Mark 13:25

the stars will be falling from the heavens, and the forces that are in the heavens will be convulsed.


in a time
of reckoning delayed

guiding stars
will wander afar

guardian angels
lose their way

the oh so sturdy earth
fall apart center outward

so comes every innovative shift
bringing chaos in its wake

grieve now all future loss
every foundation shaken

mountaintops and green pastures
await such a next opening


The stars in our eyes will turn from a gleam to burning until only a socket is left. Our fondest dream will appear as nothing more than Ecclesiastes’ smoke. Such vanity is what we have lived and on which we have staked our lives.

Our firmest beliefs will shake in their surety until they fall apart, not even a component part will be worth its weight in anything.

Those we have trusted as mentors, as guides, will be seen as infants needing nurture instead of the breast of sustenance seeing us into independence.

One image after another will crash like wild waves over us, dashing us to pieces on sharp rocks. What was just the beginning of the labor pains has grown exponentially into tides of impossibility in any transition to any thing of value. We have to ask about this being a part of some larger Mercy that cuts all of this darkness short. Have we been deceived? Are we left alone?

To meditate will pay dividends, but nothing you can put in a bank or add to your resume as an honor. Any renewed promise we gather here will come as a mere wisp, if that. We will hesitate to name any meaning as more than momentary.

These images of the sky, of some upward direction of a heaven, bring us back to earth as simple clay. There is a remolding standing ahead that rips blinders from our eyes, spits in our eye, and leads to a slow blinking awareness of life around to be partnered with rather than to claim dominion over (whether animals of the field or G*D’s Wisdom). A tentative presence begins to waver into a view of wider wakefulness.