Marigolds and Mums.

A month or two ago: 

 Marigolds and mums, moonlight and Matilda Jane from the worn porch in Arkansas. 

Matilda Jane

 Midnight morning glories, as I go inside late,  and my home. 
Men in youthful glory, moms in aging beauty--yeah, it's beautiful being "mom". 

Muffled laughter, many voices, moments and memories made. 

Menagerie and me.  

More and more and more in Him who holds that moon up high in the night sky.  

Manifold awareness of manifold blessing.  Mouthing hallelujahs as best as I can and true as it is to me.

Sweet moments with my sweet ones.  Oh the love, and oh the feelings!  

Knowing the rest of being carried many miles, then walking, running and standing in "my place", made by my God for all time.  My Maker making my merry heart sound and free--ever may it be.

My mounting mosaic.

Now the frost has swept away the miracles in buds and blooms, but I'm o.k. with that.  And don't think there is only the prettiest of pictures here on this place of mine.  Don't look and think only precious moments parade past our path.  My pictures are pinches of the whole.  Beauty sometimes comes right beside the torrents, don't they?  I aim my words and my camera at the beauty.  This, a choice offered in the most Beautiful Book---to think of what is good. Philippians 4:8

--Though praise rises from it all-- all is met with Him, not apart from.  I have power to pay props in prose. So do we all.
Some call this perspective and I like that.  And aren't we all free to aim our own lens and focus on what we choose.  It's a wonderful, powerful choice. 

The Many "May I's" of This Morning

I am sometimes saved from spirals downward by better thinking with pen on paper.  There is a whimsy in the whip of the wrist and the push of the pen that picks up the pluming, posing prose. I can pluck them up poetic-- sometimes playful from the path of purposeful pondering. 

From the pen: 

 I wake to worship.  I want to wait for One who weighs hearts.

 I wait in winsome wonder for Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God and Everlasting   Father.  

 Whimsy is my waking word.  Wonder is my morning destination.  

 May these words wear out on me.  I am not ashamed. Here are my many morning   "May I's":

 May I be like your spring freshet, even in December.

 May the intent of my words and the wandering here mean something to YOU, Father   on HIGH and Father in me.  

 May I give You more than I have before.  

 May I wait longer, call louder, display the heart growing into more room for You. 

 May all my springs flow into Your ocean. 

 May all of my ways be paved with Your own laid stones. 

 May the "Ark of Your Covenant" find its resting place in me, Your presence abide as   you make me into a steady habitation, yes, even in difficult me.

 May my peace become a placid water for You to rest by, the place You are making   Your own-- a place of Your satisfaction. 

 May You be satisfied with me. You can do it, because You are You.

See, He turns weary ones into worshipful warriors in no time at all-- in December, on the 8th.

He turns directionless daughters to projecting praise to pinnacles higher than before-- on paper.  Planting praise on mountains, propagating platforms of peace, prefacing life with possibility, YES, supposing sensations in place of sadness, demonstrating gladness overtaking discouragement, choosing child-faith to put away reckless cynicism.  Choices, choices, choices!  What powerful choosing people we are! 

May we always choose to marvel at Marvelous!  On my own, I say to myself that I’m always gonna be this sorry way that I am, but in YOU I choose to BELIEVE.  I choose to believe the sparkle is just under the duvet of “not yet, but soon”. 

OH!  Preposterous Grace!  You have taken me by surprise again!  Oh, Surprise!  You have made my mind merry and my heart merry, too.  Oh magical Truth!  You are what the adjective really means;  beautiful or delightful in such a way as to seem removed from everyday life.  Your synonyms continue the parade of illustrious explanation:  extraordinary, remarkable, exceptional, outstanding, incredible Truth! What a way to wing into cold December 8, as if lifted off of the cold hard earth into a wide and wondrous thermal.  It is warm up here. 

A Letter to Myself and "To Whom it May Concern"

(A note on where we are before we know HIM)

I think You stand and stare….like I stood in Waterloo, my old home town, like a ghost of Christmas past…no one knew me,  no one seemed to be able to see me there in her streets, ME, the daughter of that bustling town. They walked by, drove by, carried on conversation beside me, but they could not see me there and I did not know them. If they could have seen me they would have exclaimed at my arrival!  They would have grabbed me up and hugged me and we would have reminisced of all of the times I had there, combing the streets on foot and wheels. We would talk of how I was one of them, and how we share history together.

 You stand amidst Your people, Your things. Your imagination is all sprawled out around us and we, like dumb beasts, like a haggard old woman in a movie, we just pilfer through, picking up random things, stepping on Your tiny enchanted worlds under our feet, we trample over scores of wisdom and story, we touch worlds of wonder with our hands, smell aromas from another land and never move through to the wonder--to YOU.  

You stand like the Ghost of Christmas past, and we don't see You.  We are flat-lining in Your presence, and in a world utterly bursting with Your life. 
We pinch our own feeding tubes, stay far from "living waters", close the breeze out of our own windows, as we choose our own erotic views that stimulate for a breath and execute our capture in the next.

Wake up, flatl-iners! Let's wake up from our eternal sleep. Unpinch our life line, stop erasing the precious letters of our names from the book of life!  Hear the trumpet calling, carried along summer breezes, and on our ocean beaches, funneled through our ever waking hours, a kingdom calls to us.  A residence reaches for us.  Our Maker stands on our streets and moons over the ever moving, ever evading, loves of His life, us. 
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Titus 3:3  Be truly humble toward everyone 3 because there was a time when we, too, were foolish, rebellious, and deceived—we were slaves to sensual cravings and pleasures; and we spent our lives being spiteful, envious, hated by many, and hating one another. 

4 But then something happened: God our Savior and His overpowering love and kindness for humankind entered our world; 5 He came to save us. It’s not that we earned it by doing good works or righteous deeds; He came because He is merciful. He brought us out of our old ways of living to a new beginning through the washing of regeneration; and He made us completely new through the Holy Spirit, 6 who was poured out in abundance through Jesus the Anointed, our Savior. 7 All of this happened so that through His grace we would be accepted into God’s covenant family and appointed to be His heirs, full of the hope that comes from knowing you have eternal life. 8 This is a faithful statement of what we believe.

Oh, Sunday! Held in the Rows of an American Church Today.

Oh, Sunday! Ready. Set. Gather with the saints once again.  I saw saints with sparkling white teeth smiling at me and I heard the tickling sounds of laughter inside a big ole brick house called an American church today.  I felt the feelings of family and I knew I belonged.

Then, in long soft rows of loved ones, I listened to their sturdy voices rising, snugging me in tight with gathering glory, swaddled safe within sounds of songs swelling, and us gatherers grounding our hearts together in the sacred Sunday morning time. My voice rang out with the singing ones, the loving ones with the eyes full of HIM!  I held hands, hugged friends, kissed soft lady faces, gave high fives, and learned new things--  new things from old places, like an ancient “living” word in a big book with a big binding that binds us all together still.

We are always finding what seems new in the old.  Yes, I am, too. And we confide to a feeling of being yet “young inside” the weathered skin with new, soft wrinkles—young because in this place all remember to open wide as a child. I glance back now, in the night, in my soft bed on the little farm and see myself strong in the mix of it all-- even me, even now.   Yes, even me!  And are we all a little dazzled by the idea of belonging?  Sunday is coming again in pursuit of the prize!  -- a gathering church that knows how to hold one another and then how to hold the world.