Celebrate the Simple

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What is it about imagesmen circling up, as around fire, that lends itself to speech, and even wisdom?

The kindling and sticks of firewood had not been laid out yet when some of us huddled ‘round. The purposes of gathering were for one of the young men to teach and for men to come alongside one another as part of encouragement and accountability. Men often live lives of work alone whereby their relationships atrophy.

The topic? Consistency between professed faith and practice. The Christian walk is to bear witness to the Christian message. Christians’ lives are to be marked by transformation.

One passage of Scripture the teacher cited came from James: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22 ESV). A second came from Paul: “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who be will be justified” (Romans 2:13).

We men gathered on the upper banks of the pond. It was near dusk. A light breeze blew from the west. Clouds indicated a chance of rain. Some of our sons were downhill, fishing. The pond’s surface rippled when the winds picked up. We all looked to the teacher. He had his Bible open on his lap. Gently, he read, explained, and illustrated the multiple texts of Scripture.

When he concluded teaching, some men’s faces had changed. Spiritual realities were at work. Then some men began to speak. They spoke of how time often had found them at work for things that perish, instead of at work on themselves, and/or their loved ones. Some had neglected their families for careers. Some spoke of how grace had found them amidst busyness.  Others told of how they’d hardened themselves against some church folks’ legalism.  Some sanctimonious church attendees had deterred some men from feeling welcome. As a result, some men chose to bury themselves in work/careers. Others spoke of how we men tend to labor for acclaim rather than for truth.

Evening wore on and, eventually, darkness fell. One of the men began removing kindling from his pickup truck and started the fire. We gathered around the growing flames, as he added pieces of split wood. The flames grew orange and lengthened towards the sky. The Spirit continued to work.

My son was still downhill, fishing with some of his buddies. I called to him, telling him that it was getting late, and to start loading up the fishing tackle. My mind kept at its interior monologue: This is what matters. This is what matters. Invest in people. Don’t lose your soul. Hear, yes, but do.

 Time came to depart the campground. Neither my son nor I wanted to leave. I helped clean up the area, and shook hands with some of the others. My son and I got into my pickup. Halfway home, and without any prompting from me, my son said, “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, boy.” I glanced at him quickly to see if his thoughts were with mine. He had his left elbow on the armrest. I wrapped my right hand over his left hand, squeezed it, and fought not to weep for the joy of relearning to celebrate the simple. This is what matters. This is what matters. Invest in people. Don’t lose your soul. Hear, yes, but do.

 

 

Robin’s Birdsong

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“Good mornin’, hon. What can I get you to drink?” “Water, please ma’am.” I liked her right away. According to her nametag, her name was Robin. I adjusted my chair underneath me. I slid closer to the countertop and looked around at the staff and other customers at the Waffle House.3dk7p3pxcbaf5atplkzmoo2mu8vq0vdwpol6rkdzygrsu6wtrltbidnbydm2jft9ko9l8y7kbemluwe5lkqfjslkon9q9ibxvsnjzi92tt0xhtaqyo86ptxezwp5122unx1n8byrtjgn7gjigaaaaasuvork5cyii

Robin was different. She was about sixty-five years old, with dark eyes, eyes dark as marbles. Silver streaks ran through her hair.

I ordered a Grand Slam breakfast with fried eggs, sausage, hash browns, and dry raisin toast. Robin approached with a waffle before the rest of the meal and said, “I’m sorry it’s taking so long. But would you mind if I just brought your waffle while we’re waiting on the rest?”

“Yes, ma’am. Fine. That works. Thank you,” I said.

Robin was obviously embarrassed at how long my meal was taking to be prepared. The cooks were more interested in cawing to one another than working, it seemed.

The other staff persons were  men and women between the ages of eighteen and thirty. A jukebox blared Kool and the Gang’s “Get Down on It.”

The other employees lined the countertops like crows. Without making eye contact, the staff communicated with one another—about customers’ orders, and gossip that (presumably) only they knew about.

As I continued to wait for my breakfast to be prepared, I watched the staff. Their lips mouthed the lyrics to the Kool and the Gang song. Some even rolled their hips during the chorus.

