Adams Rd.

I saw a parcel of land for sale for a solid sum. In the photo advertising, a large oak tree stood next to a shabby white house with ivy growing up the trunk.  I think I would give the whole sum for one oak tree if my bank account obliged.  Massive limb-arms made of strength and integrity and wood; great limbs stretch horizontal far.  And when any oak hangs its massive limbs low, like the giant arms of my father, for a daughter or a son of Adam to climb up, a transaction is made that can never be revoked. 

No one has ever forgotten climbing about on an oak limb, nor the feeling of bark against the skin; legs dangling over the earth, one would go even higher--knees pressed into the ridges struggling for ascent, blood rushing under the skin, and a breeze igniting a sense of losing the bonds of the earth. 

Adams Road, Ozark. 

 

Little Stars

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn

and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea

and pours them out over the face of the land—the Lord is his name. 

Amos 5:8

When You speak, Lord, You light a runner’s torch within us.

We’re compelled to move carrying Your dancing flame. 

And after the light burns low, 

when the last ember’s glow has just disappeared

one turns to investigate all that You said, this speech that sprang from the breath of a star; our Morning Star.  

 I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. Revelations 22:16

Now we hold Your words under a light, still warm from the fire to study under a lamp Your guiding Words. 

Rendered speech too great for me, yet anchoring inside of me

and now the articulations of Orion drip from the tip of my own common pen. How can this be?

I’ve become bearer of light, too; His little star.  The Morning Star took His rightful place within us, now He shines.

                               

Oh God, You are the surge that chases through the cord and brings us into light. We are Your prophesied walking stars, tipping to spill into the night.

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. Philippians 2:15

And I am all human and, as this, I can only try.

We shine within an honor that no one can fully describe, this privilege of living as God’s image bearers; His Tribe.

We, luminous lanterns hung up through Christ against the dark, one by one by one through the ages hung by the Father of lights. 

Arise, you who sleep,

Arise from the dead,

And Christ will give you light.

Ephesians 5:14

The morning He set the cornerstone of the earth’s foundation-- when foundations were laid, angels and stars sang songs of awe and wonder.
 In our day, we pick up their chorus.  Job 38:7

Beloved, give your praise a song,  you walking stars, beloved lights on earth.  Orion’s belt--- truth pulled tight around your waists. 

He looks to earth and sees the darkness lit up, His racing heart proclaims, “My beloved! 

 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. Daniel 12:3

The Town Bird

One day I suddenly came to town and slept under a town sky, under a shingled town roof, and beneath a white chenille bedspread I bought in the town.  When I woke, the sound of the rooster was far off in the country and I couldn't hear him and his rousing reverence to the rising sun.  The luscious red cardinal perched in the oak tree beside the worn country porch was singing without my daily delight in him. The mockingbirds and blue jays, the crows and the doves were charging the air and the nuthatch was still making his funny sound like a rubber duck smashed under foot, but without me to laugh at him.

It seemed to me the town boasted only the sounds of men and women moving mindlessly about in cars, passing me by under the white chenille bedspread, and the church bells kept telling us all its time to move on.  But where was the morning song?  Where was the chickadee wearing his tidy black cap and sounding so sweet like the high-low squeak of an old teeter-totter in need of oiling? And who was going to call up the sun when not a rooster was allowed under this strange town sky?   And so my heart was grieved for the country birds because I didn't hear their familiar, soul-feeding song that assured me that this world in the country was the most beautiful world of all.

Spring quickly turned to summer who yawned slowly into a broadening autumn and nothing much had changed.  I walked in the town yard behind the house where I slept and noted the squirrels jumping from tree to tree. One ambitious fellow carried a discarded apple high into the sugar berry tree and losing his grip, dropped it, landing with a thud just in front of me.   I walked along the city sidewalks, passing the shop that sold cigarettes and tobacco, sometimes stopping on the bridge to watch the fish swim in the creek below, and always slowing to regard the antique roses that hung pink and rosy in the yard of the 1st Baptist church.  Somewhere in my moving about I began to pause at the sound of the church bells tolling out the hour and I began to feel grateful and reposed.

