all some of the time
AN AGNOSTIC IS SOMEBODY who doesn’t know for sure whether there really is a God. That is some people all of the time and all people some of the time.
There are some agnostics who don’t know simply because they’ve never taken pains to try to find out—like the bear who didn’t know what was on the other side of the mountain.
There are other agnostics who have taken many pains. They have climbed over the mountain, and what do you think they saw? Only the other side of the mountain. At least that was all they could be sure of. That faint glimmer on the far horizon could have been just Disneyland.
Frederick Buechner
– Originally published in Wishful Thinking
A FABRIC
I will fail you
And you will fail me.
Its inevitable.
Strains are necessary
in the fabric
of love’s covering.
A baby in the womb
lengthens its limbs
and curls its fist,
in preparation for life’s journeying.
Tears appear
not because we’ve failed,
to steel our love against tests.
But because
love is strong enough
to stretch,
to allow failure and hurt
to raise its voice
and then repent.
To tend to wounds uncovered.
The fabric of love
in truth
is not something that’s never been torn.
But rather
something that’s gained its beauty and strength
from its reinforcements.
Its tears repaired
again and again,
until goodwill’s
restored.
Love’s a patchwork quilt
of remembrance
that can raise when needed.
To catch the undercurrents
and to provide
a platform for uplift.
For us all to rise
and catch our breaths,
to then gain the distance needed,
to value our attachments.
To recognise the strength
of love’s encompassment,
a fabric that bears any strain.
That covers the wounds we
impart in our
selfishness.
That measures us
again and again
not by how we fall
but how we rise once again.
A quilt of a thousand uses
and counting.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2018
Photo by Bailey Zindel on Unsplash
‘Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.’
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
a long time ago someone said to me,
“I don’t want your God.”
and I could understand their pain…the loss was too much.
But, the thing was, it wasn’t their loss, it was mine
And it was sacred, it still is.
their projection of God didn’t change my journey
because I had my own path to walk
but I saw a battle that began that day
that froze that person
their journey…still afraid that God will bring more than they can bear…
You can’t package God
any more than you can choose the conversation that
awakens the wound…
but,
having given up believing in fear helps,
just as much as knowing that the God of love
heals and transforms the heart…
for all those suffering this night…
I wish you the constant compassion that you need to heal
and for you to have believers who will hold you at just the right moments so that you can breathe…
so you won’t freeze…
your lungs will remember there is beautiful life
waiting for you
so don’t hold your breath too long…
it is ” breathe in…I am known by the God of Love…
breathe out…I am known by the beat of my heart . ”
Beauty,
Rev. Donna Knutson
life: acoustic & amplified 