Thinking on the banks of the Neuse

---Caught in the cluttered current
Of a river called Everyday Life,
I drift, hopeless to fly, too tired to fight,
So I swim frantically, hoping
To master myself and control the drift
And either way a failure I feel,
For the lazy lying and the strenuous strokes
Can neither one change my place--
I am yet in the same river, living.

The living a fact, and forgotten
The truth of the source who Makes
The river and all in it, yet is not the river,
And until I see the life I live is not mine
To drift away and hide, or to control and spend,
By origin this life, my living, is gifted,
No right to be or do was ever less deserved,
For only Bought with a Price aptly describes
My river tour; and my tag reads "sold."

reading

"To see through to God.

  That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, 

may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place

to the heart-aching beauty beyond.  To Him.  To the God whom we endlessly crave.  

  Maybe so.

  But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places?  To more-God places?

  How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy?  Self-focus for God-communion."

These have been my questions for a while, now.  Finding another soul who wrestles and writes a story to illustrate is promising, in a quest to discover that which can transform the bitter waters to a living wellspring, full of grace and truth and joy.  Her challenge:  "A dare to an emptier, fuller life."   

One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp, pp 22-23

A Timbered Choir

A collection of Sabbath poems by Wendell Berry, worthy of reading first thing in the quiet of the morning, they still the soul to listen. 

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

~Stanza I of the First Poem. 

Feeding young Elliana oatmeal. Not because she couldn't do it herself; some sort of communion was going on there.

how can this be?

He has two brothers and sister,
but not one in the same house.
A first mom who's known
by her first name, a picture
to him who knows another,
a wholly unrelated person
as Mama; his daily bread
comes from her hand, from the body
of she who bore him not, but
gives her every day to holding
the baby boy, a little man child.
He knows no home outside of love
a mutual need that brought him here--
he who needed care, and
those who needed to care, and
those he left behind did care enough
to release him, to be loved--
a stranger thing was never known
among men.  He who suffers the way
of the unknown, yields his own
to those plans of God, whose sons
come not by flesh and blood
but by water and word, the vow:

"I love you; you are mine."

the thankfulness Sabbath

On days like this one,

sixty degrees, mare's tail cloud

in a blue sky reflected silver

in the broad expanse of river below,

we sit, the king and I, observing.

The small son crawling behind

our chairs which are minimalist thrones

metal and new plastic, durable

deck furniture placidly waiting

empty until the tourists come.

We, the rulers of a minute kingdom,

watch our offspring on hands and knees

safe between concrete wall and railing,

and he watches us, playing peek-a-boo

and racing away at turtle-speed 

that we might pursue and overtake,

capture him, throw him in the air

reclaim the liberty we offered in joy

of watching, to see what he would do.

We sit, the king and I, under blue sky,

viewing the silver tidal river

on the deck of the new museum,

coffee drained from the white cups,

and we rise from our rest, to walk again.