Challenges
Embrace them
Fearless, with courage
Taste life’s treasured gifts
Blessings
Maturing
Home alone
World grows smaller
Embrace family and friends
Love
Embers
Burning low
Embracing more hope
Blazing back to life
Rekindled
This series of poems (written in the German-inspired style of Elfchen or Elevenie) shares a total of eleven words in each poem, with a sequence by line of one, two, three, four, and one words.
Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.
You’ve got to say yes to this miracle of life as it is, not on the condition that it follow your rules.
From Psalm 100: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into His presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is He that made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.”
Child learning of God’s kindness
Unaware of its vastness
Praise His eternal goodwill
Laboring with steadfastness
Goodness, perfect and Holy
From righteousness, living water
Worship always with gladness
Crafting hands, grace-filled potter
God’s blessings, never-ending
His mercy flows from above
Lives rescued with divine hand
Transforming with endless love
Lost sheep, needing daily grace
Good Shepherd’s assisting hand
Heaven’s gate, darkness scattered
Lifting eyes to God’s homeland
From the words of American pastor and Christian teacher, Charles Stanley: “At times when we’re struggling to trust God, we should remember all the ways He is good to us.”
If I were starting my family over again, I would give first priority to my wife and children, not my work.
From Psalm 90:12: “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
Winds of peace
Whispering at night
Singing with calmest voice
With lasting newness
Winds of storm
Blowing from dark skies
Bearing down once again
With coldness of heart
Winds of heart
Crossing west to east
Warming thoughts open doors
With attitude’s change
Winds of will
Bringing challenges
Stumbling from daily mistakes
With lessons to learn
Winds of change
Bringing smile to heart
Dancing with endless joy
With fresh perspective
The art of living . . . is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other.
No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.
Walking through life’s fire
Never to blindly stumble—
God always walks close
Darkness testing faith
Patiently trusting Father—
Accepting His plan
Holy Spirit seeks
Guiding tongues in bringing forth—
Pure and blessed speech
Half an hour of listening is essential except when one is very busy. Then, a full hour is needed.
From Isaiah 41:1: “Listen to me in silence, O coastlands; let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak; let us together draw near for judgment.”
From 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Lying awake in bed, feeling ready to write
Morning light feeling much too bright
Searching in my head for ideas to write about
Will today’s words offer and deliver much clout?
Sitting, thinking, and sitting . . . nothing!
Why can’t my mind create something?
Perhaps more coffee will warm up my mind
Hoping that possible ideas may soon be mine
Do all writers usually feel this way?
With little or nothing to really say
Hunger offers quick, necessary break
Nutritious breakfast, now I will make
Finished eating and returning to my writing table
Satisfied appetite doesn’t make me anymore able
Struggling through another writer’s block
Tired eyes continue watching the ticking clock
Wow! This short poem I now create
Finally, fulfilling my writer’s fate
A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.
American Washington Irving (1783-1859) ranks as one of his country’s most renowned authors. His amazing short stories of “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleeping Hollow” remain all-time classics. Ironically, his final resting place is at the Sleeping Hollow Cemetery in New York state.
Big Sky Buckeye 