on time

Summer’s ending.

School’s starting.

A conference is coming.

Another book is simmering.

And so, I’m taking some time away from social media.

A couple weeks to rest.

Be more fully present.

Step out of the traffic.

And listen to God.

Blessings to y’all!

“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
      loving look at me, your High God,
      above politics, above everything.”

Psalm 46:10 (TMV)

Into the solstice I go

Winter has a way of isolating us.

From each other.

From life.

From our Savior.

The cold penetrates and causes us to suck into our selves, and our selves are not a good place to stay. Not for long, anyway.

We weren’t meant to live alone.

We weren’t meant to live in the dark.

And yet, at times, I think the sharp edges of isolation have a way of cutting into places of the heart which need healing.

So, despite my longing to stay indoors, enveloped by a warm, wooly afghan and curled up next to one of our curled up dogs, I go.

I pull on my walking clothes, wrap a scarf around my neck, tuck my mittens into the sleeves of my parka, and I go.

Into the angled glare of a sunken sun, kissing the horizon like a lover longing to touch more . . .

. . . I go.

And in sunlight I find solace.

Smiting the unbridgeable solstice between hurt and healing, solace shows up like a waltzing curl of winter air on stretching beams of light.

The.

Light.

So will it be when the Lord begins to heal His people.

So will it be.

In the sunlight. 

The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted. ~Isaiah 30:26 NIV

Fall Poem and Art

The Autumn, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (emphasis within stanzas is mine)

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still —
as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, —
Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
Look out o’er vale and hill —
In spring, the sky encircled them —
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold —
Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne’er be desolate.

Painting by Leo de Freyne

*************

“It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
      and work your worried fingers to the bone.
   Don’t you know he enjoys
      giving rest to those he loves?”

Psalm 127:2 (TMV)