Till the end of the age (holech)

Isaiah 35:7-8 KJV
[7] And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. [8] And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Like many Christians all over the world, I long to see Jesus face to face.

He is my best friend, Rescuer, and Pearl of great price. And, let’s face it—this world can feel like a sinking ship. Sometimes it can be hard to wait.

The Bible encourages people who love Jesus to long for and look for his return, so I think I am supposed to be searching the sky and praying and hoping He will come back today, as-soon-as-possible!

And yet, I need to be trying to tell people about Him. He has been such a good friend to me, I want everyone to know him. I cannot imagine the loneliness and horror of my life without him.

This morning I had a dream with a field in it. The field was full of grass or wildflowers referred to in the dream as “holech.” I don’t speak Hebrew, so I looked the word up phonetically. Holech in Hebrew means

If you are walking in Jesus, keep walking and bring your friends with you. We are all called to lead people to Him.

And if you don’t know Him yet? He is our Rescuer, the Ransom for our shame, and “the friend who sticks closer than a brother.“

Don’t take my word for it, just ask Him. Tell him your doubts. Ask Him to answer all your hardest questions. He has. He will. He always does. Listen for His voice. He speaks the language of each person’s heart better than we do ourselves. (See idiolect https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiolect)

Matthew 13:37-43 KJV
[37] He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; [38] The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one ; [39] The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. [40] As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. [41] The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; [42] And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. [43] Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Luke 21:25-28 KJV
[25] And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; [26] Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. [27] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

Romans 10:9,11-13 KJV
[9] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [11] For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. [12] For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. [13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Atheist Analogies

Like never reading the love letters I wrote you

Words scattered all around

Like never seeing how

I let the blazing suns of a thousand remote

Solar systems blink your name

Like ignoring the food on your plate

The clothes neatly folded and pressed

The hands that kept you there

Breathing in, breathing out, wanton flowers

The messages painted on the billboard of the world

Child come home,

Rain come down

I’ll never stop looking

Across this field for you

The Imaginary Conversation

He is gone now

Gone to me, anyway

But I think of the things I would ask him if he were still here–

Would persistent nausea be enough? Or swarms of stinging insects? How about dead bodies? Or all the stubbed toes and fingers gone unmended

What if this post-modernist hell of your own invention were not unbearable heat, agony and utter despair

Forever/

Just

… an airless room, waiting for a love which never comes

All your regrets all your missed chances

To cry like a baby

Wail for a Savior

Weep at his feet, hair in hand, perfume spent

Shaken finally by what you

Would have been without Him

You believe?

I ask the children who would win

In a foot race

Einstein or Newton?

S. says the wearing of wigs would matter

And I picture Newton trotting gamely behind

Losing precious seconds

As he tries to keep the wig on.

Gravity is something you might believe in

Or streams of consciousness

But not Jesus, my subjective friend

Whose fury you have misjudged

Like the smallest of figures in the distance

Moving inexorably toward you

Fire in his eyes

–Revelation 19

Mansfield

How do atheists turf their ghosts? Wispy girls, long gone, in their place, algorithms, aggregates, the trees were old back when we were young, how wise they will be when we have left this place.

Who will bear the children of the dead? Who will tell the grown man

How pretty, how young you looked in your operatic yukata, how many letters have been written for you, all for you

Careful, I say, careful.

measure out impossible prayers to a Most Evident God

As though they were

Leaves caught in the wind

“There’s no base!”

“there’s no base!” 

Exclaimed the girl–green shirt, tiny dog resembling a toy…

only real in the crook of her arm

And suddenly I get atheism–

Darwin shouts in the  schoolyard– 

no base!

And unhinging the game from…

well, base-

Another name for

The trunk of the branching oak

we rest beneath

breathing hard

before someone says

One, two, three, get off my father’s apple tree

Not to be confused with 

That one inimitable player who says

One, two, three, base all over me

And somehow, miraculously

Means it.

Real Mom

i wrote it deliberately 

the way it has been now to me

for over 20 years

and has been to the created

Universe

For as long as He can remember

Or rather just since that unfortunate incident in the Garden

“Biological mother” might have always been our deplorable undoing-

The willful choice

To pick death over Real Mom

Seems somewhat abstruse and vaguely epistemological 

Until I tell you about the feral 

cats of Universal City

one of whom, just a wee thing

had words with me last night

Sure, they were just 

plaintive and insistent 

Mewings in the parking lot

But we both know it was more than that

It was all of them

Hidden in the margins

Rightfully afraid of the humans who trashed the Garden

Looking for Real Mom

And yet so cold, so alone

so afraid to come home.

A cage for freedom

I read that Carl Sagan’s wife has interpreted the story of Eden lost as a triumph of human freedom.

Ironic considering she surely sees it as a mythical tale.

Ironic considering that we have chosen holocaust, genocide, neglect, and violence as the measures of our freedom.

And there is this as well–when you see ultimate love and beauty as a confinement, one might rightly ask–

what do you know of love?