Blog Archives
Pure Joy! It’s Your Party!
It’s complete pandemonium, folks!
The crowd roars as the team is announced.
They break into song as the players stride to the podium.
The roar is deafening as they hoist the championship trophy.
It is ours.
After decades of waiting
and a lifetime of work,
we have won it!
Pure joy!
This is the scene as the Leicester City Foxes are declared the English premier League Champions. A “5,000 to 1” shot. Improbable. Impossible. Impeccable. Perfection.
This is the scene as our name is announced: ________________, our winner and champion. The crowd roars its approval!
The Communion of Saints? No, it’s the hills: they have burst forth in song, and the mountains have joined in perfect harmony.
My goodness,
The birds are a-flutter,
their nests all a-teeter,
as their perches give way in applause.
Good grief,
the branches themselves are a-titter,
clinking and clapping,
tipping and tapping.
Nature itself has joined the celebration.
What of the foxes?
What of the birds?
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” But Jesus said, “… follow me.” ~ Matthew 8: 20, 22
He who commands the seas,
and the skies
and the stars of night,
Has orchestrated this celebration.
And you, Dear Child, are its reason.
For you shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst forth in song, and all the trees of the field shall
clap their hands. ~ Isaiah 55:12
Sticky Fingers Don’t Leave Prints
It’s terrible having sticky fingers.
No, not the kind that pull what doesn’t belong to you
off the department store shelves.
I’m no thief.
I don’t steal stuff.
I feel stuff.
Everything I touch has a sense,
a texture, a tone,
a pinch, a puff,
a cuddle, a rebuff.
It’s slippery or slimy,
it’s sticky or prickly.
Or it’s smooth and supple,
nothing that can ruffle.
Maybe it’s new.
Oh when it’s new,
smooth as silk,
silent as sunshine,
dawning on the day at first meeting.
My fingers smile
as they tiptoe across.
Each step
with no hindrance,
into the secret garden, greenery
no one has ever bent before.
None have ever traced this path.
No one has made this journey,
of fingertips along the way.
Pure delight, this newness,
joined by smells afresh.
Breathe in deeply the scent
of pristine, the everlasting
has wandered by and left behind.
“Here comes Sticky Fingers!”
I know they’re saying,
when they see me coming their way.
Touching each one, as I happen by,
Just a simple tap,
a gentle nudge,
a clandestine sweep of the fingertips.
Can’t resist that smoothness,
to know its newness.
A solo treasure that’s all mine.
Not to keep, of course.
That would be stealing.
I’m no thief, you know.
Don’t take what’s not mine.
I leave it for the next sticky fingers.
Who I don’t know.
Won’t know.
Sticky fingers don’t leave prints.
They take touch with them,
gently rubbing, tracing, mixing,
melting, molding,
to the texture meant
to touch another.
Not so terrible, really.
Sneak Attacks of Joy
You sneaky Joy
You wait just ’round the corner
poised to … leap
just as soon as I
come your way.
There you are across the street
as I open the door to the new day.
Is that you who tickled me
as I watched the children playing
and the teens jostling
and the white-haired couple holding hands?
Surely it was you
who teared me up at the sight
of what I had always wanted
but didn’t know it, until just then.
Could you have been there, too,
when the man who had just lost his wife to cancer
handed me the empty dish
his wife had lovingly labeled with my name
so it might find its owner once she was gone?
Oh, Joy.
So surprised by you,
So disguised are you,
In your many faces,
many spaces,
hiding places,
deep recesses,
broad expanses.
You are stealth,
You are sneaky,
But I’ve got your number.
I see you.
I know you.
Because I have met you.
You are in me, of me, all around me.
You don’t scare me.
Oh, Joy.
Come.
The Kinesthetic Christian 