And there was Robin. She grimaced at the volume of the music. She returned to where I sat, at least two or three more times. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what’s taking so long,” she said.

She began writing on the yellow pad she carried in her apron. She handed it to me and said, “Sir, I’m only charging you for an egg breakfast, since you’ve had to wait so long.” She colored with embarrassment. She just didn’t fit in with the others. She was older. She didn’t like loud music. She didn’t participate in the gossip amongst the other employees.

The other employees got louder, cawing at one another, feeding upon one another’s volume and laughter. Were they laughing at Robin, I wondered.

When my meal arrived, I’d already finished the waffle Robin had brought earlier. I left off checking emails on my phone, to which I’d turned to keep from growing angry at the wait.

Finally the remainder of the meal arrived and I finished it quickly. Then I looked at my ticket: $3.00. Sweet Robin.

I stepped up to the register to pay with my debit card. I tipped Robin another three dollars. She deserved it. She was being murdered bit by bit, but she quietly sang her birdsong in her own way. Perhaps her middle name was Grace.

We All Lose Now

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A land of boors. Some words sound like their meaning. Boorish means rude or coarse. A boor is an uncouth, unmannered person, one characterized by rudeness. If the current nominees for presimgresident of the U.S. teach us anything, it is that we’ve become a land of boors. The nation has nominated boors. Why? Because they’re like the electorate–rude, coarse, expert at trying to excuse their sinful nature.

I remember hearing a lecture by Ravi Zacharias wherein he taught on man’s incorrigible attempts to rationalize his sin. Ravi gave this example of man’s fallen nature: after Bill Clinton repeatedly denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky, the world took notice. Media ratings soared. But when the semen-stained garment was produced, and Clinton was caught lying again, his popularity rose. Let that sink in. He became more popular. A land of boors lauded a liar, an adulterer, a man debauched.

The nation lauded a president of the U.S. for betrayal. He had betrayed his marriage vows, betrayed truth, and betrayed every semblance of honor. The White House became little different than Animal House.

Now the blood in Benghazi cries out from the ground. The blood of 60,000,000 aborted fetuses makes Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s bloodstained hands seem white in comparison, and yet Hillary cheers for unrestricted access to murder children in the womb. Thousands upon thousands of emails are hidden and destroyed. Yet the Left’s nominee drones platitudes about “togetherness,” while in the next breath she pits people into groups of “deplorables,” of rich vs. poor, of straight vs. gay, of black vs. white, etc. A land of boors where crassness is king.

And surely Donald’s slated to become the emoji of the boor. Philandering, a filthy mouth, and lack of repentance. When you see a man seemingly incapable of repenting, you know that moral character has been abdicated and imperious boorishness has been crowned king in its place.

Welcome to 2016 America, where crass is king, the boorish win, and we all lose now.

 

The Person’s Grammar vs. the Grammar of the Person

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Eight years of marriage to an abusive husband yielded bruised arms, bruised cheeks, and a battered soul. Yet some good came from those years of suffering. Now, she’s begun to talk about it all. How may one’s sufferings yield comfort, even joy, later?

A teacher asked his students on the first day of class to begin writing the first drafts of their autobiographies. Several students took quickly to the assignment. After all, one’s own story should bimgrese easy material about which to write, right? Perhaps. For some people. But not for at least one lady. What if, after all, one’s past is filled with memories, not of love, but of loss? How may one’s suffering be explained in a written assignment for school? How is one to even begin, if the pain is too close to the bone?

Ever noticed the old men with wrinkled skin that sit on the pine bench in a shopping mall? Sometimes they’re sipping coffee. Sometimes they’re wearing Members Only jackets and a fedora. Perhaps they have on plaid shirts with khaki pants. They wear brown Dr. Scholl’s loafers with thick comfortable soles. What are they doing? I used to think they were lonely or misplaced people. I don’t think that way as much anymore. Those wizened men are watching other people. They’re wondering about their stories. I like the way these bench observers seem unhurried, content to watch, sip their coffee, and imbibe their surroundings. You can see the sorrows written in their eyes, too. But they’ve learned to shape sorrows into lives. They’ve endured. And for some, they’ve gained wisdom. They’ve seen into the heart of the matter. More than a little of that skill came by leaning in—attending—to people at the right time.

