It seeps out like new petals, like the spread of new colour. Laughter tinges Its Stem. I sulk in the shadows, refusing to let go of the dark, it was my safe place but now Joy begins to bud! I believe that I cannot believe: whoa….the greatest war on the human spirit divides me right here : this firm insistence on the denial of the Touch of the Healer.
The room trembles with Peace, the mind of me reverts to memories of illness. God has never not walked right into my broken heart, He has never once left me alone. I have been touched over and over by the Hand of God and yet how deep is shallowness of the human, that I would resort to past sickrooms rather than remember the million miracles that are my itinerary.
As a new day begins I’ve never been as summoned by God as now. It doesn’t feel normal. It doesn’t feel safe. Hehe. My inner being revolts with the five senses. You know there are more than five. The sixth and seventh and nth sense are summed in Words we sniff at like wines tasters and net browsers: there’s Faith and Hope and Love. The greatest of these is Love:
not the transient self absorbed love that feeds need, but the Love of God that can walk right into a human room and lift the roof off with His Presence. The roof off our fire escapes and others. I’m grinning at the visual of that, as a new emotion unfurls. Faith is a substance. A fact. Not an invisibility. It bears root and stem and blossoms…
hey. Have a blessed day
Innerdialects.
(Also do check out Jon Bloom ‘s Article on Belief; found his website yesterday, am so grateful for the read).
Holding hands together, palms warm with praying, the way children do- urgent, necessary quick, like they truly believe. Chocolates are needed now, or Pa needs his leg repaired, or a bicycle needs a new bell. Or it shouldn’t rain at noon today, or we need a puppy. Now. A child persists, he believes, he sees it happening and will not leave. He tugs sleeve, he makes a mess with tears and lip, he may even bruise his toe reaching for the answer. Holding hands with You the way….
PiCourtesy Kaushiki Choudary
**”
… a child prays, asking Love, Joy, Peace, asking that Humanity finds You;
asking that wounds become a healing place and death lose its proverbial sting, in the fact of Your Face my God my God.
Asking like children do, I hold Your Hand, the One nailed at the Cross. I ask if I may- healing for Peta’s daughter and job for Diran, for hospitals and govts to work well and for me to never stop holding Your Hand even after my shopping list is done, esp after that.
Negatives stem from disbelief at the State of Peace. And their reason comes from a space so deeply ingrained in us, it takes a super normal event for some of us to believe in the Impossible.
🌿🍂☘️🍁
I’ve always been fascinated by leaves : fat leaves, thin shrunk ones lopping off branches or in the ground, going in the wind. The older these things get, the more they call, they remind me of some thing….
With the pandemic and ensuing ‘plantdemic’ as a local journalist called it today, I too fell headlong into the flora of life. NJ my husband pampered our inner child: we got us succulents and palm. My sis brought home baby vine. Easter gave us Fern and Ivy, creepers, climbers, fabulous darlings with leaves and none of them dried. I hadn’t noticed but when we visited a local farm, I collected these jewels👇🏼pressing them in an old diary:
For me it was a fast from Negativity👈🏽 the thing is in my matrix like a mother.
Though, if you met me and we talked over lemon tea you’d leave with the sun coming out your ears, for all my miracles:
the time my heart got physically healed. And my spine. And how that one onion finds me when I need it, oh our beautiful blind son, and our daughters’ songs with the Psalmist in it, and yet before the sun can set I have a new worry surfacing harmlessly like an ant out of nowhere.Ask NJ.(We went for our second vaccine and it hurt nothing, it hurt nothing so much I really and totally wondered whether she gave me that Vaccine at all. Was it a trick. They were short on it too, weren’t they? NJ had to not only convince me he personally saw it, but that he had a pic to prove it).
It happened again these past 21 days as I aimed at kicking Negatives out. Not easy.
Being one who thinks in images, I used the dried leaves from farm: each to symbolize a need that needed a healing.
Biblically, ‘leaves’🍃 go for healing: Revelation 22:2, NIV: “down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
During our 21day fast, as I kept away from Negativity, I took out my farm pressed leaves, stuck one on each page, with a request for a specific need. Twas officially Repair Time.
As we went from one day to the next it was the toughest exercise, to steer away from sagging thoughts/ nail them at the Cross/ ask Christ to heal; to each query He gave me two choices: to succumb, or host His healing.
I realized how deep the Human psyche can doubt the power of invisible healing, all because we tend to gravitate towards memos from our monsters: 👥🗣
Tobiah who follows me via childhood, calling me this & that publicly. Sanballat snorting with self righteousness. Christ was asking me to pray healing on Tobiah & Sanballat. Yeah that was two nice dried leaves. I half heartedly prayed ; twas like praying for Covid to heal of itself! There was no external change except that a new emotion arrived, a wish that they’d really meet Jesus.
While the day’s prayer went up, so did my foreboding dark cloud that followed me from room to room. That cloud had hung in my hair, had drooped my lip and haggard’d my heart. Now it lifted.
I ran out of leaves but began finding one new leaf every morning in our balcony. Was God saying I had one more area to sort? Yes! Every morning a new dried leaf was there, and the same kind of leaf I’d collected at the farm!
