holy fire

Uncategorized Feb 27, 2024

Holy fire of steadfast love,
burn away all the crusty shell
‘til melted and molten
I rise up with a heart
of liquid gold and, like you,
emanate light and love
to all the dark
and shadowed broken places.

Liz McFadzean

“You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.  God is not a secret...

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high and nigh

Uncategorized Feb 20, 2024

Usually when I read, “Your faithfulness is great to the clouds” in Psalm 57:10, my mind pictures the immense vastness of God’s steadfast love.  After all, the sky is limitless, infinite. Is God’s faithfulness limited?  The sky’s vastness says an adamant, “No.”

However, unlike the vast reaches of th...

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your heart is on my fingertips

Uncategorized Feb 13, 2024

Your heart is on my fingertip
faint as a soft kiss on the lips

a presentation of carmine
the semblance of a valentine

a bleeding heart, it is so small
that no one notices at all

but love’s a mark so permanent
it is affection seized, then spent

never squandered, given lightly
the size belies feelings mi...

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walking on water

Uncategorized Feb 06, 2024

Tripping up the path
  of a morning moon
toes twinkling on
  bars of lunar light
the silver orb setting
  as the sky lightens
in a race to see
  if it disappears
below the surface
  or simply fades
in the pale light of dawn 
  washed grey, then pink
then gone altogether
  sinking like Peter
when he moves his eyes...

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time anxiety

Uncategorized Jan 30, 2024

How do I feel about time, really?  Am I working with it or against it.  I’ve had time anxiety during seasons of my life, particularly when my son was a young tween/teen.  He was certainly independent enough that I could go off and leave him, but in my heart I was comfortable for only for so long.  I...

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old goats

Uncategorized Jan 23, 2024

Old goats flank a roaring blaze
    in a fireplace of mottled stone;
they lower their heads and gaze
    through fossil eyes with thoughts
as old as the inland sea that once
    covered their bedrock home.

My grandmother came to Banff
    in the mid-twentieth century, spending
her widow’s mite to see the ...

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mountain light

Uncategorized Jan 16, 2024

So far north, the winter sun is
   only just cresting by midmorning
moving to its apogee just barely
   clearing the mountaintop
the ever-changing wash of gold
   slashing across white snow

low it stays and stays and stays
    blowing snow descends, shrouding
the summit, the sun drops down
   dipping us in...

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on a wing and a prayer

Uncategorized Jan 09, 2024

As the plane pulls away from the gate, I am filled with a mixture of terror and exhilaration.  I love the idea of going somewhere new, but I live in the gap between the is and the ought.  I ought to be excited, but to embrace the excitement, I have to give up control, give up knowing that all will b...

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you better watch out

Uncategorized Jan 02, 2024

Much of the New Testament is devoted to letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to various churches in the newborn Christian sect.  Last spring, I was studying Paul’s letter to the Colossians and was intrigued by the fact that he was writing to a group of people that he had never actually met.  He had h...

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tumbleweed frosty

Uncategorized Dec 26, 2023

To be sung to the familiar tune by Steve Nelson

Frosty the Snowman
Tumbled into town
With a duct tape hat and two duct tape eyes
And a scarf made out of yarn.

Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly, prickly soul
He’d been painted white and his smile shone bright
On his tumbly, grassy knoll

He first appeared a l...

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