Playing With Fire

Walking over the nearly vacant concrete slab sobered my thoughts– its pattern of linoleum tiles now open to the sky and mostly covered with ash. In the center of the slab crouched a twisted tangle of steel that less than twenty-four hours ago led to a second floor. This distorted and crumpled spiral staircase stood as the lone remnant of what had recently been home to a dozen-plus college students. Nearly all of their personal possessions now existed only in the past, and they were desperately searching for new living accommodations.

The Starry Night

In the east the Sun rises,
dawn of his existence,
his life in a cosmos of his making.
Barely visible, he mounts the horizon,
climbing higher, farther in the sky,
knowing his path,
knowing his end.
His arc is toward noon,
his light and warmth expanding.
Now more than visible,
he is prominent,
undeniable in the zenith.

Two Like Three?

"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."   (Genesis 1:26, NASB)

A first-time reading (or hearing) of this narrative can easily give one pause, and perhaps prompt the unsettling thought– "Did I read that right?

Only Celebration

The early morning sun rose over the cemetery, and the long shadows cast by hundreds of gravestones shortened. Though the day was young, sweat already trickled down my forehead. Like a pack-mule, I carried my year-old daughter in a carrier on my back, and the walk to the graveside service was long. A couple of decades had passed since, as a boy, I last attended a funeral, and this was my first since fully arriving at adulthood. Uncertain emotions flooded my soul.

Transfusion

A calloused hand grasped the handle of an earthen pitcher, tilting it. Cool water tumbled out of the spout, falling in a twisting, twining stream, making its way downward, earthward.

Much earlier in the day, the Rabbi sent two of his students ahead of him to prepare the Passover meal. When they inquired how they could know the place in which to make preparations, he responded that–

Dew of Hermon

Inexplicably, a man and a woman find themselves wandering a street in a large city. But for the two, the streets are devoid of all life. No one else walks the sidewalks, no cars patrol the streets, no dogs wander here and there looking for either mates or morsels of food in garbage cans.

Two Cries

Two profound "cries" stand as boundary stones of the Incarnation– the cry of the Child as He entered this cold, rough world of pain and drew His first breath, and the cry of the Man as He suffered the pain of torture and experienced death for the punishment of this world's sin.