Now we near 21 days this Sunday, I have more Drying Darlings than I’ll need, and He’s reminding me that there are needs out there, not just my own personal ‘negatives’ but a nation full.
As I write this my daughter gives me three she found in the floor.
These are rose leaves from our wedding anniversary flowers. 35 years, yes quite something. (Allow me to indulge: That’s a Trinity Reminder that we need to totally allow Them to work via our tiny existence…)
Teach me Lord.My heart trips with new emotions for my country & 550 tribes, for an Earth in a Time like never before.
This Post was Titled the way it was, because without Belief it is no use praying at all and expecting any answer;
I’m looking at every Persona of Faith in the Bible- Moses and Abraham and Paul and Peter ….none asked for cars and houses or jewelry … they stalked Red seas, slung Goliaths, slammed Pharaoh, brought down Manna, prayed rain …for others‘ welfare. They didn’t care whether they were healed or not, they didn’t bother to stop at personal imprisonment or stoning. They blest their jailer, and yelled joy till prison chains and floors hiccuped with an earthquake. Some of them died with a smile in their lips, no dying man or woman can fake that. That’s an inner fire that can warm the coldest day. The fire of belief.
We have these two choices, we believe in nothing, or something. Either way we believe. Whichever we choose, will exert its power over us. There’s Death, and there’s Life.
I’ve been intrigued by Olivia Laing’s article ‘How to be alone’, which yelled for attention in my Google search for global pulse few months ago.
E.Hopper’s Night Hawk. Net pic
***
We have been a planet of People Groups: Consumers/Givers/Sitters/ Standers/ Travellers/ Chatterers… We talked of things we knew;
now it feels like we are Letters we never knew we could write, read by people we may never see, and it all breathes close enough to be real.
Quoting O.Lang, “The weird gift of loneliness is that it grounds us in our common humanity. However frightened we may feel we have never been less alone.”
(Her words stand tall and stark among all our comment on life issues, ach! Things more devastating than Covid: racism, depression …after the Mr. Floyds and recent spate of suicides, oh Economic crises et al, we know better);
Lang covers Ed. Hopper’s painting ‘Night Hawk’, along with twitter’s colorless version of Hopper’s Hawk in the age of Coronavirus..’
Ugh but yes, the aspect of Colour draining from us as we grow 3 feet from each other and gaze at new leaf, beetle, ant for sweet newness,
this is war on wars of Likes, Shares, Claps, War on self impositions where we once screamed to be heard, known, read…
Today there’s a mirror on the wall and it edits nothing of our Global Face staring at Us like never before:
a Stare that visits possibly once every Era.
And this. That we have never been less alone:
here I am every human, mid new madness and uncertainty:
this new Status is louder than the noise of everything else we’ve known. May we all live to look back on these times as vital chapters of Emotional Civilisation…..if we have the time to….(more) ..
In our Quest for Peace, maybe our hunger will lead us to what truly fulfills: oh, our thirst quench our aimless dissatisfaction. Maybe poverty of spirit is necessary to strip us of materialism. Maybe when we are weak we are strong. Maybe when Feet are cut away we find Wings that rise us up to new Air more varified than Oxygen. It has a new name: It breathes the breath of a Three letter Word: God. How could we step in the divine if we think we are only physical? Loneliness is a Reflector. We are the moon to a Light too strong to look at. We are met with the silence of the sun and it burns into our skin a new awareness of life as it now is. We are not in control anymore. Not parliaments, not horses and kings can decipher a pokey horned virus that has us gagging in masks and gear we wouldn’t have touched last year this time. We’ve been paintings in the wall. We’ve been silenced by the bleating of social approval, but not anymore.
I look in the mirror and see a new me, she is unafraid of honesty…. time is way too short to waste in formalities. We are more than paint and walls. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved/ loves us so wide and deep and long… it reaches through all my anxiety…
Love like that makes me need a moment alone, to just digest the Unseen. Its where we are each headed: Its Face is pure unadulterated Love. Love unlike ours’ …Pursuing, waiting, healing, forgiving, eternal & beyond the embrace of a Society that is perhaps too numbed to not be suspicious of Power like that. Choose Life or Death, Love or Hate, indifference and acceptance. How many choices have we left? How many days in which to choose…
yea may these be vital moments of Emotional Civilisation.
Rayla N.
…
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I’m staring at an impossible formula here: the child was alone his entire life from the time his parents left him to when he was found later by more tormentors. Then there’s the story of a young girl in further trauma one wouldn’t wish to detail. All of this towers over the mess in my brain this morning as I mull over few incidents that got me all raw. I see another article about a woman who braves all kinds of home fires to find her identity in God.
My reading today is in the Song of Songs: “Set me as a seal over your heart..” the Good Shepherd replies,”Let me hear your voice my turtle dove. The winter is past, it is now time to hear your song.”
Oil painting, RNoel.
***
Rejection is rejected here in His vineyard where He grafts her into His care. I cannot think of a better way to describe the act of a prodigal heart returning to Love. Returning to the act of accepting oneself again: one’s renewed self.
Physical abuse, trauma, hurt, pain….
