Author Archives: Patricia Ann

Shadows in the Wind

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I love love; not necessarily just romantic love, but love of all kinds. I love babies, animals, friends, family. I love sunshine, moonlight, stars, trees, flowers. I love oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. I love singing, dancing, laughing, writing, daydreaming, night-dreaming, holding hands, hugging, being happy and seeing others happy. I love God and how he spent so much time talking about love in his Book of Books. Love is the most written about topic in the Bible, and the greatest commandment of all time is “Love one another!”

I’m going to share another of my poems here, and what’s it about? Love of course.

SHADOWS IN THE WIND

Perfect love is fulfillment

in perpetual motion,

seeing with the heart’s eye

that which the mind cannot grasp,

acknowledging the human need

for closeness under all conditions,

realizing that aloofness is a

suit of armor worn by those

who fear perfect love

is beyond their realm,

understanding the merest

reaching out of a heart’s desire,

passion and compassion hand in hand,

longing and belonging heart to heart.

Will it ever be reality

or are we pursuing shadows in the wind?

©1982

Will it ever be reality? I’d love to think so.

 

The Face

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In 1990, our then Pastor gave a sermon depicting the many faces of Christ. It was very interesting, and gave us another way of looking at Jesus. The lady sitting beside me gave me an elbow poke and whispered, “You could write a poem about this.” I am quite susceptible to the power of suggestion when it comes to writing anything and immediately thought, hmmm, I wonder…

And so, I came home, sat down with pen and paper and came up with this:

THE FACE

Evil, cruel, hardened,

set in grimaced scorn.

Flattened nose,

upslanted eyes,

with pointed ears was born.

Hollowed cheeks,

haunted eyes,

disease its toll has taken.

Wasted skin, hungered, thin,

in poverty, forsaken.

Criminal,

Down Syndrome child,

Aids victim,

Poor man’s tryst,

Look!

And then, please look again…

and see the face of Christ.

©1990

I gave a copy to the lady who poked me, and said, “Here you go, Christine, this is for you.” She took one look at the first few words and said, “Oh, I don’t want to read this!” But she did, and I do believe still has the poem in her possession all these years later.

As for me, that sermon and ensuing poem gave me the eyes to see all of God’s people in a whole new Face.

 

What Would You Do?

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You are having a dinner party. You have invited friends, family, acquaintances; and you have invited Jesus as the guest of honor.

Well, upon hearing this, many of the guests begin making their regrets. A party of fifty-odd is now whittled down to a mere half dozen or so people. My question is this.

Do you say, “I’m sorry, Jesus, there are some people who don’t know you, or understand you, or where you are coming from, and I can’t afford to ruffle their feathers–would you mind taking a rain check?”

Or do you graciously accept the sudden declines, and enjoy the company of your Guest of Honor, along with those who are delighted to accept the invitation because He is the guest of honor?

I would enjoy the dinner party if Jesus was the only guest!

What would you do?

What Would You Think?

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Because I have unstable angina, and a very caring physician, on June 24th I wore a heart monitor for twenty-four hours, to detect any abnormalities.

On July 6th I suffered a broken heart. Not a heart attack…a broken heart…almost as painful, but in a different way.

My question is, would the monitor have picked up on what my heart was going through that day had I  been wearing it at that time?

I think, perhaps it would have, because hearts are not meant to be broken, and therefore constitute an abnormality.

What would you think?

P.S. Is my heart still broken? No. Thanks to the Great Physician, Himself.

 

What Would You Say?

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This will be a series of short posts tying in with everyday life.

A guest Pastor at our church, on Sunday, asked this interesting question. He was relating the story of how blind Bartimaeus received his sight in Mark 10:46.

Rev. Livingstone then asked us this question, “If Jesus asked you ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (verse 51), what would your answer be?”

A question well worth pondering, would you say?

My immediate answer was, “Please heal my friend of her cancer.”

What would you say?

 

The Bible on Poetry

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Happiness is finding something to post at the last minute. Browsing through my poetry file I came across this 2012 poem, and thought it would be nice for a Sunday post.

THE BIBLE ON POETRY

The Bible is a book of books,

Sixty-six in all,

Filled with fascinating facts

To inspire, repel and awe.

“He who is pregnant with evil

And conceives trouble

Gives birth to disillusionment.”*

This Psalm is quite poetic

As is Solomon’s Song of Songs.

Job is a book on patience;

Love fills the Book of John.

Does the Bible wax poetic?

Yes, I’ve really come to know it

That God Himself, the Author,

Is the Master Poet!

*Psalm 7:14

©2012

Enjoy your Sunday, it is the day the Lord has made…rejoice and be glad!

 

 

 

 

The Train of Thought

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about thinking lately. There was a time in my life when a marriage counsellor told me, “You think too much.” What the heck was that supposed to mean? I didn’t give it too much thought at the time, but every once in awhile that comment comes to mind and I think to myself, “What was he thinking?”

