If it’s in your mind and on your heart,
just do it.

Use brain, hands, feet, tools and resources.
Look around. You’ve got what you need.

Courage, cunning, strategy, plan, skills?
Stop denying; start doing.

If you think you’re weak, you will be.
If you think you can’t, you won’t.

You have what you need to do as you should.
Just do it.

Instead of “Give me, show me, teach me…”
just say “thank you”
and get on with it.

Peacemaker
Mender of brokenness
Source of Encouragement
Reconciler
Bestower of blessing.
That’s you…right now.

This moment is a moment,
don’t miss it.

You are the prayer you pray.

Amen to that!

The trail is narrow, the rugged climb steep.
I've miles to go before I sleep,
but with each step toward the distant end,
I pause to look back, and I pretend
that she is there on the path behind.
I convince my heart and my troubled mind
that she waves and beckons me join her there,
but here I stand and painfully stare
at the littered pieces of my broken heart,
shattered in grief, splintered apart
on this trail of sorrow I painfully trod
in a desperate search for the mercy of God.

There is no solace, no healing grace
in this desolate journey I daily face.
I have no goal, the end point's unclear.
I just run from the pain and I constantly fear
that without her love I will lose my way
over jagged stones from day to day.
I live in the hope that with each corner's turn
I will embrace the love for which I yearn.
I will walk into her waiting arms,
feel again the joy of her warmth and charm.

This trail of sorrow is narrow and steep.
Tell me, kind friend, the best way to keep
my eyes on the course laid out ahead
when my greatest fear, my deepest dread,
is that when I look back to see her behind,
there will be no signal, no visible sign,
just an empty pathway where I hoped to see
her beautiful smile as she waved to me.

When the lady turns her back and waves her wings wildly, that usually means “leave me alone!” Sometimes we just don’t get the signals, do we? “We” being hard-headed guys who just want show off a little. Or, a lot. Sometimes, though, the wing-wave might mean something else entirely. Signals can be misinterpreted; that’s the point. So let your “yes be yes and your no be no,” Good advice from the Christian scriptures. In this day of cultural confusion, conflict and disagreement, radical truthfulness is a very good idea. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Truth is not conditional. It doesn’t depend on circumstances. It has no political affiliation. “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them real facts.” Thank you, Abraham Lincoln. We need your voice of wisdom…and truth.

Snow glistens in the soft light from several tall poles
in the parking lot. A rare visitor to
saguaros and puzzled coyotes, the wet
white blanket pushes reluctant mesquite tree
limbs toward the ground and transforms decorative
red stones into contoured earth murals that disappear into
the darkness just before morning light.

Anomalies are abundant in the Sonoran Desert. A single
yellow flower blooms in a spoonful of dirt, sheltered
in the crevice of a huge boulder. A grouping of cholla cactus glows in
morning’s first light, beautiful to see, painful to touch.
And snow sculpts startled vehicles in the parking lot, a
soft white covering spread over asphalt and earth,
temporary, just passing through.
By lunch time, the ground will be moist, but
the visitor will have vanished into an intolerant warm wind,
leaving no baggage behind. Except for tiny white crystals
clustered at the base of the little yellow flower
as it reaches from the jagged crack
in ancient stone for light and life.

But until first light creeps over the mountain
and spills into the desert valley, soft snowflakes
tumble from the black sky, drift through revealing
parking lot light and struggle to embrace the earth,
even for a moment.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” I don’t doubt Isaiah’s words. But while the grass is lush and green, fragrant from the blessing of rain and while the flower shines with breathtaking beauty, savor the sacred creation. All things pass away. Don’t miss the moment.

Gremlins slither out in the dark of the night.
Words can’t describe such a horrible sight.
Fear takes control and I fall on my knees,
Dear God in heaven, if you please…
and half-way through my desperate plea
the Eternal Voice speaks directly to me.
“You spend so much time, year after year,
ignoring your dreams while feeding your fears.
I planted those dreams in your mind and your heart.
They’ve been waiting there from the very start.
You have the gift of choice, you see,
and choice defines what it means to be free.
While fears and dreams will never agree
you can decide how you want to be.