If you’ve done a little homework like I have these past months, oh even looking into my own existence, you’ll come to the conclusion that Loneliness is perhaps the most rampant ailment in our societies wherever we live… in shanty towns or Penthouses. And yet..
that very loneliness draws me in to His Vinepress like never before. Like never before I see how True Love crushes out then endorses human bruise and frailty with His banner. The lonelier I am, the more I see His light. Darkness itself pulls to the Light, have you noticed?
Have you noticed how evil cringes before Love? Have you gazed with forgiveness at Hatred? Have you hugged a person who taunts you?
That said, Pain is a strange child of loneliness and circumstance. It can be a great guide, sent from the tenderest yet most trafficked portal of heaven.
Pain can guide us to better understanding of each other, it humbles, it clothes, it Graces. Pain can be sweet and it can empower. It sharpens intuition, it is unafraid. When pain rules, a person loses shy. They Deliver. Pain’s features are true. In pain we say it like it is, we are shed of fear.
The little I’ve had of it, has made me who I am: a little less of me, a lot more of the world within us all. We cover our true selves with masks of this and that but inside we are people with sensitivities waiting to be addressed. Pain addresses. It shears, sheds. It sets apart, it shifts gear.
In pain a human’s velocity changes. They morph. They lose formalities. They… we change: we face the day differently.
These past 2 months I’ve heard stories of some brave humans who walked out of the carcasses of yesterday into utterly new creations. And every tale was one where they found the peace, the acceptance of God which smashes human slavery to each other.
When in pain, humans don’t fake it. This peace cannot lie. It is beautiful to watch, breathless beautiful to learn from.
The little pain I experience in my own life pales next to the stories of those who’ve suffered criminal injustice and risen again as Jesus did. Yes the incredible power of hurt, of loneliness…. and all it can do to re- arrange us:
we misunderstand its uses. The more I live, the more I see why God allowed portions of pain. Without it I’d never have understood what it feels like to become unafraid of mortal concerns. The power of pain has given me a freedom impossible to describe in few nice words but I’ll try:
It frees you from social approval
It lifts your thresholds of tolerance
Pain/ loneliness helps you see yourself as your best human Confidant.
It shuts out other noise and you hear that Still Small Voice.
Aloneness… leans the human soul to the supernatural. Some turn to the dark, others to the Light. Yes, there are grey areas that anesthetize the process.
Pain and her mates show us our inner strengths/ disabilities. Tough. It gets tougher to meet our own personality; some of us may dull that pain with drugs and other comforters. Or we walk away.
Stay here longer, you are free of human recipes for fulfillment. No wonder monks, sanyasis… go to caves and trees to find the truth about everything. From Newton to modern thinkers. .. silence is a great mirror. It reflects the Light of the World. Here no darkness dare crush the human spirit which is the physical heart of the Living God.
I can go on.
But today I apologise to God for misunderstanding some of His most powerful gifts.
Yesterday we put together a video of the Fellowship that has currently just the five of us, at home. It was past lunch time when we finally began: our son on his little keyboard: we had a new song= new lyrics😳;
Kitsy our angel finally sings though! Me I hate cameras, never liked them, but there’s a daughter with lens in this house. Sigh … I love God, will do whatever it takes. Besides it’s been 2 years of intense Love that kept us going. We’ve had family and friends pray over us and that’s no small thing. Gratitude!
Title of this Post is from the Word in Video: …death too is also a state of mind. We rise above the Things that hold us back, dead places of the heart and mind that cause us to die inside.
we are surrounded by physical death and associated shadows, but Life is what we are within and beyond all of that. Which is what makes this celebration more meaningful this time than any. Yes Uncertain Times! The only certainty is that nothing can take away our Peace, no matter what, nothing shatters the bonds broken at the Cross, for Free….
we’re packing in warm greetings from our home and homes associated with Haven friends here in India, to yours:
may you have the Peace of God which surpasses all human understanding, and the Joy that comes from staying with Him.
I do not know that all like such words, but it’s the thing within me and it’s why I write. I wish you ChristJesus, like you did not think possible, in these times, this life, these days. These are those Absolute Essentials we cannot live without. We all may never see each other in this life, but it is my prayer that after all these words here and there, we will oneday truly be family together, eternally.
I just received from the Netherlands, a poem ‘Written v.appropriately; like to share it with you…’,
forwarded by my dearest friend and cousin sis. We were The Twins when we were little, as in school- little girls. I wore pig tails, she wore a mop. She was fun and gorgeous, a Beauty with brains, she still is. We connect now and then, as she did just now. Thankyou darling person for the Intercontinental hug & verse.
“When we thought we were all powerful and did exactly as we pleased, when we treated the earth with contempt a virus brought us to our knees.
When we prided ourselves on social media with photos of places we roamed a microscopic virus decided to bind our feet and keep us home.
When the whole world seemed divided and no one could see eye to eye We needed a tiny virus to show where our connection lies
We need to wash not just our hands we need to cleanse our thoughts we need to elevate humanity before the virus is fought.”
Author unknown.
***
Also sent in by our dear friend in London, one we haven’t physically met in 20 years but who makes an effort to catch up:
thankyou P.A, for being kind and eternal in this changing world, too for this BBC Video clip with refreshing skies.. clearing in the wake of Covid, even in Wuhan. The best is yet to come!
