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!”

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

Pain eases with time

But does not abate

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

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

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

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

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

Numbers 6:1-9 KJV
[1] And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, [2] Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord : [3] He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat moist grapes, or dried. [4] All the days of his separation shall he eat nothing that is made of the vine tree, from the kernels even to the husk. [5] All the days of the vow of his separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow. [6] All the days that he separateth himself unto the Lord he shall come at no dead body. [7] He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die: because the consecration of his God is upon his head. [8] All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord. [9] And if any man die very suddenly by him, and he hath defiled the head of his consecration; then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing, on the seventh day shall he shave it.

Despite the short-term memory loss

Despite the IV sedative and anesthesia

I see the girl on the operating table, hear the steady whir of the electric clippers

Just the top and one side

Shorn with a surgical precision and harvested as a keepsake for the girl

Where the sound of the drill would soon follow

leaving a stigma, a hole

This operation one part carpentry and one part telemetry

She lived

And learned speak for the dead.

A young man rides his bike in the driving rain across an underpass with two additional bicycles slung across his shoulder

My sons exclaim his notable strength

But I see poverty

Loneliness

The trees that have been hewn down here so that men cannot hide or sleep among them

Once I saw a man try to fit a motorcycle into the back of an SUV at a gas station

It would not fit, but still there were the pieces of a first world story—two men, two motorized vehicles, no rain that day.

The least I can do is….

The least I can do for…

The strongest man who ever carried the loneliness of the world in a storm

The God who rescues

Matthew 25:35-36 KJV
[35] For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: [36] Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.