Category Archives: Writings

 

Day slips silently, softly into night

As the night breeze caresses my face.

A loon’s haunting cry echoes between the hills.

Golden fire upon the water

Reflects the setting sun,

Its image undulating

With the small wake of a fishing boat

Coming in to dock.

 

 

In the beauty of this place,

In the silence of these green hills

And colours of His wild grown garden,

God the Creator, Friend, Sustainer

Sits with me,

Speaks to me,

Filling the empty voids in my spirit

With his.

I want to go deeper God.

I want to go in

To the Holy of Holies

To the place where you shine.

And have my face  reflect you.

 

But, I cower in the dimness outside

The veil that you rent.

Too afraid, too tightly

Clinging to my self.

Chains on my feet.

 

If I push the torn curtain aside

Take one faltering step

There’ll be no return

To the familiar dark rooms

Where I’ve been.

 

Held back by my own expectations

All I think I should be

It is hard to imagine

How I would look

Unshackled, free.

 

Oh! Tear the curtain down Lord!

Erase my sin!

Free me from those tainted laws

That bind my feet,

And bring me deeper in.

I’ve always though that poetry should deal with things of beauty.

Not rage.

Perhaps it is because beauty is such a quickly passing condition.

It can be so easily destroyed.

Cut down the forest.

Pollute the air,

And water.

Disfigure the child.

Take away his right to play.

 

Things of beauty when seen up close take on another look.

Decay within.

An insect boring to the centre of the great elm

Algae ‘neath the surface of the pool

Smoke in the cloudless sky

The willful child,

Voluptuous

A broken soul stolen too young.

Beauty tampered with leads quickly to rage.

I Cannot Comprehend

 

It is impossible to comprehend

The weight of these atrocities

On my heart and mind

I cannot, I cannot comprehend

The difference, the value lost

From being small and black.

These are my people

Does no one care?

 

How can one become so crazed

As to crush a babies skull?

In wanton luxury

Of all that is evil

Kill innocence?

 

Is the life of a small black child

So dispensable as not to

Matter at all

In the eyes of the economies

Of our world?

 

What value do we put on restraint

When those we are watching

Are mad crazed for blood

Schooled and incited

To butchery?

 

It is impossible to comprehend!

The weight of these atrocities

Eats at my heart and mind.

I cannot, I cannot comprehend.

My anger ferments into rage

As governments procrastinate

Their pain too shallow.

The child is not their own.

All my life I have struggled with the knowledge that I needed to study the Bible vs my lack of motivation to do so on a consistant basis.  I would become inspired – for a short time – and then my enthusiasm would disipate.

I can remember subscribing to a young Christian magazine which helped me to maintain my Bible reading momentum for a while.  Then it gradually petered out.  Sometimes it would rekindle, like a hot spot rekindles after a wild forest fire.  It would sometimes be ignited by an interesting study or topic that would catch my interest. But the fire seemed easily dampened down again. 

Worst of all, I knew better.  I knew that I needed this contact with God to grow.  But it was hard to maintain the interest.  I just didn’t long for God’s word that much.  I wanted him to be there but other stuff got in the way of my needing to study what he said. 

This situation didn’t change much the whole time from young adulthood til this past year.  Being a missionary does not mean that you are any more likely to be a student of the word of God than any other Christian.  

Then all of a sudden something seems to have happened.  I became more and more aware that I needed help dealing with some of the struggles my kids were going through.  So I got some help.  Leo and I did some serious talking, God provided a wise counselor and some significant stuff happened, like my decision to spend a lot of time in prayer for my family.  Somehow God stepped in – I asked him of course but that had happened before without a lot of change on my part. 

I am still trying to figure out what on earth made the change happen. How do you get from empty to full?  How does an unquenchable thirst develope?   How do I keep it from going away?  Because I don’t want it to.  Ever.  It would be like losing my life. 

So I guess that is where I see my community of faith coming in.  It is a place (besides here on this blog where you can choose to read or not)where I can express myself and be understood, where my faith should be challenged and built stronger, where my hunger for knowing more of God should be fed.  A place that will give me a launching pad out into the world I work and live in.  And thanks to some of you out in the blogesphere who, though you are far away geographically, are also becoming part of my supportive community of faith.

Tossed aloft by

Winds that sweep the prairie soil

Blowing who knows where,

Clouding the air,

Till dark as night

It moves along.

 

And with it goes

The hearts of prairie men

Dried up and broken from too much

Tilling of the soil.

 

Dreams like the dust

Blow off into the sky

Obscured by reason

Till they fade away and hope is gone.

Still the dust

Blows on.

 

Our fathers feet were

Planted deeply here

Now ours are torn by wind and drought

And we move on.

Hunched down under

The weight of all you are

You want to get out of this crowd of fools

It’s an upward struggle

And they’re pushing you  

Towards the edge of the abyss

And you want to run

 

You can’t leave it behind

Drag it like a ball and chain

The weight of your world,

All your generation,

You want to make them see

All that they could be

All that they are becoming.

 

But they’re moving blind

And they’re not moving up.

No ones moving towards the light.

 

The edge seems ever closer

As feet slip towards

The chasm of lost souls.

And you want to yell

But no one listens as you scream.

They’re moving on

 Like the scum on a stream.

 

Like a living nightmare

Like an unvoiced scream

You can watch it happen

Like on a muted screen

They keep moving, moving

You’re pushed aside by the crowd

And you’re trampled down

 

They’re moving on

But not moving up.

No ones even looking towards the light.

 

And you want to scream

But no sound comes out

You’re trapped inside

And you can’t get out

Till you grab ahold

Of his bleeding hands

And he lifts you up.

 

Now you’re moving on

On a brand new path

You’re moving steady towards the light.

I’m mad at you God.

I wanted it all to be perfect

A loving husband and good kids

That did what I expected

Now look at what You’ve done!

 

Did I not follow where You led?

Did I not listen?

What happened to the plans

That I concocted?

What are You doing?

 

It hurts to be a mother

With all my parent wishes.

I’ve tried to do Your will

I’ve tried to teach them

How can they banish You ?

 

I’ve still no answers

To my anguished pleas

When will they see?

When will they hear?

God please answer me!

 

I look up for Your face

Can’t see for tears

Feel nothing now but love

In my pain, You take me in Your arms

And say I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

Why do you get so sentimental on the one day of the year honoring mothers?

Do you think somehow one day will compensate for all the times when in frustration

I have asked for help and been ignored?

Is this a day to scrub clean the slate of misdemeanors?

To right the list of everything gone wrong?

 

I am a mother and feel abused by good intentions to glorify my role by shallow means.

You ask me what I would like to have, to do, on this one day

And quietly I say We could go out for dinner.”

When all I want could not in a million dinners

Not in a million days be satisfied.

 

My child by birth or melded to my heart by choice, look deep into my eyes.

I want you to enjoy all life’s best things, accomplish where I’ve failed, sing where I’ve cried.

I’d have you search what heaven alone can give.

Your gift most precious to me’d be

A life of faith that’s lived in joy for God.

Everything I really wish for seems, 

All my unspoken dreams,

So out of reach.

My attitude so self absorbed

Grace hardest to achieve.

 

Sleepless, I sit awake at night.

Machining words in space.

Confession costs

If I confess, then I must  change

And what if I cannot?

 

Sometimes I hate the ones I love

And tottering on the brink

Of violence.

Slash with words irretrievable

Once they are spoken.

 

O Great God my Father!

In love you promised me

Forgiveness.

Redeem, Please make me yours again.

And set me free.