Who's Who:

DH (dear hubby); #1D (eldest daughter); #2D (middle child); OS (Only Son - sO sad that DH would not adopt him a brother)

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Cottonwoods Compel

[Tall trio: maybe fastigiate Black Poplar]

Though hard to read
I'd know them anywhere.
Swaying in breeze
They'll always compel prayer.

Wish-capsule back
To the 70's,
trekking in six
Greyhound time machines:

Wyoming emerged.
They were swaying everywhere!
Blowing off wisps
Of airborne white hair.

Their memory seared.
Wyoming endeared.

Sitting in traffic on Sunday,
Trying to ignore
A Rationalizer (http://godspacelb.org/2011/081411.mp3  ...[39:49 - 45:01 *] )
There they were.

Bumped up to the end of
Marber Avenue
All these years
Staring down at you...

Sudden recollection! OS
That morning flew,
Headed for Cottonwood
Longitudes...

Soon to wither under
Lecturing aptitudes...

When the brochure appeared
Twelve years ago,
Pictured cheshire teens
All aglow:

Zip line, challenge race,
Ropes course, hot faced,
Exuberant. His space!
"Send him!" I begged.

Time passed.
Moment came.
He went . . .

It's now lame!
I'm praying.

Holy King.
Give the boy less homework &
More Wyoming.
And let him sing.

Amen.




*( I am sure I heard him tell toxic people to just leave. Either I am hearing things, or someone executed a face saving delete.)



Monday, August 15, 2011

Boy Wonder Wonders

(A boring July4th took shape when Kirk arrived. He'd been firework shopping 'out of state'...)


Praying this week, and next, for man-boy OS who's in a hot bed of apologetical thinking and unapologetical wilderness seeking.

He's in CO at the Summit Ministries "leadership camp."

Whew. What wants to transpire only prayer can acquire. 

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Open Letter to Mumsie, tucked in my Drafts box four years and counting

MY! You looked so youthful and strong yesterday at lunch. I think you ought to take a cruise per month if this is what they do to people!  You were so happy, too. I don't think you've ever smiled so wide as you did when I told you about my volunteer docent fun. Seeing your siblings once a year must feed your soul like Handel feeds Christmas.

As we talked and ate our Porfolio Sams there on Fourth St., ignoring smokers and motorcycle mufflers, boom boxes and dog walkers, it occurred to me to snap a pic with my phone, but...

. . . MOM. You have a mustache.

It's always bothered me a little,  b u  t  ,  -- um, Mumsie? Can we talk? It's gotten really rather... LONG, and outside in the sun, it seems ...darker. I know you've told me to put a lid on my 'God-talk' and "That's enough-- !Stop sending me God-notes in the mail..." you'd say.  But what about hygiene talk?

Can I make facial hygiene an issue?

You are an amazing woman, Mamie. I love you as never before. Your being eighty-four*is a miraculous gift from a God who loves you and healed you after each stroke, after each glitch in your heart meds and each skip in Dad's heart rate before he died on your 53rd anniversary.  All that triumph makes it ever more essential to exalt The Saviour in those little things in life. You love literature and knitting tiny little baby sweaters; you prize fine art, fine music and your Catholic Mass. How, then, can it be so easy to dismiss long, dark, inopportune hair on your upper lip?

So, no, I didn't really want to snap a photo.  When we finally figure out how to PhotoShop those glaring disfigurements, I'll finally freely snap away.

Until then, Mom,

. . . can we talk?

[Saved in drafts until Mom had been gone a year. Before she died, the greatest victory to date occurred the day we were getting ready to go somewhere. She consented to an upper lip hair removal using NADS, a nearly painless wax strip found in any RiteAid or CVS. I was ecstatic. She looked GOOD. Again.]

Friday, August 12, 2011

My Holy Sierra


Holy HOLY holy Lord, God of power and might.

Backpacks off, too high for mosquitos, a moment to rest and savor.
The boys at Silver Pass, CA / John Muir Trail


Implant in us a permanent holy high; not unlike the temporary thrill from conquering the heights of Creation.
 
- -  Amen.

