War


I heard a history teacher once say that what made Alexander the Great so great was his giftedness as a strategist. I have spent the summer reading about the Wars of this world in the last two hundred years. I guess one would call them the “big” wars of America mostly. “Theaters of Battles” strike me as a strange label for the carnage, heartache, slaughter, and courage of millions of human beings…I am an educated woman and I can see there were “attempts” at strategy in these wars but the end result is the one who kept killing the enemy with the best weapons,and the side with the most food and supplies until the land in question was overtaken was the victor.
Besides reading I have watched documentaries and movies that portray man’s capacity for destruction as well as man’s capacity for hope. I have been astounded and really left speechless but mostly humbled by the unspeakable cost for my freedom to live, worship, and love as I please. Oh my audacity to think anything is for free! Words of thanks seem trite. Pockets of grief for those who lived and died through these wars stir deep within my soul…the pillaging, the rapes, the slit throats, the barbaric torture, the starvation, the rivers and seas of spilt blood, and the endless mountains of bodies left in war’s wake is more than I can attain.

I wonder if war began when Cain killed Abel? It seems that since that murder man has been at war with each other. I hear some say that war can never be the right thing to do but then others, as well as I, say some things are worth fighting and dying for…

I will repeat the well worn adage, "getting old is not for sissies" HOWEVER...

I have had glasses since I was in the third grade. I wear them for distance...that distance gets closer and closer but somehow I have been spared at the age of 58 needing reading glasses as well as glasses for near-sightedness. Anyway, as I sit here typing I realize I am tilting my head up a little to read...OH man...not bifocals too! Oh well let me tell you the trade off for aging is worth it. While my eyes may grow dimmer my sight has never been more clear and crystal! I see that the truth is what truly sets people free. I have seen it with my own eyes. I am an eyewitness to what seems to be a problem for all humanity. Many people believe the struggles in this life are regarding power. The power between good and evil. The power between money and poverty. The power between black and white. The power between weak and strong. This is not so. The issue is and always has been about truth. It is the truth that a three year old can see. It is the truth that a young woman kidnapped from her family into torture can see. It is the truth that a brand new mother can see and know and hear in her newborn baby girl's voice. It is the truth that a soldier will see on the battlefield or the sweet black slave see even though she is weary and worn. It is the truth that somewhere someone is cold. It is the truth that somewhere while you are young and strong someone just as valuable is weak and old. It is truth that money cannot buy you love and that the vast wealth that this world loves is nothing but empty wood, hay, and stubble.
Oh yes, I see this all clearer than I use too. I am much more keen and aware that everything is not what it seems and these moments of pearls I have strung together and called my life must be based on, redeemed by, and sanctified by Truth. So, getting old may be hard in the physical realm but in the spiritual realm it is new life and new vision everyday. It is running to the Truth...
John 8:31

A Letter to the Church

A Letter to the Church

I beg you friend, do not contrive for me
yet another design of how to be…
Holy

When I do wrong and am severed from
His Joy
Your penal guilt cannot restore…
my wounded soul.

My God is full of light and grace
His eyes see where my failures…
Lie

Do not promote for me more alters
that do not lead to…
Transformation

Dilute not His New Wine
with the dredges of obligation
It is His very own mystery that eradicates
My guilt

The only righteous judgment is in the blood
He spilt...
Jesus saves me

Jill Autrey Dorman

I have always known that my enemy is more of a coward than I but then I am less of a hero than he.

I have always known that my enemy is more of a coward than I but then I am less of a hero than he. It is a high and narrow wall and one misstep and I go tumbling into the putrid abyss of bitterness and hatred. So who is the coward? The one who will not walk on the wall or the one who falls into the stench of hate and ungforgiveness thus learning in that stench to love and forgive? I think the latter.

A PK's Journel

If I had to say what were one or two of the most loved memories I have about being a southern preacher's daughter I would say foremost I loved and still cherish being the "apple of his eye." His only daughter, not in a princess-y way at all but just a light in his eye, a sparkle, an honor in his life that I did not deserve nor earn. Never once was there any hint or lack of favor toward me. One learns young in a "fish bowl" that people will believe what they choose and they will misunderstand a man and his heart and they will take it out on him and his family but they can never touch the "apple of his eye". The second treasure I carry with me as a southern preacher's daughter is the peace and stillness of the iconic "Sunday afternoon Nap." We didn't really have to go to sleep at all but it was a private safe haven when the world stopped turning and my two brothers, my beautiful mother, my dad, and I all took off our Sunday outfits and each lay between our washed cotton bedsheets and rested our heads on sweet southern smelling pillows and Rested. It was a Sabbath Rest that I did not yet understand at an early age. It was a sturdy parson's home and all was right with the world. I never knew what lie ahead for us nor that life would not always taste as sweet as those Sunday afternoons. I didn't know yet that daddy couldn't fix everything and that my sweet, sweet brothers weren't men yet. I didn't know that my mother's southern beauty hid pain that I had not yet heard of and had no inkling of the hard things that were expected of her. I memorized each one of them and I tasted the ripened rays of childhood and it has stayed on my tongue forever! I love them.

Seconds' post dawn...

It is early in the morning a few seconds post dawn. The melted butterscotch sky is streaked with baby blue and left over indigo. A nice squall blew up last night and the sand has no footprints in it. I cross the dunes: they are pregnant with sea oats. The oats sway so charmingly in the breeze and quietly support the island. As I come over the last dune I see something amazing. The biggest cat paw prints I've ever seen. I fit both of my feet and both hands into one paw print. After sixty seconds of sheer panic attack I think about turning and running but then I see him. Out of the corner of my eye I see movement: it is a quiet movement, like a ballet dancer. His mane reminds me of thick gold honey. His eyes command and pierce my heart. I am petrified. I cannot catch my breath. He is possibly eight or nine feet long, not counting his tail.
Somehow I feel he bids me, "come." I gently inch forward in awe and reverent fear. This lion could kill me with one swipe of his paw. I know somehow that he will not. After what seems to me like eons the lion waves his head up and down sending his mane like halo around him just like you would imagine it would. His unspoken message seems to be for me to come even closer so I do. His fur is rich like silk. I can feel the drum of his heartbeat. He lies down extending one pan and then another. I feel like he want me to get on his back. I have always wanted to do this (I am a big fan of the Chronicles of Narnia and Aslan). I have no doubt in my mind that this must be him. This is my time.
The sun has risen in the sky toward mid-morning. The cool breeze from day break in now warm. I walk back to my little cottage feeling rested and sated although I have not slept nor eaten. Everything I see is pristine. Just as I reach the sand dunes the earth quakes as if a terrifying lion has released his loud roar...I cannot help but smile.

It Might Be Better Left Unsaid (but that’s not how we do it around here)

Pages of snapshots in my dreams
I reflect on all the wonders I've seen.
Pulling off I-45 into Houston's city lights
I consider all the miles I've been.
And I'm glad to be here tonight.

I will always know
I can always see
You're still here
And you think of me

Sims Bayou fields is where I played
I went to church and studied life's game
I had to go without regret
I lived and loved and lost some bets
But that South Texas wind sings me home again.

It all might be better left unsaid
But that’s not how we do it around here
Those Houston city lights shine bright up ahead
And everything seems so clear.


sjad