Few leaves stay behind strung to winter branches
Those that remain anchored by the unseen
Yet they still speak
Wind-whirl
Sun-soaked
Small brown ghosts
Worship
January Kites
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The Billionaire’s Deer
Over the weekend one of our neighbors spotted a wounded buck on the banks of the Lake Dunlap portion of the Guadalupe.
He had wounds on his back leg and he was not able to walk.
The police were called and an officer assured us they would contact the owner of the property and “take care of” the deer.
In the end they dragged the deer’s carcass into the river 10-15 feet from the riverbank where he was last seen alive.
Listen
Please watch this for a minute and count aloud
https://www.worldometers.info/abortions/
Each second a person dies, and with each, light among us.
The Be-born
When words are inaccurate, or worse yet, dehumanizing, then we should change them
Let fetuses become young ones
Let blastocysts become our sons and daughters and let us consider that if the dividing line between protected and unprotected in the lives of young humans is the womb, consider calling our littlest ones the be-born.
Make it a blessing to each one-
Be born, little one
Be-born
“Unborn” is not enough
Not enough of an acknowledgment of the inimitable beauty, power and purpose inherent and irreversible invested in each human life.
https://theexperiencedmama.com/bible-verses-about-unborn-babies/
Yeshua
I usually call him Jesus, like to think I am “his girl” and rarely live up to what he deserves.
Yesterday the daily Bible reading was Isaiah 53 and it brought me to tears, as it always does. “Crushed for our transgressions”? I think of the ordinary atrocities we humans endorse on the reg as well as the ones which will forever radiate darkness in our history.
He took them.
And he offers such untrammeled friendship. King of kings, yet he is the friend of every yet-born child.
I should stop there. Benign, seek Jesus stuff, right?
But that is not all. Isaiah’s view of the Messiah is polarizing. He is not depicted as the universally recognized cool guy everyone loves. He is depicted as “despised and rejected of men.”
Why?
Because we do not usually like to be told we are wrong, helpless—supine. We like to be in charge.
Jesus is our, wants to be, our friend, but ultimately that should be on his terms, not yours or mine.
Does that galvanize or offend you?
I do not enjoy thinking about Jesus’ crucified death, his humiliation, blooded and broken and naked and alone, but I know
That and worse was to be my lot without him.
The Music Box
It is morning, the day before my mother’s funeral. My oldest son and I are standing by the French doors in the great room of my mother’s house. He is cleaning the windows and I am admiring the view of the pond when we both hear music coming from the mantle above the fireplace, six to eight feet from where we are standing.
I go over, thinking it must be one of her clocks. It is not. It is a music box, playing its song.
It played for a couple minutes, then the morning quiet resumed.
That was all.
The dress rehearsal
Towards the beginning of the pandemic a man in our town died. He was young and his death sent a ripple of fear and disbelief through our community.
We stood on his widow’s driveway in the sunshine as she told us about the progress of his disease and swift death. It was as terrifying as the plague.
Eventually so many others died.
I was nearly one of them. After my life was given back to me, I told God I would always give Him credit for the miracle of my life returned.
I was surprised at how few of my extended family and friends seemed to believe me. It was shock? Or the fact that the recovery seemed commonplace to them?
It also troubled me that at least one of my friends thought that if I could survive it, so would she.
And she did not.
I carry her mistake with me. I feel her absence still, with all the others we have lost.
People have been telling us about their rapture dreams. “Rapture,” in this case is a shortened term for God taking a bunch of us home, ending the age of Grace.
Back in 2020 it felt like watching a tsunami rolling towards us on the horizon.
Jesus is coming soon. Find him. Buy oil for your lamp. It is minutes to midnight.
Matthew 25:6 NIV
[6] “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
She is not the same
There was a canal outside the city where we would go with cookies some afternoons after school had released us. Watch the boats glide past the steep bank, press down among the long grasses—brittle spun gold—punctuated by poppies
She is not the same anymore
Neither the woman on the canal nor the one in the hospital bed
She has been set free
And I feel the silence
A migratory grief
Sometimes in the head, other times
the heart
My mother died last week
She was sick. The accretion of conditions related to smoking years ago and other things were taking their due.
John 20:1 NIV
[1] Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
John 20:19-23 NIV
[19] On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” [20] After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. [21] Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” [22] And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. [23] If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
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