A New Year Revolution

Happy New Year!

Below is an image of a card that my grandparents received in/around 1937.

This book from 1949 is a vault of timeless wisdom-treasure!

Here is today's meditation/blessing/wish,

as relevant today as it was then.

(Don't you love how, as time passes still

life's best and true things are timeless?!)

Come, where a new year hoists a trove

Of hopes that we maintain

Where the best we can do for love

Is love and love again

Rather than lob slight’s stinging stone

Where we all slip and err

Come, let us help each other on

This God-ward thoroughfare

For all that fuels fret-and-fuss

This precious truth abides

Goodness and mercy follow us

All the days of our lives

Then come, where the old is made new

Where endings turn to starts

Where pray, once more we resolve to

Gladden fellowmen’s hearts

© Janet Martin

Psalm 23:6

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, 

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The Poet's Yoke

 

A waltz with words that waft and twirl across a ballroom floor

The laughter of a little girl drifting from worlds of yore

A sense of imminence immersed in steadfast, common care

Of workaday and bills to pay and suppers to prepare

A sentimental ballad slipping through matters of fact

The art of bearing verses while keeping façade intact

And balancing the beckoning of worlds in want of ink

With sensible responses like cleaning the kitchen sink

To siphon from life’s thrum the rolling of a sort of sea

Rife with glints of spent summer and tomorrow’s mystery

Requires tireless patience while panning for lilt and rhyme

(This is not for the faint of heart, the art stealing time)

The poet’s yoke is made of air yet weighs a whisper-ton

With lyrics waiting to be snared and tamed and poem-spun

From brooding skies and sparkling eyes, from goodbyes and hellos

Each day unfurls a paradise of poems to compose

The merchant laughs and stuffs the chaff of trade into his sack

The maiden blushes; hopes he looks while she is looking back

The traffic rushes, the rain hisses underneath each wheel

The poet smiles and gathers manna for another meal

The poet's yoke is lily-soft yet claws the cloak of souls

With merciless persistence because always death's bell tolls

And who knows when the pen may fall prey to its solemn chime 

As the poet turns to behold the Giver of the rhyme 

 

Oh, pray they serve with honor the onus of pen and page

Because the life of written word survives from age to age

And who knows who will pause to read the stuff of wrangled ink

Therefore, the yoke should weigh enough to make the poet think

© Janet Martin

Okay, that's all for today, folks!

Wow! and maybe this year!

 Depends how tomorrow goes!

With much love, 

Janet

Wishing for us all, for 2023

 a fresh awareness of God

and a deeper reverence for Him,

 from whom all blessings flow

A Little Lilt of Everlasting Praise

A little end-of-year reflection of thankfulness

and worship that pray, has barely begun!

Life is a collection of moment-pixels!

Give thanks! 

I confess its a bit of a Poem-blitz today...

a way to keep the wick of gladness trimmed and hope's flame lit, 

where so much sadness threatens to permanently snuff it, 

without reminders of why it never can! 

hallelujah!

