Why Don’t You Stop and Look Me Over?

“Why don’t you stop and look me over?”
Barbara Acklin sang in her cool R&B voice:

“Why don’t you stop
And look me over
Am I the same girl you used to know?”

Am I?
Are you?
Do any of us ever really change?
Our own souls created in the Image of God
Merely marred and erased by time
Or nurtured and flourishing
Part of us is the same, the core
Part of us is constantly growing, learning,
Changing, becoming
Also the core.

Isn’t God marvelous
To have created us this way?
A symbiosis of time and story
The creation of the soul

Lay It on Down- The Stole in the Chair

“Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” -Matthew 11.28-30

“Stole, noun: an ecclesiastical vestment consisting of a long usually silk band worn traditionally around the neck by bishops and priests and over the left shoulder by deacons.”
-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1995
I left the church
As pastor
Voluntarily
Lifted the stole
Off my draft horse shoulders
The stole with the tight grip
Around my neck
The white one
Red one
Purple one
Green one
Stoles of communion
Weddings
Burials
Baptisms
Stoles stained
at the collar
Smeared
With my blood
And the blood of others

100’s
No thousands of
Persons
Children of the Creator
Tears wept on shoulders
Stole drenched
Tight hugs entrapped
Stole crushed by
Love

And yet
And yet
A gradual
Turning
Towards the heavens
Penetrated stubborn
Tenacity

“But where will we live?”
I cried out
from the deck

“At the Italian house on the lake.”
God replied
Terraced to deep water
Safe for a fifteen year old
In those high curvy mountains
A worn dock
An island
Dolphin dives
45 minute
Swims with Lynn
Across the channel

After two and a half decades
I lay down my stole

I unwind it from my neck
Lift the satin sheen
Tattered with trials
Yellowed with sweat
Fold it neatly
Place it on the chair

I am Free

I am FREE

“Lay down, lay down
Lay it on down..”
– Melanie

O, that you would
learn faster
Act Sooner
On God’s
Ever exciting
Dynamic
Call
Than I did

And to take up
The yoke
That is light
To lay your burdens down

And yet..And yet..
Not one single regret

I Want to Go Back to Tautra

“I want to go back to Tautra”
I speak out loud
Over and over
In longing
Necessity
My mantra
From the front porch
In the middle
of the quiet, dark night
Silent solitude
The wind whispers the words
Spirit?
Pneuma?
Ruah
The ground length cape
Of fine wool
Forest green
Encloses me
Warm and private
I am hidden
In the rainy winter cold

It is 48 years old

I pull the hood up
And am a monk
Solo
Alone
Reclused
A hermit
In a very loud
Need-filled
Extroverted
Busy
World

For 48 years

Volunteers in America- Got to Revolution

Spencer Dryden and Grace Slick may have been on acid, but their music rocked.

It’s time to rock the world again!!

Volunteers in America. In the World.

Got to Revolution. Many ways to be a revolutionary. Prayer is one, earnest heartfelt, powerful, sincere, authentic, passionate prayer..or marching on Washington..or writing…or hunger strikes..or bank accounts and IRA’s broken open wide,..or ..I don’t know…Each person has their own calling on how to be a revolutionary and change the world for the better. Within and outside systems. In Courage and Goodwill.

All I know is that it is time. It is past time. For peace, justice, Shalom, to come for ALL people and nations on this earth.  For suffering to end. Here and NOW.

Much is within our power to change, at our fingertips’ end, within our very grasp.

The world, the USA need a major revolution. Go for it. Use your gifts and strengths, the ones God has given YOU. You know what to do, what you can do.

PRAY. DISCERN. ACT.

 “The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.”

-Isaiah 11.6-9

”I am about to do something new.”

– Isaiah 43.19

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples, 
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

-Revelation 21.1-7

 

Mendacious

“Given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth.” – Merriam-Webster Dictionary

“If you don’t tell the truth all the time, you don’t tell the truth.” — Bill Peck

People of the lie
M.Scott Peck
Warned
Cannot
Know a
Relationship

For they deceive
Do not live
Absolute Truth

Do not speak
Or give it

I will not make that
Mistake again
You horrible man

Mendacious

3:00 AM

It is quiet

Only the sprinklers speak in surprise

A distant train goes by

I can breathe now

Take in the deep

Solitude and silence

I must have

Is this time the only way to get it?

For me, now,

Yes

Thank you, God,

For the middle of the night

Even before vigils