Thinking takes on many forms: creative thinking, wishful thinking, positive thinking, negative thinking, thinking through it (whatever the “it” may be) thinking out loud, putting the thinking cap on…and so on…you get it, right? Well, now that I think about it, away back in 1994 I was thinking about thinking and came up with the following poem:

THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT

The train of thought

raced through my mind

traveling at top speed

down memory lane,

through rough terrain,

steep mountainous land,

wide gorges spanned,

irregular track,

through tunnels black,

by pastures green,

valleys,

still waters bridged,

meadows,

slowing,

slowing,

slowing,

slowly coming to a stop,

the train of thought.

©1994

The greatest transportation system in our world can be our train of thought. I don’t exactly remember where that thought came from but it seems pretty accurate to me.

And then there’s this from Philippians 4:8 “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”

 

 

Missing the Mark

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Today, I want to talk about sin. I’ve always thought of sin as, you know–lying, stealing, cheating, being mean to people, being greedy, etc. You get the picture. But then I heard that sin actually means “missing the mark”. Now, I’ve heard that said, or written about, on a few occasions, but I read it again yesterday, and it hit me between the eyes! It actually sank in!

The writer explained that “missing the mark” actually means not living life as God intended us to live it, which includes all those other things I mentioned, plus even more. That got me to thinking about how we all came to this planet with God’s plan for us implanted like a GPS. But I think He must have forgotten how fallible we humans are, and how we so easily get distracted, and led off the path.

But that’s okay. As long as we find our way back onto it. I remember a faulty GPS taking my daughter, Lynn, and me on a roundabout trip in Wales, instead of the direct route we needed. Because of that little blip, we got to see the rural side of the country, which I had only seen in movies, and I loved it. We finally reconnected with our intended direction, arrived at our destination none the less for wear, and within a reasonable time frame. That is precisely what we are expected to do on our life journey. God didn’t say it would be easy, he said, “Just do it. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Now, I know some people out there are reading this (maybe only becauses it’s me writing it) and saying they didn’t come here through God’s plan, they got here through an ape, or monkey, or gorilla or some other kind of creature that they evolved from. And I got to thinking about that, too.

I’m thinking that it’s great to be here as God’s representative, because I get to think with the brain He gave me. Otherwise I would have inherited the brain of one of those creatures previously mentioned.

And that would be a sin!

 

 

 

My Heart Soars

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Today, I’m going to again borrow from my “poetry post” for something to blog about. Yesterday, I had the privilege of picking my two youngest grandsons up from their baseball camp. They are now twelve and ten years old and a delight to be with. The twelve-year-old no longer holds my hand and is taller than I by a few inches, and his dimpled brother still has those remarkable dimples. This is what I wrote when they were three and one.

MY HEART SOARS

My heart soars with the flight of birds,

winging their way to the rising sun,

the sight of its glow on their wings.

My heart soars with the song of the cardinal

gently penetrating the remains of my night’s sleep

and the answering call of his mate.

My heart soars with the rustle of leaves

dancing to the beat of a summer breeze

and the fragrance that fills the air.

My heart soars with the insistent tug

of my little grandson’s hand in mine

and the dimpled smile of his brother.

My heart soars with the promise of a new day

waiting to unfold its miracles,

showing me the miracle that is my life.

©2005

I chose today to rewrite this poem because my heart still soars to all these things. Each new day of life is still a miracle, and God is still in his Heaven. Even if things are not all right in the world, today they are all right in mine.

Rags to Riches

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Tony Bennet’s 1953 hit, “Rags to Riches” has been resounding in my mind all morning, and made me realize that it is not only a pauper to prince, magical, monetary makeover, but a spiritual one as well; not a romantic romance about to make poor old Tony feel like a king.

No, when I thought about the implications of rags to riches, it reminded me of those of us who suffer from spiritual poverty; of not knowing the meaning of real love. I mean REAL love. The kind of love that 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 talks about, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Ah, but it sometimes does. Sometimes our love is not always patient or kind. Sometimes our love does envy and is even rude. Sometimes it is self-seeking and easily angered. And it definitely sometimes keeps records of wrongs. Yes, sometimes love fails.

And that is the poverty part.  We are never so poor as when we withdraw our love from our spiritual bank account and leave it with a next to zero balance. Oh, sure, there’s enough left to cover the love necessities, but the surplus can definitely be withdrawn. So we think. But life doesn’t work that way. If we want to keep our spiritual self healthy, which is necessary to keep the rest of life in balance, then we must replace the love that has been withdrawn. It may be difficult to do. It may take looking within to replace that withdrawal. It may take a radical act of courage to put back what was taken out. But if we want our lives to reflect “Rags to Riches” and not vice versa, then why don’t we go ahead and make a healthy re-deposit of love?

Why don’t we all sing that “Rags to Riches song?

“I know I’d go from rags to riches, if you would only say you care…”

(Apologies to all the “youngsters” out there…I’m reaching way back!)