(Includes references to Jonah 1:1-3; 1:6)

There's a valley on the scrolls of this old earth's maps
whose name is Complacency,
where "the word of the Lord came to Jonah [...] saying, 
'Arise go to Ninevah.'"
I looked to the left and I saw the sea.
I looked to the right and I saw a city
whose shadows longed to swallow my soul
in the hollows they dug for my body to bleed
until the ground swells with the color of death
as the demons of darkness sing victory. 

I stood, like a statue, in this terrible tension
between the weight of conviction and my soul's dissension,
where "Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord."
Will I rise to flee this tension and the presence of the Lord?
I tried to flee this tension and the presence of the Lord. 
I tried to subdue my soul in the sea; 
a violent storm cast me into the deep
where I swallowed my shame and a fish swallowed me. 
The last words of the captain who gave me up to the waves 
crawled along the walls of my mind for three days:

"What mean you, sleeper?"
They echoed like ghosts—
What mean you, sleeper?
—like blind men fumbling through the chambers of death.

What mean you, sleeper?
Each cry rang deeper
in my heart, in my mind, in my soul, in my strength
until the fish spit me up from my pitiful grave
and I looked to the left and I saw the sea 
I looked to the right and I saw a city
whose shadows longed to swallow my soul,
but I had already been swallowed—swallowed whole, 
by my complacent response to this terrible tension
between the weight of conviction and my soul's dissension. 

So I walked to the land where my graveyard lay,
gazing on the city whose stomach growled for my blood.
Tears ran down my cheeks from the wells of His love
as I whispered in pity, "what mean you, sleepers?" 
And I walked to the city of Ninevah. 
I wept for the city of Ninevah.
I died for the city of Ninevah.
Arise, sweet Jonah, to Ninevah.

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I guess I'm not so different, after all,
from the politicians
who make bad decisions
or the citizens
with confused convictions. 

I guess I'm not so different, after all,
from the neighbor I called immature—
if I call someone that before knowing their name, 
I pour coals on my head in a foolish man's game. 

I guess I'm not so different, after all,
from the human conditions 
of the heroes I loved
or the misled ambitions
of the villains I loathed. 

I guess I'm not so different, after all,
from my enemies
and each virtue and vice's extremities. 

I guess I'm not so different ,after all,
from anything I want to be,
from everything I'm scared to be. 

And I guess you're not so different, after all, 
from the scattered names and faces, crowding books of history—
who all were born into a life that told them they were free
to choose what kind of man they'd be within this slavery.

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Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 
Or shepherd a flock in the desert? 
Can He anoint the heads of aimless men
as they roam the uttermost’s outskirts?
I tumbled upon twelve stones by a river—
and asked the old pilgrims what it meant to them.
They told me a tale of ancient men
who stumbled through waters as sojourning sinners,
released by God from their captors’ quivers. 
O, Maker, You weave the earth with altars
which beckon young pilgrims, “come see and remember
the testimonies of your fathers.”
O, Maker, we’ve tried You within our hearts,
forgetting our substance is Your creation,
reliant upon Your hand’s salvation. 
O, Maker, awake our remembrance of You.
A table is prepared in the wilderness:
You spread a blanket for many guests.
Would we bring empty baskets to be filled with bread
and stomachs waiting to be fed?
In the place where the altars of our fathers’ said, 
“God lives in this desert and the desert is dead.”

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They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime,
like restless winds
disrupting the dawn;
breathing trouble where rest begins.
Dancing shadows in the Scripture's lamplight,
they drink holy water while they feast on their sins. 
The graveyard opens
to swallow their souls
in the pits they dug for righteous men.
Crowns of confidence lift up their heads
while they, in caskets, make their beds,
They sit on their thrones to hide the blindness in their eyes,
but when the Day dawns and every knee bows, 
confidence unravels to ignorance.
A clattering sounds as the blind kings fall,
scattering the haughtiness that made them tall,
before the throne of the Morning Star.
In folly they crowned themselves the firsts
among the ones He leads as lasts.
O, fallen kings, did you not hear it,
when the Son of Man blessed the poor in spirit
and gave them the kingdom of Heaven?

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Waters spilling o'er the edge of a cliff, 
spray a thundering thrum of foaming mist;
but the roar is laced in a gentle hymn: 
a lilting whistle from a songbird's chest.

Embedded in crags, on the ragged rim, 
the Dipper bird has woven her nest.
She lays her young beside the waters, 
the roaring rage of aquatic unrest;

entrusting them there, she dives beneath—into the bellowing spray of mist,
into the roar on the edge of the cliff;
fetching her food where the overflow plummets
to nourish the young she hid in harm's summits.

What kind of mother builds a home in unrest?
The Dipper bird, knowing the safest place for her nest
is next to the Source that keeps her children fed. 

On the border of danger, knowing what could be lost,
she has chosen this portion; she has counted the cost. 

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The Unraveling

i. Stirred
from dusts into creation;

ii. Witness
to the weight of love;

iii. Twirling
along with fairytales' pulsation;

iv. Learning
that fairytales aren't enough;

v. Stretching
my roots into friendship's soil;

vi. Confronted
with compassion's weight;

vii. Burdened
for harvest-fields yet untoiled;

viii. Tumbling
down the harrowing hollow of hate;

ix. Enshrouding 
hope's flesh in a casket named "fear;"

x. Digging
the hole into which the casket was buried;

xi. Dissolving
in grief as the box of death disappeared;

xii. Hostility
blooming where hopefulness tarried;

xiii. Repulsed
by the monster I saw in my frame;

xiv. Trembling
bones bound up by bitterness;

xv. Jolted
awake to the Sunlight aflame;

xvi. Romanced
by the hymn of redemption's kiss;

xvii. Sowing
my prayers in a labor of tears;

xviii. Rhyming
my heartbeat with the presence of God;

xix. Waltzing
until I untangle my fears...

I shall add to this poem as I add to my years. 

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Throughout the month of April I wrote a poem a day—which I gathered in emails to share as “poetry nosegays.” I intended to send the very last one on its own as a kind of “closure” to the poetry nosegay series. However, I have just now realized that said poem was scribbled haphazardly and has been sitting in my draft folders for weeks. So, I am sending it now, quite belatedly.

