Welcome to a community of creative reflectives who long to see the beauty of Christ's movements in a broken world, as we strive to understand the meaning of our humanity.
Photo: K. Dagen
do you send out
the ones you choose
into the wilderness -
like john, like us,
searching for zion -
so that we may know
what it’s like to be fiercely alone
(sometimes in a sea of faces)
and feel desperately lost
(sometimes in dark and crowded spaces)
like your son, like jesus?
for the world and
full of love,
but so alone,
your only son.
i love you that
you sent a child
to rescue all these
hearts gone wild.
sometimes i fear
my heart’s gone wild.
Mitchell, Joan. “City Landscape,” 1955.
i hear the sirens
at least once a night
screaming past in red blue light
waking me out of sleep, sometimes, and
reminding me that
everything is broken.
did the angels come like sirens?
to those shepherds keeping watch at night
shining bright with glory light, or when they
woke joseph from his sleep that time?
reminding him
not to be afraid.
did the baby cry like sirens?
held close to the young girl’s heart that night,
below the white light star of foreign kings, treasuring the hope
as she wakes within a restless sleep,
reminding her
not to be afraid.
did you send them out like sirens?
no promise of a bed at night, nothing but themselves to carry,
only casting out a kingdom light
to wake up all these sleeping cities,
reminding them
not to be afraid.
you say you’ll
come again like sirens and
remind us
not to be afraid.
Photo: K. Dagen
i’m found buried
down deep, sometimes;
pressed tight underneath.
it’s dark and i’m dirty.
around and against me,
things lurk and things creep.
how could any life be found
in so much smothering?
the pressure from above
bearing down on me.
i flail about
in desperate attempts for
light, air, water.
all these things will make me
clean again,
breathe again,
see again.
i could die here,
or reach out with desperate arms,
let something else give me what i need.
only to realize i can still breathe,
you’ve left just enough space,
the water source flows not far underneath.
when i reach for it, i’m steadied
and can take one inch closer to the sun
in hope, like You, just a seed in dark soil,
i’ll sprout once again as something new.
one tree in a forest
of glory and green
who all found themselves
buried, sometimes,
pressed down deep.
Photo: K. Dagen
“the world is so dark
and we need you again.”
thought john the baptist,
breathing out, breathing in
the desert air, nestled deep in camel hair,
lighting up the way before him;
the paths left behind a little more straight
a little more smooth, and a little less dim.
alone in the night,
how did he feel?
the first of the prophets
after four hundred years
of silence and waiting,
darkness and hope and anticipating?
himself a light
proclaiming the light,
that had already been born that night
some thirty years before, not long behind him,
both sent by the wind and spirit-minded.
before you come again, i wonder
will there be another one that thunders
in the spirit of elijah
to ready us and steady us
and light up this crooked world before us?
but that spirit’s been here
for two thousand years
destroying hard hearts and drying up tears
lighting up cities, illuminating fears,
giving us breath and opening our ears,
until that one day, one final collision,
before this valley of the shadow of death
becomes the everlasting bright-lit valley of vision.
Photo: K. Dagen
it’s hard to write about the night
when the room i sit in is full of peaceful natural light,
and the company i dwell beside
in my home and in my life
is full to the brim with intentionality,
knowing even when i’m in the dark
i can send a call
down the street or down the hall,
and someone will come close to me.
even still, the night comes earlier now,
and i can still remember how
some years it was so hard to get through
the winter because it was bleak and dim
and there was no one to talk to;
awaiting and waiting,
longing to enter
the spring; the hope of life and bloom
and better things.
this year i’m settling in to this space
that may be a bit dark,
but allows for the grace
to rest and expect,
to pause and remain,
and abide in your love.
god, come again.
god, be the spark.
i’ll be the flame.
the world is so dark
and we need you again.
le Lorraine, Louis Joseph. “King David Kneeling in Penitence.”
david came to gaze before you,
both emboldened and afraid,
by all which had been spoken of,
what you had set in place.
looking deep into your face
he wondered, gently, at his place;
speechless yet so full of praise,
considering tomorrow-days.
and he could see her, then, so clearly;
a daughter of future generations,
the mother of the one you promised
embracing a small lover of the nations.
he pondered all this in his heart
just like that girl would do.
