Saturday, December 29, 2012

Dec. 29

I have always avoided bandwagons;
it is words of hope I wait for.
As I watch others follow their leaders
and grasp for the latest pronouncements,
I listen for sounds from a distance,
ears tuned for that message of hope.
The bandwagon sings celebration
in honour of the road itself travels.
Am I alone in the knowing?
This wrong road has left me unraveled.
This is not the right way for the journey;
all the signposts are too unforgiving.
So as wagons move into the distance
I search for the track of real living.
Dec. 20
I am on the road to Emmaus
right where I'm meant to be
but it's still before the Lord meets me
to talk with and comfort me.
I don't know when He will show up
and help me to understand
but I've set out, and walk on wondering
if anything's going as planned.

From Dec. 19


Give me the suffering theologian who has stared the monster Unanswered Prayer straight in the eye.
It makes me want to go ask a homeless bum
what she can tell me about God.
At least she knows she's homeless.
I stay in my house,
don't much go to God's house;
I cannot pray for my heart is broken
And in your heart is where you truly pray.
So don't tell me about perfect plans,
I've seen too many shredded documents.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

^Photo: In my garden, long ago, the summer of 2009^

Today I read this quotation from Alessandro Pronzato:
"The crowded bus, the long queue, the railway platform, the traffic jam, the neighbor's television sets, the heavy-footed people on the floor above you, the person who still keeps getting the wrong number on your phone. These are the real conditions of your desert. Do not allow yourself to be irritated. Do not try to escape. Do not postpone your prayer. Kneel down. Enter that disturbed solitude. Let your silence be spoiled by those sounds. It is the beginning of your desert."
-Source: Meditations on the Sand
The quotation fits my today, and this came to mind:

Oh, desert, now I know you!
and I know where I've seen you before:
your other name is chaos,
and you're a regular at my door.
And I must learn to live you,
and make my way along
through this dusty loud distraction,
and not forget my song,
or Whom it is I sing to.
Though I have seen no sign
the memory I cling to
is a green and growing Vine.

Friday, November 30, 2012




I got a glimpse of infinite
Funny how things turn around
I could have sworn the sky was black
White crow swoops out and down
I used to see beyond my eyes
To the realm of God and spirit
Past here and now which terminate
Past touch it see it hear it
But now so much reverses
Loving blessings bring painful curses
The immensity of grief
The shock and unbelief
The longing for the departed
Diminishing all else
Going on in all directions
And I see no end
Nov. 28

Life ruined,
I might as well give it back
I tried to be careful
But it's seen some hard times
Been knocked around some
Been thrown to the ground
And after that last wrenching grief
It just hasn't been the same
I have a feeling it will never work smoothly again
So You might as well take it back
Maybe You can do something with it I don't know

Friday, November 23, 2012



We walk on ice with egg shell shoes
We cannot hold on to what we lose
A harsh wind blows us makes us sway
And in a moment we are swept away
No time for hatred anger wars
Too delicate our thin life's course
With mercy's brush strokes on the sky
We must paint life as it flies by
With feather-light caring touches of love
We must follow the winging dove
Turn blink of eye from that which shatters
To dwell upon the pure that matters
We balance best when reaching low
To lift a fallen friend or foe
And when from life's knife-point ice we fall
We will see Love has been behind it all

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Nov. 8, 2012



I could open wide my heart
but the plumes of dark smoke
would bring unwanted attention.
So I go away to the lonely place,
my cabin in the wilderness.
Late autumn winds blow around and through log spaces
but do not flutter the ravaged edges of my flattened faith as the daily breeze at home has done.
A riotous crowd of geese makes a big production of flying overhead.
Here now the woodstove crackles me comfort,
but outside the small windows there is a whisper of tiny crystals flung and falling, hitting the surfaces of dry wood and dead leaves that have given up resistance.
In the stillness of the many trees and no people
I feel, if not the healing, at least the resting of the ravaged heart.
All I have to do is feed the stove and keep a book handy.
The woods will do the rest.

