Category Archives: Poetry

What Kind Of God Do You Have?

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What kind of God do you have?

I have one who cares when I lament over
The burdens my friends bear,
And who shows me that
He is also big enough to hear my little prayer
That I find a figurine – a wedding cake topper –
In an antique store of
3 floors and 57,000 square feet.

How many millions of pieces are there
In a market that big?

And He not only says yes, but He
Leads me, as we talk about it all –
Friends and figurines –
To the third floor, to the
Locked cases, at the back end of the
Second hour scanning shelves,
To the
Very
Ceramic bride and groom that I
Had not bought in a thrift store in Michigan
Three days ago.
I don’t know why I didn’t buy those
Two dancing, happy people then,
But I see now that

These same two were waiting for me here,
Deep among the artifacts in
57,000 square feet of Alabama
Called Highway Pickers,
So He could show
Me that He hears me when I say His name,
That He enjoys my little ideas,
And that while I can marvel at
Fresh expressions of His love,
I shouldn’t be surprised at His character.
It’s just who He is.

That’s the kind of God I have.

Miscellaneous May And Her Musings

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May is the last box on the
Moving truck, filled with
Odd shaped leftovers and
The urgency of making them all fit.

May looks up August’s aspirations,
And finds they came up short. So
May fills the gap with ten thousand school
Details for each of her thirty one days.

May removes barcode stickers from 80
Wedding candles, gashing her fingers and
Pronouncing imprecative curses on
All sticker-attachers, everywhere.

May proctors SAT tests and boggles that
One stray fleck of lead located outside a bubble
Threatens to foul the scoring machine and
Bring down an entire school district.

May rewrites Joan Jett’s 1981 classic, “I love
Empty nest . . .” but reflects that she has only
Experienced two total weeks of it, so she
Suspects it’s a hoax to keep parents going.

May loads up her college boy’s dorm room, on a
Belz Hall slope, doubting they can do it, and learns
From his happy priorities and his friends’ nimble help,
That things just work out when you’re young.
      

May puzzles when a friend declares that she gets
Two meals out of a loaded baked potato from Johnny’s.
That would require stopping halfway.
And May knows that doesn’t exist.

May chuckles that one of her Yankee friends
Wore a llama sweater to his daughter’s recent
Wedding. Oh, to hear his thought process, “Hmmm,
Yes, this llama sweater hits just the right note.”

May learns to manage her webpage, and
Discovers Command Z. Mashed simultaneously,
Command and Z erase all blunders and
Take you back where you started. Muy theological.

From which May meanders to Heidelberg Catechism,
Answer 60 which exults that I can be “as if I’d never
Sinned, nor been a sinner, as if I’d been as perfectly
Obedient as Christ was obedient for me”!

May is a child’s purse filled with stickers and gum,
And the broken shoulder strap and a castoff cell phone,
And a little orange New Testament and tooth fairy quarters,
A magic rock and three green apple Jolly Ranchers.

~

https://www.rca.org/resources/heidelbergcatechism