Sunday, March 27, 2005

Living the New Life

Collosians 3: 1-10 (NLT)
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. God's terrible anger will come upon those who do such things. You used to do them when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don't lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old evil nature and all its wicked deeds. In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more aboutChrist, who created this new nature within you.

Easter morn reflected

Life can seem an endless routine of basic tasks: sleep, wake, shower, eat, work, eat, sleep.

Do less of whatever brings only false satisfaction, such as television, alcohol & other drugs.

Do more of whatever brings you true satisfaction, whether it be gardening, singing, playing with your child, walking with your spouse, or other actsof worship.

Let me know how it turns out.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Mud season

Sunny mornings
follow crisp nights.
Temperatures slowly climb.
Snow melts,
sap starts running,
nowa steady drip drip
like quiet steel drums.
Red squirrels & nuthatches
chase rivals through the branches.
Soon the woodcock
will fill the twilight
with its eerie call.
It is mud season in the Adirondacks
and life does not get
any better than this.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Life & Time & Everything

Life,
flows like sawdust,
sinking petrified into the couch.
Time,
streaks like a comet,
frostbitten tail here to infinity.
Everything,
godawful nothing
while life flows & time streaks.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Up early

Up early, again.
Bruiser, ever vigilant,
lies at the end of the hallway,
where he can keep his eyes on his family,
in true sheepdog fashion.


He is not what most people picture as a sheepdog, large & shaggy.
Bruiser is a Belgian sheepdog - longish black fur, with flags of long fur streaming from the backs of his legs and from his tail, an almost imperceceptable blaze of white on his chest, his muzzle frosted white with age.

A good, well-behaved, deeply loving & devoted dog, Bruiser spent his youth herding my two young children while they played in the yard. Running in great, wide circles and then plopping down, head forward & down between his outstretched front legs, Bruiser would lay - alert eyes, one ear erect, one ear drooping - only to tear off again if one of his little flock threatened to leave its invisible circle.

Now he lies curled up on the couch with me while I read,
his head tucked against my foot,
breathing softly,
at rest, at peace.

4 AM and all is well with his flock.

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Germ

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than a pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep inside the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.
-Ogden Nash-

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Midnight, Adirondack style

Pale thin moonlight
casts a silver glow.
Forest's bare shadows
in grey repose.

A legion of stars,
crystals hung low
over undulate horizon
peaks reflective with snow

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Science & the Human Mind

". . . two special gifts that science provides.


The First Gift: Science gives us the capacity to infer the existence of things we cannot see directly through the systematic observation of what we can see. Again, gravity is a prime example.

The Second Gift: Science gives us the capacity to evaluate alternative interpretations of a given observation.

These two gifts from science enable us to cherish all the more our capacity to have personal experiences. Science enables us to go beyond our personal experiences (the first gift) as well as help us interpret all of it, both the visible and the invisible (the second gift).

Though science is clearly very powerful, it is only as powerful as the human mind that brings it into being. And the potential power of the human mind is vast."

from The Afterlife Experiments: Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life after Death by Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D. with William L. Simon

Monday, March 14, 2005

Up early

Up early, again.
Bruiser, ever vigilant,
lies at the end of the hallway,
where he can keep his eyes on his family,
in true sheepdog fashion.
He is not what most people picture as a sheepdog, large & shaggy.
Bruiser is a Belgian sheepdog - longish black fur, with flags of long fur streaming from the backs of his legs and from his tail,
an almost imperceceptable blaze of white on his chest,
his muzzle frosted white with age.
A good, well-behaved, deeply loving & devoted dog,
Bruiser spent his youth herding my two young children while they played in the yard.
Running in great, wide circles and then plopping down, head forward & down between his outstretched front legs, Bruiser would lay - alert eyes, one ear erect, one ear drooping - only to tear off again if one of his little flock threatened to leave its invisible circle.
Now he lies curled up on the couch with me while I read,
his head tucked against my foot,
breathing softly,
at rest, at peace.
4 AM and all is well with his flock.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Dale in my Dreams • an ode to Dale Robinette •

I saw Dale in my dreams last night.
Our eyes locked and time stood null.
Her eyes, her hair, freckled cheeks.
Her lips, ever chapped, yet kissably full.
The tilt of her head as she smiles at me,
hand on thrusted hip in amazement.
She in a white smock of medical fashion,
and looking so alive, of years well-spent;
All the better, perhaps, that I was not in them.
Lucky in life to be not dashed on the jagged
rocks of my soul that had torn others' ragged.
Her fine freckled cheeks flying cheerful in the sun,
shading my eyes, my head heavily hung,
And gone, it was over, quick as begun.

