Another Chance!

Today dawned like a black and white postcard...

 ...until the sun broke through its mist-mantled bar...

 ...and washed the world with gold!

Another day to find a way

To make the best of where we are

As from the place of hope and grace

God wills light from His mercy-jar

Another dawn to build upon

And do the best with what we have

Before the Hand of due demand

Writes twilight's tender epitaph

Another chance as dark recants

To be the best that we can be

Not for acclaim of fleeting fame

But in thankful humility

Another day to sing and pray

And love always, our fellowman

As God’s love grants another chance

To make-do-be the best we can

© Janet Martin

 Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men,

Leaf By Leaf...

above lines from the poem To Autumn by John Keats

(one of my all-time favs:)

Along the boulevards, on hills

Like day-beacons, the trees

Beam bright with lights red-gold until

The stilling of the leas

As leaf by leaf each lamp is snuffed

And sheaf by sheaf earth's lintels doffed

The tempo of those songs we love

On summer's shaded shore

Wanes note by note into a trove

Of mauve and misted moor

As leaf by leaf the Maestro dims

The choristers of autumn's hymns 

How hardly we had held its hour

So, looking back it seems

Before the hello of its flow'r

Fell prey to moment-schemes

And leaf by leaf life's lissom bent

Mingled with pith of seasons spent

The unveiling of timber-frames

Is like a splurge of sorts

While wind-hooligans play their games

And nameless imps cavort

Soft, leaf by leaf their romp and play

Brushes the blooms of fall away

© Janet Martin

Something More Than Nothing...

When someone stops doing nothing and just starts doing something, anything — this is what starts to change everything.

A Holy Experience

But what can we do?!

Help Haitians Here 
To rebuild a school in Haiti lost in Hurricane Matthew costs approx. $15,000. 
(That means if 150 people donate 100.00, or 300 donate $50.00 they can rebuild!!!)
Help Syrian Refugees Here 
Help your local Food Bank Here 
Help the Suffering in South Sudan Here
Help Someone, 
Somewhere 

Lord, let us love
Our fellowman
By giving more
Than we think we can

...and let Your voice 
Of mercy be
Our prayerful,
Radical
Generosity 


© Janet Martin

Radical thankfulness
+
Radical Faith
=
Radical Generosity

When Only Souls Remain...

 On Sunday morning's at our church we are studying a thought-provoking series on Heaven...

Time’s sum can sometimes escape us

We get so caught up in life’s chase

That we are apt to forget just

How temporal is this mortal race

Sometimes time’s sum can startle us

With fall’s swift smattering of leaves

As its stretches the heart of us

With love and loss’s memories

Time’s sum will sometime meet us where

The chill of death will stilly fall

When face to face with God we stare

Into the meaning of it all

© Janet Martin

But understand this: 

If the homeowner had known at what hour the thief was coming, 

he would not have let his house be broken into.

 You also must be ready,  

because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.”  

Luke 12:39-40

Next To Me...

Day is hushed

Its vista brushed

With velvet rush

Of ebony

Oh darling, why

When the night-winds sigh

Do I wish you

Were next to me?

It is not far

To where you are

Dark cannot bar

Thought’s entity

I press a prayer

To midnight’s air

And feel here

Right next to me

© Janet Martin

A Toast To The Inevitable...

The yard is like a fall postcard

 A picture-poem of joy and grief

As summer, pink and petal-starred

Unravels in the shape of leaf

To gardens stripped of gourd and plume

And fellowship of flower-chum

Where the benediction of bloom

Depicts the quickness of time’s sum

Sometimes it seems that seasons slip

Ever more swiftly from our touch

How deft day’s darling diamonds drip

Into the vastness of past’s clutch

And where the deep green pasture sprang

To lure our feet into its fray

The sere slope steeped in smoky tang

Echoes with steps of yesterday

October’s epitaph of leaves

Is chased about by bullish breeze

Its fills ditches, fencelines and eaves

With nature’s pilfered piracies

Where tree-torches that lit the hills

Are doffed and dimmed to somber hue

The scarlet maple yields its frills

The red sumac surrenders too

…and earth is like a soldered sweep

The keeper of each fond farewell

That seeps into its umber deep

And weeps upon dusk’s tolling knell

Beneath a sheath of crepe and stars

The stricken heath of autumn lies

While we embrace its aches and scars

And toast Time’s purple-tinted sighs

© Janet Martin

Moment-um

With every tick and tock of clock

And every sunset-sea

With every little step we walk

And every breath we breathe

With every word we say or pray

And every thought we think

With each good night and new today

That passes wink-by-wink

With every touch and taste and take

And make-a-memory

We tread a tide that ebbs the wake

Before eternity

With every yes and no we choose

Where dues are certainty

In spite of all that Past accrues

And we no longer see

With each hello, I love you so

And each farewell, my dear

With each hold-close-then-let-it-go

With every smile and tear

The gap twixt here and There recedes

Ah, pray we bend our knee

And ready ourselves for death’s needs

Before eternity

With every drop of rain that plops

And every season weaned

As granaries are filled with crops

And field and furrow gleaned

With every folding of the hand

As we lie down to sleep

And every tucking in of land

Beneath cold winter’s deep

With every seed and every deed

No matter who we be

For one and all our footsteps lead

Into eternity

© Janet Martin