At a quiet street market in a dust party of town, I saw an old vender selling odds and ends. I stopped to look at his wares and I saw that he had shoes, I picked up a pair of sandals and he asked do you like those my friend? I consider them for a moment then asked if I could try them on, he smiled and said I could. I pulled off my shoes and slipped my feet into the sandals, they fit just right for my size. All of a sudden, I was not on the street with the vendor, but I was walking far away, behind me were 12 men. I looked at a seashore and then I saw a crowd before me and I felt the ocean spray hit my face. I saw myself in a temple holding an ancient paper and reading out loud to men who hated me. In one moment I was taken for a journey and I never left the street where I stood. As I came to my senses, I looked at the vendor, and he asked me do you want the shoes my friend? I left my shoes where the sandals had been and I said I would take them. I started to pay him and he said there was no need. He said that the shoes were quiet worn, but they would work for what I needed and I quietly went on my way. As I walked along I noticed that people began to stare at me and I stopped and began to speak. As I talked people listened and stood there completely amazed, and wondered who I was and where I was from. It was then I realized where the sandals had been and to whom they belonged and what I had become.

I adorned my house with Pink seashells because they let me hear the waves roar. I planted my yard full of wild flowers so I could have bouquets all around me. I made my windows out of the bottoms of colored bottles because I wanted to be bathed in rainbows when the sun rises in the morning. I made my front steps out of tea cups and marbles because they glisten when the light hits them. I built a walk way of sand, so I could feel the beach between my toes when I walk outside. I built my home to suit my personality, because I want it to be unique like me.

To some the idea of wading into the water to catch a smelly fish is not alluring at all. What you fail to realize is that there are many lessons that you can learn from the endeavor. At first I learned to be silent, when my grand dad showed me how not to scare the fish. Then I learned patients as my dad taught me how to wait for the fish to come to you. Then I learned to appreciate find details, when I learned to make my own fly bait. From there I learned determination, because there are some fish that just do not want to be caught. Then I came to understand struggle, because the act of fishing is a struggle between the fisherman and his quarry. Finally, I learned wisdom, because you must adapt to the environment as nature is not always cooperative when want to catch a fish.

When you find something that gives you contentment, no matter what it may be, then serenity is the gift you have been given, cherish it and don't let it slip away.

I will speak of the love that has no end. I will tell all of the love that will not fail. I will show the world his mercy as I seek to be like him. I will fall and stumble, but his love will lift me up. From my first breath to my last, I will testify of Jesus love.

What ever your adversity, know that there are others that stand with you. Who ever is oppressing you, know that there are those who fight along your side. Where ever you go, know that helping hands are always waiting to lift you up. So give the battle cry of unity and hold one another as the enemy comes against us. Let those of us in humanities army who dare to care for our fellow person be a wall upon which despair will crash like an empty wave. Let our standard be a unifying symbol and let us live in peace with each other. We will not falter and we will not despair, as we raise the standard high as one people, for we are human kind.

A gun needs a bullet and a hand to hold it, the gun never killed anyone on it's own. Only when we pick it up in anger or as a means to an end does a gun become lethal. It is not the gun but the user that actually kills.

The spirit of God cannot be quenched, but the physical world could not withstand it. It is not as physical fire but yet it consumes. It purges sin and convicts the sinner of their unholy ways. To those who receive the forgiveness, it refines their soul like precious silver or gold, but to those who reject the ways of God, it destroys them with guilt and consumes them from with in until there is nothing left of who they were.

I dare not take a drink or use a pill, for the beast will awaken again. I must stay sober and not let the monster out. Try as I might I fight against my mortal self. To let go and give control over is so easy, but would be wrong of me. So I sit here and fidget in cold contemplation as I think about trying to sleep. Even if I can close my eyes the nightmares will find me once again. I will see the horrors that I inflicted on others and watch my actions through surreal eyes. So I watch and I wait, holding on to what bit of sanity I have left, hoping that I will not give in to the darkness with in myself.