Hard homecoming
You say you have no home well I have one
But no one coming maybe you should come
This time of year it's what we do
A hard homecoming for me and you
You had a home once welcoming warm
I had someone before the storm
But your home once is now your lack
And my loved one will never come back
Your hands are cold with me it's heart
We'll make a fire each warm our part
Be here together where we've been tossed
Think of what we had and what we lost

Friday, November 9, 2012

Cloud AtlasCloud Atlas by David Mitchell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well worth reading.
Memorable quotations:  "An idler and a sluggard are as different as a gourmand and a glutton." (p. 54)
"We looked at each other for the last time; nothing is as eloquent as nothing." (p. 347)
"Books don't offer real escape but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw." (p. 357
A revelation on the two offenses of the elderly, on p. 361.
"It's true, reading too many novels makes you go blind." (p. 363)


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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Three Cities of BellsThree Cities of Bells by Goudge, Elizabeth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is three books in one, (A City of Bells, Towers in the Mist, The Dean's Watch) each book about a cathedral town in England, set in either Edwardian or Elizabethan times. As historical fiction, it is filled with satisfying details on the daily life of the diffrent characters. There is also great insight into different human natures. Although showing its age by the moral attitudes, the assumption of differences based on social class, and the pat happy endings for so many characters, this is not always an undesirable thing in books, as with imagination we enter a world that is definitely different from our own, and that has much to teach us. Elizabeth Goudge is a writer who has a great gift in human insight and in language use.
P. 109: "Felicity chattered as a bird sings, joy being with her a thing that must be instantly expressed lest she burst, but Jocelyn did not speak, it being with him a thing that silenced."
P. 186: "As in all first intercourse between shy strangers each difficult sentence that they spoke seemed a rope flung across the chasm that separated them from each other."
P. 220: "...The cheerful comfortable view of those who have suffered...only in imagination."
P. 303: "The loveliest phrases are winged, and when the poet opens the door of the place where he put them he finds that the tiresome creatures have flown away."
P. 351: "A poem can be like two hands that lift you up and put you down in a new place. You look back with astonishment and find that because you have read a few lines on a printed page, or listened for a couple of minutes to a voice speaking, you have arrived at somewhere quite different."
P. 367: "They love indeed who quake to say they love."
P. 368: "(We forget) ...at midday when the sun is shining, that (we have) come from the dark and (are) journeying towards the dark again."
P. 454: "He was afraid. It was suddenly dreadful to him that we do not know to what we travel; only that the way is like an increasingly darkening tunnel. At the heart of it the blackness is like pitch. We must pass through it, there is no escape, and there is no one to come back and tell us what it is like in that darkness, or what it is like beyond."
P. 536: "All of them...had seemed to live in a world where compassion was not necessary. He saw now that it was the very first necessity, always and everywhere, and should flow between all men, always and everywhere. Men lived with their nearest and dearest and knew little of them, and strangers passing by in the street were as impersonal as trees walking, and all the while there was this deep affinity, for all men suffered."
P. 567, about daydreaming: "A drifting mood, encouraged, is like a current at sea. You have no control over where it will take you."


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Monday, October 15, 2012

Saddest when happiness has been here
I hear grief whisper in my ear,
"yes, you have much, but used to have more,"
and I follow my grief out the half-closed door.
Darkest when just now the light has been
glowing the world with a warming sheen,
shadows gather and welcome me in
and all I remember is what could have been.
Lamest just after a joyful leap,
tiredest after a restful sleep,
silence and pain where the sweet music played,
absence where love's hand of healing was laid.



To walk in a winter dead garden,
kicking the wind blown leaves,
snapping the dried up stems and vines,
unripened tomatoes deflated and flat,
defeated chard and persevering carrots,
the last beans hardened, unpicked but stoic,
is to look past the present, and plan next year's garden.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Late at night, while reading Towers in the Mist by Elizabeth Goudge, published in 1935, I came across these words after a death scene: "Spiritus redeat ad Deum, qui dedit illum". After a computer translation search I found Ecclesiastes 12:7--"...and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." (NIV) "The body is put back in the same ground it came from. The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it." (The Message) 
It was a case of old familiar words coming alive in a new light, to renew a failing hope.