Yes, it is a good time to connect, even remember we are fragile creatures of a Life that can go faster than It arrives every morning: Its’ breath- the sheer will of God.
Do share anything you might like to, in pics, or a thought, a sketch, photograph, a clip: would love to hear from you in comments or Idialects@gmail.com.
One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it.”
“If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah, “I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?“
“It has powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.”
Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.
Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of he poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day’s wares on a shabby carpet. “Have you by any chance heard of a ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.
That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. “Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you after?”
All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!”
As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: “gimel, zayin, yud”, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.”
At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.
I found this rather telling story as our city faces total shut down – yours must too? Our international community has never been this undivided in a war against an intrusive force as this Virus. May peace and healing overwhelm every last strain of this thing they call Covid. May life be restored again with new immunity to illness: body, soul, mind. ‘This too shall pass.’
Am I mistaken in saying that it is the same Solomon who wrote the book of Proverbs and this quote: “A merry heart is like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.”
Another blog post I’d love for you to read: found it truly heart warming,
I have a request regarding the Post link ‘ Cheerfulness ‘ attached below here👇. I’ve no way of linking back to their website in appreciation credit since am off FB a while now; if there’s some here who would do that for me, I’d truly welcome that : to please post my Link from this Post https://innerdialects.home.blog/2020/03/16/this-too-shall-pass/
to comments section of this Post Title on their website. Unable to personally do so as it’s on FB. Thank you so much..
“THE MORE YOU REACH OUT TO OTHER PEOPLE WITH NEEDS, THE SMALLER YOUR FEARS BECOME.” Dr. David Jeremiah in his ‘The Christian Walk Journal’. It’s a daily devotional; got it as a gift this year. (Not much else I treasure like a good Diary).
From my Journal this morning; and it went in my spirit like a warm shaft of Light. The past week has seen so much more strength than we could’ve imagined. We watched as God broke through our own doubts and fears, our very suspicion of Him. Watched as He spoke through us, to us. Sometimes there is no one else the human head or heart will listen to, hehe. We are a stubborn lot. We are street smart, and oh so wise. Ofcourse we cannot trust the Unseen.
But this past week I’ve watched the Fingers of God shift my focus from ME to a world around that is waiting for someone to just be nice to them, as I’ve waited too. 1.20 billion in my country, a few thousands around my streets. What can individuals really do? I’m going to find out this week.
“Because sometimes you have to step outside of the person you’ve been, and remember the person you were meant to be, the person you wanted to be, the person you are.” ~H.G. Wells, quoting from Cathyde67 Thankyou!🌻
Oh thrilled to have found a favourite happy place in my own world of shadows and valleys of doubt. Here I find not just beauty and reality but a peace that comes from knowing we are pilgrims in an earth that will fade away before we see that Perfect Light of Christ. Lorraine, thankyou for allowing me to post your work here. Stay blest beautiful one.
“And let perpetual light shine on them,” Those words I heard today, Not expecting them to come, Quite suddenly they pierced the air, I raised my head, Looking to the heavens As if to take in all my memories, The joy, the pain, the laughter
Suddenly all were one, Joined together seamlessly, Chickens, corn and sandpits Apples, nuts and tractors in the fields, Starry nights that made me ask “Where is God?” And in my child’s mind’s eye I saw Him beyond the stars Swathed in mystery And yet So simple Here, in the evening of my life I sat, re-connecting with my past And all of those who went before me, On them and on all my memories the words did fall, “And let perpetual light shine on them….”
…..
Hello and welcome to my site.
My name is Lorraine Lewis, and I am blind. I became blind in 2016 as a result of a very serious and advanced cancer, and the treatment that I received.
In 2013 it was touch and go whether I lived or died, and there began the loneliest journey of my life. A true wilderness experience.
Now, I am in remission, but as well as being blind I am unable to walk, and am wheelchair bound. My husband too is wheelchair bound, and we face daily challenges just to survive. The wilderness experience, with all its difficulties and obstacles continues, but somehow or other we get through.
In the midst of all the pain and suffering, and the deepest loneliness I have ever known, I found a well deep inside me that I did not know I had until I started to drink from it. It was not a physical well, but a spiritual one, and I would like to share with you in various ways, my journey in the wilderness of cancer, blindness, and inability to walk. Along the way we may meet deep pains and sorrows, but also a depth of joy that defies everything that life has thrown at me.
Here, on this site you will find Poems and Reflections that will bring you into my world, and that may touch your world. And as we journey, we will find that even in the wilderness we can be enabled to drink from the Fountain of Life.