I could go on,
and lovingly describe each intimate detail,
the freckle on her upper lip,
the way she stood one hand on hip,
the huskiness of her voice when awakened at sunrise.

I loved Dale as best I could,
with passion, tenderness, heart-wrenching emotion.
But love,at sixteen, is narrow if deep, shallow if wide,
reckless, unforgiving.
I love Dale yet, and deep in my heart
is the desire to make things right
between me and Dale in my dreams.

3/01/05, 3am

Sunday, March 06, 2005

bright sunrise

Things are looking up
It's a bright sunrise
A new day dawns
Got sparkles in my eyes

Icy frost melts
off barn and bough
A new day dawns
and I feel good now.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Love, hope, beauty

Love is the food of life,
hope its spirituality,
beauty its reward to the seeing eye.

A Colorado High Plains Autumn

NATURE was prodigal with her colors that autumn. The frosts came late, so that the leaves did not gradually change their green. One day, as if by magic, there was gold among the green, and in another there was purple and red. Then the hilltops blazed with their crowns of aspen groves; and the slopes of sage shone mellow gray in the sunlight; and the vines on the stone fences straggled away in lines of bronze; and the patches of ferns under the cliffs faded fast; and the great rock slides and black-timbered reaches stood out in their somber shades.

Columbines bloomed in allthe dells among the spruces, beautiful stalks with heavy blossoms, the sweetest and palest of blue-white flowers. Motionless they lifted their faces to the light. Out in the aspen groves, where the grass as turning gold, the columbines blew gracefully in the wind,nodding and swaying. The most exquisite and finest of these columbines hid in the shaded nooks, star-sweet in the silent gloom of the woods.

[The Mysterious Rider by Zane Grey]

Thursday, March 03, 2005

The passing of seasons

Mounting once more, he ascended to the rim and found a slope leading down to the west. Over the basin country below he had hunted several days. This way back to the ranch was longer, he calculated, but less arduous for man and beast. His pack-horse would have hard enough going in any event. From time to time Wade halted to rest the burdened pack-animal. At length he came to a trail he had himself made, which he now proceeded to follow. It led out of the basin, through burned and boggy ground and down upon the forest slope, thence to the grassy and aspened uplands. One aspen grove, where he had rested before, faced the west, and, for reasons hard to guess, had suffered little from frost. All the leaves wee intact, some still green, but most of them a glorious gold against the blue. It was a large grove, sloping gently, carpeted with yellow grass and such a profusion of purple asters as Wade had never seen in his flower-loving life. Here he dismounted and sat against an aspen-tree. His horses ruthlessly cropped thepurple blossoms.

Nature in her strong prodigality had outdone herself here. Pale white the aspen-trees shone, and above was the fluttering, quivering canopy of gold tinged with green, and below clustered the asters, thick as stars in the sky, waving, nodding, swaying gracefully to each little autumn breeze, lilac-hued and lavender and pale violet, and all the shades of exquisitepurple.

Wade lingered, his senses predominating. This was one of those moments that colored his lonely wanderings. Only to see was enough. He would have shut out the encroaching thoughts of self, of others, of life, had that been wholly possible. But here, after the first few moments of exquisite riot of his senses, where fragrance of grass and blossom filled the air, and blaze of gold canopied the purple, he began to think how beautiful the earth was, how Nature hid her rarest gifts for those who loved her most, how good it was to live, if only for those blessings. And sadness crept into his meditations because all this beauty was ephemeral, all the gold would soon be gone, and the asters, so pale and pure and purple, would soon be likethe glory of a dream that had passed.

Yet still followed the saving thought that frost and winter must again yield to sun, and spring, summer, autumn would return with the flowers of their season, in that perennial birth so gracious and promising. The aspen leaves would quiver and slowly gild, the grass would wave in the wind, the asters would bloom, lifting star-pale faces to the sky. Next autumn, and every year, and forever, as long as the sun warmed the earth! It was onlyman who would not always return to the haunts he loved.

[The Mysterious Rider - Zane Grey]

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Send for the harpist!

Now the Spirit of the LORD had left Saul, and the LORD sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear. Some of Saul's servants suggested a remedy. "It is clear that a spirit from God is tormenting you," they said. "Let us find a good musician to play the harp for you whenever the tormenting spirit is bothering you. The harpmusic will quiet you, and you will soon be well again."


1 Samual 16:14-16 (NLT)