Photo by Pixabay
Part of me just won’t show
what she needs or what she knows
The anger lies beneath the wind
the fury stirs it up again
What did I think would happen
what do I have to lose?
Turn my mourning into dancing
I put on my high-heeled shoes
I can’t drown my sorrow
breathe through the smoky haze
I don’t want to work tomorrow
but the Fiddler must be paid.
Photo by Aneta Foubíková
To be rescued one must have a solid knowledge from what we are being rescued. In the case of humanity we need to be rescued from Sin. We do not like to admit sin. We do not like to talk about sin. We definitely spend a lot of time trying to hide our sin so why would we not receive rescuing? Because being rescued portends that we give up all of our own control and humble ourselves.
As a child growing up in a Christian home and church I was taught often that I was a sinner. I did not however understand the nature of Sin nor did I understand The Fall of human kind that occurred one black day in the Garden of Eden. I did not realize I was born an enemy of God and that I hated God and was in rebellion toward God!
The good news of God’s grace is that he loves and came here for his enemies. He did not wait until I was all cleaned up outwardly. He did not wait for me to pray the “sinner’s prayer or walk down the aisle of my church. He did not wait for me to study theology or memorize the Bible.
The point of the Cross of Jesus is that on that Cross hung the vehicle of my rescue. The man of Jesus would provide the greatest rescue of all time. Understanding and receiving the Cross of Jesus is not so we can congratulate ourselves for solving theology or religious formula but that we may understand the cost and the humility of the Great Rescuer in it’s heinous, bloody, awful Glory. We have not been rescued from sin so that we can be great thinkers of abstract ideas or to make sure everyone around us is doing what they should be doing. We have been rescued by being put right with God and becomin part of God’s family and God’s plan to save the whole world. That is how The Great Rescue works. Once we are put right with God we then go and share with kindness and compassion how while we were sinners and enemies of God he still loved us. There is a Rescuer and His name is Jesus! His rescue is final and perfect.
Photo by Jonathan Petersson
There is something Holy about the Sunrise
I picture angels filling the heavens behind the Sun’s rays and even more angels among us on earth
All of them singing in worship to God each day
Like a daily Resurrection of His Glory evident to humans once again
I see the center of my own self
.All the garbage and the pearls
My heart opens up like a bleeding Rose cleansing me from within and once again The Holy brings peace out of chaos
I am reminded the well -designed small life I live is not by chance and this is a new day…
Photo by Simon Matzinger
The days move like mercury
the horizon is melting in the heat
I can smell the burn of asphalt
the summertime songs playing on repeat…
The rhythm of life drumming through my skull
the heartbeat of longing comforts me
I can smell the scent of new life
rising up from the salty sea breeze…
Drifting on a sunny day
The days move like mercury
There is nowhere else I’d rather be
than dreaming in this life with you…
Photo by Jens Mahnke
The summer sun is baking the side walks and streets.
The Texas horizon looks like a melting mirage.
Summer solstice has arrived and a few things never change.
Even in the shade it is one hundred degrees.
My grandchildren have begun their love affair with the sprinkler and popsicles.
In the backyard with their parents.
And wonderful cool sheets for an afternoon nap.
And all is right with my world today and I am grateful.
