Refreshing

Words

Once so heavy on my heart

Had burst forth from my pen.

I filled pages

With new ideas

Clever rhymes

Touching stories

And my truest feelings.

Now      

Nothing.

No inspiration.

Not a drop of creativity.

Have I gone dry?

Or have I built a dam

Out of the mundane stuff of years?

Grading papers selling books pouring

Coffee searching records typing

Letters washing clothes—

All stones for the wall

That holds my feelings back,

Protects my words, my ideas.

My very heart.

Lord,

Break down the wall

So that words may flow again.

Let them pour out

And fill great stories,

Gentle sonnets

And the compact haiku.

And let them refresh hearts

That have, like my own,

Dried over time.

Taste and See

Psalm 34:8            O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.

I remember summers at Gull Lake in northern Minnesota.  Far removed from any city – only Brainard was nearby – there was no pollution, no noise, no hurry.  The air was cooler up there, perhaps because of the breeze off the lake.  Or the tall pine trees that shaded the grounds of the small cabin resort where my family stayed for one lazy week out of each year.

Whatever the reason, the time we spent up there was wonderful.  For me, there are special memories.  The whole family, including grandparents, cousins, and my aunt and uncle gathered for some quality time, a good share of the usual bickering among the children, and some of the best fishing I can remember.

I used to love to catch sunnies – tender, tasty little panfish.  For a ten-year-old girl, it’s a fairly easy catch.  Grandpa taught all of us grandkids how to fish.  We’d all head to the dock with our poles and buckets of worms, ready to catch a great Northern Pike.  But first, we had to learn to bait the hook.  Grandpa’s number one rule was that if we were going to fish, we had to put the worm on the hook ourselves.  My little cousin Heidi’s fishing career was over then and there.  Those worms wiggled and squirmed, but we got them on the hook, and we even caught a few fish.

As much as I enjoyed that, my favorite memory is of me and Grandpa alone on the boat.  Everyone else was playing on the shore where my mom, aunt and Grandma were sunbathing.  Grandpa and I were way out in the middle of the lake, ready to catch that evening’s dinner.  Shh, quiet.  When a fish nibbled the bait off the hook and got away, I would re-bait and start again.  I enjoyed having Grandpa all to myself, even it if meant baking in the hot sun, cutting my hands on the hook, or feeling the ache that comes from sitting in the boat too long.  But all the while, Grandpa offered plenty of praise and encouragement.

The best part came when we arrived back at the dock.  We’d hold up our net full of fish, proud that we had provided dinner for the entire family.  But instead of heading to the kitchen with our load, we made our way down a path to the fish house.  This was basically a screened-in hut with a single counter built for the sole purpose of scaling and fileting fish.  This was the tough part, because it was rather a gross process.  The counter was permanently stained with blood, and the single trashcan was usually half full of fish remains.  And the smell . . . well, you can imagine.  But then, that’s where my “suffering” ended.

Grandpa, however, set himself to the task of cleaning the fish.  (I always thought this was an odd term for something that seemed so dirty.)  He pulled out his knife and deftly sliced open each fish and cut it down to the tasty meat.  In only a few moments, he had a pile of shiny white pieces ready to be battered and fried.

By the time I was seated at the table, listening to someone say the blessing, I no longer felt my sunburn, or felt the ache in my hands, or smelled the odor of the fish house.  I only knew that dinner was going to be good.  Corn on the cob and tomatoes grown in Grandpa’s garden, Mom’s homemade fries, and the center of the banquet, the sunny filets.  What a feast!

Out in the middle of the lake, with mosquitoes humming around me, I had to trust that it would be worth the wait, worth the trouble.  I didn’t make a conscious effort to trust in the outcome; I knew it by instinct, and by past experience.  I knew that Grandpa had something good planned for me.  And I think it is the same with our heavenly Father.  God invites us to taste of His goodness.  But we can only do that if we trust.  He has so many blessings waiting for us, if we will only trust Him.  Sometimes we must endure the uncomfortable, or downright painful, things in life; and it takes all we have to trust in the outcome.  But over time, with a lot of experience, trust may become our automatic response to tough times.  And we will eventually know deep in our hearts what we have been learning all along – that the Lord is good.  And we will taste the sweet blessing of trusting in Him. 

Set Me Straight

Burdens on my shoulders
Too many to count
Such a great weight
Pushing down on me
Pressing me to the ground
So low
That I can’t look up
To the sky
I only see dirt,
My own feet,
And an ant crawling by.
(For a moment,
I envy the ant
With his freedom to roam.)
I am paralyzed by the weight.
I fear
That if I try to rise
I will fall on my face.
So I stay
And study the ground
Giving no thought to the sky.

The pain sets in
Until I get so comfortable in my position
That I no longer feel it.

You come,
Bid me to rise,
Gather me into Your lap,
And let me cry in frustration.
Then You make it Your business
To set me straight,
To remind me of who I am
In You
Who made the sky.
Your love sets things right.
I climb down,
Ready to stand tall on my own two feet
And look You straight in the eye.

And the burdens?
They are but ants to me now.