Staying true to the nature of my other poems from April, I’m leaving this one in its first draft—raw and messy from being scrawled onto random scraps of paper. It is simple and short, but it is a whisper that has danced in my heart over the many weeks since I first wrote it.

May you find a bit of reflection and shared humanity in the words.

Onward and upward, fellow sojourner.

xxx.

Peter refused to let Christ wash his feet
mere hours before He hung on the tree
to give him a gift he merited less—
God's forgiveness, seven times seventy.
And you, my soul, writhing with stubbornness,
would you let His hands wash grime from your feet?
You, who rhyme ‘holiness’ with ‘avoidance of help,’
imagine if you'd hung yourself on the tree,
refusing the plan born to set you free
because when God tried to save you, you said, "let me."

— “Let Me”

Hello, fellow sojourner,

Today’s “nosegay” is a reflection on all the dead, dying, and decomposing things I’ve quietly watched over the past few days. Some decaying things are things which were not created to decay. Some are things which should decay—like the soft death of a weary soul’s independence or a shy soul’s hiding places. All of them are ugly and beautiful at the same time.

May these whisper words of beauty over the decaying things in your life too.

xxiv.

The first time I saw her, she yelled at me.
A ragged woman with a weathered face,
she roams around town lugging her suitcase
and glowers at onlookers angrily.
After that time she passed me in cursing,
I oft thought of her. Each time I saw her
she resembled a shadow. I wondered,
"where is the monster in you that needs nursing?"
Yesterday, I saw her sitting in shade.
"Hello," I dared. Then she caught me off guard.
"Hello," she said, the harsh voice stirred my heart
with hopefulness. I sat down...and she stayed.
I saw her anger is not what it seems—
she's only singing her shadows to sleep.

— Dadila

xxv.

I spend hours a day observing souls;
I could tell you stories about strangers:
that lad left behind the lass he adores;
this lady is hated by her neighbors.
The man over there has two little ones,
and the teen on that bench dropped out of school.
That sad woman dug her own grave with drugs
and she isn't wise, but she's not a fool.
I spend hours a day just roaming, walking,
studying faces to find their sadness.
And when I find it, I sit there, watching
from a distance to let their soul undress
every sorrow that they think goes unseen.
As I watch, I think, you are quite like me.

— Sonder Walks

xxvi.

It was sunny when we left church today
so we walked for an hour till we reached
the river where waters gurgled their praise
in harm’ny with the sermons birdsong preached.
And, as if in Eden, wildflowers
waltzed along the grassy banks. Like little
girls, the sight tickled our hearts and hours
were passed arranging bouquets. The whistle
of the summer wind pulling us along.
Her bouquet was purple, mine was yellow—
colors that seem to best sing our hearts' songs.
I closed my eyes and prayed, "I love You so.
For giving me beauty—and eyes to see;
for scattering Eden in Earth's debris."

— Scattering Eden

xxvii.

She sits at your deathbed and thinks back thirty-one years.
I wonder if she still would have taken your name
if she knew how soon it would be carved on a grave.
But she walks you to the dusts and she blesses the tears.

— Walking Down the Aisle of Death

xxviii.

I carry a bag of pebbles
every place I go.
Each pebble is a prayer
for someone that I know.
I drag the bag along,
heavier each hour,
until the pebbles fall
and form a little tower.
The pebbles become an altar
anointed by my tears.
The bag falls to the dusts
and I pray to the God who hears.

— My Pebble Altar

xxix.

Today I fell in love with imperfect things:
the smudges on the edges of the canvas you painted,
the faded whiteness of smiling teeth,
the way your arrival was a bit belated,
and you being scared of bumblebees.
I loved the awkwardness when you hesitated
on your words because you had to sneeze.
I loved watching your face display a thousand landscapes,
first excitement, then weariness, joyfulness, stress.
You don't need to fear being messy with me;
Today I fell in love with imperfect things.

— For April (a sweet friend)

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Hello, fellow sojourner,

Today’s “nosegay” is a collection of simple, odd, little quatrains musing over the ironies and paradoxes of life. May they free up your own mind to ponder the world through which you roam.

xix.

Is one a poet because they love life
or does loving life require a poet?
And what of the poets who fixate on death?
Or do they love life in pondering its end?

— Pondering Poets

xx.

When I look up at trees, I see windows of light:
branches twisted to frame golden rivers of sun.
And when I look at faces, I see trees in their eyes:
edges tangled to frame fragments of the kingdom.

— Frayed Frames

xxi.

Are we afraid of the things that we fear
or is what we fear simply being afraid?
I fear how my soul rears when struck by its fears.
But that takes far too much thought to explain.

— Fear Itself

xxii.

Moths are just butterflies without the color,
like nighttime is daytime without its light;
silence is noise but without the clutter;
a broken man is a whole one who can't cry.

— Ironies

xxiii.

The water was murky and it drew me in
to the soft, mossy hollow where monsters live,
but I found only myself and could not escape him.
So while my shadow drowned me, I taught it to swim.

— The Day I Met My Monster

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Hello, fellow sojourner,

Today’s “nosegay” includes five sonnets inspired by the five chapters of James. I have written each one in epistolary form, so they all begin with “Dear […].” I will save today’s poem for the next post so as to reserve this collection for the James sonnets alone.

May these flowers uplift you as you faithfully plod down pilgrim paths.

xiv.

Dearest pilgrim hearts, I greet you as one—
though you are scattered across the wind's wings—
all you dispersed form but one Dispersion,
bound by the Spirit's invisible strings.
Therefore, count it all joy as you, on earth,
wither. For the implanted word takes root
in souls who know the reward's worth
and die as seeds to rise bearing fruit.
Bless'd is he who suffers and perseveres,
who be not tossed like a wave of the sea;
a crown of life adorns his pilgrim years,
for his heart bears the law of liberty.
Dearest Dispersion, I urge you as one...
die to these dusts and rise to the kingdom.

— Dearest Dispersion | James I

xv.

Dear fellow, unworthy heirs of the King,
remember the throne before which you kneel.
Kiss the tender feet scarred by suffering—
wash them with tears for the blood spilled to seal
salvation's song. Do you hear it ringing?
When you sit 'neath the cross do you observe
the crowds or are you a sinner singing
to the Savior who came on earth to serve?
Do you dare turn your eyes from His kind face
to look down on a brother's ragged robes
while the Savior looks down at you with grace—
you whose soul is naked beneath your clothes.
If you really fulfill the royal law,
kneel with your brothers where all sinners fall.