And then one morning, waking under the town roof, under the dark and sleepy town sky,  I heard a sound I hadn't noticed before.  It came from the the south, from the river's edge and broke open my town life with the same sweetness of the country bird's song that once called up the joy of each brand new day.  For just like the birds, the sound rang out from the depths of Truth, Wisdom and from the sure Hope for the future.

  And within the new sound I heard these words:

"Here is the new sound.  Hear the sound for a new season and a new time. Can you not perceive it?"  

And under the town sky a heart now stirs at the sound of the train whistle calling from the river's edge and assuring that my world is the most beautiful of all still.

And surely I am with you always...... Matthew 28:20

Backdrop of the Battlefield

An old held-back post, or note to self in the blog files.  I must have been feeling the battle. 
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 Your life is not about any of this, Rhonda Michelle.  All of this only creates the backdrop to the battlefield for your soul and for the souls of others.  Your mortgage, the leak in your radiator, your family gatherings, your bank account, Christmas coming, your home, land, your debt, your cars and what is or isn't in your refrigerator are not what they may seem to be.  These are not just your life on a Wed. in 2014. They are only the backdrop to your real life.

Jesus prayed for you like this, ⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.   We are meant to be here, but we need this prayer of Jesus to tread here because it is more than it seems. 
  

Jesus, our glorious man, is not recorded to have concerned Himself much with my list of things in above paragraph, as IF these were not the most important things in life?! What of that!?  If He didn't then why do I?  

  His hike into the wilderness was an epic battle with the devil during a 40 day fast.  All my hikes are to see beauty and gain strength. Most of my fasts are because I feel chubby. And when I kayak across the lake it is to feel something, see something and enjoy myself. But in 2014 I'm seeing them all in a different way; they are more.  All is more.

When Jesus skimmed the waters of the lake,  it was with eternal purposes in his heart.  Maybe the beauty of the sun glistening off of the water that day, and maybe there were fresh smells, the feel of the water between His fingers, the breeze and gentle waves making soft sounds against the boat. But He was going to command demons and set a chained man free. (Mark 5) He had the same sort of backdrop as me, but lived out of another dimension.  I want His dimension.

With  purpose He crossed from life over to death, and to life again to set many more free.  And He is pulling back the backdrop of my life so I can live like this glorious God-man.

A Farm Forum

A farm forum, ready to convene just for me.  A choir of frogs sing praise from a small pond out back in the middle of February.  They pass their invitation to join the preliminaries of song; their funny prelude to the discussion-- the discovery. 

 A surging within the forum of fields and yards tucked round with fences opens a morning wide.  A garden plot ready to tell mysteries to me, share ideas, reason it all out in the softness of ready soil; ready to receive the seeds that are questions in me.  I will tuck them in and wait-- soon to poke quietly through the earth in answer.

A forum of land and sky calling a morning meeting, preparing for a rousing discussion for a searcher and seeker! How have I attained such good fortune to be invited among such wise handlers of divine secrets? 

                                   

I stand among the furry-wise who take their places at their own gates, live their good lives, sowing and reaping just what they were perfected to. Minding their own business. One calls the meeting to order with a “baaa!”  I take my seat among them.

                               

A magnificent forum of farm and feeling, of astute players all knowing their place.  OH!  I hear a pony pounding his gavel down, with fine hooves he calls this session to order.  I humbly join the meeting, pen in hand.  

                                

Where is your forum of friends?  Where are you planted to preach a good word from the wealth of your own sown heart?  Where does your forum convene? :) 

                                   

If My Words

If my words had substance and could be seen as they launch out, would they lift and fill the morning sky? Would they praise up with the clouds?

If my words spoke out in shades of color, and if they were hot or cold, would my world be bright with rainbows, and would You cuddle in their warmth?

If my words had weightiness and could remain just where they fall, would they pile right up to heaven, and build a monument to Your worth?

If my words were lofty, and could speak to kings and queens, would  they hear Your invitation and come to the great wedding feast?

                                             

If my words were humble and if they were safe for all, would You trust me with the "least of these", and would You send me to the lost?

If my words could reach You, and I know that they do, I would set an echo in the wind to repeat my LOVE for You!

  

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.