Deep Calling Deep

I keep to shallows. You are the deep that tugs my feet from under me, blasts ears with fury, floods each orifice until I’m swept away, my deep imploded to a black hole, resistance convoluted to a vacuum. Ravished, I find your waves and breakerstender with thetropic warmthof a trillion suns,millenia of moon tides.You areepicContinue reading “Deep Calling Deep”

Radical Change After Pentecost

Extraordinary hyper-power pulsates inside this fragile jar. Its fried glass, splintered to a mosaic of prisms, splits the beams to violet, green and red (shocked with gold) and casts pictures through the night onto dark walls: images of glory, stained glass come alive and radiating metaphors: a king bathing slaves’ feetwhile a woman’s hairwipes hisContinue reading “Radical Change After Pentecost”

The Red of Love

Love—deep red love— came struggling through the pressure of the birth canal and landed safe in loving handsthat washed away the bloodand held him close.They did not know, not yet,that Love’s own bloodwould someday spurtfrom lashes to his back,from nails plunged straightthrough his own hands,and through his feet—blood of Life and supreme Lovethat would bringContinue reading “The Red of Love”

Open Home, Open Heart

The travelers walked in the front door, hot and dusty after hours on dirt roads. Mom always found room at the table, one built for her by Dad, big enough to welcome at least a dozen guests. She added another vegetable, salad, bread—done! There was always enough.Then, grown up, it was my turn.I learned toContinue reading “Open Home, Open Heart”

Our One Hope

This is not what I thought it would be, a quiet safe place with time to rest and peace my constant cup of tea. Instead I toss and turn, my heart churning with yearning for that final resolution of these conflicts,a revolution that turns the worldupside-down, filtering out the eviland cleansing the cup so itContinue reading “Our One Hope”

Morning Thank-yous

Thank you for green filaments waving in the breeze on this hot day, for silver sunlight filtered through gray overcast skies, for the solid round edges of mangoes still ripening, hanging pregnantly from bowed branches,and for those that have turned to gold and fallen to thirsty earth to make new wine and maybe children.Thank youContinue reading “Morning Thank-yous”

Caught Inside a Wider Web

Baruch sat huddled within his scrolls deep in the throes of despair. Words darkened the parchment and his soul, relentlessly marking out tragedy, punishment! The torrentof eviction, maledictionkept screaming in his mind,the prophet’s warnings and lament.But at the Thronehis pain was seen,framed by the stainof hemorrhage froma heart off-center, rubbing on the cross-grainof life goneContinue reading “Caught Inside a Wider Web”

The Seed that Grows

You make us your heifer, pulling the plow, you shape us and train us, showing us how to lean to the left when your strong hand presses, to walk straight ahead, cleaning up messes and tearing out weeds, preparing the way for planting the seed in that soil on the day when all is inContinue reading “The Seed that Grows”

My One Safe Place

When even the sunrise is muted by dust, the air polluted with smoke and red dirt, there is one safe place where I can stay, breathing in air that is healthy and clean, a place where my heart-hurts heal as I pray. Here beside you,I’m finding a wayto gradually layeach major worry,each broken hopeon theContinue reading “My One Safe Place”

Remembering: “Smothered in the Night”

The long car twisted through tall grass In the shy darkness following sunset. Suddenly it was before us—the village, Mud huts huddled close like frightened sheep. Our headlights swept across them and then fell On a pile of children tumbling from the night To swarm around the car as we stepped out.A skinny girl lookedContinue reading “Remembering: “Smothered in the Night””