Month: January 2023

Addendum

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I posted a piece with a verse about allegations and a co-teacher. I’m regretting my choice of scenario because this raised questions about my co-teachers and I feel utterly terrible to have cast a shadow of a doubt on the people I work with. I’m sorry. These things happen, but I am not in turbulent waters in the midst of it as it may have sounded. December, yes, was a surreal ride as I wondered if my body was cracking on me, but my life has taken a turn of snowy ease and bookish pleasure recently. And each day is a new gift of health and wellness.

I will add two thoughts and stop. God bless the brave warriors who are walking through deep waters. I pray redemption and wholeness for troubled tangled souls.

The end.

I Am

I asked God for a picture the other day, and He said, ‘Here, have a poem.’

I Am

In a world that ebbs and flows

like watercolor pastels

I Am.

When the snow turns to rain

and the rain to ice

I Am.

When the phone call from ocology

shatters your calm on the couch

I Am.

When allegations quit your co-teacher

wrench your right arm out of socket

I Am.

Should the Mississippi convert course

converge on Minnesota or

the San Francisco Bay invert

I Am.

I have been, I will be,

I Am.

In Memoriam

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.