waiting

waiting here

a wave of grief
crashes over me

again

unexpected
uninvited
unrelenting

being mindful
being prayerful

to stop

sadness short of despair
longing short of envy
hurting short of bitterness
confusion short of hopelessness

wearies                                                                    

broken-hearted     
bruised and beaten
worn and weary                                                  

sitting here
at Your feet
where else shall i go
for Life

by anna lenardson

1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
       How long will you hide your face from me?

 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
       and every day have sorrow in my heart?
       How long will my enemy triumph over me?

 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
       Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

 4 my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
       and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

 5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
       my heart rejoices in your salvation.

 6 I will sing to the LORD,
       for he has been good to me.
                                                   Psalm 13

 

Life: Serendipity

When my girls were 3 and 5, long before either of them was reading, they came up with this serendipity using magnetic poetry tiles.

Today, I was reading in Psalm 36:

9 For with you is the fountain of life;
       in your light we see light.

And I don’t know about you, but on this end of 
                                                                                things big light is still the wish.

For more thoughts on life see:
Life
Life: the power of labels

 

Fat Tuesday

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.  I, along with 7 other writers of various denominations and liturgical backgrounds, am writing at Lent 2008.  Please visit us there and leave your comments, suggestions, questions and observations.

 

Why Google Reader isn’t a very Zen Habit

So, about a year ago I’d never read a blog in my life.  Then my friend Jon suggested I start one to clarify my thoughts and hone my writing skills.  And that was great.

I started reading Jon’s blog and that led me to Rick’s, Laurie’s and Amy’s.  But, every now and then, one of them would link to someone like Liz or Joanna or Chris and DeAnn.

Pretty soon I was regularly reading 15 or 20 blogs and checking them every day.  Then, I found out about feed readers.  O man, it was great.  I just plugged in the url and whenever someone updated, it went into my feed reader and I never missed a single one of the copious thoughts that poured out of the brains of these oh so clever, insightful and witty persons and onto the screen.

Well … you know what happened, right?  A couple of my 15 friends connected me with a few more. And one thing led to another and pretty soon I had 593 unread items in my feed reader.  At which point I twittered: No time for google reader. Is it funny or just sad that I have 47 unread items in “unclutterer”?

And don’t even get me started on Twitter.

Oh, and go visit Zen Habits.  It’s a great blog.

 

Why I Believe (II)

 . . . in a Creator

                                                                                   that just happened?

 

The Bridge

i’m a bridge
i’m a vessel
i’m a channel
i am free

the Wind blows through me
reaching forward
reaching outward
i am free

i’m a bridge

by anna lenardson

 

Life: The Power of Labels

Labels give you the incentive to stretch to what you could be . . .

                                                               . . . or the excuse to remain less than who you are.

 

Hope 101: Obama, King and Hope

Yesterday, Barack Obama gave a speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr’s church.  He talked about hope and how it has characterized his life thus far.  Among other things he mentioned that he wasn’t born to wealth or privilege, but that he was given love, an education and some hope.

He goes on to say that his hope is not blind optimism or ignorance of the barriers and hindrances that stand in ones way, but, in fact, just the opposite.

“Nothing in this country worthwhile has ever happened except somebody, somewhere decided to hope . . . that’s how this country was founded . . . that’s how slaves and abolitionists resisted that evil system . . . that’s how the greatest generation defeated fascism . . . that’s how women won the vote . . . that’s what hope is, imagining and then fighting for and struggling for and sometimes dying for what didn’t seem possible before.  There’s nothing naive about that.  There are no false hopes in that.

Imagine if John F. Kennedy had looked up at the moon and said, “That’s too far - false hopes - we can’t go there”

If Dr. King had stood on the Lincoln Memorial and said, “Ya’ll go home - we can’t overcome.”

… change doesn’t happen from the top down . . . but from the bottom up.  It happens because ordinary people dream extraordinary things . . .”

While I’m not ready yet to take a stand on Obama’s politics, he does have my attention.  And I was moved by the power not only of his words and ideals, but by the stirrings of hope in my spirit.

Here’s what I’m hoping for the future; me, one ordinary person who is willing to live out my hopes in order to make an attempt to leave the world a little better than I found it.

• I’m hoping that those who claim the name of Christ can learn to be like him in the small and beautiful ways that characterized His walk on this earth, that we will begin to love our neighbors as ourselves, that we will fight injustice and inequality and poverty because what hurts our neighbor hurts us.
• I’m hoping that we will learn how to respect the earth and be willing to pay whatever price is necessary for a healthier environment for our children.
• I’m hoping that we will learn how to fight injustice without violence and that we will learn how to live side by side with those who are different from us, that we will begin to understand that we are all in this together, and that we will realize it is not just our own children that we fight for, but the children of the world, who are closer to us than we imagine.
• I’m hoping for peace on earth and good will toward men.

For further thoughts on hope, go here:
Hope 101: Believe it or Not
Hope 101: not disappointed again

 

Why I believe . . .

. . . in a Creator

                                            adult teeth that push out baby teeth

 

Life

Life is a journey away from, then back toward, oneself.