Why did you say yes?

You could have said no.

You knew- and you know- how I feel about it.

You say you never wanted to hurt me. But you didn't hesitate. You said yes, and then worried for days about how I'd feel.

What am I supposed to say? You matter to me. Our friendship is one of the best I've known. So I'll gather up the pieces and box them away. You'll never know how hurt and disappointed I am. I'll get the point where I can look you in the eye again and act as if nothing happened. To be able to laugh and joke and share again. Somehow.

It's going to take a while to get put back together.

Coffee preaching

I didn't know I was praying for myself.

I sat down at the table next to them and soon realized that I had become an accidental voyeur to a holy moment. 

He's only about my age, but he's preaching up a storm to his coffee buddy. I started praying that his words would be heard, that his audience would listen and understand. 

The more that I listened- without even intending to- the more I realized that I needed to hear what he was preaching too.

He's drawing analogies  I understand and.... 

and now he's gone.

I get up to follow, to thank him, but he's gone. 

Realizing you're asleep

Thinking a lot about the Truths behind this song today:



Really not just about marriage.

Time and place

The radio is quietly blaring- if such a thing were possible.

Then again, the lingering headache may have something to do with it.
The headache that is nothing if not persistent in its erosion of brain cells.

The parking lot is busy even out here in the back forty. The entire east side, it seems, is shopping this afternoon.

It's October and yet I'm sweating. But, to be fair, that may be due to the lingering fever I refuse to acknowledge.

Now that I've parked, the tired that's been gnawing away at the edges returns to front-and-center, so I slide sideways- taking advantage of the bench seat- and somehow find myself folded around the shifter and the seat buckles.

From this new vantage point, the radio seems louder, the sky seems bigger around the windows and roof of the truck cab, and the neural implosion has somewhat lessened its percussive ricocheting.

Somehow, quietly, it all seems so real.

The sick, broken and needy sighing for rescue; Whispering words they half-expect to never be heard.

"But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them, because the fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd."

The old Story that plays again on the radio sings it's way back into my heart.

Over and over, "moved with compassion," the Hero becomes part of the story He wrote.  

The heat is comforting, reassuring and grounding.

Shades of meaning

Thinking today about the differences between "Suffering," "Suffering for" and "Suffering with."

What do YOU think?

Earn these shields boys

Is it strange to cheer for men long dead, and battles long ago fought?
Larger-than-life characters drawn in the massive brush strokes of time?

Pheidippides making his final run to Athens.

and collapsing into death.

"This day the common cause of all demands your valour!" cheers Aeschylus at the battle at Salamis.
Empires built and collapsing on the weight of ideas. New dawns and blood-red settings of old ways.

The age of heroes looks far different now.

"Good, then we will fight in the shade."

Ice Cream

From the Archive Aug. 28, 2008


I found Central Asia in a cup of ice cream the other day.
I stood in the parking lot, spoon in hand, as I realized what has happening. I never expected it, never saw it coming, but there it was; sounds, smells and sights faded, tinged with time and distance.
And almost superimposed, like an epiphany in another language, I saw my surroundings.
The bustling, dusty streets of Central Asia were replaced with the paved, sporadically quiet streets that intersected nearby. I stood between the gas pump and my car and listened to the muted sounds of people talking in a nearby vehicle. They spoke my own language. The smells were different too from the memory playing in my mind: cleaner, less infected, but also less fresh.
As I thought about it some time later, this time eating ice cream that was only ice cream, I realized it was a gift and a promise of sorts.
A gift- a quiet, peaceful moment in the middle of an otherwise less-than-pleasant day.
A promise, a whispered, "I am here too."
But in that moment, on that day, I ate slowly; relishing the travel it allowed me.