"My Ears Had Heard of You ..."

(Mark 10:46-52)

We can be found

along life’s road …

disciples who have 'seen',

followers who rebuke,

one of many in a

muttering crowd,

overlooking (or stepping over)

the one,

the beggar

whose only possessions

are faith and hope

and a name

that is covered

with the dust

of his or her days.

A dusty faith whispers,

“My ears have heard of you, O LORD …

my ears have heard of you.”

How many shouts

from the roadside

have been the very cries

heard that day …

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID,

HAVE MERCY ON ME …

SON OF GOD,

HAVE MERCY ON ME!”

A stepped-over hope whispers,

“My ears have heard of you, O LORD..

my ears have heard of you.”

There is no contentment

in hearing alone.

The implications are great

and costly for us all

in the one answered question …

“What would I have you do for me?

I WANT TO SEE!”

And the one

who has answered the question

declares with certainty of sight,

“My ears had heard of you, O LORD,

but now my eyes have seen you!”

He is any one of us

who have now 'seen' ...

those who have new sight

are beggars no more

for there are riches in Love

and great wealth

to be found

in such witness

of ears that had heard

and eyes that now see.

"Privileged and Assured"

This morning, I alone

saw a single leaf

break away

from its branch

and fall 

to the ground.

Among the 

hundreds of 

golds and

reds and

oranges, 

it has found

its place.

The privilege

of it all 

(or the sadness

of it all)

is that

I am

the only one

who knows

where it landed.

And yet,

somewhere 

the  psalmist whispers

in the gentle breeze …

“You know when I sit down 

and when I rise up” …

and I am assured

that the One who

knows me,

knows this leaf

and celebrates all

stages of its

beauty.

"Still, There is Hope"

(Ponderings on Mark 10-17-31)

"My soul is restless until I find rest in Thee." For this reason and because of the life-changing love of Jesus, I have a lot of hope for this rich man found in Mark 10:17-31. I can only hope that he didn't walk away from Jesus forever. I hope that he didn't grow old among his riches and gods. I hope and pray that whatever it was that made him restless in the beginning, kept him restless until he found rest in God alone. There seemed to be a crack in the wall of this rich young man's own kingdom .. a crack that caused a restlessness, a crack that brought him face to face with Jesus and a crack that hopefully allowed the Holy Spirit to work from within his "walls" and hesitancy. So for him (and for so many of us), "Still, There is Hope".


“What must I do?” he asked.
“I am decent and good
and follow God’s commandments.
Tell me, what must I do
to inherit this eternal life
of which you speak?”

The answer was
simple, yet costly.

‘GO.
SELL.
GIVE.
COME.
FOLLOW,”
was the reply.

The man’s face fell
and in sadness
he turned
and walked away.

And yet,
Jesus looked at him
and loved him.

Still,
there is hope …
for this rich man.

And still,
there is hope …
for each of us.

"The Way of HOPE"

I'm afraid that we have watered down HOPE by too often equating it with our wishes.  As a writer I see words as having different dimensions to them.  Wishes are very flat to me as mere words on a piece of paper in wish-list form; words that have no true hope or love behind them.  No change of heart, no change of posture, no promise, no relationship between God and us.  But HOPE ... oh my, HOPE is different!

I am reminded of an old family Polaroid picture that is a favorite of mine.  My younger brother, Steve, when he was a very small child, would always approach my grandmother with cupped hands.  He would stand still before her, cup his little hands together, close his eyes and lower his head.  He stood before her in the hope that she might have a piece of candy or a surprise to place in his hands.  More times than not, she did.  You know how grandmothers are.

But there were times when she had only love to give him and that seemed to be sufficient for the moment.  The picture shows a little boy, with cupped hands, closed eyes, head lowered and a smiling grandmother bent low, trying to look into his face, ready to pour out unimaginable love on my brother.  The beautiful thing about this was that having nothing at that moment to place into Steve's hands was never a deal-breaker.  This little boy continued to love his grandmother and his grandmother continued to love him.  Those days when he hoped for something, yet when his hopes were not immediately realized, did nothing to discourage him from coming before our grandmother in hope again.

Our love for God and God's love for us isn't conditional to each of our hopes placed before God being realized in the way that we want them to be or even revealed to us at all.  But when we discover the way of HOPE, we see love also ... unconditional love flowing between God and a beloved child.

"Knotted by Love"

In November, 1981, my Grandmother Lazenby asked what I wanted for my birthday. I wanted her to teach me tatting, that beautiful fading art of making knotted lace. There had been so many times when I would watch her make beautiful little pieces with a tatting shuttle and white cotton thread. I can still picture her hands as she went about her tatting (my hands are looking more and more like hers as I age). In 1981, Grandmommy was diagnosed with cancer and more than anything, I didn't want her days (nor mine) to slip by without this teaching moment between a grandmother and granddaughter.

That evening, she tried and tried and tried to teach me … to give me the birthday gift of my choosing. I couldn't grasp it. I couldn't figure out the movements or the rhythm with the shuttle to create this special knotted lace. I went home that night in tears, knowing that I would never learn this art from her. I kept working into the wee hours of the morning, with shuttle in hand and tears in my eyes and feeling helpless in so many ways. And then it happened. At 2:30am the next morning, I knotted one little rosette! My one and only piece of tatting but I did it! It was a long and emotional process to get to that point. Perhaps, even more than the desire to learn tatting and even more than the tiny accomplishment itself was the need and the desire to pray and cry out in those early morning hours for my grandmother.

It has been said that you can cut a piece of tatting anywhere, but it won’t ravel. Families are much like tatting. You can cut them and it might make a flaw in the piece, but they won’t unravel because they are knotted by love.

I might have to try my hand at tatting again. I still have her shuttle and thread and now I have her hands (and hopefully, her heart).

"Surely, It Won't Amount to Anything"

There are days when I know that errands will eat up my lunch hour and there won’t be any time that is mine to claim. That is what I thought would happened yesterday. That and nothing more. Going to the bank and filling up my car with gas before the rains arrived was on my lunch agenda.

The gentleman in front of me at the gas pump was elderly. He was someone Norman Rockwell would have immediately noticed. He wore a little cap and his pants were hiked up (or is it hitched up?). His face was slender and wrinkled and his eyes had little expression. His head was down, his shoulders were bent as if carrying a heavy burden and he shuffled when he walked. But then it happened. A most wonderful transformation. He lifted his head and smiled. His eyes began to twinkle. His wrinkled face almost immediately took on a boyish look. He stopped pumping gas and waited - waited until the fire truck pulled up to the diesel pump on the other side of our gas pumps. He waited until the fireman jumped out of the truck and he shouted, “I LOVE FIRE TRUCKS! I ALWAYS HAVE! I LOVE FIRE TRUCKS!” The fireman walked to him and asked, “Would you like to take a look at her?”

It was as if, at that very moment, the elderly man remembered how he felt when Santa Claus placed in his hands his first toy fire truck. I was overjoyed for the man to the point of tears.

(And I thought my lunch hour wouldn't amount to anything. Ha!)