“Love knows no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps over obstacles penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
Maya Angelou
Lorraine’s poems, blogs and reflections are from her wilderness experience of having cancer and being blind. “The wilderness is a very isolating and lonely place, with many hardships and sometimes seemingly insurmountable difficulties to face. It is a place of suffering and this site reflects the many struggles that any of us can undergo in our differing wilderness experiences. Despite the pains and the darkness of the wilderness and desert places, the stars can still be seen, and even deserts can bloom, so along the way, there will be gems to be found. I have chosen to use the Cross as a symbol also, because I have discovered that for me, the way through suffering was and is to be found in the Cross Although that is a Christian symbol, the wilderness or desert experience can come to any of us, no matter what faith we hold, or even if we hold none. So I hope that as Maya Angelou says, there will be no barriers, and that all of us, through our sharing, can find our way through, appreciating the gems that we find on the way whilst not denying the suffering that we go through. May we all learn to look to the stars, and see how brightly they shine out in the darkness, and take heart and courage...”
http://blindwilderness.wordpress.com/ Seeing Comes from within Deeper than eyes can see Pain makes you see much more clearly For pain Makes gold That has been tested in the fires That gives insight to hearts On paths untrod Before
Thank you Lorraine, oneday we will meet, if not in this life in the next, when you and precious people like our son will see not just all our faces but His…
where the rest of humanity too will see what we never could not before, blinded by the nether lights of human comprehension. Oneday we will see through that dark glass, face to Face.
…
Here’s another one I love of Blindzanygirls’ work, oh every one of them leaves footprints of a thing I’m learning to hold….GRACE.
His embrace will not just hold you, It holds all men and friend and foe, whoa,
PiCourtesy Samuels, weekend getaway. …..
what’d I think His Comfort was… sweet cuddly Bear arm, warm with Paternity? His Comfort Zone is more than I dare dream… ach!
It’s in the Slap of the storm, in the Sap of the thorn,
Haha, I wasn’t chatting with God then, cuz He is in the crooky path of stray mountain goat; and I thought Love meant Light, but He takes the Night, longing like Darkness does for Dawn, for those that are unloved, forgotten…
…. all are clung together here: the healed, dead, dying, worthy, worthless, wasted idiot, reckless loser, offender, disbeliever, saint, deathless sinner : in that embrace that defies human limitations to Love like that.
I’m fascinated at the way our human body mends, physically, emotionally, socially…
From our visit to valley near Kolar gold fields
…
It takes tiny baby steps, and It may not even look like a mending. Have you ever darned? Y’know, stitched? I’ve watched my Ma do that, her tiny needle sashaying across a tear in the fabric. She’d turn it over and go again with her needle;
I’ve tried it, but I’m also impatient. My Ma wore a regular old fashioned ‘thimble’ – iron one-finger gloves, they filter/ no they take my needle jabs.
My lil thimble memoir from trip
Healing is a many faced darling. It is the firm face of a good Physician, the Ouch! of Physiotherapy… it is God saying, “Be Still and know….” when you’re about to get that needle in your vein. It is the songbird in the storm, she’s yelling sweet delivery in your ears but you can’t hear her for the waves.
It is a boat with no sail (it may seem). It is trusting, leaning of your entire personality on a Thing you can’t see or feel but you know a certain shift. You are Changing, moving, rising, falling. It’s the scab in the wound, or the simmering scar. You’re watching this through cataracts of pure sweet rain in the desert.
Oh yes, if you’ve been there, healing is a darling savage thing.
You touch me from the inside.
Last week I had a Word, a power word that began to heal me. Was this, “Lean on Me..” from the Bible, and not words I do not know- They followed me room to room and out the door and in the street and among other faces. It overpowered other words, like a sword. You must know by now, if you’ve read previous posts, this is from a real place. Peace can be faked?
This Post Title got me grinning. It is true, tender, raw, achy raw, real.
Sometimes we do not heal externally, but we are settling down deep within. It is a sunrise in another world deep in your spirit.
I’ve watched a broken man heal like that after his only son was killed in a mobile accident. Don’t ask me how, but I watched his eyes go calm, like he had a new secret.
I’ve seen it in my husband Jeff too, in a few good friends we have, seen it in strangers when they choose not to pick up a fight and they could’ve but they just walk away with a generosity that I’m certain hurts to give away.
You could find silence aggressive, if you’re wanting a fight. A doctor might find it uncomfortable if a patient smiles at a terminal verdict.
Thimbles.
For soul. Psyche. Sometimes I’m the finger, sometimes the Thimble, for myself, for another:
the resistance against dis- ease, the breaking of new skin, the breaking away from old muscle lethargy;
the stir of new sensories, the cry of a newborn, the severing of umbilical cords to past routine habits of Thought; a departure from mindset, withdrawal symptoms of an addictive pattern that must go…
the birthing of a bud, it must sprout off stem, it must spilt in halves and quarters in petal, it must give away its aroma, must explode pollen, must yield to the light, draw sap from stock, must route to Leaf for supply, it is no more in a sapling, It now must host it’s own new sub- support, it must break out and be a whole new creation. This does not happen in a static state of Nothing. It takes a Movement. It faces Change, It must eat Dew and drink the air like never before. A new Bud does not argue with the Process; It can die, It can live.
You and I are more than the birds of the air, the flowers of the field. As I write this, there’s news of a dear cousin’s passing, but she had this peace that passes all human understanding. She leaves behind a legacy of Faith and Love and Strength that looked past the transient temporary into the eternal that was present in her thoughts and everyday activities.
I’m staring at the Act of healing, and how it arrives in Departures & Arrivals of events. I’m amazed at the power of the human mind to overwhelm our frail bodies. There is a secret core we are given, and we cannot give that away to other voices that rule us with Fear, panic, desperation.
