Photo by James Wheeler
I am a ruin, only pieces of me stand.
I was a fool and knew only nonsense
yet he levels the mountains before me
and cuts through my chains.
He make fools of false teachers
and keeps His promises.
His foundation is laid, it is His Son.
In my secret place He stores his riches
and gives me a name of honor.
Rejoice in the ruin that stand restored.
Inspired by the prophet Isaiah
Photo by Wellington Cunhao
When I wanted to dance on that ledge that was way to high
when I was a foolish naive woman child
You did not judge me rather you told me to try
when the summer storm cleared the sky I cried
I cried because I made mistakes and had deep wounds to show
I cried because I grieved the things that had ravaged my soul
I cried because I am grateful that you never let me go
You said whenever you are ready I will take you home…
and never more will you cry…
I still dance on high ledges because life is a thrill
I cherish my wisdom and my fine woman skills
I gladly now bow to you my Lord and King
So whenever you are ready my heart will take wing…
and I will be home with you…
The Lillies of the field sing for me
The waves of the sea are my dance
The stars in the heavens are my guiding light
As I dance on the ledge that is way too high!
Photo by Pixabay
Standing here under the brightest moon
I sense your presence like a cozy room
I feel your holy antiquity yet you make all things new
and now traveling North is true
I look over my shoulder at the past
and it is vanquished forever into long lost night
It never was what mattered to you at last
and no shadows can fall where there is only light
Photo by Lukasz Dziegel
Peeping through the key hole in someone else’s dream
I thought I saw the answers to the meaning of deep things
There was no life-size rabbit or a balded man named Oz
There was simply Light blazing brighter than the sun
The Son, He is the King with lovers all around him
He cried, “everyone is welcome” but some people would not have him
Then once the door was open the King said, “Please come in”
His loving arms enveloped me can I sing that song again?
Photo by Emre Kuzu
His face sparkled like a multi-faceted diamond. A face that blazed like the sun yet different. A pure white light with flashes of blue, silver, and gold. It hurt my eyes so badly to look at Him but I could not, would not turn my face away. I did not care if I went blind. This face is the One I’d been waiting to see all of my life. His face was all I could look at as if in a trance; like when starting a fire in the Old World. Mesmerizing doesn’t begin to describe it. The blaze was so bright that I could not see anything of His other features at all.
On either side of Him stood two beings, they were a coll alabaster white, not bright white, not shining in any way but pure and cool looking. They each stood facing Him never moving their face from His. They did not speak. They were powerful creatures, I could tell, they were strong and sure of their purpose. They were creatures with a human face that I could recognize and at least seven feet tall and had wings that were about six feet tall and four feet in width. Each feather gently folded into the next. Once for just a second I saw their feathers slightly ruffle from top to bottom and could see these were strong wings. Wings that never faltered when they flew or fought in a battle or stood at attention. I was afraid.
I was so afraid that my legs could no longer hold me. I was eager to kneel down. It felt good to kneel before Him because in the Old World with decaying knee joints I could no longer kneel in His presence. All the while my eyes were burning severely from His brightness. I felt strong in the kneeling as if I, like the two creatures, am created for this very thing.
Then the most incredible thing happened…He knelt down on His knees too and when He did it was the face I knew it would be. His face. The face of softness and kindness. The face of antiquity yet new and fresh. His eyes were not like our eyes. His eyes were not blue, brown, green, or hazel or gray or any of those colors…they were simply Light.
He took his hand and palmed my cheek and spoke to me. The words he spoke I will not share with anyone ever. They were words just between us. Words I had thirsted for since I was formed in my Mother’s womb by my Father’s sinful Adam’s seed. They were words beyond redeeming love, words of My Story with Him, of understanding with healing and further instruction of what is to come. They were words I had never heard spoken before, another language if you will. They were Peace and oh what joy did flood my soul.
At that moment the same blazing light that came from Him entered into me and my eyes no longer burned at all. My sight was inconceivably and brilliantly clear. I belonged there with Him…every “longing” I had ever known in my Eternal Life and even before in the Dead Life stood right there in front of me. Each one of them actually existed before my eyes and each one was finally satiated beyond measure. He smiled at me and pulled me up from my knees and that is when I felt the scars in His hands. Those beautiful wounded hands took mine and we walked among my life, my dreams. As He held my hand in His I knew I would never have to be separated from Him again.
He said, “let’s walk along the place you loved the most in the Old World.”
Gently without fanfare or fear I heard that beautiful love song of waves washing upon the shore. The smell of salt water and life teemed all around me. There was no stench of dead sea life or decay of any kind just the scent of cleanness. The colors of the water was too wonderful for words. Again, I want to keep this precious moment private…this was our beach, just His and mine. We stayed there and looked for shell and other jewels that were of a beauty and colors I have never seen. We waded into the water and even though it was Ocean water we could drink it and it tasted sweet beyond honey. We picked some living anemone flowers and held them and then put them back unscathed into the water. They swam around His feet as if to love on Him. Oh it is a glorious place We sat down in the sand as white and soft as a cloud and we held hands and rested…
Photo by Marcelo Jaboo
I thought I had known agony
least ways had tasted its edges
but now tasting it fully
it uproots my heart as it dredges
This is a new agony
one more step off the cliff
Did I think Death not an enemy
how mortal is my wish?
