Thankful for so many blessings I have received, but also praying that the chaos, the dissension and tribalism, and the effects of covid will end.
How are you all doing out there with this battling of the plague we are enduring? A city near me had the first young fatality for the county–so sad.
We are staying in as much as possible, except for photographing hummers in my back yard.
Hope you are all well. Stay safe.
Why does the bloated Biafra baby bring a tear,
and the hungry eye-cries of Haitian earthquake victims urge us to tear
our wallets from tightly held fists,
when the man,
the man with the sign in the planter area by the on-ramp,
we assume has a lesser need–that is, if we see him.
The lady,
the lady trying to sell the grubby Beanie-baby at the entrance to the grocery store
does not deserve eye contact,
hand contact,
I-know-you-exist contact,
and we breeze by without even a “No, thank you”–that is, if we see her at all.
Are the far needs greater than the near?
Or just easier to get over? Unchanged.
Are foreigners more worthy than neighbors?
Or is it just safer to care in one fell feel-good swoop
than love thy ever-present neighbor as ourselves?
Whispers thread through the flaming rage,
almost lost, almost imperceptible, drowned out by opinion, history, frenzied fury, and flailing fists.
The whispers tip toe in my tossing mind, seeking a place to land and be heard.
They are the filaments of hope, the clinging truths that cannot be destroyed by rhetoric or abuse or repeated dogma.
They are woof and warp, the solid underpinning of this spinning, unsettled mess.
Are you listening? Am I listening?
We are all the same—blood and bone.
We are all broken—body and soul.
We are all human—color and kind.
God loves. And
He whispers in the tumult
to see as He does and love as He loves.
————————–
Romans 13:10 (NLT)
Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law.
1 John 4:7-8 (NLT)
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Proverbs 10:12 (NLT)
Hatred stirs up quarrels,
but love makes up for all offenses.
Words, words,
analysis, paralysis,
and the real needs of many
are displaced and replaced with swirling,
ever changing,
news coverage.
Money spent,
reputations rent,
as all of these Solomon moments,
as all of these vacuous comments
suck oxygen,
abandon needy.
Words, words,
agendas, careers,
all being built and / or destroyed
while bridges crumble and enemies rail–
imbecility, futility,
furious words.
I love to listen to those who agree with me;
I hate those who are oppositional. Oh, wait . . .
I need to listen to those who are oppositional so I can hone my arguments—
enough to win the debate. Oh, wait . . .
Winning is not all I am called to as a believer
so
how do I hold to a position and defend a position without being arrogant,
without appearing holier than thou,
with being open to learning a new point of view?
I love to be right.
I hate to be wrong.
But
how will I ever grow and know unless I listen.
Oh, wait . . .
We need more grace and less criticism;
we need more wisdom and less propaganda;
we need more empathy and less arrogance and
more patience than emotional outbursts;
we need more remembrance and less fear mongering, and
we need less resisting and more persisting
in prayer.
O kay, I can’t live like this–all this tweeting, and FBing, and
V blogging, as if I need to know
E very single inconsequential thing about your daily
R ituals, what you’re selling, what you’re pushing.
W hat I need is quiet–physical and mental–a
H iatus from personal and political rants and
E nd-of-the-world diatribes. If the world is
L ost, then let me at the very least live
M y last brief moments
E njoying the illusion that people really
D o love and respect each other–at least now and then.
S omething stinks, and the decay
C omes creeping, creeping, over Facebook and
E mail and Twitter—whatever. And I would have
N ever thought the divide so wide, the pit so deep, and
T he resolution and mending so impossiblly far off.
Apronhead 