— Dear Unworthy Heirs | James 2

xvi.

Dear toiling ones, who carry seeds of peace,
the spades you carry take the shape of swords.
You have broken the roots of healthy things
and watered the soil with empty gourds.
Not many men should presume to seem wise—
for the tongue in your mouth bleeds foolishness,
staining the earth you were called to baptize
with the peace which reaps fields of righteousness.
But you labor the land in both blessing
and cursing. You water the seeds with salt
and you kiss the sprouts with fire. Transgressing
while confessing, you deny and exalt
the Gard'ner who gave you the seeds to throw.
O, God above, redeem the sins we sow.

— Dear Toiling Ones | James 3

xvii.

Dear sinners, cleanse your hands and purify
your hearts. You invite God's enemy to
your meals, saving a seat for the world. Why
are your passions still at war within you?
You who cast judgments from your whitewashed tombs—
dusts quarreling with dusts over whose grime
is greater. While birthing sin from your wombs,
you fight o'er whose headstone is paradigm.
Why can one hear laughter in the graveyards?
Why do things full of death discuss which soot has
more life? Ashes boasting in hell's courtyards
o'er who deserves heav'n's highest gold. Alas,
you scrub your stones forgetting you're a mist.
Resist the devil. Oh sinners, resist.

— Dear Sinners | James 4

xviii.

Dear rich, your robes are ragged and rotting
with flesh-eating corrosion. Fat worms crawl
in your skin. They nest in your ears, blotting
the weeping of men who, in your fields, fall.
Dear suffering brothers, be patient yet.
Establish your hearts with the farmer's hope—
wait and watch for the rain to bless your sweat
and bring forth the mercy God showed to Job.
Dear brothers with natures like Elijah's,
your prayers reach the ears of a divine God.
A righteous man's word is powerful. Thus,
pray—all you who through the pilgrimage plod.
And always cast light on wandering men,
to save them from death, to cover their sin.

— Dear Rich, Suffering, and Righteous | James 5

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Hello, fellow sojourner,

Today’s “nosegay” of poems is a compilation of sonnets. Each sonnet represents very dear, vulnerable moments I had with fellow humans this week. The first with a stranger, the second with an acquaintance, the third with a dying mentor, and the fourth with a friend.

May the bittersweet smell of these wilting flowers help you breathe in vulnerability with tenderness.

x.

I sat reading under a tree at dusk
when a hobbling man passed by with a cane.
He sat on a bench and removed his gloves;
I watched him and wondered, what is his name?
The longer I watched, the more that I thought:
I simply must know the life he has lived.
So gath'ring my books, I walked to his spot:
"Sir?" the eyes I met held such loneliness.
"Are you sad?" The man chuckled, "well aren't you
a curious thing to meet in this world."
Then he swept me through the places he knew,
letting a lifetime of breathing unfold.
He said, "no one's left to carry my name."
I said, "I will in a poem someday."

— Gastonié (a stranger)

xi.

There was something in your eyes when you laughed
last night. Our flowery conversations
dodging your troubles with secrecy's craft,
which still couldn't hide small hesitations.
I pause, sip my water. "How is your soul?"
You laugh. I stay quiet and sip again.
"It's bleeding with wounds I cannot console,"
you whisper. I nod, but I just listen.
A heaviness settles—it feels like peace;
"I love you," I say. "It's okay to feel lost."
And I hold your gaze, letting silence speak;
you say, then, that my eyes look sorrow-washed.
I smile, "I've always thought eyes are mirrors—
maybe in mine you have seen your own tears."

— Quiet Unraveling (an acquaintance)

xii.

I sit across the table, watching you
die. I used to think death was a demon
tearing through life, leaving trails of blood through
hearts left standing o'er the ground you sleep in.
But I sit across the table and I
watch as you die. I whisper, "You're leaving."
Your eyes soften, "I know." I start to cry
as you walk toward the kitchen, death lapping
your heels. I watch you leave gently, as if
slipping softly into another room.
I see one foot cross the borderline's rift—
you limp on earth with one foot in your tomb.
I sit and watch you sip teacups of death;
you smile at me while you choke on what's left.

— Sipping Death (a dying mentor)

xiii.

You asked to meet over coffee or tea
I arrived first and saved us seats. I prayed
over your chair: Father, hug her with peace.
When you showed up, it had started to rain—
You ordered a muffin and allongé;
I got jasmine tea. "How are you?" I ask.
You say, "I'm good," and I answer, "okay."
Then pausing, "how are you without the mask?"
The human in you peeked out from your eyes,
"I'm angry," then each of your frustrations
spill from behind your old, worn-out disguise.
I watch the display of your vexations
twist you beneath the hand of your chagrin,
but I saw not chaos—I saw a friend.

— Rainy Day Conversations (a friend)

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Hello, fellow sojourner,

Today’s “nosegay” of poems is tied together with a theme of time and the fleetingness of this lovely life. They are blurred thoughts from my “people-watching” observations, random conversations, and reflections on the fruit of my life. I’ve grown particularly fond of short, simple poems and such formatting seems to fit this theme, so please accept this bouquet as one of small wildflowers.

May these help you weigh the meaning of your own lives too.

vi.

Two souls sojourn the earth in rhyme:
The other's thoughts inside their mind.
Two hearts bleeding
From one world's mistreating;
And one shared song written on two tongues.
If you watch, they breathe each other's lungs.

— Togetherness

vii.

Isn't it lovely
To have so much emotion pent up in your soul
That each little thing becomes meaningful?
I'd e'er choose the heartache of sorrow's excess
If it meant that this life was not meaningless.
Give me joy,
Give me madness,
Give me courage and fear.
Give me a bruised life so I know it was real.

— Give Me a Bruised Life

viii.

What do you wish to grow, my dear,
In the garden of your soul?
Do you want the peace of daffodils,
The dandelions' joyful frills?
The whimsy of wisteria,
The lily of Assyria?
Tell me the garden you dream for your soul—
Now, look at the seeds you have thrown in the soil.
When the harvest time comes and those seeds softly grow,
Will the bouquet you reap be what you meant to sow?

