Places 19: Impaled
Note: Impaled reminds me that over forty years ago, I heard a Middle Eastern man tell how, while still young boy, maybe 12 or 13, he saw Jesus hanging on the cross. He said that he was, in vision, actually taken to Golgotha. While he watched Jesus’ crucifixion, the Lord looked at him. He was instantly […]
Places 18: Silent Witness
Have you ever wondered what Jesus “will” was a on the night He sweat great drops of blood and cried out, “Not my will, but Yours be done?” This reflection and poem is about the olive trees silent witness to Jesus’ agony that night. Did they hear what He was praying about?
Places 17: Gethsemane
In the fun of colored eggs and family and all the beauty of the lilies and the “Hallelujahs” of Easter, I can focus so fully on the joyous triumph of “He is Risen” that the fullness of why Jesus denied Himself and choose His Father’s will—even death on a cross— falls in the background. Revising […]
Self-Realization
Who am I? What defines my self? My family or friendships? My activities, like writing or painting? My thoughts, feelings, or body? Do psychological tests reveal my real self and give me clear life directions? Or will externals like economics, circumstances like Covid-19 or realities like aging define me? How do I find my true identity […]
Places 15: Waiting for Wind
Note: Here are two poems. The 2011 poem describes summer heat. The 2021 version is a work in progress. Inner impressions that surfaced while reading Carl Trueman’s The Life of the Mind slipped in. Trueman says our culture elevates immanence (materialism), unbelief, and the importance of our inner individual feelings and physical desires over external authorities like […]
Thin Grass
Thin grass, in a stingy icing of soil, covers rocks and clay. Crops raise little but hopes deferred. Yet somehow, with good rains
more clover comes, the weeds survive, green enough to keep alive all who call these hilly pastures home.
Places 14: Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope Once I sought and found quiet in a one room cabin on a Southern Indiana farm. It was built from unfinished freshly milled wood and set inside a partly fenced-off glade of tall unmown grass between woods, pasture, a cow corridor and grainfields. The inside was undecorated and sparsely furnished. It was intentionally off […]
Places 13: Cedars
Cloud brushed cedars
gently sway
into the darkening skies.
Birds that crowded
summer skies
Faith or Fear
On December 11th, I looked out the window and wrote a poem about the wintry view before my eyes. I was surprised that it ended up about fear and faith. What is in us has a way of coming out, doesn’t it. I rarely post new poems, but put it on-line. Dissatisfied, I revised it. Here’s […]
Places 22: Jesus Said to Thomas
Then Jesus said to Thomas Cut out those whispering doubts that won’t believe. Bend, man, bend to truth! Touch my side, receive. Don’t hide, don’t hide. I’m here right now, I’m here. I heard your grief, I felt each sob, each tear. I know you cried and cried. I know your faith and hope had […]
Fog
My weather app says the sun is shining. Surely it is—somewhere—but around me it’s thickening fog. Dense clouds are dripping down a heavy wash of gray. The woods to the north are barely visible. Such impenetrable fogs trigger memories for me—always the same three.
Dense fog triggers memories for me—always the same three. The first, from 1962, is a comfortable one, full of family love, adventure and teamwork.
Places 12: Holding a Moment
Note: This Advent Season poem is not my usual. You may think it cynical, laced with negative subjectivity. I actually do like some jazz and blues— but not stuck records or tapes that never end. And the anomaly of night club music on an early Sunday morning in an upscale hotel lobby all lavishly decorated […]