“hold her in your focus, god!
sustain her in your view.”
i wonder what could come from me;
by love, grafted in to this great story,
forgiven, and allowed to be
a tiny sprout on jesse’s tree.
david seemed to understand
we’re only carriers of glory
and when david prayed for her that day,
he also prayed for me.
Inspired By: 2 Samuel 7:18-29
Photo: K. Dagen
in a house
on top of strawberry hill
from the second story window
i look out upon the world below.
i’ve always loved the way
the streets skew away at all angles.
it reminds me
of other places i’ve been.
the houses layer up against themselves
like a children’s pop-up story,
but our skies are grey
and the streets are dirty.
for the first time i see how
that driveway across the street
is actually a little alley
that continues on between
those two far houses
facing king.
i never noticed how i can clearly see
the bell tower of covenant united
methodist - not catholic -
so tall and solid,
topped by its humble cross,
like it’s watching at the world with me.
it bothers me, why i could never see
something that holds so much meaning to me,
but then i observe how the leaves on that tree
have all gone away.
nothing now but bare winter boughs
like solid wooden eaves,
and i think,
perhaps,
winter is always more revealing.
i wonder if on that day
in that other city
there was another girl
staring from her house at night,
wondering about the things
she could and couldn’t see
while a baby boy was born
in a poor room down the street.
in her heart was a promise
like the one that’s kept in mine;
a king to rule a country,
a fire to rule the skies.
Photo: K. Dagen
This is the way I have chosen.
The rest of them took another way. Just before I was about to join, I stayed behind because I heard another voice that stirred my heart and stilled my feet.
They had snickered when I tried to tell them.
The sun beat hard on my face as I stood and watched them walk away. The reality of a deep loneliness sunk in as they rounded a corner and the last of them disappeared. Tears began to flow. I stood and didn’t move; for how long, I don’t know. I only knew I had heard the voice. But there didn’t seem to be any other way to go.
Suddenly a breeze stirred the trees around me, feeling cool against the sweat and tears on my cheeks. I closed my eyes. The thought that something was giving life to the movement comforted me. Maybe I wasn’t alone.
A voice startled me out of my confused stupor. “They are going the wrong way.” A man was there, suddenly among me, motioning up the trail. I hadn’t heard him approach. My heart quickened as I looked him over, instinctively questioning my safety. I didn’t respond. “You were right to stay here,” he said again.
He swung the pack off his back and knelt down as he began digging through it. “Why don’t you rest over there for a bit? There’s shade.” He pointed to a little alcove in the trees.
I looked at the alcove and back at the man. He seemed friendly enough. He was fatherly, but not old. My body was tired. My jaw relaxed and I decided to trust him. I nestled down into the soft leaves, hesitant to put my guard down, but also thankful for the company. Just as he hadn’t seemed to be coming from anywhere, he didn’t seem to be going anywhere either. He continued to rustle through his pack.
‘What’s going to happen to them?” I meant to appear more confident, but my voice came out as a whisper.
“None of your concern,” he said. I sat in silence again as I curiously watched him pull out a large set of pruning shears and shrub clippers. He walked up and down the trail, seemingly inspecting it at all sides. At one point he stopped, shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand, and stared intently off into the distance. I followed his gaze to see what he was looking at, but couldn’t see anything. He began mumbling to himself. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars….and on the earth distress... confused by the roaring of the seas...Mmhmm, yes,” he nodded to himself.
This time I roused him out of his babbling stupor. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, but, where am I supposed to go? It’s just, I heard this voice, and...”
“Yes. I know. Right here.” He pointed the end of his pruning shears toward a dense set of bushes and heavy overgrowth. “This is the way. Seems you just got a little off track. Confused.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Easy to miss.”
I looked where he pointed. There was no path.
“But there’s no path,” I said.
“Yes, it’s here. It’s just been overgrown. It must be cut down again.”
I got up, slightly annoyed at the combination of his blunt confidence and aloof personality. “How do you know?” I asked, as I walked over to him and picked up the smallest of the garden shears. I began clipping away at the branches. I was ready to move on.
