When we set forth, the breeze blew fair,
The sun shone balmy, warm.
Our sheets were fixed; sail filled with air,
No warning of the storm.

Our crew of two, so cheerfully,
With confidence untried,
Thought we could lick the strongest sea
And still enjoy the ride.

In dinghy small: in ocean great
Our tiny course still true.
We charted stars to navigate;
From Heaven took our cue.

And so we cruised for many years,
Successful in our tour.
With frequent laughter, scarcer tears,
The partnership secure.

But one night when the stars were gone
And clouds obscured our view,
A gust surprised us, struck head-on
And blew the mast askew.

In darkness thick, with rising surge,
We struggled with the sail.
The waves now threatened to submerge
Our vessel in the gale.

We could not see to douse or reef
And so we grappled, blind;
Our crew of two, in disbelief
Left buoyancy behind.

The dinghy tossed like wreckage now
And, hope so far from sight,
We tried once more and then, somehow,
Our crew began to fight.

Through foam and froth and swelling wave
Our agitation grew.
Each violent blast a cause to rave,
To quarrel, stage a coup.

Our crew of two, now one-on-one,
Not just against the squall
Attacked each other ‘til undone,
A rebel’s free-for-all.

So will we drown in waters vast
This tempest take our souls?
And, sinking, will we still lambaste
Each other’s weak controls?

Or could we, if we changed our tack
And pulled together, firm,
Outlast this storm, this inky black,
Our partnership affirm?

Oh, please, let’s try, although the sky
Above is dire and grim.
You take an oar and so will I,
Together scull and skim.

I’ll call you “Captain;”  call me “Mate.”
We’ll rally, make amends.
And, crew of two, we’ll navigate
This stormy night as friends.

[The words of Jesus to His followers in His sermon on the Mount of Olives:]  “Ye are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14)

Illuminate this night, You say we will,
But only if our chambers get a fill
Of Spirit-oil, our eyes be single, true,
And holy light of God infuse us through,
Despite our darkness, doubt, our lack of skill.

We cannot force this sunshine to distil,
To brighten gloaming, take away the chill.
So Heaven orders Light to dark imbue.
Illuminate this night.

Now Treasure stocking up this earthen till,
You gut our *******, old-man mercy-****.
Our new-man vital, Holy revenue
Eternal, shining, paying out our due
And then some; overflow of Life now spill:
*Illuminate this night.

"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: " (John 8:12)

Illuminate this night, Oh, Lord, we pray,
To stop us stumbling on our narrow way.
Well-lit, all murky shadows apprehend,
Each marker seen by us before the bend
A path made manifest by light of day.

Expose our wrongs, our defects with Your ray
Of clarity and Truth that gleams today.
Permit the darkness here to comprehend.
Illuminate this night.

And if we, lovers of the gloom would stray
To dismal passage, cheerless alleyway,
Then touch our eyes with brilliance, now transcend
Our inner twilight; Holy God descend
And bring Your radiance to our hearts to stay.
*Illuminate this night.

Strike a nail, hold a staple, stretch a fence, and milk a cow,
Grease a zirc, then rock the baby, buck a bale, or show me how
To ease my labor, calm my fear, to train a child, to plant or plow--
Scratch a life from thorns and thistles—past and future, here and now.

Rough and calloused, bruised and rugged, sure to make this family’s way,
Open to receive or furnish bread, truth, wisdom for each day.
Fix a motor, start a tractor, change a tire, change my way—
Holding, lifting, strong, supporting, showing more than words can say.

Leather-hard in storm and blizzard, warm and gentle on my face,
Teaching, guiding, firm providing, rooted motion, steady pace.
Scarred and chapped and stained from farming, years of struggle won’t erase,
But my hands, when held within them, know they’ve found their resting place.

I inter this one along with his brothers and sisters,
All of them dead, wrinkled, dry, and spent--
Then cover their husks with earth
And wait.

Next Wednesday, here they resurrect in bodies
Nothing like the ones I laid to rest.
But greening life unfurling over that same ground that smothered them
Last week.

Where is the seed? I wonder, and digging shows that
It has been consumed by what it started.
Now verdant growth delineates its forgotten
Shallow grave.

And for some time I don’t recall the humble start
To which my viridescent vine’s indebted.
‘Til autumn, when the flower’s passed and pods can shell out in
My hand.

There, held in dusty palm I meet the progeny of
Last spring’s burial--
How like their father, and how many!  Separated by that living vegetable
And time.

“The Seed is the Word” I know. I see it happen
As it plants itself in my soul’s garden patch.
Just words on wrinkled paper, ancient script seems long
Since dead.

But something new grows up in that same spot,
Some living thing that I had not expected
That seems not myself or what had grown there
Before.

It’s not the seed, but somehow hearkens back to my ingestion of
The pages in that dusty tome.
And I forget the exact words that sank into my being until
One day,

When an accusation flies my way--though wrongly hurled
By one who should have loved me.
And my response, unexpected, is not my practiced
Comeback.

What is my deal? I wonder.  Where’s the anger and vexation
I should feel right now?  Why the
Peace I can’t quite understand, and the total lack
Of pique?

Then I see them in my soul, breaking from the pods, thirty, sixty, and
A hundred:  “Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing
Shall offend them.”  “ Blessed are ye, when men . . .
Revile you.”

The seed I found in age-old text--now separated by the verdure growing
In my spirit, lush and full--is now
Mature and bearing fruit that looks just like
Its Father.

"But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."  Matthew 13:23

Socialism needs an opt-out for the folks like me.
Doesn’t mean I want to shut out souls in poverty.

Just that sharing’s much more fun when I decide to give.
Ev’n the crankiest curmudgeon wants poor folks to live.

But it grates that regulation twists my liberal arm.
Presses me for my donation, “lets” me sell the farm.

True compassion I would render to the brotherhood,
Never shirking role of spender for the common good.

Yet I’m stymied in my caring, curiously enough,
When the government starts tearing  through my private stuff.

It’s like saying whom I must love, never letting me
Freely choose to be a part of warm felicity.

And . . .
What of charity’s receiver, plebian, once proud?
Now required under-achiever in the welfare crowd.

If she rises from her ashes, if she shirks her place.
Suddenly, the system slashes “benefits” apace.

Now, by council isolated from her former peers.
Up the ladder climbs unaided by the rich “top-tiers.”

While support they once would offer, now their fists are shut--
Uncle Sam has taxed their coffer, swiped the needy’s cut.

What if government gave freedom for us all to choose?
If the statutes guaranteed ‘em untouched revenues?

Might that self-rule foster good-will for our fellow-man?
Couldn’t independence instill kindness in our land?

Maybe it’s just me that could’ve soared above the rule,
Let the generosity of God become the fuel. . . that

Powered me to love my neighbor, opened wide my hand,
Shared the fruit of friendship’s labor with each one, first hand.

Either way, I need that opt-out:  Liberty’s control,
Giving me the chance to hand out, freely, from my soul.

Ye are the salt of the earth; . . . (Matthew 5:13)


Preservative or pickler in the brine,
To render flora, fauna for our good,
Or season, that the flavor ever should
Appeal to palate, coarsest fare refine.
That drawing, drying halite from the mine,
Which whitens pasture, threatens livelihood,
Keeps calling out for only That which could
Begin to slake, assuage its arid shine.
And what but Water satiates our thirst?
The salty food that makes us crave the cup,
That bone-dry want for quenching from Above
Just proves the pow’r that salt had from the first
To drive us toward the Life that fills us up--
And plunge our thirsty souls into His Love.



. . . but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water
springing up into
everlasting life.  (John 4:14)