Though I cannot now see past the pain
for tears and blood that flow
there is a place deep in myself
hope flickers, soft aglow.
A dull star, but a shining,
expected more than seen,
but the season comes when star will rise,
more bright than pain has been.
Our small lives to compassion
God entered the world God made;
our fleeting joys, our crushing sorrows,
are blessed by The Maker Who Stayed.
Then hope in splendid tendrils
let grow in aching breast:
our breath returns but whence it came
when we return to dust.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012


I, with my soul on its sickbed,
my faith in a full-body cast
could not reach for the hem of a garment
even if the world's Lord were to pass.
But I see no sign of His coming;
more likely I will go there.
Isn't that what all sickness will lead to?
Isn't dying the only real cure?

Friday, September 28, 2012



It was death let chaos in, to seethe within my soul,
a roiling, writhing darkness threatening loss of all control.
And though my faith is grounded on unmoving solid stone
when I now look within me faith is a pebble, and stands alone.
Not nearly enough to anchor me, I drift and toss about,
and can only trust the pebble will stay though I fill with pain and doubt.
The One who has created all, whose image lies upon us,
has mercy more than we can know, and there I leave my trust.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012


(On vacation, enjoying myself far from home, I wept one morning when I remembered the sadness, and these thoughts came.)

I believe that God will forgive me
as I am one of God's idiot children,
thinking God cruel in my moments of sadness,
thinking God should be honest and tell me
when my prayer is wasted,
not knowing how a good end would even be built,
but still I smile and gasp speechless
at the flame of a flower.
As good as blind when I try to see God
I seek past the pain for the warm embrace
but the idiot child cannot fathom.

Saturday, September 15, 2012



Before it is time for me to leave there are people I want to see
for one last look, a hold of the hand, to carry in memory.
It’s autumn now, with leaves ablaze, they’re all busy night and day
preparing for winter. But I am not, for I am going away.
Departure is near, the road in sight, and I’m not sure where it will lead.
This place is home, and it’s all I’ve known; the future I cannot read.
So I’ll step out, with a certain doubt, and with curiosity.
But no regret; let fate be met. My spirit will be free.
-inspired by a text conversation with my oldest sister (“I’d like to visit with you before you fly to Vikingland.”)

Monday, September 3, 2012

The world does not care how much we miss you.
The world does not care
     that the pain is too much to live with.
But as long as the heart of a mother beats
     it will be true that somewhere
     it matters that sorrow is endlessly deep,
     it matters that we cannot stop thinking of you,
     it counts that you lived, and lived well.
(God's is the heart of a mother.)


Having passed through the furnace
we look at each other
with opened eyes.
Afraid to discover a permanent wound,
uncertain of what burned away and what's left,
but helpless to heal,
with our zeroful hearts.
To our tender ears how the words grated,
of God's perfect plan, God's miraculous rescues.
For some, the waters never part;
to some, the waters come rushing back over top of.
And we, we are changed, we are changed,
and do not discuss it,
still fragile, unsure of our standing position.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

God's Healing Strategy, Revised Edition: An Introduction to the Bible's Main ThemesGod's Healing Strategy, Revised Edition: An Introduction to the Bible's Main Themes by Ted Grimsrud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A welcome, and welcoming, look at the whole story of the Bible showing us a God of love and mercy, as opposed to punishment and wrath. "Mercy for me implies mercy for everyone." (p. 95) "We who are loved by God (should) love as God loves." (p. 95) Where John the baptiser preaches repent for fear of God's wrath, Jesus says repent (change life direction) because of the good news that God is love, and God's mercy will lead to the good life. (p. 128)
Although I read through it in a couple of days because it is a theme I have interest in, the book is in a group-study format.


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012


I bring my tears before God
and then we wait in silence there,
God and I.
I, being wounded in heart and mouth,
have no words.
I wait for God's.
Trees are silent
but I love to walk among them.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular WorldLife of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World by Henri J.M. Nouwen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read as part of my August Project reading list.

Henri Nouwen set out to write this book at the request of a close friend, with the intent of perhaps explaining or motivating a spiritual life for those who had not so far found reason enough to embrace such a life. From the response of his friend to this book, Nouwen realized he had failed, and was perhaps too deeply spiritual to be of assistance to the more secular person. (As an indication of his wisdom and humility, he considered this a shortcoming to the extent that he determined to get more in touch with his secular side!) At the enthusiastic response of believing friends who read the resulting book, however, he was encouraged to find it was considered very helpful to searching Christians, and saw in the whole story "...the mystery of God using his secular friends to instruct his disciples."