When I, as the teacher, asked for the students’ drafts to be turned in the following week, one lady’s eyes told the story, even before she spoke. But she did finally speak.

“I, um, really struggled. May I have some more time to work on it?” she asked.

I suddenly felt like the old man on the bench at the mall. I watched the lady. I approached where she sat. She cowered behind her desktop computer.

“I just can’t seem to find the words. I’m really sorry,” she said.

“May I see what you have written so far?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not much,” she said, “and it’s not very good.”

“Let’s just take a look, okay?” I asked.

It didn’t take long to understand. I began reading. She’d married when she was 17 years old, already pregnant with her first child. Out of shame over the pregnancy, she had married the child’s father. Over the next eight years, she endured physical and emotional abuse. But her parents told her, “You will stay married. You will make it work.” And she never told her parents of the degree, or types, of abuse. She just told them it was tough being married.

Eight years and three more children. And abuse through it all. How could she write now, years later, divorced and scarred, in an English class with a deadline, about events that had battered her body and soul?

After I finished reading what she had written, I was not the same person. I raised my eyes. She was staring straight at me, to see what I thought. A stream of tears poured from her right eye, and moisture was building at her left eye. Her glasses were fogging from the tears. She’d begun to perspire. She was terrified about how I’d react.

“This is incredible. Not only is this the beginning of a remarkable autobiography, but you are remarkable for writing the truth, and for coming through to this point,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes. Let’s work on it, okay?”

I pulled my MacBook over to her area. Now we both were behind her desktop computer. But she was no longer cowering. A wall had been demolished. I was not a threat. I was not a mean condemning man in her life. I was just her English teacher, and wanted to help.

We began reworking her autobiography. We did not erase her painful past, with all its horrific accuracy, from her autobiography. Initially, I had walked back to her in order to help her with written expression. I’d come to aid with mechanics, with subject–verb agreement, with diction. But life’s bruises intruded. Platitudes gave way to tears. She cried as she typed, and I tried not to look too much, but to encourage her as she pecked out her past on the keyboard, word by word.

We are continuing to work on it. But she’s writing now. The words are coming. She talks to me, too, about her past. I’ve become the old man on the bench at the mall, just by observing her—what she wrote, and what she couldn’t write yet.

There’s a unique humanity in teaching. It is akin to reading the soul’s language. Perhaps it’s not so different from that old man at the mall. He watches. He leans in. When appropriate, he advises.

I learn from my students. No, they’ve not taught me grammar, or love of language and literature; I’ve had those passions for decades. But I continue to learn that people are primary. Many live untouched by one who will attend, who will lean in, who will read what is there, but with compassion. We might find that our sorrows are more easily borne when shared. One of my favorite songwriters, John Brine, writes in “Hello in There”:

Ya know that old tress just grow stronger

And old rivers grow wilder ev’ry day

Old people just grow lonesome

Waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there, hello’

Sometimes it takes a song to remind me. Or perhaps a student who lets me read her current autobiography, and lets me lean in, and help her to form her future one. “Hello in there, hello.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is that All?

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There is danger in familiarity. This morning at church, the pastor taught from Mark 14. I suppose millions of people worldwide know the story of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anointeimgresd Jesus with her flask of oil. And Jesus paid her one of the highest compliments possible: “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Mk 14:8-9 ESV). The pastor reminded us of several things. One precept, in particular, abides with me: Mary did all she could. And this convicted me about how superficially I can treat others, especially those with whom I’m familiar.

There is danger in familiarity. And nothing quite rouses me from the slumber of familiarity like the reality of death. Let me explain.

This morning in the Sunday school hour, the pastor stopped by the class I teach. He shared with our class that one of the elderly ladies in the church family had died in the early hours of that very morning. And as soon as he said her name, her face appeared in my mind’s eye.

