Tiny Flower

scribblings while sitting in church, it was relevant to the sermon...i WAS listening. promise.

Fail not, tiny flower. Your beauty, unparalleled, gives you no argument for the shortcomings you have sought as reason. For too long have your petals fallen with the weight that accompanies your doubt. No longer is there cause for your eyes to drown. Lift yourself with confidence to see the sun that loves so brilliantly. As you accept the warmth of his rays such doubt dissipates, shying away to recesses irrelevant. Let your petals grow strong. Let your roots reach deep. Raise your eyes upwards to declare what has saved you.

Beyond the Pane

just a little something that started with an image in my head...probably something i will come back to and expound on and expand.

Please let it be. Let me see what lies beyond the pane. My silent world unattainable as it was when I first stepped forth. For years have I stared, watching and breathing with little else to distract me from where I desire to walk.

Yet it is I, burdened behind the glass, whose wistful eyes glaze in yearning at the rolling drifts. They align with nature’s pattern, frozen beautifully to capture the stillness of human absence. What eyes can see, feet can only covet as fabricated sensations are forced to suffice.

Years of stagnancy expire as my lungs expel a tired sigh; perhaps my feet were never meant to tread among the bitter clouds. The threshold, clouded with angst, disallows my passage as it has for ages. I will never cross to where comfort does not lie.

Ominous Undertones

Yesterday I picked up my 16-year-old client from his foster home in a town called Peabody, a typical "small town" with mostly low-income residents. It was after 6 o'clock and darkness had already surrounded my now required headlights. My ranger was trolling peacefully along the town's uneven brick streets as we caught up on the latest in each other's lives.

As he was telling me about the projects in his auto-mechanics class, a flash of white dashed from left to right within the glow of the headlights; a blink and one would've missed it. He continued talking as he moved his head to follow the movement to a dimly lit shed off the road. With his eyes focused outside the window he stopped mid-sentence, turned his head slowly back around to face me and with cautious tone he spoke.

"Can rabbits climb walls?"

I, in turn, flipped the turn signal and slowly moved my head to face him as we approached a stop sign. I met his gaze; both of us searching the other's eyes for an answer. He broke the silence, "I think that rabbit just ran up the side of that building."

I returned my eyes to the road as the turn signal flipped back; we were on our way out of Peabody. I offered a nervous, unknowing chuckle and made a lame, half-uttered joke about the "Spider-Rabbit", but the ominous undertone of the wall-climbing rabbit could not be shook from the evening.

Apple

Apple

There once was a boy who bit into an apple, releasing its blessed juices. He found the apple to be so delicious that he desired more.

With apple in hand, and the fruit’s taste still fresh upon his palate, he retraced his steps to the tree that bore his sweet treat.

Alas, the tree’s boughs had been picked clean. The boy stared at the tree for a moment, confounded as to how something so delectable could be so scarce.

He deserved another.

In anguish, the boy spat on the tree’s roots and shouted, “If I cannot have more, I refuse to have any!” He hurled the near-whole apple at the naked tree, spoiling what he had treasured in a breath of fury.

The boy turned his back and forgot the taste of the apple he bit but once.

Analogy

Imagine, if you will, a powerful river, strong as God intended, surging down an empty canal, only to come up against an even stronger dam, thick and sturdy. On the other side, one would never suspect the swirling force that roars behind the cold flat dam. The waters crash about so violently, one cannot help but feel it is unnatural for such water whose purpose is to flow naturally to be withheld.