Thank-you for sin’s redemption paid through the blood of Your Son

Thank-you for full forgiveness for the wrongs that we have done

Thank-you for Your sweet promise as confession’s sorrows pour

When You forgive our sins, God, You remember them no more

Thank-you for the Lamp of Your Word to light the path of life

Because the throughway to Your throne is full of grief and strife

Thank-you that we have access where the temple’s veil is rent

To come to You, not through a priest but through Your covenant

Thank-you that what this world can never give, You will supply

Your wellsprings of goodness and love will never drain or dry

Thank-you for more than we deserve because You love us so

And nothing here is greater than the grace that You bestow

Thank-you for the true beauty of hope’s unmerited worth

To crown the countless beauties lavishing heavens and earth

Thank-you for what creation spills before our wond’ring eyes

Thank-you for what salvation seals, revealed in paradise

Thank-you for holy purpose in what would be commonplace

But love turns into worship’s joyful gratitude for grace

Thank-you for the gift of Today; where no two are the same

Thank-you that You hear everyone who calls upon Your name

Thank-you that You abide and that You work for our good

And that what we confide in You is always understood

Thank-you for eyes to see and ears to hear, thought to recall

Your precious promises and bounty's blessings great and small

For feet to walk and hands to tend to tasks or fold in prayer

Thank-you that whatever we ask, we know you hear and care

Thank-you for friends and family, for home, sweet home and such

For faces in our memory, we can no longer touch

For Your faithful companionship as we take up our cross

For the gain of your comfort in the pain of our loss

Thank-you that You are with us thus we are never alone

Thank-you, for every stumbling block, there is a stepping stone

Thank-you for food to eat and clothes to wear and work to do

Thank-you that You are absolute, omnipotent and true

Thank-you for what we learn through the bitter rue of mistakes

To humble wisdom's crown we earn as pride’s countenance breaks

Thank-you for gardens out-of-doors or on a windowsill

Thank-you for pups and kittens, for the birds that flit and trill

Thank-you for the raincloud that pours Your answer to our plea

For the wee baby that restores joy in humanity

Thank-you for soft sunshine that warms away cold winter’s gloom

Thank-you for seeds instilled with miracles of bud and bloom

Thank-you for toil’s gracious reward of slumber, sound and deep

Thank-you for vital vim restored after a good night’s sleep

Thank-you for a pricked conscience to rebuke the erring mind

For the refuge of perfect peace that all who trust will find

For Your green pastures and still waters, when courage obeys

For Your goodness and mercy to follow us all our days

Thank-you God for your faithfulness transcending time and place

For hymns made possible because You love vile, human race

Thank-you, oh God, that nothing is impossible with You

No matter what, there is nothing too hard for You to do

Thank-you that You have proven by what death’s tomb could not stay

Your power and Your glory and Your Kingdom now for aye

No army you can defeat You and no evil overthrow

For You have overcome the world, in spite of trouble’s woe

And all who repent and believe, fight a most worthwhile fight

For You will be the One they/we see when faith is turned to sight

Thank-you that You are slow to anger, abounding in love

And for your patient kindness as You chasten and reprove

Thank-you for living hope to spur us onward until we

Together with You Lord, thank you through all eternity

© Janet Martin

Psalm 103:1-5

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Thoroughfares of Retrospect

Our mind is the control tower of our life~

Charles Stanley

As we look back on another year almost spent

we traverse thoroughfares of retrospect, don't we?!

My, oh my-oh-my!

What a showcase of mistakes and mercies!

Sometimes it appears technology has

reduced attention-spans to tik-tok sized snippets!

How much is lost at great cost!!

Listening to a message like the one below 

means taking the time to turn off distractions

in order to fuel thought with good counsel!

So worth the time it takes!

Will you join the millions and millions who 

have taken the time to listen to this message?

Taking Control of your Thoughts- Charles Stanley

And if life does not allow the freedom right now to listen to the whole of it,

The first two minutes offer SO much to think about, 

until you have time for the remainder!

In retrospect we realize what matters does not change

Where guests that the mind entertains proves who we love the most

And though we cannot keep so much of what the years estrange

We can take careful charge of thought’s dinner-parties we host

And prepare with a wary heart, the table where Thought lolls

Before the hand reveals that part that the mind first cajoles

In retrospect we find what wise and fool's proof  cannot null

Who we love most is soon exposed by time’s tender romance

Who we revere and hold most dear is clearly visible

By what we choose and how we use the blessings that God grants

Where Thought is like a banquet table laden with buffets

Where so much good and so much bad can capture our gaze

In retrospect we see how swift time’s subtle shuttle flies

While tears and laughter spill, while we are often filled with awe

At lifetimes woven with the threads of dawn-to-dusk’s demise/disguise

Where thought is like an evil god if left to its own law

And ignorance is like a noose dangling from gallows where

Time’s subtle shuttles fly while Thought offers Fresh Thought a chair

In retrospect we oft admit we did not do our best

To bid Thought to pay sacred, meeker, and more earnest heed

To what God says rather than what Well-meaning Thoughts suggest

Where holiness, not happiness should be Thought’s primal greed

Because the lot of the undying soul is undeterred

Thus Thought should feed its dinner-guests with counsel from God’s Word

…where Thoroughfares of Retrospect spread out a humbling feast

For Thought is always hungry and the Tempter always near

And we concede at best Thought is a needy, bumbling beast

Subject to err without God’s Word to gird and commandeer

Therefore, no matter what befalls Thought’s menus to arrange

In retrospect we realize what matters does not change

© Janet Martin

Col.3:2

 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

What is the Use?

I got a mega-reality-jolt as I lined up the calendars of years flying by!

Reminding me of this verse!

James 4:14

What is your life? 

You are a mist that appears for a little while 

and then vanishes.

What is the use of passing years

If at their end we find

When its last moment disappears

We are still no more kind

What is the use of each year’s cast

Fastened to ‘how time flies’

If when its final day has passed

We still are no more wise

What use is time’s swift no return

Gifted in day-to-day

If  love's lessons we ought to learn

Have not taught us to pray

What is the use of good intent

Of resolution's dare

If we are, at the old year’s end

No better than we were

What is the use, when looking back

With sentimental heart

We blush to see that we still lack

What we did at the start?  