We all have certain facial expressions, or nuances of demeanor, that mark us as unique. And this lady’s ways became almost palpable to me. But I grew more and more convicted. Why? Because I’d not spent quality time in conversation with her the last time I’d seen her at church. I was too familiar with our standard “meet and greet” time. Of course, I shook hands, and hugged, and engaged in small talk with some folks. But had I known that I’d not have another chance in this life to speak with this lady, I would have done things differently.

That is part of the danger of familiarity, at least for me. I grow accustomed. I develop a routine. The routine becomes superficial. I can atrophy as a human being. I don’t attend to my neighbor. Instead, I take her for granted. This is a danger of familiarity. We are easily habituated to feigned courtesy. Until death shakes us from our torpor.

As the church service progressed through its order, we sang and prayed and sang again. And then there was the “meet and greet” time that I have sometimes dreaded. (Like my grandfather, I’ve never excelled at small talk, so I can be ungainly at times, at least with this sort of thing.) But this morning was different. No, I didn’t suddenly become gregarious and go around backslapping and talking of the day’s news headlines. Instead, I stayed in my pew, and spoke at length with a dear couple in front of me. They talked of their many years living in southern California. The husband spoke of being a firefighter in San Diego. The wife spoke of her childhood in Colorado. They spoke of their children. I could see their eyes sparkle as they reminisced about certain events in their past. Why is all of this important? Because rather than going through the motions of caring, I did care. And they cared. We talked. We listened. We fellowshipped. I learned from listening to them, and by having watched their lives for years, that they know what it means to give all.

Like Mary, who anointed the Lord with her costly perfume, these saints in front of me have taught me (whether they know it or not) what it means to give all, to invest eternally. And so much of that investment comes, not by way of the extraordinary, but by way of the ordinary, by the familiar feel of another’s handshake, through the recurring scent of a woman’s favorite perfume, or the grin of an older wiser man, who says much in few words.

For Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, she never became so accustomed to the Lord Jesus that she atrophied spiritually. She gave all. And now she’s remembered.

There is a danger in the familiar. And I think it’s failing to appreciate beauty that surrounds us. God’s providence is displayed, not just in the beautiful sunset or poem, but also in the saints on the pew in front of us.

Cut in Half

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Three fire trucks, five cop cars, and three ambulances. Onlookers lined both sides of the road. Policemenimgres unrolled yellow tape and erected orange barrel barricades to keep the onlookers at a distance. Still, the number of onlookers grew. Huddles of Latino families lined both sides of the four-lane road. EMTs and paramedics loaded what appeared to be two bodies on gurneys into one of the ambulances. Blue lights from the police cars, and red lights from the fire trucks and ambulances, lit the onlookers’ faces. The facades of business buildings facing the road reflected lights from emergency vehicles. The rain had just stopped. Wisps of steam rose from the hot wet asphalt. Shattered glass.

One of the vehicles was a four-door Ford Lincoln from the early 1980s, a massive car by today’s standards. It was now in two pieces. The vehicle that had T-boned the Lincoln was unrecognizable. It was now smashed into what resembled a steel accordion. I could have fit it in the back of my pickup. It sat immobilized in the center of the four-lane. Steel, plastic, and fiberglass bent in upon itself in horrific shapes. The Lincoln was in two pieces. The front half was in the middle turn lane. The rear half was downhill about a hundred meters, steaming on the sidewalk. It had been cut in half from the impact.

I’d come upon this scene on my drive to Publix. I was on my way to purchase sandwich meat and bananas. But as I topped the hill, I instead encountered this. Lights from ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars that that had amassed over half a block of South Cobb Drive. We drivers who’d come upon the scene were being rerouted, as South Cobb Drive was now closed. But the crowd of people grew. They gathered on foot along the four-lane. To do what? To pray for the families of the dead? To offer help to the EMTs, policemen, and firefighters? To gaze, like vultures on a wire, upon human carnage?

My stomach began to hurt. I realized I’d lost my appetite. I’d been looking forward to a turkey sandwich and banana after my run. Now I felt sick and ashamed of my selfishness. James’ words flashed in my mind: “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14 ESV).

