The Squirrel

The Squirrel
Wakes and leaves its nest
Searches the lawn for
Treats left by me
Or my family
Or acorns
Or seeds
Or anything
In a hard year
In a spare year
In a year of hardship
It will take what it can get
And if nothing can be found
On the lawn
It picks up a leaf
Crumples it in its mouth
And brings it back to its nest
As bedding and insulation
The practicality of this activity
Impresses me
And reminds me
To leave a little something
For those who have
Nothing

These Broken Parts

Today a little person
Was trying to re-make her bed
She thought she must have been doing it wrong all week
Because the sheets wouldn’t lie flat
And tended to come off

But really her bed
Was made this week with sheets that weren’t quite right
They were an odd size
Big enough
Workable
But not perfect
And she thought it was her fault
I laughed and explained the problem to her

And thought
That life is like that
Funny but functional
Wrong but workable
Makeshift and marvelous
And that we are forever filling the cracks
And jumping the gaps
And thinking we must be doing something wrong
When in fact, we are doing marvelously
With what we have
Which is enough
Which is workable
Which is a blessing

Perfect is some other world
Not the one we live in
No, we are surrounded by
Appendices of errata
Panda’s thumbs and horse’s toes
Scars and defects
Duct tape and bailing wire

See, in a perfect world
Where everything works well
You would already be at the goal
And that’s not what we’re about
We’re about the next thing
The thing you can barely imagine from here

The thing that you can make if you cobble together
These broken parts
With the contents of the junk drawer
And some duct tape
And bailing wire
And whatever else happens to be lying around

And when we get close to that barely imagined thing
We’ll mostly make it work
But not perfectly
Because we are already busy
Working on the next thing
The thing you can barely imagine from there

And I think God meant us to be this way
Always a little broken
Always working on that next thing
That we can barely imagine from here

Strange Fish Who Seek The Fisherman

God draws us in.
We are always moving
Always hiding, always shifting
But God knows where we are
and God draws us in.

God draws us in like an angler
Playing a strong fish with a weak line
Gently tugging
Pulling and drawing.

We go other ways
We dart this way and that
Sometimes we circle slowly in
And sometimes we break the line and charge away
And God must cast for us again, and again.

God is a patient fisherman
God’s nets are wide and can enclose us all
And yet we can slip out if we will;

God can land his lures over us,
Wherever we hide
But we can ignore them
Or we can break the line and escape.

We must be fish who want to be caught
Who allow ourselves to be drawn;
Fish who seek the fisher.

Because the day will come
When the fisher packs up his gear
And there is no more time
No time for playing the difficult fish
Who wants to go its own way.

A day when the fisherman will take his catch
To the eternal river
Where they will forever
Swim in the holy water of God.

You Are Given Now

We have only a moment
Not an hour
Or a day
Or a week
Or a month
Or years, decades, centuries, millennia

We have only a moment to trust
A moment to love
A moment to care
A moment to believe

Who that was who came before
- you cannot know
And who comes after
- you cannot see

But you have now
Use it to believe the best
To do the best
And be as much
As fun
As awesome
As inspired
As you can

You are given now

Use it