Photo by Dominika Roseclay
You can look for me on the streets or home
my footprints are there but I may be gone
There is a scent of rose and a south wind breeze
a slight Texas drawl and a gospel hymn…
They say no one knows where they belong
without a doubt I know this is wrong
For every step taken must be redeemed
this journey’s path is seldom what it seems…
You can look for me in this Texas town
where all my roots lay deeply in the ground
A sense of strength and a southern swag
and a Gulf Coast pull that calls me back…
You can look for me on the streets or home
Some familiar paths and some still unknown
You will hear my laugh dancing in the trees
the cottonwood’s shade as the church bells ring…
Photo by Kat Jayne
She took the cover off her box of secrets
No longer afraid someone might see them
Shreds of shame and names in pieces
No more to carry the cruel deceptions
And now Truth reigns with love God only shows
She knows they wonder what really keeps her
Guarded from those who want to meet her
The ones she loves they tossed like trinkets
Their distorted religion can no longer reach in
And take her soul from the love God only knows
She has put her weapons down for good you see
Knowing nothing good ever hides in a shroud
Of course life giving Truth is what remains
Shame forever crucified into the ground
And her being is now in the love God only bestows
Photo by Sebastian Voortman
He said I was too good to be true
but of course there were obvious clues
He said your eyes are like pools of mystery
but of course he couldn’t see my history
The pedestal was so lovely for a season
but of course in time it crumbled all to pieces
He said the crumbled ruins were better
of course no one can love a stone cold pedestal
Photo by Janko Ferlic
The moon was out
Venus and Mars shined brightly
Her pockets were full of hope
She stepped between this second in time
And the second before it
Then exploding like a lightbulb
memory’s pieces splintered away
With her hands in her pockets
She felt the weightlessness of God’s grace
Photo by Leigh Jeffreys
She said what she first noticed was that images were spinning around her frontal lobe like those old 1950 children’s lamp shade night lights. As the lamp would spin around different nursery rhyme stories would glow in the dark. This is what she noticed first.
These scenes of life from childhood to ancient-hood would spin in her mind but then she would immediately forget what she saw. She said it was tremendously frightening at first.
She said with in a few months the the children started coming more often. Telling her what she should do more often. She just smiled and ignored them and worked in her garden. She managed dozens and dozens of tulips and daffodils around her large home built with field stones. A beautiful home that once was in a country meadow but with human progress was now in the middle of a large city neighborhood. She said she loved to prune the bulbs and separate them each year. She used her little garden mat for her creaky knees and wore the hat which was her Mother’s. She said her Mother bought the hat in China where her family were missionaries until the Communist kicked them all out of the country. The hat was perfect for long days in the Texas summer and was constructed so well that it looked as good as new instead of forty years old.
I would drive by her house every day on my way to work or to the market and everyday she could be found in her garden. I often stopped to chat.
One day we were talking and she said, “you know children can never know their parents young. That is why it is so hard for them to understand them as adults. They have never seen me run a relay race like a gazelle or fight with my sister. They have never seen me with skinned knees and pigtails. They surely cannot picture me as a lovely teenage girl going on her first date much less enjoying a healthy sex life at least until they were born! I also think they have forgotten that their Father always brought me tulips and daffodils our wholes lives together.”
As fall approached I would see her out there tending the bulb garden with her head bent over and her knees on her mat. It gave me a sense of comfort I think. Then, of course, that inevitable day came when I did not see her for a week or so but had been too busy to stop by. The next week I saw a for sale sign in the front yard and stopped.
I was surprised when a nurse aid let me in and I knew this must be a bad sign but she was actually looking quite spry. I noticed when she stood up that her back was a tiny bit bent like trees whey they finally wear the shape of the wind. We sat together in some worn but comfortable chintz chairs by the front window. The gray-blue light of winter slanted through the stillness. She said, “Death’s cruel pluck is coming.” She was right.
By spring she was gone. By summer the children sold her house and the lot behind it. The new construction destroyed every single tulip and daffodil. All the lot taken up by a McMansion. They didn’t tear down the beautiful stone house but to me tearing up the garden was the cruelest act. I wonder if the children had no idea what it meant to her. I wondered why they did not see the hours she labored and loved in that garden. I wondered a lot of things.
The last time I saw her she talked about how the night Heron with it’s silver soft plumage was the most beautiful in all the marsh. She said she that the Heron had been visiting her each evening in the shadows of dusk. She said she was stuck in a memory of growing up on the Bayou of Houston and couldn’t remember a lot of things about being an adult. The last thing she said to me with a gentle smile on her face was, ” thanks for coming to visit me Mama. I will see you soon for good.” I just smiled and told her goodbye and thanked her for the beautiful tulip and daffodil garden. She waved and I was gone. She was gone too.
Every time I drive by the property I go through a run of emotion from anger at her children for what seems carelessness to realizing I am not their judge. I feel sad that the beautiful tulips and daffodils no longer dance there in the breeze. I remember her smile and think of the Night Heron. I picture her in heaven with her Chinese hat on bent down on her knees with her mat working in God’s garden.
You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of the aged, and you shall revere your God. Leviticus 19-32
Jill Autrey Dorman 