I believe there are mysteries to this thing we call Healing, and we will know it better, when we know better. But today a Still Small Voice captures me with Its Word Cover- like a Thimble : “Be Still and know that I am God…”
Yes, healing happens first in the place where we know the things that rule our securities.
(Would love for you to read this one 👇on prayer. It’s worth the five minute read by Mitch Teemly).
Much to un-think here, @ a 3 hour drive from Bangalore city, into tiny growing town.
That cloud sits on thatch? …. its an untouched blue sky with no malls or smog. At Kuppam’s local market, one or two women are speaking fluent English, their eyes are warm. I meet a beautiful lady at the Railways- she mans a 2ft iron wheel that lifts railway-cross gate. There is no time to take her picture….. want to wish her a Happy New Year like we wished some others, but Railway lady in blue sari is busy; she turns to give me another look, then surprises us with a wide smile, white teeth and laughing eyes. The woman must be somewhere around 3o, 40? I send a small hand-wave. She waves back, laughing like a school girl. On our next visit to Kuppam, we simply must get a pic with her. Good holidays are also those when you’ve no time for a good photograph?
We stay almost a week here. That lovely Gate is under repair. There were lesser sheep this time at Kuppam: no it’s not a farm for animals, just us humans+ cuddly paws.
My sis sculpts her fav words into woodwork, grills…. She’s an Eye Doc in this town, border to three south Indian states. Li loves the precious simple life here with a faithful househelp and furry princess.
Like Trees planted by Springs of Living waters; there’s backyard Date palm, bougainvillea, guava, papaya, mango, occasional monkey ….
Bonfire woodies. Such memories here with Mom&Dad in this space by Christmas tree, Gulmohar, shoeflower, a baby tamarind tree. Time has flown by ‘like smoke through a key hole…’ (Movie : The Bucket List) Honey!Li’s exquisite cuisineThat new double road used to be a rough path to Kupz’s lake. There are more people, cars, school buses, buildings today….Floors, tiny christmas lights asleepMeshed safety front grill to keep away esp. mosquitoes. That door lock has seated one or two friendly frog. Very tiny ones. They look like Kermit to us, but Li doesn’t think so. She says(with shudder) they (her leapy frog) wait for her with sly grin. “No, they’re not ..!” is her horror response to my Q.”What if they just want a kiss, and will turn into your Prince? “ Li loves her Prince of Peace best.
The road back…. miles off city limits: goatsherd!Thresh time! We must gingerly drive over their sheaves, this helps them? (Green lid sohmph my new travel mate from Li’s kitchen).You can’t see this well enough, but that’s a Church steeple over local temple, rerouting past Kolar gold fields.Sunset over another gorgeous day; Joh is quiet this past hour. Bangalore city is closer from this long stretch, after brief stop for Lassi. Back home @Greenview, our feathered granddaughter Tina has two ugly blonde chicks… soon they’ll grow fine feathers. One must wait. And watch. And did you know Pigeon can be trained to recognize every alphabet? Tina’s mom is our second daughter Kitsy:) Tina herself was hatched here (also mothered by Kit, so). Complicated!
All this in our little garden which will be busy this season. Phew! Wishing 2020 Vision for us all.Peace, Shalom : nothing missing, nothing broken. And if there is ‘missing- broken’, may each fit in a whole new way, causing Peace beyond belief. Selah: meaning, Pause calmly & think of that.
Another Instageam repost, & not enough time now to crop edges, apologies.
The lyrics of a song done with my lefty guitar (will upload when theres courage to do that:). Words run off me and I can’t think except watch how healing walks in. No evidence, it crawls in a millimeter at a time. Then two steps back. Yes I’m a dreamer but positivity alone has never helped med.side effects, see? And I’m seeing new light in the dark. Seeing hope against odds. Our son is on a new surge of withdrawal, the seizures stopped months ago, but this. As my fam and I watch each other cope, moods swing then settle. We must plan activity to zap his nervous energy. He’s been the sweetest calmest person here these 18 years, so this is hard. Jeff read this out to me just now,”He who dwells in the shelter of the most High will rest in the Shadow of the Almighty.“
I’m asking, so His Shadow goes where angels ‘d fear to tread, right. His shadow chases hell for us, It treads fire and walks stormy water to get to us, His Shadow would, Who, What else could? This isn’t a blog post for the sake of blogpost. I am grateful for that Shadow that lead me to some extraordinary readings today, rooting me back into security, ignoring my doubts, my fiery disbelief.
This Bench follows me room to room, down the stairs and out the door. What drew Dave Bignell to capture it?
“Well I used to walk through Hyde Park every morning when I worked in London and of course every season transformed my surroundings. I think in this particular case the bench just looked lonely or somehow protected by the lamppost, like it was standing guard.
It is delicious chilly outside here in Bangalore India, welcome chilly after a humid late monsoon. I’ve been blog writing ferocious after 365 days of waiting for our youngest to heal. My mind is too preoccupied to start December decor officially at home, but this photograph last week pulled me in like lyrics of a yuletide cantata would; you thought you got its message, but nah not yet.
My Ma and Gran went at Christmas like heaven would have a heart attack if they didn’t. I’m not the high octane happy worker bees they were, not me, but this photograph from a place I’ve never been gets my attention just when energy levels are belly crawling. There I said it.