— Landscaping Souls

ix.

I rhymed a few lines for two elderly dears
Who sat 'neath a tree to reflect on their years.
It said, "la vie change, mais as-tu assez de foi—"
Life always changes, but do you have enough faith,
"Que je choisisse de rester sous l'arbre avec toi ?"
That I'll sit 'neath the tree with you all of my days?
They smiled and took it, this poem of mine,
But I walked off and wondered: are they proud of their time?

— Sous L’arbre

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Dear lovely sojourner,

I shall be attempting to write a poem a day through the month of April. Rather than posting them daily, I will compile several days’ worth of poems into a kind of “nosegay of poetry” which I will send you in an email. This first nosegay is filled with resurrection “flowers”—my soul’s stirrings beneath the wondrous cross and my heart’s wonder at the Lord of redeeming love.

Onward, upward, fellow pilgrim. We are His own.

i.


"Grace and peace to you," charis and shalom
I heard from the mouth of a sojourner
Whose paths crossed my own in this world we roam.
And my soul awoke to the low whisper:
May grace, unmerited favor of God,
And peace, the wholeness of rightness with Him,
Bind your soul as you onward, upward trod
And steady your heart with the heavens' hymn.
Grace and peace to you, charis and shalom.
Favor, then peace, for it is the vessel
By which God restores man's heart to His own,
Snatching our souls from snares of the devil.
"Grace and peace to you," charis and shalom.
May you find favor, wholeness, at the throne.

—Favor, Wholeness

ii.

"Réveille-toi, mon cœur, réveille."
Wake up, my heart, wake up.
No longer must you sleep.
No more may night the harvest reap
And fill the hollows that you keep.
Wake up, my heart, wake up.
For hope, at last, has breathed a breath
Across the round earth's fleeting breadth
And scattered birdsong in the winds
Which flurry unto the earth's ends.
Wake up, my heart, wake up.
Wake up and leave your mourning.
Wake with the light of morning.

—Réveille

iii.

My church held a liturgical service
To commemorate Good Friday.
And my pastor asked me to watch the kids
So the parents could, in silence, pray.
When he asked, my mind began to compare
The candlelit hush of sacredness stirred
With a roomful of littles in my care.
In my hesitation, I was disturbed
By the gentle tune of my Savior's voice
Saying, "Let the little ones come to Me."
And, suddenly, I saw no better choice
Than to tend the children He died to free.
One sleeps in my arms as I write this rhyme
I did not need candles to know He's alive.

—I Did Not Need Candles

iv.

Today, the sunlight was affectionate,
Caressing the earth with a tender touch
And coaxing the springsong out of its hutch
That the blue sky's gaze might perfection it.
I walked and found a magnolia tree
Which I sat 'neath to watch the sunlight's birth
Awaken the slumbering parts of earth.
I stayed for it also awakened me.
Then, I slept and drempt that I heard footsteps
Walking in the garden to be with me.
I hid, in my shame, like Adam and Eve.
But You woke the garden from darkness' depths,
And now in the place where the curs'd tree stood
You breathe o'er the earth and You call it good.

—Eden Dreams

v.

I would have loved to have been a bird
Perched upon the arms of a mossy tree
Watching the stone where the Savior stirred,
Listening to dusts of the graveyard breathe.
Two days of silence, but not a third.
And did the birds sing or hold their song?
Did the flowers bloom or patiently bud?
Did the sunlight still bring forth the dawn,
While the gossamer cloaked His shedded blood?
Perhaps the birds continued to sing.
Perhaps the flowers unraveled their leaves.
Perhaps the sun was a brilliant ring
Which speckled the blood that His body heaved.
I would have loved to have been a bird
Perched upon the arms of a mossy tree
Humming the song which I, from Him, learned
So He'd hear a song as He rose from sleep.
I could not give Him singing that day
He rose from the dusts of earth anyway,
So He could be singing when I awake.

—The Sleeper’s Song

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I babysit three, precious children who were evacuated from their old home due to political turmoil and unrest. Recently, while talking about their sojourning, the little boy told me, “we were scattered.”

Hearing such wording from such a small child makes my heart weep. What does one tell a child who has been “scattered”?

Later that night, I read them the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) while they curled up under their covers for bed. “What does it mean to mourn?” their darling voices asked. This sonnet is inspired by the conversation that followed and the tenderness that our kind Maker weaves into the bitterness of this earth.

Blessed are you who mourn, for He is your light.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

"We Who Mourn"
For the Scattered Children

I read the verse, "Blessed are those who mourn,"
And, smiling, "For they shall be comforted,"
To three small children with three souls forlorn
From losing the home where their childhood lived.
And the three, little eyes—three oceans blue—
Swept my soul in their tide of sorrowness. 
They asked me, "Who mourn?" And I whispered, "You.
For all that you've loved and lost and miss."
Peace tugged their mouths into soft, little smiles;
Their hollowed, blue eyes washed with light anew.
But one studied me for a silent while.
In a soft voice she ventured, "Do you mourn too?"
And she broke my soul with her tender sight.
Bless'd are we who mourn, for He sees our night.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about life like a home with open shutters. A sharp, icy wind billows in from the snowy, blue night and suddenly the cozy, hardwood floors are speckled with snowflakes. A fire still glows from the corner of the living room, as if smiling upon the intrusive guest.

Warm voices bellow in the kitchen and I mosey over to find a candlelit table surrounded by joyful, rosy faces. It’s hard to tell if the rosiness is from the wintry wind whipping their skin or the laughter bubbling up from their stomachs. Each of the sojourners at this gathering seems blissfully unaware of the open shutters, the rattling windowpanes, the whistling wind which slowly grows to howling as dusk shifts to a snowy, midnight blue and stars wink down from their velvet clouds.

Winter is an uninvited guest in this picture within my mind. But no one seems to mind her presence. In fact, she goes almost entirely unnoticed…bursting in through shutters on one side of the house, brushing past the warm gathering, and rushing out on the other side again.

This is how life has felt to me lately.

Since moving here, half a year ago, my roommate, Joy, and I have shared far more unpredictable and chaotic experiences than we ever dreamed of having within our first year of leaving home.

