Thursday, September 12, 2013

Thursday Poem: In Harmony

To the untrained, unschooled ear
the different notes against each other
mean nothing profound.

Show them written on a staff
so correctly
is like the most foreign tongue.

But put those notes in your throat
out through your lips
and even the untrained ear
recognizes the beautiful mystery
that is the sound of harmony.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Mini-Tour: Kentucky

Sun and wind have an agreement today: be perfect.

Just enough breeze to rustle the leaves and make you feel good after you top the hill on your afternoon run. Just enough warmth to make you feel thankful for now and hopeful for later.

The goldenrods line the creekside, in full September bloom. At the top of the hill, red and green tomatoes share the vine, mint spills over the edges, and okra grows tall. Steaming past is the Norfolk Southern, right at our back door, amazing us with its power and speed.

Smells of stovestops from around the world drift over to where I am, reminding me of many places where I've been, in the living rooms of friends both near and far. Past the stovetops, out the door, down the steps run the children - so many children! - from Singapore, Sudan, China, Tennessee, Kenya.

Running, jumping, claiming these streets, these children proclaim with their play, "The Kingdom is here!"Grown-ups, as so we are, reminded that though it is "not yet" it is, too, "now".

"A glimpse" they call it. A wonder, it is. Beauty almost too good for me to behold from this porch in Wilmore, Kentucky, home to a school giving such life and community and hope to its students, its families. They show us it is possible, we can live, play, eat together, in unity, in love. No matter the color of our skin or the color of our past. Jesus died so that we could be One as he and the Father are One.

We've jumped into the middle of this, with our instruments and our stories, seemingly unworthy recipients of such beauty.

And this is just Day 1.