Out in my street by a bus stop, two men in the sidewalk, not 25 years old but with ancient eyes: one spits paan*, the other stares back at me. His friend looks away. They must think I’m waiting for a bus-
Life’s a bus, my Dad would say in his earlier years.
He couldn’t speak much before he went. Illness did that to him. I wish he’d stayed, but you don’t get to order these things. The 25 year olds in the pavement would understand that. Life’s not a bus Dad, its an earth in orbit going on and on. Seasons change, you and I in the beach, you laughing at me falling off the cycle, I was a hopeless learner. You were Unshakeable, you never told me I couldn’t do something if I wanted to. You never lost courage, ’twas seasons that went to winter around you. It got in you almost, like a chill season but inside you were the same person. You and I cannot really change even if I’m quieter these days of rising price, oh fixing salads with no onion, he-he what’d Gran have done with the onion mini-famine we have here? She’d grow her own veggies..
no dad its no bus: we are sitters, walkers, standing leaving arriving. Life is beautiful Dad, you didn’t want to go, who wants to die except my neighbour Mr.Alvarez and his Haiku poems on graves and sweet dying, he reads it out, smacks it out like it is candy. At Christmas Mr. Alvarez misses his two daughters in Kuala Lumpur and Greece, then he wants to hang low and not talk to his round faced wife who will not talk either. Please dear God, keep them from visiting this us this Christmas, I cannot answer questions about new lights, I like the ones we have, a few don’t work here and there but they are milestones of things we did and did not do. Alvarez has to deck his roof with lights to outshine Mars. He says so, that’s how I know. I like my life next to jacaranda trees with squirrel, our muted traffic snarls and manger clay angels with chipped nose and yes, Joseph’s (human father of Jesus) miniature clay head fallen off last Christmas: need to cello tape him back on.
At home we finish a chinese lunch, Kitsy our teenager enjoys playing chef. Jeff my husband is at a river in his easel, he paints rivers, no surprise. He’s from hilly river running Coorg district south of India. Dia and Joh are a few kms away getting the sun. No more seizures for Joh hopefully, but the aggressive side effects of his meds have us running circles to work his chi & chu, or whatever energies are called. Li my sis called last night, she doesn’t feel like Christmas with Dad and Ma gone, she cannot decorate for carolers, her knee hurts. How are you Ray? Just back from a village visit with her carol crew, Li is a village doc. She reminds me of Dad, and Ma in bits. Thel, eldest sis is like her own self + added fizz over the years. Me I’m growing more like my kids, picking their vocabulary and shoulder shrug. Rolling of eyes in particular is liberating but on my generation it looks rude; they get away with it. We hang in together, Haha like parked lampposts and bench, and tree. In season and out.
This Bench. It is park furniture. All the stories and footprints and winters that have gone by haven’t moved it. It is untransformed, though a little worn, yes?
Christmas isn’t the nicest time for those who have lost a loved one, or lost heart; for those feel alone it is easily a time of more than they can bear. I’m thinking about the quality of not being moved. I’m thinking of that Lamp post, the Tree and Bench all there like friends.
I guess December is that time we could spin stories out of threadbare sack cloth but I’m feeling the right to not be moved and it’s a heart strengthening feeling.
…
I’m thinking on something I read about: that Unshakeable Kingdom we all have for the asking; that secret place deep inside where the Love of God stands by us like a Light in a storm. That storm ravaged place where we’re parked? It can feel cold and uninviting, or it can create whole new perspective: Strength that waits out the winter. I’m the bench, the lamppost, the trees; sometimes I’m the snow…
So my sis sends me pics from her trip and this one travels in where my core is: Koala bear burrowing in shade, in foliage, feeding on what Koala knows best,
I’ve wondered why my Creator structured the universe among this many species, and what the dialogue between us all is besides the incredible facts of circles of life, food chains…
I’m fascinated at how Nature impacts my mood, my choices,
Ah times in childhood (and later), with blue crab and one particular jungle monkey, oh once a scruffy headed baby raven cawing his head off for breakfast. Yep! These have moved me more than earth revolutes can.
I have history with sand dunes, how they’ve moved me (nah, shoved at me), literally and otherwise(haven’t you slid down a dune, ever?)
Then there was Rover our fourlegged Priest of hearts: this canine knew how to talk. Once he said the word, ‘Mom’. I turned around slowly and he winked one amber eye at me.
When Rover left our planet for where Goodly Paws go, ( wasn’t at our home at that time), he visited in a dream where he slipped out of collar, his black black fur shining with silver edges.
Ach. I still ache for his friendship but that dream was an exotic thing. I don’t care what everyone’s saying; dogs do have soul. They growl at unseen spiders snuck in where we can’t see, they have these Frequency-Ears, they see stuff we don’t….onetime at a farmhouse he saw a deadly scorpion through wall… sniffed it out maybe,
I miss him with all my heart especially days like these when the Uncertain sits square in my eye and there are no quick answers for things that will take their course, like the illness of a young child, like setbacks that make friends and some closer ones sweet-talk away basic courtesies.