Your smile warms the day and makes flowers bloom. When I kiss you I can withstand the coldest night. When your heart was made, God filled it with sunshine. When I am with you I feel as I have stolen a small piece of it away.

From person to person it goes, with it's owner seeking love. In one relationship then out and into another, it cannot find peace. Like a lonesome sojourner it keeps on going, hoping to find peace in the next person, yet it still moves on. Broken and tattered it hopes against hope for that one perfect moment, when it will find a soul mate. So goes the wandering heart, seeking love.

Render good to those who cannot repay you. Offer mercy to those who do not seem to deserve. Give but do not expect to receive in like kind. Smile at each day, even if it is dark and gloomy, for somewhere there is a need for rain. Count your blessings and not your problems and soon you will find the problems are not so important. Live in harmony with all as well as is possible. Pray often for others even if they don't know you did it. Care deeply for family and try to forgive even if it is hard to do sometimes. Let these be the links in a chain of kindness that binds us all together as friends.

I dance and I joke while everyone else laughs it up. I let you make fun of me and I don't seem to mind. While you are off with your buddies, I am left alone with your girlfriends. By the time you realize what I have done, I will have moved on. Now who is playing the fool?

A cracked *** simmers filled with twisted ideas! The tumultuous brew bubbles and fizzes! Come close and see the fire burning below. Watch the embers change color as people grow impatient with each other. Be careful not to touch the sides for it can be really hot! The anger, lust and fear can make the seething *** boil. Take a ladle if you dare and dip it into the brew. Sip it if you can stand the rush that you will feel. Then spew back your darkest fears and most intimate desires into the emotional cauldron from which you dared to drink.

God loves his children, yes he loves them all. God loves his children, he loves the big ans small. He loves his children, each and everyday. God loves his children in many different ways. He loves them with the sunshine and he loves them with the rain. He loves them with the cool breezes. He loves them with quiet nights. He loves them with his mercy, when they do which is right. He is a loving father, that is an absolute fact. The problem that we often have,is that we refuse to love him back.

Trapped in the light of the lesser sphere, like a Moth drawn to a cold flame. Immersed in Silver streams of light, that shine brightly and pierce the night. Like a fairy tiptoeing through a magic stream, I frolic and dance merrily on a moonbeam.

Many great people have come and brought light into the world. Many people have been great souls and have taught us much, but only one left then returned to speak again. A man from Nazareth who worked with his hands, spoke words of beauty and forgiveness. His truth rang out to the masses who then betrayed him. Killed for the truth, he was buried, but then crossed the divide of death. He came back and was seen and spoke another truth. He rose to show us that death is not an end, but that there is more life than what we now see.

Lies are built on unsure foundations and can fall by the wayside and be burned to the ground with ease. Like so much straw they will ignite and be swept away as ashes. A grain of truth is like a speck of sand. It is hard and has sharp edges, it is crystal in it's purpose. You can put it through fire with many others like it and it becomes glass that will magnify light and focus it that we may better see.

Behind a looking glass I stare back at myself. From behind the veil of another world I peer back at my own soul. Behind the reflection that I see before me, lies the truth of what I really am. Behind the mirror that reflects what I want others to see, is a truth that I am too scared to reveal.

Like a serpent, so is the tongue when it is not tied down tight. It stings like a Scorpion and bites like the venom of a Viper. It cuts like a knife made of Obsidian and can splint the bone from the marrow. It feeds the fire of rumors and cannot be easily quenched. It can destroy lives and bring wars to fruition with only fables. So beware the tongue and all of it's devices, because it can be the purveyor of destruction and will even turn on the one who lets it loose.

For no reason other than kindness, find a weary soul. Extend a helping  hand with no want for repayment of any kind. Lift up that life to a better place and set them on stable ground. Then watch them flourish and become a source of enrichment to others, through the fruit that will be born of what they have become because you took time to care.

