Spring’s Honey

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them your servant is warned…Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me.

Spring knocked on the door of my garage this past weekend. The sun, long barred by layers of packing tape, sprung into re-opened cardboard boxes, boxes that had been sealed and stacked from a move that happened over a year and a half ago. Its sudden light scattered silverfish. I pulled out clothes and kitchen wares, books and blankets. I held them up in the light to name them. In the light, they received new purposes; things to be cleaned and put to use again, or things to be discarded. In this spring cleaning, hidden things are being laid bare. The beginnings of order are leafing in my garage. Continue reading “Spring’s Honey”

Real Hope

Two fighters dance in a boxing ring, their bright red gloves jabbing in rhythm with their feet.

It’s how I see Hope and Realism.

I don’t know if it’s right for me to put these two in a ring together, to make them duke it out. Maybe Hope and Realism are not competitors. Maybe they’re friends. Continue reading “Real Hope”

A Cry in the Dark

The birth of God as Son of Man happened in the dark night. A young girl, bulging with the promised Savior, was forced to leave home on a lengthy journey that would bump her along dirty roads at the behest of a donkey and a king’s command to be counted. She was near the time of giving birth. As a woman who has birthed four children in sanitary hospital rooms, who was discouraged from travel during the final month of pregnancy, I can barely imagine Mary making her way to Bethlehem in such primitive conveyance. Yet she did, with the promise that she bore God himself.

Continue reading “A Cry in the Dark”