I too find this book to be helpful and nurturing, although it takes a certain amount of concentration, or attentiveness, to follow his meaning and to catch his sometimes quite deep revelations. Nouwen says we are the Beloved of God, and like bread, we are taken (or chosen), blessed, broken and given.

I like the words "...a conscious desire to waste our time..." as a description of going against society's dictates and consciously choosing for ourselves, here specifically referring to meditation and prayer (p. 66). I love the universal empathy in the words "...each human being suffers in a way no other human being suffers..."(p. 71).  And I was encouraged by the affirmative words "The spirit of love...will blow where it will, even when few will hear its coming and going." (p.100)


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Sunday, August 5, 2012

Only in the deepest part of my bones
do I know God now.
The skin on my fingertips
is mostly doubt.
The pit of my stomach
shouts angry questions.
In my head 
I make myself say the God-taught prayer.
My legs are often shaken.
My heart is filled with loss.
The deepest bone and the deepest tear
is where I know God now.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

August Sonnet
Accursed month wherein my heart was slain,
A year is passing, you come round again.
Your temperate days, inviting us to rest,
Your promises of leisure heaven-blest;
How you lay on the charm, your branches full,
Your fruits abundant give a gentle pull
To lazy hands and minds and hearts carefree.
But surface calm should warn: more careful be.
Deception cruel your seeming paradise,
Your cloying heat of day, your moonlit nights.
At heart there lies a cold uncaring place
Beneath the warmth of your so August face.
Give me the winter, honest colder climes;
The danger plain, we live more cautious times.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012


Psalm 23:4 Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure. -The Message translation

Is it because there are others
Held fast by fleece-gripping thorns
In this dark accursed valley,
That he hasn't come to me yet?
I know he will find me as promised.
(In the distance I hear all the flock.)
But alone here I cannot stop calling,
All my struggles availing me not.
Unable to see through the darkness,
I can find of my shepherd no sign.
Or can it be he, unknown, is near me,
My bleatings out-sounding his steps?
Though I listen my hardest, I hear nothing,
But I will not surrender the wait.
Much too soon to say he's never coming,
To wonder, did he forget?
I continue to call, sometimes loudly,
When thorns press more sharp and more deep,
All I know of the time of his coming
Is that it is only not yet.

Sunday, July 15, 2012


I walked in the dusty pasture,
near drought, yet I hoped for refreshment.
Dry underfoot grasses crackled,
but a reddened leaf blazed with glory.
Stiff thistle pins threatened to stick me,
but their mauve thready blossoms were scented.
And in a patch milkweed called common,
a new-minted monarch began life.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Lament for a SonLament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A most painful book to read, resonating with the pain of everyone who has lost someone. P. 89: "Suffering is for the loving...In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer." Something I also have come to realize.

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Sunday, July 8, 2012

 
unfading and unfailing
the love past all loves
unknown to the unknowing
for whom we pray
for we may be they
we, worshiping in whispers,
while hearts shout out within us
from our own selves please save us
or hope have we none
forever dreaming of returning
to true home, weeping, yearning,
recognizing unseen parent
The Cradler of us all

Saturday, July 7, 2012


Head: stone
Heart: ache
Your loss: too much to take
Life: long
We: left behind
You: always on our mind

Monday, July 2, 2012


Yesterday
And here I sit calmly reading the hours away,
While the pit of pain in me shouts, "It's wrong
that all goes on and he is gone!"
Today
I crack my ribcage open
before the eyes of God,
lay bare the burning embers.
the smoldering red hot fog,
expose the hidden torture,
the deep volcanic pain,
as all I have to offer.
Here waiting I remain.
I hold the two together,
can hardly stand the heat,
the God I call all-knowing,
my writhing roaring grief.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012


While walking back to the place where I am staying,
I was heckled by a raven hidden in a leafy treetop.
First she made a rattling sound,
like when I used to clothespin cardboard onto my bicycle spokes,
but I don't do that anymore.
Then she made a clucking sound,
like when I used to prod my horse into a gallop,
but I don't do that anymore.
Then she flew away, but I don't...

