For all you gardeners out there: over the last few years I've been adding to these "Flower Verses"... enjoy.
The morning glory is
a trumpet of sweetness
A whole blooming orchestra
is growing on my trellis.
The cyclamen is
a falling star
Captured by a lonely plant
and suspended just inches
from the earth.
The peony is
a porcelain bowl
Full of summer joy.
It is the scent of pink.
The lilac is
purity
a wedding of white lace
and lavender gowns.
A growing tree is
love
A newly-budded vine,
The rolling of the day,
This is love.
The dandelion is
innocence
All jolly and bright;
a toddler's beaming face.
The prairie crocus is
spring,
Pianissimo.
The tulip is
a cup of promise
brimful of daybreak.
The wind is
a billowing white sheet
An early summer morning
cool and tangy
Birdsong is
an unborn flower
Droplets of music splash down
pink, yellow and white.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
star gazing
"He wraps himself with light as with a garment" Psalm 104:2
"Clouds and thick darkness surround him" Psalm 97:2
"But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you will receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:11
When I sit in my house at night and turn on my lamp, I cannot see out of my own windows.
When the sun shines brightest, its light hides the stars and the "clear blue sky" is really a windowless canopy, and we are like children, hiding under the blankets of daytime and afraid of the dark.
The glare from the billions of stars makes space look black- but its color is really a creamy white.
The bright immediacy of my busy life invariably shadows the glorious reality of the kingdom of God.
And when I shine with my own self-life, that small torch I carry amazingly blocks from my eyes the glaring brightness of God's glory. How can it be that my little self can create a shadow so big?
When the sun shines through my diamond, it splatters a zillion little rainbows around me. If God is light, then this universe is only a prism and all the things in it are really just rainbows and shadows... I heard a talk show, I think it was the Bible Answer Man or something, and this woman was asking the scholar if we will SEE God, in a physical sense, after we die. She was implying that's the "real" seeing. But neither she nor the Scholar seemed to realize that the physical world is a refraction, a shadow... and seeing is not restricted to this reality. Nor even fully experienced in this world.
(Don't get me wrong, I don't hold to the notion that because this world is the shadow, that things done here don't matter- they matter very much. We greatly affect the spiritual world, and in this thing my analogy breaks down... sigh, it was such a beautiful one, too. However I find myself getting hot and bothered about things that won't even matter tomorrow in this world, let alone the other. So whenever I look at the blue sky and remember the stars hidden behind it, I also remember that these awful, glaring, difficult or happy things which sweep me up and away also hide a huge, huge, amazing reality which is not affected by the other driver cutting me off or whatever comes my way. The only thing that really matters is whether I am growing in my character to be more like God, and allowing Him to guide me through.)
"Clouds and thick darkness surround him" Psalm 97:2
"But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you will receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:11
When I sit in my house at night and turn on my lamp, I cannot see out of my own windows.
When the sun shines brightest, its light hides the stars and the "clear blue sky" is really a windowless canopy, and we are like children, hiding under the blankets of daytime and afraid of the dark.
The glare from the billions of stars makes space look black- but its color is really a creamy white.
The bright immediacy of my busy life invariably shadows the glorious reality of the kingdom of God.
And when I shine with my own self-life, that small torch I carry amazingly blocks from my eyes the glaring brightness of God's glory. How can it be that my little self can create a shadow so big?
When the sun shines through my diamond, it splatters a zillion little rainbows around me. If God is light, then this universe is only a prism and all the things in it are really just rainbows and shadows... I heard a talk show, I think it was the Bible Answer Man or something, and this woman was asking the scholar if we will SEE God, in a physical sense, after we die. She was implying that's the "real" seeing. But neither she nor the Scholar seemed to realize that the physical world is a refraction, a shadow... and seeing is not restricted to this reality. Nor even fully experienced in this world.
(Don't get me wrong, I don't hold to the notion that because this world is the shadow, that things done here don't matter- they matter very much. We greatly affect the spiritual world, and in this thing my analogy breaks down... sigh, it was such a beautiful one, too. However I find myself getting hot and bothered about things that won't even matter tomorrow in this world, let alone the other. So whenever I look at the blue sky and remember the stars hidden behind it, I also remember that these awful, glaring, difficult or happy things which sweep me up and away also hide a huge, huge, amazing reality which is not affected by the other driver cutting me off or whatever comes my way. The only thing that really matters is whether I am growing in my character to be more like God, and allowing Him to guide me through.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)