakes in a storm

And three—

a solitary leaf

Even with the horizon becomes

A giant butterfly? A small bird?

Flying, not falling, defiant of physics and limitations

Each sent by the Holy Wind

Who goes where he wills

And will let the leaves speak for him when we

fall silent.

The Translation Sequence

Posted on October 6, 2026 by Elea Lee

https://coddy.tech/tools/morse-code-translator

A room full of high school students hammer away on electric typewriters

The bride sews her wedding garment-/stitch by stitch, pearl by pearl

The staccato sound of teletype bleats out an insistent warning

We do not hear or comprehend

In the background, in a barely audible whisper

The voice of God sends out

A message for the perishing hope and admonition

About a man born in a manger

The Word took on flesh and dwelt among us…

Until all that is left is

Him

Household dragons

Posted on October 5, 2026 by Elea Lee

Sure they are cute now

Or you can try to convince yourself that through the lens of

both your my-and presby-opias

As long as you feed them, they will grow

As the house morphs around them

Into a fitting habitat for dragons,

Household or otherwise

Breaking the Nazarite Vow

Posted on October 5, 2026 by Elea Lee

I can see the little boy at least in pictures

Remember the intensity of his convictions

Not just about his uncut hair

More than that

some heroes were totally still there

When others had definitely been lost

What room is there in cartoon grief for the stolid belief in resurrection?

“We thought we had lost you…“

Strange to acknowledge the terrible loneliness

Touching the dying

Eschewing even the husk of the vine

I miss each of the children

Wish I could do something as simple as shave my head to

Bring them all back.

Numbers 6

Carrying Light

Words for light