“Hide in the shadows, let fear rule your life,
give in to the anger, resentment and strife,
or, decide today that life is good,
granted, sometimes misunderstood.
But there’s nothing to fear, nothing to dread.
Do you remember the words you once said?

“My heart, my hands, my life I give
to the One who shows me how to live,
who replaces my litany of regrets and fears
with dreams that see beyond these years.”
The Christ of God has shown me the way,
but I must choose to go or to stay
mired in the quicksand of doubt and fear
or to follow the way that He’s made so clear.
Fill me, God, with strength anew
that I might live the dreams with you.

Drab gray sky
Ominous darkening over the mountain
Purple tinge to billowing black clouds
Large drops of rain explode on the sidewalk
Combative waves swoop into the valley
Cold, angry rain
Sleet clatters on the library window
Tiny white crystals transform the landscape
Absolute awe

How beautiful, the tribute of my mind
Charming, I whisper, from the ease of the
brown leather chair
A painting framed in the transparency of glass
Momentary magic.

But what of the shirtless man
who walks the lane nearby?
The one who talks to himself,
waves his arms and addresses heaven.

Friendly trees bend low, shielding his bedroll camp
Layers of cardboard fight off the cold
Earth feels the quiver of his fetal form.
A whisper forms in the deep opaqueness.
The madness of it all.

I speak for those who cannot speak,
voiceless shadows consigned to
the misery of non-existence,
the “look the other way” people,
invisible forms selling newspapers
on every corner, the “trash people”
pushing that stolen shopping cart
to their camp in the mesquite grove
behind the Burger Shack, the sign-holders:
“I’ll work for food” and always accompanied
by a sleeping baby or a skinny dog.

Are they not allowed to speak?
Must they be silent?
No, but who listens?
They are minor distractions to the
NPR station on the car radio,
phantoms of our social failures,
and they will never go away.
They will forever look at us through
clouded eyes, and we will forever
look through them, as if they were not there.

I speak for those who cannot speak.
Is anybody listening?

I can’t seem to find the reason or rhyme.
I know it was there in a distant time,
but I’ve lost it somewhere along the way.
I had assumed it would always stay.
It seems the years have gone so fast,
and the way it was simply could not last.
If you ask me what truth I’ve been able to find
it is that life wears down the edges of the mind.

I know the answer but the words don’t appear.
I understand the questions I hear,
but I can’t seem to put the words in place,
and I can see the worry written on your face.
Is this the way it’s going to be?
Have I lost the person who used to be me?
It’s a frightening moment when one finds
that life wears down the edges of the mind.

I wonder if some distant day
I won’t be able to even say
your lovely name that soothes my heart?
Will we move so painfully far apart?
Will I sink ever deeper into this fear?
Will I even know if you are near?
It is a horrible thing to find
that life wears down the edges of the mind.

I planned for happiness today
and I found it in overcoming my sorrow.

I looked for something beautiful to brighten
the hours and I discovered it among the discarded
things nobody wanted anymore.

I prayed for courage
and it was revealed to me in
the face of the old man who
sells pencils on the corner.

It has been so long since I felt the
warmth of love’s embrace,
until today when a child, unknown to me,
ran to my park bench, hugged my neck
and skipped off to play.

The days go by, sameness upon sameness,
and I am alone without the sounds
of human interaction,
and then you opened the window of my soul,
you spoke my name.

I prayed for a sign, a signal that life has
purpose, that I might make sense of the senseless,
and my prayers were interrupted by
my beloved friend as she laid her elegant face
on my lap, her feathered tail wagging,
and with her large, brown canine eyes,
dispelled my doubts
and caused my heart to smile.