God sent a letter telling us how to live. God showed us a path to redemption. He gave us guidance, but allows us to choose. He shows us wisdom and futility in making choices and where they can lead. To know what he thinks of us, we need only ask. He will show us that he loves us, but is disappointed when we make poor choices. So you are free to choose which path to walk, but know that we will all get to talk to God in person in the end, and truly find out what he thinks of us all.

It has been 3 days since I needed it. My hands have become unsteady and I am shivering with cold chills, though it is warm outside. My eyes have cleared up but I have black circles under them from lack of sleep. It hurts to even breathe at times. I am sweating like there is no tomorrow and I am unsteady on my feet. I have to sit down too often, but I am determined to make it through this. There is not a pill I can take, I must suffer for my life. I want to just give in, which has been the problem in the past. To let go and feel the warmth shooting through my veins, is a quiet peace but then it is just temporary. I cannot hide from my problems in a syringe anymore. I must face the reality of what I am becoming before it is too late.

Yesterday is a distant memory and today is still not determined. What lies over the horizon is unsure to the mortal mind, but I will not despair or fear. I already know what the future holds I know how it all will end. I know the final story, I know who has written it in. So I will step into the new day without any fear, for the one who knows all things is always very near.

Shedding all of your clothes and removing your inhibitions, stand in front of the mirror and admit the truth to yourself. You are what you were made to be, you are beautiful indeed. Could you lose some weight, yet but only for your health not for vanities sake. So accept your existence and breathe in the free air. Be at one with what you are and just go from there.

She walked by me on the beach and my eyes were transfixed on her. She wore dark sunglasses and that is all she had on. I was awe struck at the simplicity of her beauty and at the lack of care she gave to my stare. She just turned and looked into me and motioned to me with her finger. I was hypnotized by a tan goddess with perfect tight skin. I just submitted to her enticement and got lost in her sin. The rest is a lustful blur but she wore dark sunglasses and that I remember well.

I was called a Rose and the fairest among ten thousand. I was ask how much I loved you and I open my arms wide. I ached so much to know you that I gave you all I had. With each stripe and drop of blood I tried to express my love for you. Then when the mortal coil quietly slipped away and set my spirit free. I gave my life to show you how much you mean to me.

Teetering on the edge or the roof, I will look up at the stars. I listen to the cars pass as I walk in the darkness. I repeat this each night just after midnight to see how far I can get. It is 10 stories down to the pavement below. Each story passes a window with a story of it's own. My story is one of wanting to know what is next. So up I go to the edge, walking along the asphalt covered room, looking at the stars as I walk along the edge. Standing on the line between life and death I wait to feel the first rays of the rising sun to know that I have lived, unless I may slip and splatter on the concrete below.

Placing a quill on a piece of paper and putting lines into it feels like I am placing my pain somewhere else. The emotional build up to the time of release is agonizing. All of the suffering and hardship that I hold in for so long is cut into the sheets of parchment that lie before me. Instead of letting the blood out of my own flesh, I release the sadness and frustration onto another victim and let it all flow out through my pen. To say that is is therapy is to deny what it truly seems to me. It brings more sadness that I am making the paper my victim instead of my own self, for I am the one who feels guilty about the failings I have, but better the parchment should die than me.

The work always starts early and there are not too many easy days. The smell of wheat is always in her hair. Her hands are strong and yet tender as she goes about her choirs. Her children are hearty, but full of life. She is in touch with the earth and finds happiness with dark dirt between her toes. Her husband doesn't say much for hard work is what he knows. Common sense rules his decisions, and his love is strong and deep, like a well spring from the earth. She enjoys a caring that most will never know. All of the things she holds dear, she helped plant and grow. To many it may seem a hard way to live, but there is value in such a life. It takes a special kind of woman, to be a farmers wife.

Water is added to a ***, just as ideologies are added to a society. Heat is applied and numerous ingridents are added to the ***. In a similar way people are mixed together and sometimes have heated disagreements. The content of the *** will boil, just like opinions and tempers among diverse people in the same society, but the boiling of the water and ingridents blends the essences of each individual thing. Then it cools off a bit, and it creates a soup with a rather unique flavor. Wouldn't it be wonderful if people could be more like soup?