There are events we must do alone
this loss cannot be shared
Yet in the middle of the night I wept
when I felt your Presence there
Photo by Pixabay
I put my mind on pause till midnight moon rise
I get hysterically reverent when the church bells chime
Painted soft flames of love lick around my heart
The shadow of a poet’s she’s only catching sparks
I want to sleep deeply in a minor key
Need the old emerald sea washing over me
Sprinkles of “should haves” drop into the sand
A seeker, a woman just had to love that man
Catching sparks, clear as star fire
Catching sparks of loving kindness
Catching sparks like glowing fireflies
Catching sparks till I close my eyes
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
I am a writer. Writers love to read other writers. I can only speak for myself but I like to read to see if I can find that author who has written something I have never read before. I have always been an adroit reader and have read profound words but honestly they have been said before. I have read deeply meaningful stories but they have been told before because we know, according to The Preacher, that there is “nothing new under the sun.”
But what if, what if someone’s words drive a stake into the ground right where you are standing? Or what if someone’s story breaks the chains of your heart and your own story comes to life?
That is the treasure hunt for me. The words, the expressions, the Truth, and the lies…like looking for sea shells for hours and hours and days and days seeing each one as beautifully written. The broken shells, the beautifully colored ones, the plain ones, the big ones, the little ones…all treasures.
In the end of it all I still come back to the most profound words I have ever read and these words DO drive a stake into the earth where I am standing and they DO keep me grounded and rooted in the life I have been given. This author is the only One who has broken the chains of my heart and allowed my own story to come to life…
Just a handful of words you say…yea and what a handful of words they are!
“I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I am the door of the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the True Vine. If you have seen Me then you have seen the Father. I am the Alpha and Omega. I am the Lamb that was slain. I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be there also…”
Photo by Tina Nord
Oh the smell and sound of my Gulf shore
all of my changes were there
My Texas bayou city and bluebonnets in my soul
my angels were younger then
When I climbed my highest wall
these places cushioned the fall
My sea loving heart and my Texas soul
are the notes in my Holy song
Photo by nagaraju gajula on Pexels.com
Photo by Pixabay
She said, “the “human affair” requires a miraculous solution. She shared how her mind would grow wings and soar in the great blue beyond. That is how she knew she was different…her mind would discover life’s secrets as it dipped and glided on the winds and over the Milky Way. She said “I just never knew that most people did not seem to care to go where their mind would take them if they let it…”
She knew in order to please others her mind must stay tethered to her body but it seldom obeyed itself in this endeavor. She said, “when people judged her she simply put them away like old worn out shoes because they could not help that they were worn out and would most likely never be able to take wings and fly with her. It is a choice we each must make. Most people think it childish to soar above the Milky Way or ride upon a raindrop.” She said her fondest memory was when she made snow angels in her own snow globe because Winter was her favorite season and she like to remember the angels…
She spent two years in a German concentration camp when she was eighteen years old and she never saw her family again. She would watch the birds fly overhead mingling with the ashes of the dead and let her mind go with the birds so that she would not become the ashes. Many years after the war she came to America and stayed with a distant Aunt who had also survived. She was put through many psychiatric test and told she was what we now call Bipolar but she never believed the doctors. She wrote beautiful poetry that lifted people up among the hopelessness of the aftermath of such a devastating time in human history. She had a tattoo on her arm and a limp due to a hip fracture she received in a beating in the camp because she did not stand up fast enough for one of the guards.
One evening as I was preparing her for bed I asked her if she believed in God. She looked at me without speaking for a minute or two and then she said with her chocolate brown eyes glimmering with tears, “who do you think let my mind grow wings and soar and still does? Who do you think slept by me every night in that camp and protected me from rape and disease and starvation? Who do you think I rode to the Milky Way with?”
“Oh child, she whispered, our God is bigger than all the evil, the most heinous deed man can dream up.” As she lay her head upon her pillow and I tucked her in for the night she said calmly, “tomorrow I will be going beyond and will never be tethered to this old body again and when I go please don’t let anyone try to bring me back. I have waited long enough to meet my poet. It is God who writes the poetry of our lives and no one can take that away from you.”
I turned out the overhead light of her hospital room and I walked out into the night air and I stared up at the Milky Way and I cried. I cried and smiled at the same time. I knew I had been given a great gift. I would never forget that the “human affair” requires a miraculous solution and The Holy God is the poet of that solution.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Psalm 139: 7-12
Jill Autrey Dorman 