“No, no. I’ll do it. You should get rest. You will need strength.” He took the little shears from my hand and tossed them back on the ground.
“First, I’ll make your camp.” He removed the rest of the items from his pack. Among them, a tent. He took his time putting it together. When it was done, he stepped back, admired his work, nodding to himself before he began collecting small branches for a fire. Again, he took his time. When it was finished and the flame held strong, he stepped back and admired his work. He gazed into the flames.
Something broke his concentration. “Alright! then, I’ll just…” He picked up the largest set of pruning shears and began clipping away at the branches and vines, making a pile of greens and sticks before he would collect them and toss them off to the side, out of the way. He worked until nightfall, gaining distance deeper into the dense woods. In the morning he packed up the camp and we followed the trail he made until we reached
We trekked like that for days. I began to lose count. Every day he forged the trail before me, and I would follow down the path behind. During the day I would wander off, or I would sit nearby and watch him work, studying the careful craftsmanship in his fluid movements. He worked as if he had done this before...
Every night he would make camp, and then go off by himself, standing still and gazing off into the distance like he had that first day. On the third night, I noticed his gaze always seemed to be following a pattern of stars in the unpolluted sky.
Sometimes, as we walked together down the freshly paved trail, both lost in silent thought, he would suddenly utter something out loud, almost as if he could read my mind.
How long will it be like this? I thought.
“It’ll get easier,” he said.
Will it always feel so lonely? I wondered.
“There will be others. There are others,” he affirmed.
One day, as the man continued his work, clipping away at the branches and vines, he stopped abruptly and made a noise that sounded like an inhale of shock mixed with a giggle. It sounded like the delight of a little boy. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “It took a little longer than I’d anticipated, but...It’s here.”
“What’s here…?” My voice trailed off as I suddenly saw what he saw. There was nothing more to cut down. We had tumbled out onto a wide, flat trail. It appeared our rustic trail had intersected with another.
“But what is this? Where are we?” I said.
“Your path has now met with someone else’s.”
“Who…?”
Just then, something whizzed past us in a blur of excitement. “He’s here! Oh, hi! How are you? Who are you? Come quick! He’s here!” It was a little boy, itching with energy and excitement. The boy hurriedly dashed up the wide easy trail before us.
“Who was that? Who’s here?” I asked the man.
“Your paths have intertwined. He’s here to take you the rest of the way. There are many more paths ahead. You will never be lost again, and you will never be alone again. From now on, every road you travel will take you to God. You will soon meet the good King.”
The boy came dashing back down the hill toward us and took my hand before I could wrap my heart around the man’s words. “Come!” The little boy squealed and pulled me along. I had no choice but to race up the hill with him. Excitement and enthusiasm radiated from him like sunbeams, and I could not help but laugh out loud. When was the last time I had done that? When did I last feel joy?
I looked back to see if the man was following, but I could not see him anywhere. I didn’t get to thank him. Tears of gratitude welled up in my eyes as I reflected on what he had done for me; on where I would still be if he hadn’t come.
We slowed down to a walk, and the little boy skipped and hummed as we continued hand in hand. “It’s okay.”, said the little boy, softly. “He knows! He knows your gratitude. That man knows your heart.”
We approached a clearing as the trail curved up ahead of us. Night was falling, and you could see nothing but the navy blue of an early evening sky. The last of the sun had just gone down. The first of the night stars flickered bright, directly ahead of us. The height of our altitude shocked me as we approached the edge.
“Don’t be afraid,” the little boy whispered. “You have crossed my path so that I could bring you here, and share with you this great news. It will fill you with the joy you’ve been longing for.”
From the look-out point above we could see a village. The glow of lights below us illuminated the side of the mountain. I smelled food and a great feast. I heard music and faint peels of laughter. Something stirred deep within my heart.
The little boy squeezed my hand. “That’s the town of David. Today a great King has been born. He is the Messiah.”
We stared and watched in silence, the little boy’s hand never letting go of mine. “I’ve come to bring you Home.”
Then we descended.
This is the way I have chosen.