Month: August 2019

       Inspired writing is a gift that comes freely, one thought springing from another prose becoming poetry pouring out love and truth from the heart. In the summer of 1998 when our daughter was nearly ten years old, the following piece slipped easily onto the page.

On Little Birds and Children

The news at seven am is hard to take. Drugs, abortion, wars, and some woman in politcs saying,”I can’t tell someone what to do with her own body.”

Air, sun, help! I open the door leading to our deck and glance into a hanging basket of New Guinea Impatience. There is a small nest in there. On tip-toe I see two white eggs. I smile, almost chuckle to myself. They would be my peace for the next two weeks of DC-10 crashes and more politicians saying, “I’m pro-choice,” staying safely in the middle.

They finally hatch, two rather bare grey babies. With Mom and Dad coming back and forth never abandoning the twins. Feeding, the two sound like a dozen. Soon they grow and gain their feathers as we all watch hoping to see them fly.

One morning I open the door to find an empty nest. My own child looks up at me and says,”Mommy, birds grow up sooner than children.”

She is ten and grew five inches in a week I think. When she flies off will some politician say,”Your mommy had the right to choose. She chose to let you be and one day fly as little birdies do.”

Sometimes when a poem or scripture is referred to very often, we are numb to its meaning and truth. For me Psalm 23 was like that; so often read at funerals, I failed to reverence and reflect upon the words. Recently in times of loss and illness I revisited Psalm 23 with an open heart and realized the profound truth in this poem of David.

There is another familiar poem and painting, Footprints, that in the past I have passed by as commonplace. Yet, again one day I looked and saw how it reflects our journey here in this precious life we live and the Presence of the One whose children we are, in times of joy but also adversity. This poem is a reflection of the latter.

The Storm

The storm rages about us, around us
Sometimes we succumb to its terror
Shrinking, turning away from the light
Yet in the midst of its fury
We cry out to Him the author of life
And question: Why is it so?
In the misery of sickness, of sorrow
Of abandonment: He speaks
My child do you not have faith?
Have you forgotten the times
I saved you from ruin
When you cried out to Me:
Where are you as the waves engulf me?
He answers: Be still, my child!
And the seas calm as the storm ceases.