Sunday, October 13, 2013

When The Birds Sing

When the birds sing
What do they proclaim 
Thanksgiving and love  
For food and nest and sun
The community of their chorus
Who could deny their sincerity
When they still to silence
Is it peace they enjoy
That all is well and at rest

When the wind moves
Gently through the trees
Does it whisper
Of love and steadfastness
Of hope and endurance
Of goodness and redemption
Though their leaves fall
They again return
To speak of life anew

For the birds
Remember their song
And the trees 
do not forget their dance
So to remind themselves
And us
That we are not alone
We are not forgotten 
That we are loved
And wanted

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Little Child

In this morning's gospel reading ( Mt. 18) Jesus answers his disciples that those who become as a little child are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  I don't know that the need to become "great" motivates me as much as it once did. But the chance to share deeply in the life of the kingdom; Jesus' sharing of life with His Father in the Spirit, haunts me in the deepest of ways. Maybe the desire for greatness is a young man's desire?  My older desires (I'm in my 50's) are those of simplicity, individuation, wonder, kindness and goodness for those I love (and all really). 

I'm excited that the journey Jesus proposes is one towards becoming "like" a child. It is interesting that He seems to suggest that our aim is to be what we were before we started trying so hard to become. That greatness (whatever that means) might be that we just stop trying to become something and just be who He has always wanted and loved.  To do more playing, laughing and crying?    Could it really be this simple?  

www.pipelighters.net 

Sunday, September 29, 2013

What Do You Want?

What do you want?  

They had just heard a piece of the most revolutionary news that had ever been uttered.  Of course it was veiled in language that may seem obscure to you and me; "Behold the Lamb of God". But it so altered the focus of Andrew and his companion that they followed him. 

So, Jesus turns to them and asks, "What do you want". I can't help but think that they didn't have a clue of what to say until the words of "uh, where are you staying" broke the silence.   They went with him and spent the day.  

I don't know what they talked about but Andrew made it his first course of business to find his brother; you may have heard of him, Peter, and brought him to Jesus. 

Again, I don't know what they talked about or even if they realized what they were looking for but I know what they wanted.  The same thing I want, Jesus and all He is.  I want to be baptized in Him; saturated with Him, hearing with His ears His Father's voice, receiving that voice with His will, bringing that love to a universe that is starving due to the scandalous rumor that God had become Man in this one. That their fortunes were now forever bound with this Him.  

What do you want?

Friday, August 16, 2013

Belonging

I was sitting in the coffee shop with my Dad
Drinking a cup of coffee, waiting to pick up my children
And I realized how good it is to belong to people
He gave the best years, all of them, 
For my Mom and me and my sisters and brothers
To care for us because we belonged to Him

There is a bond between us; a union of life
Part of my soul is inside of him
And part of his soul lives inside of me
I can’t explain it, but that is how it is
We belong to one another

The same is with my dear one.
We’ve been sharing love and joy and pain
Laughter and tears;
Children and grandchildren now
For more than 25 years
Part of each of us lives inside the other

I’d like to explain this to my children
But I’m not sure they would understand it
It might sound more like restriction than
Realizing part of one’s true self
Is to belong to another

But maybe when I am eighty
And we’re sitting at the coffee shop or somewhere else
They will see what I see now
How good it is to belong.
Maybe they’ll see it sooner than me.

An Old Soul

I want to be an old soul
And a child
An ocean and a brook
A mountain and a stone

I want my feet planted like roots
Deep in the bowels of the earth 
To be one and apart

I want my soul like a bird
Alight with every sight and sound
And breeze and scent on the wind

To know your thoughts 
Without knowing
To move like a river without will
As free as a child who skips
To the music in her mind
As steadfast as a tree 
Which grows in all weather.

Rememberers

The world needs rememberers
To tell us once again
Of stories some time ago
So that we can send our roots down deep
In the past we do not know

Of fishing and cooking and games once played
Of first steps early taken
Of crops and struggles and fears and pain
And making it through somehow
By remembering those who came before
Whose labours and laughter had served them well
That we might remember them now

We all need rememberers 
That we might finally know
From where we've come
And who we are 
And the way that we should go.

Friday, August 9, 2013

The Silence

I seek for what is found in silence
The face I recognize 
Who sets my mind at ease
Who drifts through my thoughts
Separating the wheat from the chaff

I dwell upon the quiet
For it is not the absence of noise
But the presence
The presence of he who knows and is known
Who speaks without uttering a sound

I rest within the stillness
For there I find
I find myself waiting for me
Waiting to show me and
To speak my name

Dan Wills (2013)