Compassed About

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Hebrews 12:1-3 KJV

[1] Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, [2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross

, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. [3] For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Leave your robe

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I try to gather traveling instructions for the “nice lady” I met at the coffee shop

Find those who sell the oil and stick with them closely until the bridegroom comes

Leave even your best robe behind

Be willing to sell all you have for the treasure in the field

Do all this for the least of these

Because narrow is the path to life (and few there are who will find it)

Call on the name of the Lord to be saved

If you don’t already seek and find him in

Ordinary wonders

Matthew 25:11-14 KJV

[11] Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. [12] But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. [14] For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

Sometimes we drive in the dark

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Every once upon a time I take the girls

Driving in the dark

We look for places to call home–ramshackle garage, vape shop, dry cleaner with its window smashed

In the apocalypse there is still no

Room left in the inns of the world they ask

Why did she have to stick the needle in her arm? Why did she stick the needle in her arm? What was it about the needle that

Caused us to lose her?

The little one has poured her anger out over her minders all afternoon

Unwilling to face what it costs them

So I try to de Bergerac her through the necessary obsequities

I tell her I will whisper the words and she will shout–

I’m sorry

I’m sorry!

I’m sorry I was mean before

I’m sorry I was mean before

I was working out my grief

I was working out my grief

And sometimes there is anger in grief

And sometimes there is anger in grief

She has such a comical little girl voice

But when she says these things I know what God means

When He whispers in my ear

Altos De Betania

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John 1:26-28 NIV

[26] “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. [27] He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” [28] This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

I was once set free in Bethany, so far from Jerusalem the rainy season fills the streets into rivers and the dry season ignites the hills, black ash a veil, a shroud over all

Who are you?

In the house of figs and sadness, blessed are the poor in spirit who

Know they cannot raise themselves to life

Let all the other signifiers change for us

To Lazarus to life

Across the vault of the sky

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The white birds appear as points of light in the river until they can be heard

They obey parliamentary procedures for the most part until ordinary words are not enough

Then they either

Fly

Across the vault of the sky lights rise and fall, signaling splendor

Morning and evening

And it was so.

Genesis 1:20 NIV

[20] And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

Lanterns to release in air

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She wore a soft, pink sweater (her sister bought) as though the cool chill of October could touch her anymore and the small group of people gathered at her ad hoc memorial are floating up as the sky darkens

The ashes and the pink sweater and the flash of inexplicable light get me again and again

I have to conjure some litany for this–

Sprite, fly

Luminesce

Alight upon yonder shore