Acts 17:28

New International Version (NIV)
‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’[a] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[b]
  1. From the Cretan philosopher Epimenides
  2. From the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Finally.

Durham Township's K.Connally surfaced.

I didn't worry. 

The pace of summer blogging rivals molasses. There's a quick minute to check what's on DurhamTownship's menu before a brief scan of email, then, whoosh.

Off again. 
No dinner? YES! No dishes!
(- - Well, on the left? Those are the kids'.
And on my side? Scraps for my worms - - )


This ditty, a DT reader comment, goes with Connally's current image:


Cloaked in a suit 
That is incredible,
All in a ploy 
To appear inedible.
Take hope, in this 
I can be firm,
Beauty rises 
From a worm.

- - - Posted by JPH on July 26, 2011 6:43 PM


Curious? 


www.durhamtownship.com




PS: Happy Anniversary, BWM & MMM.

Monday, July 18, 2011

For Lady Gaga

Larry Poland's Master Media prayer calendar owns a sweet spot inside my Bible. It get's misplaced from time to time, but mostly, for now, aiming prayer at the souls of celebrities is a daily obligation; an urgent idea, and I'm grateful to Jacque Granger, Poland and their small staff for calling Americans to their knees to beg God's mercy for the souls and situations of celebrities, and to repent of the mediatrash our nation exports overseas, where our movies 'sell' the (mostly correct) idea that our morally degenerate nation deserves to become a byword (II Kings 17:20).

Prayer for Lady Gaga went up July 13.  When a musician is listed, an old Lucille Ball prayer re-emerges: the day Ball died, I begged God to use her last iconic breath to preach freedom to the unborn... Didn't happen, obviously; but the idea stuck, and I persist in begging God that prominent figures 'out' their pro-life sensitivities without fear of censure.

July 13 was no different. What a wave of refreshment would pour out over silly teenagers world-wide if their champion of counter-cultural everything annoyed NARAL with an in-your-face pronouncement.

Got up off my knees and went straight to a shelf of scrapbooks and old photos.  Inside a filebox, I located the photo I was looking for, taken November, 1996, the day I found out that some cultural icons are more committed to the lie of "safe and legal abortion" than others.

Left: Peter Yarrow imparts blessings on my children.
I didn't know to intervene.
It was among a set of PeterPaul&Mary poses taken at a Debra Bowen fundraiser.  Not that we supported this democrat running for state office. No, Grampa did. He had concert tickets and an inside scoop on the follow-up reception with the famous trio.  When it came my turn to think of something pithy to say while being introduced to Mary Travers,  I prayed a small plea to think of something original. So, I asked her when she and 'the boys' were going to write the definitive pro-life song that would sway all the world to support laws protecting the unborn... "Never," she said. "We don't believe that way...." I said something about voters, and then she threw in, "Well, I hope your kids never learn to vote!" With a jerkflip of her fake blonde hair, she turned to greet the next group.

That, I thought, was not very 'original' of her.

I've decided to tuck that group shot (lower right photo) into my Master Media fold-out for safe keeping / interceding. Travers can dismiss me in '96, but eternity bids.

My "If I Had a Hammer" prayers since then mainly concern Noel Paul Stookey.  I've heard he's one of the good guys, unlike his two hippy songster compatriots. Who knows. He seemed somehow... greater, taller, bigger, nicer (bald & kneeling, top left photo).

LORD Jesus, have mercy on these merry three. Bring them to eye-opening repentance for magic dragon breath that cast a death trance over our generation.  In your HOLY name, I beg.  And lift up the crayoned eyes of Ms. Gaga? Give sight, truth, repentance. Light.

AMEN.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Pants Splayed, America Praised?


July 4th Flowers, spent.
All that's left, a sunbleached tent,
Red, white and blue decor hangs on,
Ice chest gaping, beer all gone.

Coverage of the beaches, next;
Heavy hurt, my old lament:
Teeming, unclad women. Ren't
Of anything that marks good sense.

Nakedness, unmitigated.
Culture dies, free-dominated.
It's that thing they do, because they can; fly open, also ran.
Beneath: Memorialized names to scan.