Potpourri

This morning my mind is adrip with poetry. A friend we met during a recent cruise to Alaska has sent me a book of his poems. 

The door is opened. Awakened is the muse who sleeps within. Like the umbrella tree that sheds leaves of Shakespearean quotes in Van Nice's 2005 whimsical installation, The Library at Wadi Ben Dagh, she strews abroad bits and pieces, resonant fragments of verse, that drift in and out of my thoughts--a veritable literary flotsam and jetsam of iambic debris in the wide ocean of memory. The poets' words printed indelibly on my life...

What do I write? I work at the novels, gnawing on the prose, struggling with the characters, unruly creatures who take off on their own tangents creating havoc out of my organized plots, but the poetry comes unbidden on the wings of a chance thought to flow through my fingers onto the page...whole, complete, enclosed each in its own rhythm...there is no rhyme nor reason for the sudden seed of thought that springs up in full blossom upon the page...I have tried to write them...intentionally settling myself to topic in front of empty page...but nothing...they must be caught like butterflies on blooms as I walk through the days...I think a real poet would not write in this haphazard fashion but would settle to the job until it's done and the words march obediently across the page...keeping time to the poet's tune....

Blessings....

Teach me, O God, Thy holy way,

And give me an obedient mind;

That in Thy service I may find

My soul's delight from day to day

William Tidd Matson

Musing on a Saturday Morning

I wonder...

How many people were awakened by the 3.6 Mag. earthquake that occurred in Northern Virginia at 5 am on July 15? 

If there is anyone else who automatically inserts earlier for the ago when she reads a sentence like this one from The Winds of Dune--"Almost a half a century ago, the elder Kynes had begun his work using materials gleaned from abandoned Imperial research stations."(Herbert and Anderson, p.201)

How many people are hooked on McLeod's Daughters or Doc Martin and regularly sign on to Netflix to watch them?

"In Thy Presence is fulness of Joy." (Psalms 16:11)

Blessings

In the Shadow of His Wings

Dread and Doubt came to sit on my bedposts last night. Actually, I don't have bedposts, and there is no where for Dread and Doubt to sit except in my head and the pit of my stomach sooooo I got up and fixed myself a cup of green tea... 

And journaled my way back to peace and then to sleep 'til morning. David provides a good guide in the Psalms for this solitary middle of the night walk. Many of the Psalms go from railing to praise, and I find that my journal entries tend to follow the same pattern as the writing helps to turn my eyes, and my focus, from the problem to God who promises to work all things together for good for those who love Him. He has a plan for our good and not for evil.

He promises to keep us in the palm of his hand and in the shadow of His wing...

Prayer takes us home: "Thank you, Lord, that no matter how inhospitable the place I endeavor to pray; prayer itself fashions it into your home and mine" Karen Barber (Daily Guideposts 4/29/98)