Some notable shared experiences include the following:

• accidentally almost riding our bikes on the highway (yes, we were that confused about our surroundings for a wee moment)

• getting incredibly misinformed and freaking out when we thought a pack of wolves was attacking our village (I promise we’re not brainless; this was not our brightest moment)

• being locked inside for twenty-four hours so the government could attack a crazy mosquito infestation

• being run after by strangers (believe it or not, this happened to both of us on two separate occasions)

• and I could name many more…

There are two experiences in particular that have eternally implanted themselves in my brain as stories I will carry from this year.

The first was from late December. We’re both nannies for the same group of children and, naturally, spend a lot of time reading to them, playing with them, hugging them when they need it, and so forth. We also both have relatively thick hair. So, imagine our pain when one of the moms comes to pick up one of our beloved, little darlings and asks, “Can his bedding be washed? He has lice.”

After a whole day of playing with and hugging this child, we knew we were basically doomed to the little critters.

Having grown up as a host family for foster kids, I knew how to handle lice from all my foster siblings that came back from the public schools with it. However. There is a big difference between dealing with it on someone else and on yourself.

When we made it back to our room, I smiled at Joy and said, “If we weren’t friends before, we’re definitely going to be friends after this.”

“Why?”

I just shook my head and laughed, “Because, darling. You’re gonna have to let me look through every single one of your hairs for tiny bugs. And you’ll have to do the same for me.”

She groaned, “But I have so much dandruff.”

“Well you’re about to have dandruff and bugs, so let me help you.”

We sat there on our bathroom floor, every night for two weeks, just combing through each other’s hair, checking carefully, washing the comb after every run through the hair. It took hours out of each of our evenings.

After that there were the hilarious caps we wore on our heads with product to kill anything remaining and prevent anything new. Our laundry was separated carefully to avoid spreading anything and our scalps were spotless by the end of it due to all the washing and many, many hours of meticulous bug-searching.

And my favorite part…it was fun.

We actually laughed and smiled and enjoyed the process.

My weird roommate and I had fun having bugs in our hair. Simply because we were so busy laughing at the raw lightheartedness of the situation, at the nightcaps, at the hours of random conversations while combing through each other’s hair, and at the puddles of water on the floor from washing the combs.

We had so much fun and it was lovely.

Now we find ourselves in a new scenario, again caused by the dear babies we watch. They all caught a virus which resulted in us running around the room trying to catch snotty noses before their little hands found the mucus themselves. Entertainingly, Joy and I both have horrible immune systems; anything the littles get, we get too..and usually worse.

The past four days, we’ve been quite ill. When we haven’t been sleeping, we’ve been laying in our beds coughing up mucus (lovely, I know) and blowing our noses every two minutes (it sounds like elephants moved onto our hall). We caught high fevers at the same time and ended up throwing all our blankets on the floor only to be freezing and on the floor ourselves five minutes later to bundle up in the blankets we just threw off.

The peak event is from the second day when we were so shivery, feverish, and cold that we decided to change into our swimsuits and sit in a hot shower while watching a movie on her computer. (You definitely need a dear friend for this idea to be successful, but, let me tell you, it was actually as calming as it was humorous).

Today she’s had nosebleeds from blowing her nose so often and I coughed so hard I strained a muscle in my back (like the 60-year-old woman I am).

And, despite all odds…

We’re still having so much fun.

We’re laughing.

We laugh so hard we cough even more. And then we laugh at the coughing and it makes us cough again. We laugh at the nosebleeds, at the growing mountains of tissues, at the hilarious things we’ve said to each other without thinking, like, “You look terrible” or “You’re literally paler than the moon was last night.”

Little bugs came and found us laughing. Sickness came and found us laughing.

It feels magical—this idea that such unpredictable inconveniences can be, in fact, so woven in happiness. When I think about the past half-year, I don’t feel that comical sense of disdain for something terrible that happened. I feel genuine lightheartedness revisiting all the laughter, the silliness in the face of unpleasantry, the raw friendship breaking through surface love.

Life has been a little, cozy home with opened shutters and a flickering fireplace. The winter winds have barged in every few days, swirling across the hardwood floors and settling on the sofas. But there’s still steam rising from the tea in our mugs, there’s still joy in our voices,…there’s still laughter in the kitchen.

I love laughter in the kitchen.

All these bittersweet oddities, these things we are so quick to name as frustrations, are perhaps wonder in disguise. Or maybe it is the company that is magic. Maybe it is the friendship and the impossibility of maintaining privacy and distance. Maybe it is this constant necessity for, and tug towards, vulnerability and strange experiences that allows for such beautiful brightness and constant joyfulness.

Or, perhaps, and this is my preferred idea, it is only the slow realization that I do not have to fall into the rhythm of accepting things as bitter merely because they have been named so by the rest of the world. What a strange, little blessing—and how odd to have taken so long to recognize it—that I am allowed to see humor instead of distress, I’m allowed to smile instead of complain. I am actually allowed to enjoy these weird complexities of life.

Whatever it is, I am grateful. I am genuinely delighted about the bugs and the piles of tissues and the curling-up-in-blankets-on-the-floor. I am entirely enthralled by this silly, raw life which holds so much richness and so much lightheartedness all at once. I am grateful winter has paid us a visit with her icy, blue winds and that she has found us ever laughing, almost ignorant to her chill—sometimes even all the more entertained because of it.

I hope you get to taste this strange little life I have come to adore and cherish in new and beautiful ways. I hope the shutters of your home fling open while you’re sipping tea near a warm stove.

I hope winter barges into your living room and finds laughter in the kitchen.

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Long lay the world in sin and error pining; 
till He returned and the soul felt its worth.

Advent Poem I | Inspired by “O Holy Night”
”O, Soul, Feel Thy Worth”

O, soul, dost thou still feelest not thy worth,
When the fullness of God was pleased to dwell
In a body born from the earth He birthed,
Unveiling Yahweh as Immanuel?
And when light unrobed put not sin to death,
He bled love untarnished 'neath darkness' blade;
The Divine chose the dusts of human flesh
Then lay His own bones in a sinner's grave. 
This babe's sacred blood was drained to fill
Thy soul with the Spirit that searches God.
We thought incarnation beyond His will
Yet He bore the flesh to unrobe thy sod. 
Thus, the divine took on humanity,
To make us temples of divinity.

