For Joe

I know I need to update my blog, but I'm sitting here on my couch completely uninspired. I can't think of a thing to write about. So, instead, I'm going to share with you a poem I once wrote my brother. After college I lived overseas for 2 1/2 years and one time, my brother had the nerve to complain that I didn't email him enough. So I wrote this poem for him. Oh, and I had been suffering from a bit of a cold at the time.

I said I would write you
When I came to feel better
But please don't expect this
To be a long letter

There was a short time
I thought my head would blow
But lucky for you
There was only snot flow.

The weather has changed
Now things are kinda hot
But alas, poor me
There is still plenty of snot.

But my lungs have cleared
So things are looking up
which is ideal to keep
snot out of juice cup.

I know it must look like
snot has been my theme
But it really isn't
as bad as it seems

So I'll continue to write
My brother I suppose
Just don't expect them
All to be in prose.

1997


Sorry if I grossed some of you out. I warned you I was uninspired. This is all I have to offer.

Missing Him

It's almost Easter. It seems every year this holiday kind of sneaks up on me. I go to church on Easter Sunday, celebrate the resurrection and then hardly give it a second thought. But not this year. This year I want to pause, I want to contemplate, I want to worship.

Interesting that I feel disconnected from the Lord this week. I'm finding it hard to enter into this holy week with Him. I wonder if this is how the disciples felt the more it became clear that His kingdom was not what they had thought it to be?

In my reading through scripture I've been struck by how clear it is that the disciples just didn't get what Jesus' kingdom was all about. He told them it was time to go to Jerusalem and that he would die, and I think they stopped listening at "go to Jerusalem." So a mom of 2 disciples comes and asks if her boys can sit at His right and at His left in His kingdom. I can hear the jeering of the other disciples even now. After 3 years together and witnessing untold miracles, they didn't understand His kingdom.

It seems the disciples had a knack for only hearing what they wanted to (and yes, now I do have that Lisa Loeb song in my head). They had their own presuppositions, heard what they wanted, at times displayed little faith, and therefore, almost missed everything Jesus was really doing.
This sounds familiar. I think I do the same thing. I want to follow Him and surrender to Him, but I want to do it my way. Not only am I unwilling to count the costs, I create a way of "following" Jesus where there are no costs involved. And I'm missing Him.

Actually, this week where I strangely feel far from Him, I just miss Him.

Happy Easter. The Lord is Risen.