My grandfather lived

in a rustic house near a sloping cool branch with slipery stones

and verdant woods

I walked slowly toward the treeline where

mystery lay

and there in the shade of autumn’s bough

i see darkness rising

close of day.

but death,

a far

closer

angel visited then and will and again because

it is unchanged, like the virgin nest of the wip-poor-will

though unwelcomed

tender unforgiving visitor on the side of the hill

where i last heard his voice.

away

Everybody ends up
in the belly of the beast.
There are few exceptions
from the greatest to the least.
You stumble into quicksand.
You’re weary of the world.
Lies wreck your reputation.
Insults, viciously, are hurled.
Addiction lies in dormancy
then rears it’s ugly head.
Depression sinks in slowly,
Like the whispers of the dead.
A chronic, stubborn stronghold
infiltrates your weakened mind
Confidants betray you.
Sometimes, friends are hard to find.
Childless in your 40’s.
“Will I ever be a mother?”
Inside an unfamiliar place
Near no sister or no brother.
You’re in the doctor’s office
And hear devastating news.
You lose your hair to chemo.
Indeed, no one gets to choose.
Your marriage ends abruptly.
He left you with no choice.
And for others, it’s the silence.
Separated from His Voice.
Adversity just happens
and no one gets a pass.
But this- your devastation,
is God’s Holy Master Class
Yes, this strong Professor
is bolder than the rest,
His challenges are brutal
and He’s silent in the test.
He’s far above all reason
––mysterious is He.
His text book is His Word.
His school–– adversity.
But in each fearful crisis,
we’re cradled by the light
There’s joy within the suffering,
There’s peace amidst the fight
Within our devastation
––the bleak, forbidding war
God shakes us in our deadness,
with His fearsome roar
What we assumed would end us,
And our melancholy tales
speaks only of His grandeur,
His timing never fails.
And in our silent terror,
He’s not worried in the least
Despite how darkness lingers
in the belly of the beast.

Man of sorrows what a name

for the Son of God, who came.

Phillip Bliss

I may not know you, but I know something about you. You’ve learned so much more about life through failure, suffering and pain than you have through pleasure and success. Your sorrow is intimacy and the people all around you, with smiles and small talk, add nothing to the transcendence of life. Sorrow is the gift no one prays to receive. And yet when sorrow comes it brings clarity, intimacy and a desire to change.

You’re not the only one that grieves the evanescence of our time on this blue marble. Jesus grieved, wept, and lamented as well. He wept at the tomb of a friend. He mourned a city lost in the crippling legalism of alien liturgy and legalistic isolation.

When I look at my life, I, too, grieve. I grieve the obsessions I embraced that foolishly looked like safety and humility, when in fact they only gave birth to deeper dangers and pride.

Like you, Jesus loved someone with no reciprocation.

Like you, Jesus saw promises and covenants dispatched in a moment.

Like you, Jesus felt the shame of false accusation.

He showed us how to rise above the arrow-paths of a thousand earthly sorrows.

“Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling the secret of who you are, but more often than not of the mystery of where you have come from and are summoning you to where you should go next.”  
Frederick Buechner

Reflect

Take a moment to identify the things for which you mourn.

Understanding Sorrow

When we grieve over the right things we find a fairer day ahead. The trick is to be able to bury the dead things that must be buried and call upon God to do what only He can do with the rest. We mourn but we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.

Lord, save me from the kind of sorrow that leads to despair and draw me to the sorrow that leads to forgiveness and dancing.

“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.” – George Herbert

How important is it to forgive? Eternally important. 
The past is consuming to the person who doesn’t forgive.

A new Christmas book of 20 readings for devotionals and poems which can be used as worship readings, personal devotionals, and even sermons.

The story of Jesus rings true as a divine romp, full of messiness, wedding wine, feasting, sweat, blood, betrayal, passion, resurrection and reckless, inexplicable grace. God doesn’t sanitize the details because grace nestles into every phrase of the Gospel. Luke 2 and, well, every verse of the New Testament speaks of love personified through the immaculate descent of a loving Savior. This is the story of an only Son who reached out to the rest of us. All the misfits, vagabonds, fugitives, and beggars who wander in circles, cowering in fear at the sight of the angels of Eden, receive a second chance to love.

A Number of Delivery Options

Kindle .99

ibooks .99

Nook .99

Distribly 5.00
(.doc) great for pastors and Bible Study leaders.  Cut & Paste. Reproduction rights for bulletins, performances in Christmas programs.  Great for adaptation.

Paperback: (With reproduction rights) 5.99