The road home
If home is where your heart is, please carry me in your heart
like I carry you
in my heart.
(February 21, 2010)
–Naphtalia
with a brief, but prominent nod to e.e. cummings.
Dear God of the Day
Dear God of the Day:
Although I run late once
again, trying to find the
balance of all my new year’s
goals and aims and deep wishes,
I pause enough
to read your word
and say to you,
“I look forward to seeing all
that you do today, this day,
Your day.”
Take this day and show Yourself
God.
Epiphany
A joyful Epiphany to you! On this day that we celebrate Christ’s revealing as Messiah King, I pray your heart allow Him to be manifest in an honest, reverent, and happy way. ‘O rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, “Rejoice!” ‘ (Philippians 4:4)
Full Circle
Last January 5, I wrote a poem reflecting on my prayer time. I had been about to mumble on to the Lord to remember me in the midst of my sister’s good life, but was stopped by the Spirit to simply give thanks. God said, “Be thankful. That is all you need. I will always remember you.” Today, I know I am remembered by God as my unspoken prayers are answered. Now as I read that same day in my devotional, the words rise from the page to create a new prayer in my heart. Instead of asking God to remember me, I am asking him to care for me as a shepherd. And I’m asking him to help me care for what he has put in my hands, a blessing to be remembered.
Sugar Sugar Song
I just kind of thought [for some reason] this clip of Haley Bonar [fellow Minnesota songwriter] would be an appropriate song of the week. *heart*
Bits and Pieces
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Tonight I pack my bits and pieces into a suitcase.
It is not the suitcase [nor the travel] that makes them a semblance of a whole.
It is not a semblance.
It is whole before I zip the zipper; the bits and pieces are whole
bits and pieces, bites of me,
recipe.
Tonight there is a suitcase full of me, each part as whole as the next,
creating in me one ready to journey with a full and whole heart.
Not moving
I am sitting here in the middle of
my room, clothes strewn
bed unkempt, presents flewn
extra mugs and books and bibles
stacked on desk and heart
in my hands.
From here in my room with my heart in my hands,
I’m not moving.
not today.
waiting for the library to open
I could sit here hungry for hours.
Iced air slipping up wool coat sleeves.
One foot a little sore in my cowboy boots.
No secret cigarettes while people gather in the concrete lobby. [i smell it]
Waiting. I think all a little hungry yet from breakfast.
Ready for some work to be done inside.
Hearts just pumping in neutral until some bit of newness comes. A green light to go in. To seek. To learn. To grasp.
Every minute another set of eyes
Walks in to watch the rest
Waiting.
In hand:
Books on plumbing, teenage novellas, manuals, spiral bound books, backpacks, briefcases, sharp suits, and ratted coats.
We all value the library enough to wait for it to open.
Not for Hard Days
Some days are just hard
so much so that at the end
I just want to write about them.
To write through my fret, the things
that fraught me through the day.
But really, I don’t want to Etch
those words into a page that
I’ll look back and read only
to think, what was I thinking?
I’d rather not write about it.
In the end, in the long run, the haul,
it’s nothing.
Often, I don’t even know why the day was hard.
I once thought I knew these words.
Trust in the Lord, and do good: dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:3-4
Oh, I see, as I open up this passage in the middle of the night before I try to sleep, before I try to fight with the fitfulness that is waiting for dawn. Oh, I see. My attention is thrown firmly upon these words: trust, dwell, land, befriend, delight in the Lord, give, desires. I am fixated.
I once thought I knew these words. Now they seem a strange and awkward seed. What fruit might they bear? I must pull them apart, dissect them, test them. And beyond making hypothesis and predictions, I see that I must give effort to dig these words right out of their book and plant them in my heart again. One tree of understanding is no longer enough, it is time to try for a forest.
And I see. As the days are filled with newness, the earth of my heart changes its composition. My heart takes in the seeds and though they mean the same truth as ever, they grow a new tree of life. One of different shaped leaves, different thickness of bark, different strength of branches.
To myself I say: These woods are growing. The terrain is changing. Where else is there but here to dwell? Each day tend the paths and the seeds and the trees that are full and not yet full. Sing to your heart in joy and the trees of this field will clap their hands. What other desire might there be but this?
Naphtalia 