Friday, August 28, 2015

The Impact of Imminence



Do you ever wake with a keen impression of Imminence? 

Last night the sky was like a gate that closed over the landscape, stealing in its deftness another day, drawing us ever closer to the Unknowns that yet wait...



The presence of an essence that we cannot full descry
Invades and intercepts the hellos of life with good-bye
For what we cannot know or see could be life’s best or worst
Thus, at the mercy of its mystery we are blessed-cursed

The paradise that wanton lies beyond thought’s thin caress
Soft-tests the air where wistful sighs ignite the quietness
And we are starved half-beggars of that thing we cannot see
Yet spared a constant sorrow by the hope of what might be

Come darling, we should slow dance where the impact of Unknown
Plays darkness like a violin; no one should dance alone
Where Imminence is Maestro, and the music that awaits
Would leave us breathless save for Now, the bow on Unknown’s gates


© Janet Martin



Thursday, August 27, 2015

Of Home's Humble Happiness

After dropping my daughter's friend off at her home tonight and picking up groceries I returned to stare at my CHAOTIC kitchen to tidy up, mop floors, do dishes...and leave the rest for another day after a big day of peach-canning! In spite of all its short-comings,still home is the best place in the world, isn't it?


Shielded from eyes that would criticize
Home is a God-granted paradise

Here in the comfort of domestic mirth
God opens windows of heaven to earth

Safe from the hurrying, worrying throng
Home is a haven of laughter and song

Wealth gleams in piles of soiled laundry and such
Here children learn beneath mother’s soft touch

…and midst the clatter of everyday noise
Women and men emerge from girls and boys

Here, though the cares of life must have their way
Home is an alter where we bow to pray

…pray we remember Whose hands kindly bless
And thank Him for home’s humble happiness

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

But I'm A...



...here we can throw in whatever word we choose…Canadian, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, American, Muslim, Amish, Jew, Dutch, atheist, Mennonite, Buddhist, Communist, Irishman, Englishman, …the list could be endless but the whole world over, from jungle-tribe to king or scribe The Way to become one of His is The Same

It’s not our name or fame or lack thereof
Ethnicity, culture or breed
Or circumstance or parents, or the valor of
Some saintly deed
That saves us, no, it is by grace
And that a gift purchased with blood
shed blood of Christ, The Only Way
Into the family of God

© Janet Martin

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal.3:27-28

If we are sinners saved by grace then we are saints saved by grace! Are we living like it?!





Life's Laurels



I have one daughter who on more than one occasion has commented to me, ‘how can you stand it! (My life)’
She looks at me and thinks ‘what have you ever really done , and how do you still get excited about it?!”
If we are blessed, life grants a holy repetition of that which we are called to…I don’t always get excited about the idea of more laundry or cleaning etc. But the Love that gives life meaning excites me every time.

I love this quote by Eric Liddel:
“In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.”

If one has done one’s best, my friend,
Regardless of the dividend
Then time is not some hapless falling
As each creature care we tend
But a most high and holy calling
To an intermediate end

…for at the end of days, my dear
Begins what we should full revere
The very cause of all we do
Will in that sacred Then appear
Thus by this fact we ought to view
Time’s mission with love’s moral fear

Then, if we do the best we can
To serve, not self, but fellowman
By this we serve our God who gave
Each one a purpose in His plan
For we are all servant or slave
The grave but death’s dust-charlatan

© Janet Martin

Today's 'best' includes preserving peaches:)!


Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 2 Cor. 5:10

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

As All Things Go...



When hills are crowned with gold where once green held our eager gaze
When picnic-afternoons we dreamed about hold yesterdays
When harvest-hymns abound in sounds of toil and thankfulness
And flower-heads grow heavy with the spoil of morrow’s tress
When dusk is like a cloak that draws its blue across the air
Then falls across earth’s shoulders as the moon climbs heaven’s stair
When cricket song trills all day long and first leaves strew the walk
When bumbling bees go tumbling from zinnia to hollyhock
When hours becomes treasured like a prize we cannot keep
As each becomes the measure of the sighs we smile and weep
When we sweep petals from the porch and pluck fruit from the vine
And pause a little longer in the preciousness of time
When we have felled its moments, smelled its rose and held its tear
Oh, then we know as all things go that summer’s end is near

© Janet Martin

Beneath It All



In life’s uncertainties,

when I close my eyes

and envision His nail-scarred hands

beneath each situation

it helps me trust…



Beneath the ebb and flow of hold-let-go, the stilly sweep
Of moments, days and years that pass into that long, last deep
Beneath Uncertainty and all we cannot know or see
The hands that bore the nails abide to carry you and me

I want for naught but to remember what I easily forget
That, though I have no answers God, our God is faithful yet
Beneath life’s laughter-tear-faith-fear Unknown I'm glad to know
The hands that bore the nails abide and never let us go

© Janet Martin