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

 Photo: A leak window at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Gardens, Vancouver BC. For light to leak in.

Hidden Grief
I'm in that dingy part behind the building,
between the chain link and the concrete wall,
where the pebbles and the weeds are scattered,
where the wind-blown bits of small trash fall.
And I walk in my secluded passage,
rough and narrow though it may be,
passing open doors and open windows
and I see them there. But they can't see me.

Friday, June 8, 2012


Because the shine!
If we could look at everyone as us, and not the other,
what kindness we would feel for all, what wonder we'd discover!
If we could let go of the wall between the lost and the pardoned
and lift forgiveness heavenward and soften hearts long hardened,
what love would flow, what tidal waves of joy would sweep among us,
and there could be enough to share, they wouldn't keep it from us.
If we could let go of the need for having all the answers
and for knowing we held all the truth in our exclusive dances,
how our hearts would open wide in welcome as we traveled,
a weaving pattern as we go, bright threads together raveled.
If we could raise our eyes and hearts and see God's arms are open,
accept forgiveness and extend the love for which we're hoping
to all the people in the world, and so become united,
be one close family in the wholeness for which we were created.
Because the shine.
There is the way that chooses sides, accepted and rejected.
It may be time for another way: God's love for all, reflected.
Because the shine!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

The Good EarthThe Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A young man becomes an old man. In the course of his life he experiences joy, sorrow, pride, shame, productivity and wastefulness, but he is always most fully himself when he is in contact with his land.
Halfway through this book I was inspired to go outside one evening and till a neglected part of my garden, and as my tiller broke the ground and the weeds and grass turned over and the rich aroma of the moist soil reached me, I thought, "Thank you, Pearl S. Buck, for inspiring me, and expressing that connection with the soil that is a part of so many of us."

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June 1
By taking on pain to the death
we carry those with us to glory
who cannot find their way.
Whether by cross or deprivation,
or some shocking cost we turn out pockets for
and lay with trembling fingers our last coin down,
those who need our wound as ransom call to us.
And love having redeemed ourselves,
for love we cannot refuse.

May 23
Today as I walked in the woods I wondered
why is God remote? why hidden from us, God's creatures?
Tonight as I sat reading in my house, I wondered
at the words of Chesterton: "...a divinity transcendent,
different from ourselves, a deity that disappears."
"That external vigilance...that we should watch and pray."
And if I find I cannot pray, surely that only frees me more to watch,
until my watch becomes my wait,
and I accept the both as my present calling.

(G. k. Chesterton, Orthodoxy; Psalm 46:10, 37:7, 27:14)
May 21
I lean my hands
and bang my head
on the wall that others leap over.
Where some soar high
I droop and sigh
weighed down by griefs and boulders.
Though some of us
are given wings to
reach beyond the stars,
there are those of us
leaning low but true
on the cornerstone of the building.

Ps. 18:29

May 20
It can't be easy knowing everything,
seeing beyond forever,
having to feel each stinging pain,
each blow of the hammer.
Where is the balance between the two,
the sides of joys and sorrows;
is the balm enough to cover
the hurt of countless tomorrows?
I used to imagine to please Him
would be worth the world I trod.
But now I would settle for trying
just to lessen the pain of God.
If by some small touch or gesture,
or some just worthwhile act
I might comfort the One of Sorrows,
I think I could rest with that.
 May 14
Looking up at the sky
stars went round and round
as I turned in the sand.
No answer was found.
As I pleaded to know
all that fell to my ears
from my upturned face
my unanswered tears.

Sunday, May 13, 2012


"A Sometimes Faith"
or Words that Come to mind

Thank You that
in my deepest sadness
I find I sometimes turn to You
and although I cannot pour out my heart
while in its cloudy frozen state,
I can repeat the ancient words
that in the past gave comfort
and, Lord willing,
may again some day.
"Our Father, Who art in heaven..."