What Remedy ever exists for Humanity that forgets or ignores another because they are of no advantage; what cure for humans stooped low enough to desecrate the very purpose for which humankind were created? We become liars and connivers, we spread curdled words like butter on waiting bread and we lay it thick. All to draw fences between people: walls, barbed wire, little glass bit in walls. This isn’t news to any of us, but when it hits, it swings low. Especially if you don’t see it coming.
So Koala here snuggling, is my heart burrowing in the shade of Comfort few humans can tender. Maybe my Core is a Koala. I love the word Core: that invisible place deep there that tells me how I am at 3am,4pm,midnight.
*****
One morning last year, I was alone a few hours at home, worrying my teeth out at how our youngest and blind, was to get through life. Eyes shut tight I told God if He cared He best give me a sign,
when I opened my eyes there it was staring me in the face, its black beady eyes twinkling through grey fur:
the squirrel took tiny steps into living room, then turned left into our bedroom. For the next 15 minutes nothing could’ve convinced me this wasn’t a supernatural event. Nothing. The room shone with my same old Indian sun, everything was gold tinted, even my dark thoughts.
*****
Today I didn’t see how we were going to all recover from Joh’s anti-seizure meds* that have caused such a riot in all our lives – side effects of meds.
Is there any Light end of this tunnel? Yes, a few infact! All because dear Sis sent pic of Koala? Does Koala even know they’re in a blog post in another continent, leave alone that they’re cause for lights at end of tunnel?
Ah’m.
Maybe that’s why God made all His species. Maybe every single creature was made to bless a certain of the other species, a type of Food chain, a Comfort Chain. What comfort is a mosquito? Maybe it is, to a particular shrub. We will never know somethings in this life, but some mysteries are there for all of us to see.
*****
as I was crouching here over this post, our 18 year old (born blind and recovering from meds* now) Joh gave me a surprise gentle hug.
The past two months there’s been unreal aggression, a certain violence, uncertain days, nights of wondering when and how all this would/ could ever sort. Sure it can, it will, but the human core has a way of sitting down sometimes and not wanting to try getting up.
Today is different.
Something in me wants to unfurl and look up at the sun. There’s a quietened centre within that’s willing to give my own peace a chance. I have the power to make or break that peace,
oh yes it sure passes human understanding, it’s not from within. The only thing I could’ve cooked up today was a temper of tears. There’s kazillion words in my throat but must stop for now,
if you’ve read this far thankyou so much. If not, you’re still part of that Comfort Chain, maybe a bigger part than you know.
I am not what I used to be yesterday; bruised arm and brain maybe, but I have watched giants of fear leave my house. Yesterday startled me with its share of pain, but this morning the sun rose again as if it were renewed, as if the earth were washed in pure joy. I have so little to say out loud in blog, in my darling home- the illness of our youngest child is more heartbreak than I can bear, but God’s mercies are new every morning. This I read, “Whatsoever is lovely,lovable,honourable, pure,kind,good,worthy of mention….think on these things, and the God of peace will garrison your hearts…”
What can I say. As I pray for our youngest angel to war through medication side effects and safety for the girls and Jeff and me, I know there’s new Dew for the day, new manna,new peace. Ay, today is different. I’ve made a new pact to not put one Stop to the way God Himself tackles circumstance: with His brand of peace.
these two hands stayed home to stare out at trees and skies and leaves; I wrote poetry with my floor mop, or doodled with raw mango skin, and left over crayons. Never sold much, I hoarded; love pavements and the songs in strangers’ eyes. Love God. But who said that works in the ways of everyday living? Nah, nobody. Today’s my quiet day, my consult with the King. Here we are Hannah and Esther, Sarah Martha and Sweet Mary. Life and the Times have also made me some David and some Peter. And some Noah. I ache to pet some living (wild)species I’ll never probably personally meet…. polar bear and sea horse.
So, 3.30 pm Monday with my Maker. The home outside this door smells fresh bread. It’s our second daughter baking. The youngest sits with the sun in his face, he can look right in the Light, unflinching. He has that gift, some call it visual disability. His eldest sis makes music with a guitar and keys, it’s a harp to listen to… muted sounds of life reaching through to me under my door,
I have lived to see this, and see true love in Jeff’s eyes at the altar of Your faithfulness-
this November, I’m stripping barbed wire. The barbed wire of disbelief, grouch & fatigue(ugh terrible trio).
Yeah I’ve never earned fortunes and proverbial silver spoon and wheels but I’ve spun unedited prayers at family toes at 5 to 5 am some dawns –
You watch me watch You light the sky bringing heaven to my hearth;
I bless Your Brow if I might – with a daughter’s kiss that heals things I don’t know to say or ask. Thank you for healing our lil one’s seizures.
This Monday I’m sitting here in the deliciousness of a healing. I didn’t find You in fests and grand recitals, but here in the hiding place among heartbreak where our blind son healing from seizures, must also wear out meds’ side effects …
You here in these rooms of cuts and bruises, his confused tender blind face not even tender in random chaotic moment. The girls brave it all, they huddle later, wipe our fears away. ‘This too shall pass,’
I find You here nestling us:
It’s an aloneness crushed with the aroma of You,
the aroma of Grace.
Compassion, suffering long;
Grace & Humor kiss each other, smiling, locking arms and tears with anticipation of a better hour to follow.
Innerdialects 
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