What is the use of  all we chase 

Like a red, rubber ball

If God's goodness, mercy and grace

Have not changed us at all

© Janet Martin

Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Eph.5:15-21

See then that you walk [e]circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,

  16redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

17Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 

18And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; 

but be filled with the Spirit, 

19speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,

 singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,

20giving thanks always for all things 

to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

21submitting to one another in the fear of [f]God.

Frameworks of Farewell

 

The framework of farewell is filled with moments spilled and spent

Into a little locket frilled with laughter and lament

Where what we argue or reject, or believe and embrace

Becomes part of the retrospect that farewell’s frames showcase

Sometimes it seems I almost see Father Time tease my sigh

With a fedora jauntily pulled down over one eye

He tips his hat and with the other hand touches my cheek

‘There, there, you know I understand the words you cannot speak’

Sometimes I think I sense him wink as one more year becomes

The latest, stationary link of soldered cookie crumbs

And sums soft-shook from flowers that we plant, then pluck and press

Between books filled with hours of love’s hopeful happiness

Where bittersweet, an echo-fleet embarks upon a sea

That surges with the thrum of bare feet lost on Bygone’s lea

Where frames of farewell gaped while hellos rang in the New Year

From thresholds barely shaped before their doorways disappear

...into the mist of faces kissed and arms that ache because

We cannot gather back the vista of The Way/Day That Was

Where the New Year that tolled a bell dangling from midnight’s skies

 Is stilled in frameworks of farewell with now Old Year’s demise

Darling, (dear, Father Time, forgive my bold intimacy)

But you perplex the poet's rhyme without apology 

And vex brave fantasy with fact; darling, then hold me near

And I will hold your hat while you kiss away yesteryear  

© Janet Martin

With Love that Never Fails (As Surely as the Morn)

But as for me, I will sing of Your strength;

Yes, I will joyfully sing of Your faithfulness in the morning,

For You have been my refuge

And a place of refuge on the day of my distress.

17 My strength, I will sing praises to You;

For God is my refuge, 

the [t]God who shows me favor.

Psalm 59:16-17

We can so easily get caught up, attracted and distracted by what we see

rather than what we know is so because God said it!

The One who constantly awes us with masterpieces

of morning sky and nature's my-oh-my,

He is our refuge and strength!

Though so much seems to fail

Never The Hand that draws

The break of day across the vale

That groans with mercy’s cause/laws

And unfolds in the palm

Of grace, the molten sky

And parts the wingspan of the dawn

Like a new butterfly

Where we, creatures of dust

And mist/must of numbered days

So often fail to fully trust

The higher thoughts and ways

Of He who never fails

Is spite of what some say

Even while mercy’s Hand unveils

And grants another day

Where morn-to-morn unfolds

(a twinkle in time’s eye)

Exteriors that man beholds

Beneath fringes of sky

Where so much seems to fail

When weighed by what we see

In worship’s hour of travail

Before eternity

Consider this, dear friend

Before we shake a fist

And curse He whose mercies attend

Both saint and atheist

Who makes the rain to fall?

Who does love emerge from?

Who paid sin’s ransom, once for all?

And calls on all to ‘come’?

He knows each creature care

And suffered every one

Because Love did not choose to spare

The status of His Son

A manger met His birth

A cross displayed His death

Where no one could fathom the work

Fulfilled at his last breath

Then, though so much seems loss

Remember, we behold

As they who stood beneath the cross

But fringes of the Whole

Where, though thought’s logic fails

Never the Hand of He

Scarred with the imprint of the nails

That set death’s captives free

He is the King of kings

He is the Lord of lords

Who bore salvation's sufferings

Beneath the thrust of swords

With love that never fails

As surely as the morn

The landscape of life's path unveils 

His mercies are reborn 

© Janet Martin

As surely as the morn

The landscape of life's path unveils, 

His mercies are reborn 

Of Glorious Winter-tide

This week its the snow!!!

The other week the ice left us speechless with awe!!

Now is the time of cheer

Of cozy countryside

Tucked beneath white starlight veneer

Or the veil of a bride

Now is the time to pause

From plant and harvest toil

While earth receives the wild applause

Of gales and sparkle-spoil

Of snowflakes swirling round

In dizzying descent

Until the land is grandly crowned

With frosty filament

Now is the time to ling-

-ger longer in a book

And let the days of winter bring

The days summer forsook

Of bowers bent with leaf

Of flower-befringed walks

Of glad tidings of golden sheaf

Of rose and hollyhocks

Of looking back to where

We find ourselves today

Before we turn agape to stare

At worlds melted away

Where now is the sweet time

To slow our hasting stride

And revel in the crystal clime

Of glorious winter-tide

...as we combat the cold

That keens our appetite

With supper hour dipped in gold 

Of gentle candle-light 

   

© Janet Martin