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

There are corners of the earth that wait for me
In eternal postures of reverie
For the poets who, long ago, sat in their bower, 
Claiming sense to be senseless and folly a flower.
These corners thread ages in ancient gold
Footstools for men made, by meekness, bold.
They watch the old earth's pages turn—
The same follies under the sun burn.
The same hate plagues man in war and peace;
Both the rich and poor exclude men from their feast. 
Yet they watch, for they see, in every age undone, 
There has lived a lost poet or a poet's son:
Pilgrims carrying tunes of the sacred song
That spun us into being and to which they belong.
Creaking corners of this earth stand watching,
For daughters of poets, these pilgrims' sons
To rewrite, in their shadows, old tricks of the sun's. 
'Neath an oak I sit, like a madman talking.
The sun sets and I smile. This tree has been watching.

- “The Watching Tree,” journaled this afternoon (October 16, 2025)

I remember the first time my siblings and I talked about the concept of “home.”

We were on our roof in West Africa, feet dangling over our guava tree, eating fruit we had picked while rain spilled over our bodies. It’s not exactly anywhere, I said. And kinda, somehow, everywhere, my brother said.

We sat there, thinking the same things but not saying any words, for a while. Then, what if we get to decide what home is? The words slipped out of my mouth without much thought, but, somehow, they softened that untouchable sacredness of the belonging we fought to grasp.

It was on that day that my siblings and I created our map to home.

The first step to the map of home is recognizing that it’s in you before you’re in it. You don’t go home. You carry it with you. Certain places and people just awaken it a little bit more than others.

Secondly, it’s a sacred, whole, and beautiful thing that was shattered into a hundred, glittering pieces. That’s why sometimes you tumble upon little bits of incredibly familiar, nostalgic things in the most unfamiliar, distant places. My siblings and I refer to the sacred, whole, beautiful thing as home and the “pieces of it” as hiraeth.

Hiraeth is a Welsh word similar to the German word sehnsucht (which you might recognize if you are a C.S. Lewis reader1). In simple words, it refers to a homesickness and yearning for a place you cannot return to or, perhaps, have never even been to.

Whenever my siblings and I move, we pick a new place to be our “hiraeth”—one piece of the full, whole home we have never been to and cannot see until a brighter day dawns. Like a puzzle coming together over months of sorted pieces, our “home” expands, and is revealed, with each new hiraeth.

The first hiraeth my siblings and I found—we really tumble upon them rather than create them—was that rooftop corner hanging over our guava tree in West Africa. When we lived in America, it was a little hollow in the forest bordering our house. Everywhere we go, we tumble upon creaking crevices of the earth that glitter with shards of a home we have glimpsed from different angles, but never seen whole.

Now that I’m living in Europe, alone for the first time, I have been spending many free hours roaming around my little village to uncover the next shard of home. Finally, I have found it. . .this season’s hiraeth.

I found it haphazardly: an old tree, with deep roots, that is positioned in such a way that half its leaves burn golden under the sun and the other half remain nearly always in the shadows. When I sit beneath this tree, I think all the same things and see all the same things and question all the same things that I do in my other hiraeths. But mostly, I sense that same longing, that same, heavy yearning that burns inside my bones.

This afternoon, I was sitting beneath my tree, its yellowing leaves filtering sunlight onto my shoulders, and thinking about Ecclesiastes. Thinking about how there is nothing new under the sun. . .how this tree has held other doubting dreamers in its arms, how its branches have towered over other sleeping sojourners, how its leaves have shadowed other philosophizing fools. How all the changes in myself were once normal things in other souls that this old tree greeted.

This hiraeth, The Watching Tree, as I have begun to call it, may have been a thinking spot for some ragged sojourner a hundred years ago. Or maybe it endured a hasty kick from a rambling drunkard. Or maybe it served as a witness to the promises a bold, young lad made to himself. Or maybe it stood quietly as a woman with white-wisped hair, walked through the memories of her life while leaning on the sturdy, old trunk.

I wrote this poem while thinking about all of these things. . .about the ancient altars of the earth that wait for the pilgriming poets who tumble upon them. The places where thinkers and strugglers—humans—have sat to unravel the endless threads of their soul. These are the corners of the earth that greet me. The places that meet me with the same level of yearning and longing for something deeper, something real.

And they are that way because they were sung into being by the Divine who breathed life into the dusts of earth, who lifted melodies into the sunrise, who formed that holy Homeland we so long for. . .so break for. That gracious Potter who gathers all these shards of home, these hiraeths in our pockets, by threads of blood-birthed gold, binds together what was lost and calls it found.

So I sit, as often as I can, in these corners of earth that wait for me. . .these places where solitude begs my awareness of His presence, and I wait and I watch. I watch with my watching tree.

And one day, while we sit here watching, we will see the homeland restored.

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Last July, I experienced the worst chronic illness flare-up that I have ever had. It was about 3:00 am and I was curled up in tears, exhausted but unable to rest because of the pain flaming through my body. For about three hours, I didn’t do anything but scratch lines of poetry down in some of the shakiest, scrawliest scrabbles of my life.

Eventually, I passed out and woke up to find the smudged scribbles of “My Gethsemane” (a poem that I didn’t remember writing). When I read the poem, I couldn’t even conceive the idea of an “after.” The idea of ever reaching a point where I didn’t have to worry about random pain or health flare-ups felt entirely foreign to me.

But here we are, several months later, and for the first time in five years it has been seventy-three days since I last felt pain. I still have limited energy and shortness of breath and such from another chronic illness…but to not be in pain for seventy-three days has been abundantly restful.

Maybe it will all come rushing back right after I publish this post. Maybe it will flare again and be worse than it ever was before.

But, for now, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of seventy-three days.

After recently tumbling upon “My Gethsemane” again, I decided to write a kind of follow-up poem: “After Gethsemane.” I’ve typed both out below in the hopes that you might find as much comfort as I do in the good, loving God who births meaning and beauty in both the graves and the gardens.

