Home Is The state Of my heart: Heart-shaped Ohio. “Ohio, The Heart of It All,” Is more than its slogan, to me. It’s a certainty Born of dappled sunlight, porch swing swishes, marching bands, sure love, and lingering laughter.
In the midst of war (and there is always a war) lies grim misjudging. Fear of difference. Insatiable greed for land. Resolute loathing. Dire false impressions. Grave miscommunications.
And a common moon.
And beneath that moon, in God’s perfect alignment, is home to us all. We’ve food and water (if only we’d gladly share), great plains and mountains, celebrated seas with unfathomably large communal mammals. With microscopic yet astoundingly complex sentient beings. Sands God has numbered stay in place as our home spins, not spilling a drop of the vast waters that both adorn and provide, beautify and quench.
And though we do not tend to her needs (let alone the needs of “others”), God gave us this home brilliantly placed beneath the moon of His choosing, populated with children He chooses to love. (There are no “others.”}
Never Have I Ever is a party game, where one says, “Never have I ever ___.” (fill in the blank) Those who have actually done that thing lose a point. Out of points? Out of game.
I’ll go first. Never have I ever seen early-voting lines, let alone those that extend for blocks, for days.
Now, how many of you are still in the game?
Truth is, it’s not a game. The stakes are high. The views, dissimilar.
What do you see in the distance? Hope? Fear? A kinder country? Loss of freedoms? Peace? Chaos?
Don’t answer that. Because, you know, never have I ever witnessed a greater loss of kindness and respect in discussions.
But, there is a vanishing point where the look-back perspectives align. Then we will see, and smile at the vanity of it all.
In the greater distance, I see celestial shores. No lines needed. We will know for the first time what it actually feels like to be united. To have no doubts in our King’s kindness, love, and justice. We will know for the first time what it actually feels like to be equal children of the Living God. To be home.
Never have I ever longed more deeply for a non-foreign Shore.
Your playful thank yous Your throw-your-head-back laughter Your joy in Jesus
❤
Bernie, it was a pleasure knowing you all these years. You taught so many of us how to be appreciative of every little thing, and that our joy is wholly in Jesus. My heart sings for you, knowing you are now with Him … freed from the body that trapped you.
As August slips into the back side,
and daylight is squeezed
into fewer hours,
I miss the distant sound
of drum cadence,
bringing in a new season.
In just a couple weeks,
Dad and I would have had
our decades-long ritual
of gathering in front of the T.V.
and saying (as though it is a surprise),
“Can you believe it is already
the first game of the season?
Didn’t the season just end?”
It didn’t matter whose home we
were in,
until it did.
Those final years, he became too frail,
and it became harder,
and then impossible,
to get Mom out the door.
So we would haul food to their place,
and hope Dad could stay awake
and out of the bathroom
for most of the game.
We hoped he could enjoy it
a fraction of what he used to.
The lamp that was part of each home
Mom and Dad called theirs
now lights my front window
as I write poems
about football
and marching bands
and drum cadence
and Mom
and Dad.
Because poems
and their light
are all that remain.
In last night’s sky I saw hundreds of stars above me, and I remembered Michigan’s night sky, when you and I stood beneath not hundreds but billions or trillions and I wished I could take them home.
In last night’s sky I saw hundreds of stars above me. Today, not even one. Not even the sun.
But now? Now, I know they are here –
billions and trillions and even the sun, and even when I see not even one.
When fall visits, we crisscross the trail – never tiring of the crunch of crisp leaves beneath us, savoring childlike fun.
The brisk, fresh air invigorates – motivates us to ride further, sometimes pausing to capture photos of fall foliage, fields dotted with orange pumpkin; orchards with red apples.
Bushed and beaming, we head home, cautiously peering around multi-colored leaf piles raked to the curb – some taller than the cars avoiding them.
Home, warm and cozy, fire in the fireplace, popcorn popping, already reminiscing,
I live among the oak, and pine.
The locust. The buckeye.
The sugar and silver maples.
Home is dappled sunlight.
In nearby fields, green corn and soy,
orange pumpkins, or golden wheat
contrast against intense-blue sky.
No wonder why the man I love
longs to return to farming the land,
missing the “big toys” he used to enjoy.
The open fields that call his name,
and leave space for breath and prayer.
pictured words 