Literature Over Lunch

As I sat at lunch with a friend
One rainy afternoon,
Eating tuna,
Talking Turgenev,
I thought it all so literary.
Long we sat,
Discussing the flaming pens of the past
That moved across pages
And moved the minds of men,
We lingered over our cake and coffee.
I felt comfortable in that cozy restaurant,
Listening to the patter of rain,
Hearing the clatter of dishes,
Enjoying the chatter of knowledge.
But, after a while, we had discussed all
That the world’s literature held.
We were finished.
So we left, and strode our varied paths,
Leaving behind Wharton, Hardy, Hawthorne,
And other creators.

Thinking now, I know I had enjoyed the time
And had gained some knowledge
Of fictional characters and their masters; yet
I did not feel any more full.
The experience was only for then,
Not for the future.
Like Chinese food –
I would be hungry in an hour.
I think that perhaps another conversation
May have warmed me more than coffee,
May have satisfied me more than Keats;
Had we discussed the Creator
And all His wonders,
We might be there now,
With no thought of leaving,
Discovering new ways of reading His Book.
We could have explored the lives of real people,
Past and present,
And praised their Master,
The Author.
Yes, we would still be at our table,
Even now,
Nursing our eleventh cup of coffee
And filling ourselves with lunch
And the fullness of God.

Venus Smiles on Me

“Daddy, look at the early star!”

As we drove on our way home from church one Sunday evening in late October, I had seen a solitary light in the dark blue sky.

“That’s not a star,” Dad said from behind the wheel. “That’s Venus.”

“Venus?” I echoed incredulously. “You mean, the planet?” Dad nodded as I asked. “But how can we see it all the way from here?”

To my young mind, my Daddy was the smartest man in the whole universe. He knew how the light traveled from billions of miles away (it took years, he said), and how it reflected and refracted through the atmosphere and allowed us to see Venus from our place on earth.

“But how is Venus different from the stars, Daddy? It looks the same to me.”

“You can see the difference if you watch it closely. If it doesn’t twinkle, it’s a planet.”

I watched Venus as we drove along and pulled into our driveway. Not once did she twinkle. She just watched me and smiled a bright, steady smile.

So many times I remember Dad teaching me things that nobody else could. Only he was smart enough, and he took the time to. Many autumn nights were spent studying the galaxy, sometimes for homework and sometimes for fun. I learned various constellations by name with Dad’s help, and I enjoyed standing beneath the clear night sky to look at the stars. With Dad at my side, I would point out the Little Bear and the Big Dipper. My favorite was the Orion.

“Not the Orion,” Dad would correct me. “It’s just Orion.”

That confused me. After all, the others were the Little Bear and the Big Dipper. Why not the Orion?

“Because Orion isn’t just a bear or something. He’s a man, a great archer.” Dad pointed up to Orion and showed me the bow and arrow, and the three-star belt. “He’s the easiest to spot because of that belt.”

I began to look at Orion as a friend. And so he and all the other constellations became to me as I grew up fall after fall. Warm summer nights revolved into cool autumn evenings, and other studies replaced my amateur astronomy. Yet each year I looked forward to a clear view of my favorite stars and the memories they held.

Year’s later, as I was hurrying across my college campus on a busy November evening, I felt only the weight of my responsibilities. Behind all my thoughts was the fact that I missed home and was looking forward to the end of the semester. I was tired, and I needed the love of my family. But I put those thoughts aside to concentrate to concentrate on my present tasks. I had to get to a play rehearsal, where I hoped to finish my paper between acts.

As I approached the auditorium, I looked up and saw a friendly smile that I had not seen in some time. There, above the auditorium, just ahead of me, was Venus. She was shining as brightly as ever. Still not a twinkle – just a steady light.

My thoughts went back to home, which seemed light years away, where I had first met Venus. I had changed quite a bit in those years since our first meeting. I had grown up. But Venus and her smile had stayed the same.

And I needed that. I needed to know that some things remained constant in my quickly turning world. The Little Bear, the Big Dipper, Orion, home, my Daddy’s love – all were there, amid busy schedules and piling responsibilities. I need never doubt that, I know, and I will always be reminded of those consistencies in life when Venus smiles on me.

By way of introduction ...

Hammock Season



While the air holds the chill
Of stubborn winter not yet turned spring,
And a hint of woodsmoke lingers,
I dig it out
Shake it off
And trudge over still-dead grass
To my spot
Between the maple and the pin oak.
It’s hammock season.


I climb in, settle back
And begin to sway.
Clouds and new buds
Move lazily above me.
The cool breeze dances around me,
And honeysuckle sweetens the air.
The weigela is a pale burst of fireworks.


The jay squawks,
And the mockingbird answers back.
The ice cream truck tinkles a tune,
Bringing summer to our street.
Cicadas sing in the trees
While a lawn mower drones in the distance.


The swaying slows,
The quiet creak of chain and hook
Keeping time.
I drift in and out of sleep
Heavy with coming dreams –
Like the clouds, heavy with coming rain.


Soon enough
The air will be crisp again
With the first hints of woodsmoke,
And I’ll shiver against the breeze.
Still I’ll linger,
Stubbornly holding my place
In spite of dimming light
And cooling evenings
That tell me time is short.
I stay
And make the most of hammock season.