I watched the red brake lights of the car in front of me, as we inched our new way past the crash site. Wisps of steam continued to rise from the blacktop. James’ words burned my brain. A mist. These men or women, or perhaps children, who may’ve been running errands, too, had lives of mist. Now some of them lie dead in ambulances. And other people lined the sides of this four-lane like vultures, gawking over glass-ridden blacktop, as if other people were prey. This had become a spectacle of life’s brevity.

We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We do not know what today will bring. “For my days pass away like smoke,” (Ps 102:3a). As a husband, father, uncle, teacher, chaplain, soldier, etc. let me not forget. May I use my mind for that which matters, and not waste the days appointed.

 

 

Time Steals and Reveals

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Live oak, river birch, red maple, and dogwood. Canada, Egypt, Kenya, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and England. Blond, brown, and gray. No, this is not a quiz to see if you recognize patterns. But then again, it may be. Let me explain. It’s not about trees. It’s not about countries. It’s not about hair color. It’s about time.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love trees. Why is a mystery. I am convinced it has to do with their longevity, their endurance, and my enduring passion for literature. I can recall passages from the writing of Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner, Walker Percy, Shelby Foote, Dickens, Emily Bronte, and others where trees were delineated with such beauty that they (the trees) became characters. That is, trees became important in characters’ stories. Trees sometimes served as shade, rest, respite, and shelters from storms. Other times, they served as symbols of strength. Other times, they towered with religious significance. Jesus, the most crucial man in history, was nailed to a tree in Jerusalem. Thus, trees are not always just trees in literature.

But there’s more. There is a connection to the countries and colors listed above. I’ve planted at least one tree, but usually several trees, in each place my family and I have lived over the last almost twenty years. Why? To mark time’s passage. To plant tangible signposts of where we’ve been. To remind me not to squander my life and time.

But what of the countries and colors? Recently an old Army friend emailed me some pictures of us two decades ago. Several captured us atop mountains in Switzerland and Austria during a weekend ski trip. My hair (then) was blond. Later it turned brown. Now it’s gray. Other pictures showed us deployed in Bosnia in the 1990s. My hair (then) was blond. Later it turned brown. Now it’s gray. And I understood that time’s an incorrigible thief.

Then I thought of some of the places I’ve visited or lived: Kenya, Canada, England, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Italy, Czechoslovakia, France, Egypt, Greece, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland, Austria, Indonesia, Hong Kong, etc. There are other places, of course, but I walked through them again in my mind and found myself grinning at memories from each place. And I understood that time’s an incorrigible thief. I’d spent time in these places and they’d shaped me.

Time’s an incorrigible thief. That’s part of why I plant trees on each place my family I reside. They remind me that time’s an incorrigible thief who will steal if we fail to sow, water, feed, tend, and treasure what’s most important. Time steals and yet reveals our treasure. I’m no longer blond, but gray, and (hopefully) wiser, rooted in working at that which endures.

Deep within the Birches

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“Come on, Dad, let’s build a fort!”

“Okay, bud, let’s do it.” And we left the house, unsure but eager for what we were embarking upon.

The back yard has mature pines, a fruit tree, red tip shrubs more than ten feet tall along thimgrese fence, and river birches. It’s September and the birches’ fallen bark coats the corner of the back yard in khaki scrolls that crunch under our shoe soles.

We trimmed low lying limbs from some of the trees, shaved them to where we could fashion them into the thick red tip that was to serve as our little camouflage fort. We raked fallen leaves and pinecones from the earth’s floor. We fitted small branches within larger limbs, fashioning more from energy than from thought.

As I watched my son cut limbs with his machete, and saw him carve notches in twigs with his new knife, he was utterly engaged and content. In his mind, he was erecting a fortress, a boyhood castle from which he’d rule his kingdom.

And as I watched, and crouched beneath the limbs with him, and crawled into our growing fort, pulling honeysuckle vines and briars from the fence line, the incalculable weight of grief reached for my heart. I longed for nothing so much as to always see boys so happy.