My Gethsemane 
(June 26, 2025 during health flare)

I asked God for unraveling;
He led me to Gethsemane. 
I pleaded, "Call me deeper still,
That I might yearn for Heaven's will."
My Lord handed something unto me;
I reached for it, but it felt like a tree.
Then, I noticed it seeped with a dark, sickly thing—
The blood ran down my hands and I quickly recoiled;
It was sopping with rottenness, bitterly soiled.
"This is not what I wanted," I quivered with fright.
But, as I retreated, His hands pulled me nigh.
He sternly, but gently, pressed this thing in my palm;
I was amazed by its hellishness and by His calm.
Then, worse, I could see it was covered in thorns
Which poked at my skin till it bled more and more. 
"Lord, tis seething and horrid, twill tear me apart."
Still, He did not respond, only gazed at my heart.
And with tears in my eyes, I took this rotting tree,
This breaking and binding—my Gethsemane. 
Now it digs in my shoulders, bites and bruises my back; 
My skin drips with blood and is swollen with black. 
As I wear it, I cry, "Lord, I need You again!"
And I weep and I writhe and my soul burns within.
What I do not yet know is one day I'll return
To this ghostly garden, where He gave me a tree. 
And I will see how my agony taught me to yearn. 
For when I felt forsaken, when I could not see,
I cried for Him more and again and again. 
Once I asked God to teach me to yearn for him, 
So He gave me a burden whose weight was so grave, 
That I forgot all the world and found Him in my pain.

"After Gethsemane"
(The "After" Poem)

Seventy-three days. 
The rose in my hands has thirty-seven petals,
I peel them off slowly as my soul's weight settles. 
Seventy-three days.
One petal-falls for the blood that I cried
When I was the ocean and pain was the tide. 
Seventy-three days.
Another petal falls for the pleas I prayed
For the God of the curse to kill pain with His blade.
Seventy-three days.
The last petal falls for the hard-wood floor
Where I sank to my knees when I could bear no more.
Where He ne'er before came with the longed-for relief,
But He sang to my sorrows through hours of grief. 
Seventy-three days since the threads of thorns
Bound me to the tomb where Eden's soul mourns
Seventy-three days since pain twisted my frame
Into the mold of the Creeper's essay of defame.
Seventy-three days since the last petal fell;
And the wind chimes whistled, "darling, all is well."
Seventy-three days.
Has it been so long?
Since my bones last ached,
Since the healing came?
Seventy-three days since He relieved my blight.
I walk up a hillside specked with autumn's light
Spilling in like water where tree branches crack.
My memories wade seventy-three days back.
I hear agony dripping from pitiful pleas
For grace from the brambles enrobing me.
See the weight of discouragement brimming despair;
See Fullness uplifting smashed earthenware.
Can it be my life's clay is arising from ash?
And autumn's ripe sunlight softs sickness' brash. 
What do you do when the healing comes?
When the cries of despair blur with distant thrums?
Now my old enemy this wretch'd creature of pain
Is the ghost's hand I lead to the altar of praise.
I sit on the hillside, look back seventy-three days, 
And I thank the Gardener of Gethsemane, 
For giving me that rotting tree.

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I have categories of prayers. The ones I say most are “whisper prayers”—prayers that take root in my heart amid bustling moments. Often, these prayers spill into a kind of poetic structure and become words or phrases that I repeat in my mind over a series of days. Each time I repeat them, I add on something new—a bit of a word change or a new praise or a stronger plea.

Naturally, I don’t usually share these because they are just my talks with the Maker. I do not write them for human ears, but for the Divine’s heart. However, I gifted one to a friend the other day (she lives far away and I couldn’t pray over her in person), and she asked me to share some others. I decided to write out a few of my recent ones and share them for anyone who may have been in similar situations.

I would not exactly call these prayers poems—at least, they aren’t written in the way that I would write something if it were specifically designed to be a poem. But, if all writing had heartbeats, these prayers would pulse with the same rhythm and longing as my ordinary poems.

For a Friend Fighting to Forgive 
(Includes Reference to James 1:12)

Dearest Abba of my soul,
You tell Your children to be tenderhearted.
But I have watched my friend remain tender—and torn.
The weight of forgiveness strangles her soul
Like an anchor latching a ship to waves amid a violent rage of sea and wind.
The waters rise upon her,
Crushing her against the crags,
Till her bones break beneath her and she bleeds and she drowns.
Would You have her remain tender now?
Would You have her heart let down its walls,
When battles wage and swords are drawn?
Would you will its vulnerability?
Have it open to the enemy?
Lord, I pray bravery over this burdened heart.
I pray for the forgiveness that digs its heels into thorns for the sake of love,
For the sake of all that was lost,
For the sake of all that will one day be.
Let her heart remain tender because it is held in Your hands.
Let the walls crumble because You are the house of her Refuge.
And from the thorns she holds in tenderness,
Weave a crown bejeweled in blessedness.
For, "Blessed is the one who perseveres...
When he has stood the test
He will receive the crown of life."

For the Birth of a Friend's Child
(Includes Reference to Matthew 25:21)

O Giver of Life, O Breather of Grace,
I pray power and peace over this little flower.
May her life be a seed that is crushed in the soil
Of the lost harvest fields where Your faithful ones toil.
May her soul find its home in the sound of Your feet, 
Running in the grass, towards the place where you meet. 
May her heart grow in peace with the Presence that guides her.
May the life You have given her body and spirit
Be returned unto You at the altar You visit.
So that when her day fades and the soldier years end,
She'll hear, "well done, little one," 
And to Light she'll ascend. 

For a Friend's Miscarriage
(Includes Reference to Psalm 131:1)

"Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor mine eyes lofty,
Neither do I exercise myself in great matters
Or things too high for me."
Instead, we sit in the rain and do not ponder its cause.
We watch clouds blacken the night and do not look for lost stars.
We walk on leaves that have dried and do not try to breathe back their life.
And we cry, God, we cry,
For this weight in our souls.
We cry, God, we cry,
And the tears mend our heart's holes.

For a Friend Searching for Truth
(Includes Reference to Ephesians 5:14)

There's a young man at church,
In a row near the back,
And his soul walks the line between heaven and earth.
Between sinners rejoicing till their shame leads to weeping
And sojourners laboring till grace crowns their reaping.
Our Pastor spoke of the branch that finds life in the vine
And I saw the man's eyes well with the weight of the Light.
O Great God of Heaven, Redeemer of Man,
I pray a new stirring over this sleeping soul's face,
I pray a new agony met with new grace.
I pray for a rising, resurrecting of life
From the grave of his flesh and the shame of his night.
In this very moment, Dearest Father of mine,
Call, "Awake thou that sleepest,"
Awake thou and rise.