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Potter's Field, The   The Seventeenth Chronicle Of Brother CadfaelPotter's Field, The The Seventeenth Chronicle Of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Enjoyable. My favourite quotations from this book: "We live as candles in the breath of God." (p. 182) "...My soul has benefited from his prayers. But pain is here in the body, and has a very loud voice. Sometimes I could not hear my own voice say Amen! for the demon howling." (p. 238) " 'It may well be,' said Cadfael, 'that our justice sees as in a mirror image, left where right should be, evil reflected back as good, good as evil, your angel as her devil. But God's justice, if it makes no haste, makes no mistakes.' "

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Friday, May 4, 2012


Oh, God, heal my heart...
First work on the part
that wills to help others
and fills needs of others,
and comforts the troubled.
Leave the me side 'til later,
oh listening Creator,
until trust has healed.
Help anger to yield.
Though wounded and nervous
a small part seeks service
to do for thy sake.
These broken bits take,
do what you do well,
knit, weave, and indwell
until I am wholeness.
Or able to serve.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith CrisisStill: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren F. Winner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This has been a helpful book for me. Many of the author's descriptions of the symptoms of her mid-faith crisis resonate with me. Quoting a Hasidic rabbi, she says, "...until such time as I can pour out my heart like water before You, let me at least pour out my words," and then admitting that for her even the pouring out of words needs to begin again (p. 51). When she concludes at one point that prayers, "...when they come,... come from God," (p. 77), I wonder, if God is the author of my prayers, what does it mean, this prayer-less time in my life? Is it alright, or enough, for me to "be still and know", even if the being still extends into months, or maybe more? And then there are encouraging thoughts or quotations, like "you only need a tiny scrap of time to move toward God" (p. 108), and I feel comforted that my slight and imperfect momentary yearnings for God might be acceptable in some small way. "Maybe God has given some people belief like a pier, to stand on... and maybe God has given others something else..." (p. 167).

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The Careful Use of Compliments (Sunday Philosophy Club, #4)The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I so enjoyed it! Again containing a generous serving of profound observations:
"...At the end of every...exclusion,...ethnic cleansing,...heartlessness, there is a you and me." p. 11.
"We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters." p. 12.
"Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course." p. 134.
A humorous passage in the book has Isabel speculating on fictional characters, and then regarding her thoughts as irrelevant to her own situation.
I will look forward to reading the next in the Isabel Dalhousie series as soon as possible.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012


My child, you played too wild.
The world bared its teeth, you thought it smiled.
Deep canyons a little wide
you stepped across in a single stride.
Lake beckoned, in you went,
you thought the moonlight was heaven-sent.
Eyes caught by a distant star
worth seeking but you reached too far.
Some fruit is not meant for taste.
Young death is such a waste.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Heretic's Apprentice (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #16)The Heretic's Apprentice by Ellis Peters

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another in a consistently superior series, filled with rich historical detail (in this story we are introduced to the craft of making vellum from sheepskin; in a previous book we learned the rudiments of coppicing trees), suspenseful story, and sound philosophical musings, and presented in the form of a real page-turner of a mystery.
"...Did you ever think what a waste it would be if you burned a man for what he believed at twenty, when what he might believe and write at forty would be hailed as the most blessed of holy writ?" "That is the kind of argument to which the most of men never listen," said Cadfael. "Otherwise they would balk at taking any life..."



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Rain patters on my door,
small nails sealing me in
with my large book and my small fire.
Held captive, but grateful for it,
in my welcome prison
(without is cold and wind)
I resign myself to a long afternoon
of silence and meditation
as I read.

Friday, April 6, 2012


Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

On the dark side of Easter,
three days before the new life,
a thorn-filled, pain-filled lying down day, of tears.
Separated.
Waiting for the unexpected,
the unexplainable solution to all woes.
Three days, and they will tell us they saw
thorns turned to leaf shoots and flower buds,
a healed and raised up day, of tears of joy.
Reunited.
Then we will remember the words we heard:
abundantly surpassing is how much more
than we asked or imagined,
the accomplishment of the one
whose power has always worked in us.
Extravagant love, worthy of all glory.

Friday, March 23, 2012


Mar. 23, 2012
The curse has come upon me, though I still unbelieve,
and greatly do I fear the time when I must take your leave.
It happened, all unknowing, all unknowable it seems
to think I never will see you again--perchance in dreams.
Somehow I am left here fractioned what I was before,
a woman old and weeping over the clothes that you last wore.