Thanksgiving

It's the morning after Thanksgiving.
I miss it already.

So I'm going to keep it going another day, another week, another month...

We compare notes around the hearth and it turns out we're all thankful for more than circumstances...
We're thankful for the sunshine. And we're thankful for the shadows, which always prove that there is a sun up there.
We're thankful for happiness. And we're thankful for strength, gained at the cost of ease.
We're thankful for uncomplicated communion, and for friendship tempered by tears.
We're thankful for sympathy, a gift best given by a heart that knows what it is to hurt...

We're thankful that He sees beyond this moment and hands us what we'd choose had we His eyes, His heart. We're thankful that He condescends to suffer humanity to share His joy, His tears. We're humbled at the confidence he bestows upon erring mortals when he gives us His Name, His reputation...

Let the chime stay in the kitchen another day, a reminder to express Gratitude.
And let Thanksgiving never end.

Forty-Four Words

If God ever fails to do something good, be sure it is for one of two reasons.

One, He is working on something better.
Or two, His arm is being restrained by my failure to intercede.

Let me never be guilty of the latter.

Holy Ground

My steps slow at the threshold of this little hollow around which two trees hold their arms like parents in a perpetual embrace. This space between, this sheltered cove, like their child, eternally living in the safety of their shadows. Wind sings through needles and boughs, and I bow.

History holds in her hands the tales of two classes of men. 
Those who have given their souls away to be used and abused by Darkness in exchange for a little gold, a little lust, a little glamor...
And those who have given their lives away so someone else could live.

Like a man spilling his life blood for someone paler, to find it filled again, or not.  

I press palms into mat of pine needles and press my soul into the door.

I want to be the second kind of man. I beg You to make me through and through, the second kind of man...

-    -    -

I rise, back slowly away from the place. Look down for my shoes.
I sit to slip them back on, and while I do, I steal a glance back towards the cove embraced by the cedars.

And that, is when I thought of you.

And this warrior in me, this fighter that is sometimes a stranger and doesn't fit in my skin, this thunder that must come from elsewhere because I don't have the spark to ignite it, it suddenly flashed and roared like the end of the world. And then it was gone. But it left a burn, a throbbing ache. And a breathlessness, and a racing heart.
And this prayer:

Let each of us find in this life ground so holy that shod feet never step there.  


Never, oh never be satisfied till you have found your burning bush.