In a land not far from the sea by a lonely well a woman I did see. In a dream she looked at me as if I was lost. I asked her could I have some water and what it might cost. She gave me a puzzled look and said that she would draw it for me but that there was no charge for the water was free. She said I was once like you, I was lost at this same place until one day, a stranger came by this way. She said I was waiting by the well and he asked me for something to drink, then he told me about who he was and every thing I had done. Once he had finished, I felt so ashamed, then he gave  me water and everlasting life and now I never need to drink or thirst again. I went my way and told what he had done she said,  I proclaimed how I had met Gods only son. The people came to the well and many that day believed. So now I wait by the well for others to come and find me. I witness about the water of eternal life and of God gave us his son, Jesus the Christ.

A crown if Ivy adorns her brow with silver leaves as her bare feet wrapped dance along under the shade of an Oak tree. Acorns seem to fall around her as if nature showers her with a bounty of it's treasure. The flowers release their fragrance to perfume the air through which she sails effortlessly. Holding out her arms to the sun as if to embrace a lover, she bask in it's glorious golden rays as her chiffon dress shows transparent revealing a fairy like figure that sings with the birds and lets the cool wind wrap around her and comfort her to ecstasy as it caresses each inch of her body. She closes her eyes and becomes one with it all, as she feels natures embrace.

Water comes from the clouds and drenches the ground, it doesn't care where it falls. The sun draws up the water into the clouds and they go where the wind takes them. There are no borders for the clouds, only places to go. Mountains catch them and sometimes collect the water they bring and send it down when the sun melts the ice and snow. When children dance in a puddle, they did not ask it from where it came, they only know that it is wet and fun to play in. The water cascades down on all people, regardless of who they are. It washes away the mud and the dirt and renews the earth and helps plants to grow. It wets everyone equally, yes the rain falls on us all.

Leaves depart from trees and clouds move by mountains that sit quietly until a single drop of water moves a pebble and a fisher forms rending tons of rock asunder. In a moment one mountain becomes two and the trickle of water cascades into a new river that took a measure of time that no man can count to create . While we run around seeking solutions to problems that have existed for an eternity in the counting of mortal time, the answers are already there, we just have to wait on God to act on them .

Peeling back the layers like a dark Rose and looking into the heart of the blossom. I delve into the inner parts of myself and seek to reveal the true inner person. With the doors opened to my inner self, the whole world can see what is hidden with in me. Thus I have exposed my soul and what it contains for all to truly see me.

I am an idea that takes hold in the heart of one person. I am the desire to be free from oppression. I am the need to succeed and prosper. I am the loyal solider who holds the banner of the cause even when it seems that it is lost. I am the one who teaches another what they do not know. I am the voice of reason in the world of insanity. I am a force of one person, but I am the ideal that lives in many.

Is my dress too white, or should I even be wearing white at all? Will the guest approve of me or will they scoff at the way I look. I am not really sure if I should be doing this, is he the right one for me? Can I get him drunk enough that he will be sedate on our wedding night, do I even want to be married at all? If this the future I want for myself, should I be planning to work for my own money? As the music plays, and you head down the aisle, you are thankful that the dress hides your running shoes.

To look for evil is not always easy. It does not always come the way you might think. The horrors of war and terror are sometimes masked and obscured. To come face to face with the darkest side of a person is to know what true evil is, but the greatest skill of evil is deception. To live the lie so well that you do not recognize it until it is too late.

I strip off all of the baggage and walk into the down pour as the day I was born. I am bare for all of the world to see and I want nothing between me and the down pour. The water falls all around me and it's freezing cold. The mud mires up between my toes but I feel cleansed for the first time in I don't know when. As the lightning flashes and the thunder shakes the earth, I just stand in silence letting the cold water wash over me. I become one with the droplets and feel as if though I could flow away with each one and leave my cares behind. For just this moment, I am cut off from the other world in which I live, as I wrap myself in the rain.

