Sing Me Home

There are all kinds of  female bloggers out there.  Yet it sometimes seems they all fit in a little box.  Young moms with a niche-special needs, homeschoolers, work from home, home-making, crafting, decorating. We're in there too-young moms of faith.  But if you keep looking into the blogosphere you'll find more women. Women like Netagene Kirkpatrick.  She is a poet, a devoted Christian and a good bit older than we are. Having her for a friend-through blogging-has been almost as much a joy to me as enjoying her poetry.  This Friday we wanted to share a favorite.  To peruse more lovely poems visit her at Blinded by Insight. ~Helene

Sing Me Home

When I am close to dying,

don't put me in a dark room.

Open the curtains to creation ��" 

God's sun or the light of the moon.

Though temporary, while I'm alive,

don't hide me away from my friends.

Let me talk on the phone to the callers.

If visitors, let them come in.

I know that God made music.

I really want to hear

the songs and psalms of the Bible.

Sing them loud and clear.

If the nurses and doctors don't like it,

I'm telling you now really straight:

I want phone calls and visits and music

while I'm alive, not when it's too late.

So when I'm about to cross over,

don't hide me away, all alone.

Hold my hands and pray and love me, and

Sing me home.

- by Netagene. I wrote this in about 15 minutes on September 25, 2011. I found it today. Mother had passed from this life on August 11, 2011. -

Pew Putrefaction

"I don't want to wait till I'm 40!  I don't want to lose my sense of adventure, my passion, my enthusiasm for life!" she wailed.  

I laughed.  I know; I'm bad. Counseling my students as they face the inevitable growing pains is one of the ways I serve.  I ought to be able to keep a straight face by now.

Church

Let's go to church."  My husband HATES that phrase.  If you knew him I'd tell you that he hates it like he hates VBS and the song "Lily of the Valley," and you'd shrink back in appropriate horror.  Since maybe you don't know him so well, I'll pick a different comparison. Saying "go to church" will provoke him nearly as much as saying some very foul and ugly word.  There may even be threats of mouths being washed out with soap.  

Teaching and Admonishing Yourselves

Melissa and I have been interrupted recently by RL (that's Real Life, for those of you that don't speak blogger).  She's been on vacation and getting a second child started in school.  I've been away from home for a month traveling and preparing to restart homeschooling and my regular teaching schedule for the University.  In the midst of this, our friend Dene from Flightpaths which we've mentioned before offered to let us borrow an article from her archives.  We struck on this gem.  Melissa and I have frequently dwelt on the idea of how much singing helps us keep our minds focused on the things of God but neither of us had thought of it quite this way. ~ Helene 

Jesus Follower

Have you ever wished there was a "trending now" list for religious phrases?  At the top of the list would be "Jesus Follower." (Don't believe me?  Google it!) It seems like everywhere I turn somebody or other is identifying themselves that way.

I don't know how to feel.

Sin

Have you thought about the nature of sin?  Not the doctrinal questions of original sin or the nature of our flesh. I mean the simpler question: have you thought on what sin is? Or how we can recognize it?

Back to Basics

After a month digging deep into God's heart and relearning the meaning of the word "grace," I am reminded that the most basic words in our vocabulary  are the hardest to define.  

I know that as an English teacher.  I am constantly reminding my students to take a second look and make sure that familiar words aren't appearing in unfamiliar ways.  For example, "The fresh troops delivered the besieged city."  If you're a native English speaker you may have no idea how puzzling that sentence is.  "Deliver," a word used every day to mean "to bring something" appears here as a verb that means "to save."