Transitive The thing is unsatisfactory. Something still is not quite right. So I will keep smoothing, spinning, shaping. And maybe, in the end, I will collapse, press in, put the whole mess back into a form in which I can begin again, deftly forming, patient until the beauty of my intention takes hold. Intransitive … Continue reading Adjust: a verb (Five Minute Friday)
In the midst of our crisis, we may have forgotten we are in the season of Lent. It is our time of fasting and meditation, the 40 days leading up to Holy Week in which we imitate in some small way the fasting of Jesus in the wilderness. We find ourselves in an interesting sort … Continue reading Lent: A reminder
Five Minute Friday: Tomorrow As a kid I don’t remember worrying too much about tomorrows. Maybe this is not true; maybe I blocked out the things I don’t want to remember or to be true of me. But I do remember having such deep trust in my parents that I didn’t need to think about … Continue reading Tomorrow
When it feels the whole world has gone mad. When life comes to a sudden, screeching halt. When panic rules. When all my plans evaporate, the doors slam closed, and disappointment chokes. It’s so easy to point fingers. It’s so easy to scoff. It’s so easy to be bitter, or afraid, or simply exasperated. Because … Continue reading On being quarantined
Five-Minute Writing Challenge on CLEAR Clear Once I inhaled the sharp first breath and knew my place. I won’t say I understood. Not that, maybe never that. But I stood upon the grass, ran fingers through the trickling wet and laughed, oh how I laughed. I loved the bird song, … Continue reading Clear
Table I was one of the uninvited. Improper, dirty underdressed, sweaty from a day of labor and forgetting. I knew the thing was happening as a distant pleasure, a high joy, not for me. And then the servant scurrying along the road, grabbing my sleeve. “Come. Hurry. It’s starting.” In … Continue reading Table (Five Minute Friday)
Ten-day writing challenge: Write for five-minutes on the daily word prompt. Today's word is"today." “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” (Hebrews 3:15) I wake to the feel of the hard earth beneath me. I stand at the door of my tent and see the vast … Continue reading Today
Five Minute Friday asked me to write for five minutes about my week. This is what happened. On the day You sang Your glory into the void and chose us, chose this on that day You saw all the days to the very end. And still You sang. Still You grew a world … Continue reading Some thoughts on God and existence
Five Minute Friday: Relief The Pulley By George Herbert When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie, Contract into a span.” So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then … Continue reading What a relief
Five minute Friday: Sacrifice “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” Hebrews 13:14-15 The word sacrifice makes us think of endurance and pain. … Continue reading Sacrifice
View from the Valley 