The Self-disciplined: A Vanquishing Breed?

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Self-discipline is out of fashion in our time, at least for some folks. Just in this week’s headlines, an elected political representative was again disgraced after his latest “sexting” surfaced. His wife is separatiimagesng from him, and the world yawns. Where’s the self-discipline we should hope to find in our elected officials? Was it ever there to begin with?

Other headlines are consumed with demographics of race, gender, and carnality. We have “safe spaces” now wherein free speech is curtailed under the guise of sensitivity and the favorite system of silencing dissenters and thought not aligned with militant secularism–political correctness. And infamous athletes boycott the national anthem; some people burn our nation’s flag; yet others support the murdering of police, etc. The list is long of people who seem to lack self-control/self-discipline. And where self-discipline is absent, somebody else’s discipline will step in—usually in the form of a growing government.

How should the Christian view this? Should he capitulate to political correctness? Should she renounce the obvious distinctions between the genders? Should Christians give in to being exiled from the public square? Should Christians throw up their hands in postures of despair and exclaim, “Well, we know it’s going to get worse!”? (I have heard Christians say this.)

What does Scripture actually say about these things? In short, Christians are to be above the aforementioned follies. Christians ought to be the ones who exemplify self-discipline. They ought to be the ones whose examples the undisciplined world envies. Jesus did not obfuscate. He said Christians are to “let [their] light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16 ESV). Just as Jesus was the light who’d come into the dark world, his followers are to be lights amidst this darkness. And being light entails self-governance/self-discipline.

I am currently studying through Peter’s life and writing, and one text from Peter often cited as a ground for Christian apologetics (a reasoned and reasonable defense of the Christian faith) comes from his first letter. The text to which I refer follows: “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Pt 3:15-17 ESV).

It’s true, of course, that Peter teaches Christians the importance of being able to articulate what they believe and why they believe it. (May God bless the many faithful Christian apologetics ministries we have.) But what is easily overlooked in those same verses cited from Peter is his emphasis upon “having a good conscience” and knowing that Christians will be slandered for . . . “doing good.” That’s the battlefield of being a living sacrifice. Obedience is manifested via living a good life amidst an evil culture. This is why Peter writes that it’s a blessing when you’re reviled by the unregenerate. In other words, Peter’s echoing Jesus: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt 5:11-12 ESV). But “doing good” demands self-discipline, not unrestrained impudence.

The ancient Greek world birthed the Olympics, of course. And in the New Testament, Paul uses an athletic metaphor about self-discipline in 1 Corinthians: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things” (1 Cor 9:24-25a ESV). What’s the hinge upon which Paul’s argument turns? Exercising self-control.

Just in case readers could misinterpret Paul’s emphasis upon self-discipline, he reminds them, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor 9:27 ESV).

Paul’s emphasis as a Christian was of course the gospel–the life-giving truth centered in God’s work in history concerning Jesus the Christ, his birth, life, substitutionary death, and physical resurrection. Paul’s metaphor of disciplining the new nature in order to receive the prize for a ministry led with faithfulness is analogous to disciplining one’s body as part of athletic competition. How appropriate, therefore, for Christian pilgrims, who ought to be the exemplars of self-discipline, to strive for the prize, to serve with distinction. In short, for a world that often lacks the quality of self-discipline, let the world behold in Christians lives worthy of the One who called them to himself.

 

 

“Could Small Things be Messengers?”

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                    The Light that was There

August’s sun casts furrows of light upon the grass

Painting the lawn in tines of gold

Raking slumber, like fallen leaves, from my worldliness

Turning my soul to see the light that was there

To that which I was too busy to see.

 

                                 Glimpses

 Fall’s when God frames earth gold and red

And creatures may behold heaven’s art upon every bough.

 

                                  Reflection

 Had I known what it would mean later

As I peeled shale and limestone pebbles

From the pond’s edge as a boy and

Fitted them between thumb and forefinger and

Flung them sidearm skipping across the water’s surface

I’d have thrown more and stayed longer.