For the Beauty of Christian Fellowship
(Includes Reference to 2 Corinthians 5:4)

Dear, Lord and Lover of my soul,
Do You hear the rain patter on the windowpane?
I'm whispering to You from the depth of my heart,
Amid raw conversation with Your pilgriming poets.
We each carry songs we've been sent from Your throne;
They pulse in our hearts and spur us on as we roam.
We would run up the mountains or faint in the fields,
To return to Your footstool with the gift of our yields.
Yet, in this mere moment we rest from the storm—
The hour is late and the coffee is warm.
The gold, winking light of the candles casts
A glow of our burdens, our stories, our pasts.
And I find, in the gathering, an ancient hymn
Being richly woven with battle cries:
The mingling of humans afraid of the night
With heroic soldiers who take up Heaven's fight.
And my soul overflows with the weight of it all—
This fragility, weakness, 
Melding with courage whose strength is in love.
Lord, I lift up my soul in this whisper of praise,
This echo of blessedness pulsing through pain,
And this tender abundance where death is not vain.
We are broken and trembling, weary watchmen of night.
But we are Yours and You're beautiful
And we love You, we love You.
We know You as Light.
Here, in the haven of hushed, heavy hours, 
Our laughter mingling with candlelight shadows,
Here, tucked away from the rain for a while,
I glimpse "what is mortal being swallowed by life."
The curtains flicker, I hear the distant songs of a feast,
I see the glow of an Eternal Kingdom,
And I love You, I love You, O Keeper of Eden.

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At last, here we are. My time in Africa, for now at least, has been packed away with all the last season’s fears and delights. The next adventure is waiting on my doorstep.

As a pilgriming poet, I’ve grown to view my life as a bouquet of wildflowers that I’ve picked up along the way. Each wildflower is unique to the people and places I have tumbled upon in these sojourning years.

Today is the end of my time in Africa—a place where my roots have settled for quite a long while. And as I study my “bouquet",” I can’t help but smile at how bright and chaotic Africa’s “flower” is. Nothing about this flower is simple or soft or elegant. In fact, its boldness and brilliancy quite overwhelm the dainty bouquet I have gathered over the years. It tells me that everything about Africa is rich and vibrant and complicated.

Truthfully, it took a long while for this flower to bloom. The soil the seed took root in was a thick, red clay that swirled with mud in rainy season and Sahara sands in dry season. Five years ago, I would have told you the seed would never grow…the flower was a lost cause. I would have settled for the weeds this land added to my life’s bouquet and grown to ignore their ugliness in comparison to my simpler, softer flowers.

But, I was wrong. Africa’s flower took longer to bloom. But, when it finally did bloom, it was the most beautiful flower of all. The years of scorching sunlight had burned sunrises upon the petals and the songs of the village people caused the stem to spiral upward.

Now, here I am, sitting in the quiet of my little, rooftop corner one last time…staring at my messy, odd bouquet of “flowers.” Yes, smiling even at “Africa.” The Savanna sky is fogged up with the white mist of rainy season, rolling over the cornfields that weave through my neighbor’s land and I realize, at last, I learned to love this flower. I would choose this flower again.

It brought chaos, yes, but not all chaos is confusion. Some chaos is joyful. Some chaos is beautiful.

And sewn into this chaos were some of the richest lessons of my life. I’ll share some of them with you…

Dance to the Altar

If you have nothing to give, you bring everything. Even if your “everything” is just a joyful noise and a praising dance. My African brothers and sisters pour their hearts into songs and surrender for the love of their Lord who is All to them. Offering plates do not always fill with coins. Some fill with corn and rice and the squawking chicken that someone held in their lap throughout the service.

The poorest people I know show me that to give is a gift. They dance to the altar.

Thank People for their Love

There’s a lady in the marketplace that stops me every Monday. She tells me how her heart stirred at church the day before and asks me to pray for the unsaved souls in her life. When our conversation is over she always tells me, “Thank you for your love.” And my heart burns with the knowledge that love is real and it moves and I am part of its pulse.

Rejoicing and Weeping Aren’t so Far Apart

There is little so joyful as an African wedding. The thrumming of drums and singing and dancing and cheering echo throughout the village on the wings of laughter and beauty. But, then there is the weeping, the womenfolk wailing their dramatic griefs, the bride tearfully bowing to her mother as her bridesmaids carry her suitcases over her head. Like a funeral procession, the marriage is sealed with farewells before hellos.

Africa feels no emotion lightly. The slightest joy is joyful to the point of tears. And sometimes the overflow of all that is gained melds with all that is lost to produce this chaos I have come to love…this “hurrah-boo,” this happy-sad. When the heart is so vulnerable and open to all its feeling, rejoicing and weeping are not so far apart.

Planting Seeds, Becoming Seeds

I talked with another pilgriming poet the other day. I found a poem she had written, years ago, about sitting in a precarious position, waiting to jump up and leave Africa whenever something new called her name. Today she is settling in with all the love of a sojourner who feels peace in being where the Lord wills. I texted her, “Look at you now, resting instead of sitting.”

She said, “digging deep and planting myself and becoming a tree.”

And isn’t it beautiful how we leave our homes to plant seeds…only to find that all along we were meant to become the seed.

Whatever Beside Me for Whoever Before Me

When I said my goodbyes to the dear, market friends I have grown to love, they all responded with the same measure of love and sacrifice. Immediately, they turned to their side, grabbed the nearest thing to them, and presented it to me as a gift with the words, “Do not think it small. What can I give?” From one stall to another, one goodbye to the next, this selfless act was repeated.

Not one person looked to see if what they reached for was their dearest or cheapest belonging. They only grabbed what was nearest—whatever beside them, for whoever before them. “Do not think it small,” they told me. But no. How could I think such sacrifice small? How could I measure friendship by a gift, when I know what it cost you to give the thing nearest you? How could I think such abundance of love, such overflow of generosity, such richness of spirit to be small?

And for them, I too will give whatever beside me for whoever before me. Today, that thing beside me is Africa’s flower…this wild thing in my bouquet. The Lord talked with me in the quiet of the morning and asked only for that flower.

So, at last, I am off to wander new gardens. I’ll pick a new wildflower for this odd bouquet of my life…and it will be all the more beautiful because of it.

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