About Today

 Dear fellow-creatures, praise our God of love

That we are so admonished that no day

Of conscious trial be a wasted day... 

 W.H.Auden from Canzone

When I try to bear tomorrow’s care

It steals the strength I need

To do the task that this day asks

Of me…

Tomorrow’s care is always there

So help us Lord, I pray

To seek to do our best for you

Today

To borrow from tomorrow we cannot;

Time's forward flow

Pours from a place where by God's grace

We go

© Janet Martin

The Call of Pen and Ink

The call of pen and ink can kindle in the human breast

Surges of fear and doubt, of joy and want to write our best

It feeds a need to plant a seed of hope to all who trod

Toward the Awesome Ultimate when we answer to God

This epoch of existence in the skin of flesh and blood

Ere Time’s last sea is parted and its vapor twinkle snuffed

Ignites a holy urgency where pen and ink ally

To light a wick on candlesticks of paper torch held high

The call of pen and ink can seem modest; its flicker drowned

In bravado of babble that rocks outer worlds with sound

For warriors of word wear no insignia or mark

To tell of battles fought or courage taught in night’s deep dark

Still, they have wept where losses and the crosses that they bear

Though not apparent at first-glance have bent their knees in prayer

On blank-paper resistance, dogged soldiers of this sword

Have learned to brave staid silence as they wait upon the Lord

The call of pen and ink is but the medium whereby

The call of God can touch the heart and open up the eye

To He who WAS and IS and will forevermore endure

Then pray the words we lay to page are love-inspired, pure

The Awesome Ultimate invokes with purpose, every pen

To God be the full glory of the words written by men

For as we trust His Hand to commandeer our hands that brim

With humble call of pen and ink t'will be from and for Him

Janet Martin~

If Thought Had No Worry and Heart Had No Care...

After a very dry beginning to spring, the end of May until now have been sopping! Gardens and fields are ponds and lakes...

If thought had no worry

And heart had no care

And only light laughter

Would waft on the air

Then tell me. My precious

If ease filled life’s trove

How would we recognize

Hope, joy and love?

If thought had no worry

And heart had no care

Tell me, would we still be

Faithful in our prayer?

© Janet Martin

'Dear me, how happy and good we'd be if we had no worries', said Meg from Little Women

Tip 'o the Hat to Little Touches

I finished reading the book Little Women yesterday. Here is another bit from the book that brought a smile in my 'little while' with the Marches. Jo is learning the art of Beth's housekeeping duties after Beth's death;

‘Wholesome, humble duty…little touches here and there to keep everything fresh and cozy which was the first step in making home happy'…Louisa M. Alcott in Little Women

It inspired me to see where I could create a bit of 'happy' for our home...

 peonies from the garden

pictures for the wall

 

pillow for the chair (Birthday gift from my sister)

poetry for the table,

flowers from the fence-line

Kind little touches do so much

 To make a house a home

 A little flower on a shelf,

A book of prose or poem

To make the reader take more care

Of his or her wee life; aware

That nothing ever stays too long

And so we splash the air with song

Or set a kettle on to boil

To pour some tea between our toil

Where all those must-be tasks soft-smile

And add the worth to our while

…and so we put a pillow here

A sprig of willow on the mirror

Or walk along the fence to find

Wild blooms that wind-song left behind,

Or sweep the porch before we set

A pot of pansies on its step

Or hang a picture on the wall

Or bake a cake knowing the small

Touches of love cheer those who come

To little things that make a home

And oft we should season the air

With words of kind comfort and prayer

And treat this gift from God with awe

That He in tender mercy saw

It fit to bless a bit of loam

With happiness that we call home

© Janet Martin

I hope you are inspired to create your own 'bit of happy'.
God bless our homes!

(This poem was written with the assumption that faith, hope and love abide,

For then what good is all the rest but painted bits of pride

Then pray the Lord our homes to be reflections of His kind mercy)

Mighty To Save

The future of the past unchains the air

And breath-soft fills the dark with morning-tide

Upon its current of ‘from Here to There’

Quick generations of time’s sailors ride

On frigates wrought with naught but morn to night

Laden with circumstance and wrong and right

Toward a Harbor estranged from this wee

Arrangement of grievous mortality

The winds of change will never threaten There

Nor vex these vessels tossed upon Want’s wave

The beggar and the prince will soon rest where

Distinction does not note master or slave

Or recognize Entrapment doomed to rust

While seeking to ensnare victims of dust

Upon Time’s rising-falling tempest toll

That strips the vessel bare of all but Soul

Pray then to the kind Keeper of time’s Sea

For He can save us from death’s stormy grave

Or how could we endure eternity

Estranged from He who is Mighty To Save?

Salvation is Hope’s anchor; nothing else

And Heaven is a Harbor, but not hell

Oh, pray we do not sail, tossed aimlessly

Toward a Brink from which none are set free

…the future of the past unchains the air

And pours God’s grace to Time’s wee thoroughfare

© Janet Martin

I was struck this morning by a vision of a sea

Where young, old and in-between buck the waves of circumstance

Toward eternity…

Our God Is  Mighty To Save!  

 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,  rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

  Col.2:6-8