On a roughly hewn cross, not necessarily like the one we often see today, a man was put to death for what he believed. He stood against the power structure of the day and spoke a simple truth. He said that there was a better way and a better place not of this world. In such agony, the leaders of the day took great offense and had to silence this man. A crowd gathered to chose a murderer over a man who only spoke of peace and helping your fellow man. So who did we crucify that day anyway?

Rummage through the refuse of what was my life and pull out the remnants of what is left of me. Dust off the fractured human that I am and look for the duct tape that can pull me back together. Find the missing pieces and sort through them. See what is needed to fill in the holes and use emotional putty to fill in those gaps. With time and patients, perhaps I can be made whole again .

The rock that was cast aside has been laid as the corner of the foundation. Rock of ages that changes not, let me build upon thee. Be the strength upon which I stand when the storm does violent rage, give me refuge oh eternal rock, let me set my building sure on thee.

Laying in a bed with machines whirring around and beeping, she is quiet now. Her meals come through a tube 3 times a day and she has forgotten her problems. Each time she would have to face reality, it would hurt too much. Now she just lies here in silence except for the machines that surround her. Every time she went a little further out to the edge and now she may not come back. No one knows for sure what she is feeling, but she doesn't talk about it much. She just lays there and gazes into the ceiling at what ever there is to see. Just how high can you really go, I guess we will just have to wait and see?

Fleet afoot she dances in the grass, lightly touching down. Dressed in golden lace and adorned with hair the color of honey she laughs and leaps, barley leaving a mark on the earth, the sun is her partner embracing her all of the day long. Then as the days light slowly fades, she settles down like a delicate flower; finding her place and folding up her petals, she takes her rest. Waiting on the new day to dawn when she will once again as child of nature frolic spreading joy and laughter again.

Equality must be legislated and religion should stay in church. Doing what feels good can't be wrong. Freedom of speech is all right, as long as no one can dissent. It is my body and my choice. I should be able to love whom or what I like, and consequences should not matter. People who make lots of money need to be better at sharing. If I don't like how you live, then you must accommodate me. Oh how wonderful living in a left of center world must be?

The broken shards of my life lay on the dusty floor. I am not what I used to be. Since you broke my heart, I am left a puzzle with a few pieces missing. So please do not be angry when I have trouble answering you, because I am not sure what I can say. When I fall apart it is hard just to live day to day.

The plumbing is busted and the secrets have been spewed out for all to see. The festering leaks have overloaded the system and now the light of day shines on the truth of what was hidden. No secrets can be kept anymore, not from prying eyes of thieves and those who wish to control everything. To play God, even though the job is taken is the illusion of those who want to be in the know. The trouble that lies within the system, is that we are yet human. Given that fact alone and the  enormity of egos at outing the things that we said we would protect, makes the system failed before it even gets started. So settle down and ride the wave of uncertainty as one thing after another is shown the light of day. Perhaps it is the arrogance that anyone can hold all things in their hands and not let go of even one bit of what they have that has made God jealous and causes him to simply let the dice roll and the chips fall where the may, as the news is out and declared from the house tops that which was hidden in secret places.

The doors are always open and all are welcome here, there is no cost to join, but not everything is free. Come in and we will pray for you, just stop by the collection plate. If you have no money, oh that is ok we don't mind the wait. Credit cards are welcome, we take all kinds of them here, post dated checks will be fine, we are all friends here. We do not pass judgment on you, that is not our place, at least not in public or to your face. So come in and feel at home or at least that is what we will say, until you move on or look the other way.

Crime runs rampant in the streets and our schools are failing, but who is to blame. Corruption festers in the halls of power and we tune it out, but what can we do? The news is distorted and the truth is shaped to fit the narrative of who is telling it, but what is really happening. The whole is crumbling but they say we are rebuilding. Streets are filled with cracks and sidewalks have homeless people sleeping on them, who do we call to fix this. Perhaps if everyone looked in a mirror for longer than the time it takes to comb our hair and put on makeup, then we would see who is really to blame.