Stillness Calls (poem)

Stirred up and agitated

like the muddy pond, 

nothing is clear.

Stillness calls the particles down,

finding a home for everything.

As silence calls

through the door,

the pieces fall

into their storied place

beloved once more.

Your Face (a Poem)

 For my wife, Cheri, on her 50th birthday

March 24, 2021

When I first saw your face,

I lingered, captivated and determined to 

seek out and know

the spirit that shone through.

There was a brightness, you see

an invitation to presence.

Welcoming vast, like a Montana sky

with wildflower incandescence.

An expansive invitation

enthralling my imagination 

building a foundation

for a joyful habitation.

Your face holds great depths 

of being and becoming; 

awaiting the knowing 

it takes to be revealed.

Your face has lived much

in these last fifty years; 

many smiles, laughter and 

many more tears.

Lines on a face

like lines in a song

tell stories of love and loss;

of life lived long.

When we’re young, our pain causes us to hide in our faces,

presenting an image to the world;

but when we grow old we’re faced with choices

whether to return to earlier graces.

Many will never know the treasures that hide

they fail to pause and see;

they cannot know the smile you share

continues to ravish me!

Even more captivated and determined,

to grow old next to you

your face and mine, together tears and smiles

with lines aligned.

The glory of God grows

with each passing year

in and through the face that knows love

from ear to ear.

Old Man by the Fire (a Poem)

By Scott Holman

for my friend Dan- 

The old man by the fire

sits, in silence.

Alone but never alone

amidst a community of scars,

rehearsing their stories.

He rehearses his loves,

his pursuits,

his deep losses;

he realizes that nothing turned out

quite the way it was supposed to.

But the man sitting by the fire

finds himself

thankful, for the scars

somehow they

have given him room to breathe.

He realizes

after all this time 

that without all this disappointment 

he would never become

himself, free from all that is false.

He watches the fire,

tracing the work of the flames on the wood.

“Man is born to trouble,”

he growls,

“as sparks fly upward.”

As the fire turns to embers,

he knows his story isn’t done;

Lord willing, he will wake to another day

another fight

another love.

With the turning of the page,

in the blink of an eye,

in a popping flash of sparks;

he will find himself awakened

and awakening forever.

All tears wiped away,

all wounds healed.

Thankful for the scars

as each one holds 

his memory and identity.

He leaves a legacy of courage

to those with him around the fire; 

children and grand-children

listening and learning

the path for themselves.

This old man

presiding over thousands of fires,

is still fierce and 

full of wonder.

He’s becoming young again.

We Were Pastors Once (a Poem)

 To the Reader: this poem is an attempt to reflect on and redeem a very painful season of my story. I have been trying to tell the story for months (almost a year) but only this week felt free to let these words hit the page. I was one of three volunteer Pastors serving with a Lead staff Pastor for a period of about 2 years. All three volunteer Pastors resigned around the same time in the Spring of 2020.

We Were Pastors Once 

We were pastors once

Full of hope and vision

Though lacking experience

We leaned on each other.

We had friendship

A working partnership

The seeds of kinship

That never had a chance

To grow into trees

When our people 

Were limping and leaving

Bleeding and broken

Through the side door

Too scared to say why

Our burdened curiosity 

Weighted with questions

Our thoughts

Our questions 

Became unwelcome

Our friendship

vaporized

You became fixed

Immovable

Unwilling 

To have any other view

To consider your assumptions

To consider your theology

To consider your demands

The friendship 

It turns out

Was a sham

A mere functionality

To complete tasks

The cost 

Was becoming too high

As the carnage grew 

For integrity’s sake

For our own health

And those we loved

We left,

Devastated 

Destabilized

What sense 

Could be made of this?

Rubble, ruin

How could this be?

Why this story?

The saddest thing

Most painful part

Was how quickly you turned

Against us

Labeled us

Disloyal

Irrelevant 

All we had lived 

All we had planned

All we had prayed

It was now worthless to you

I hope you have what you wanted

A church all for yourself

Sadly your only reward

I fear the Lord left

Long before we did.

Lampstand removed?

Though you wrote us off

Once friends, now enemies

I would welcome you, I think

If you began to reach out

And seek to know

more than 

Your Theology

Your Control

Your Influence.

To Give Human Nature to God

Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

The world around her must have been informed with more than its habitual loveliness, for she was gathering it all to the making of her son.

He was completely her own, utterly dependent upon her: she was His food and warmth and rest, His shelter from the world, His shade in the Sun….the four walls and the roof of His home.

It must have been a season of joy, and she must have longed for His Birth, but at the same time she knew that every step that she took, took her little son nearer to the grave.

Each work of her hands prepared His hands a little more for the nails, each breath that she drew counted one more to His last.

In giving life to Him she was giving Him death.

All other children born must inevitably die; death belongs to fallen nature; the mother's gift to the child is life.

But Christ is life; death did not belong to Him.

In fact, unless Mary would give Him death, He could not die.

Unless she would give Him the capacity for suffering, He could not suffer.

He could only feel cold and hunger and thirst if she gave Him her vulnerability to cold and hunger and thirst.

He could not know the indifference of friends or treachery at the bitterness of being betrayed unless she gave Him a human mind and a human heart.

That is what it meant to Mary to give human nature to God.

--from "The Reed of God" by Caryll Houselander (OP: Gem Fadling, Unhurried Living newsletter).

Recalling Presence

Have you ever thought about what happens when we worry - to our attention, to our presence? What effect does this have on our hearts and the hearts of those around us? Why does living in the past sometimes hinder our living in the present? Why does worrying about the future drain us and constrict us making it hard to breathe?

I'm ashamed to admit I've spent countless hours worrying - about what might happen, about what other people think, about if our needs will be met, etc. It's a particular brokenness in my soul that makes it hard, if not impossible, for me to trust God and feel hope. I've learned that such "bentness" is rooted in ancient places of my soul, ground into my social self by a brutal experience of childhood. I was raised to believe that the world is a very unsafe place. God has been on a long term renovation project though, teaching me to trust by uniting me to his Son and allowing his heart and mind to interact with mine for the last 31+ years.

For as long as I can remember I've spent and directed vast amounts of my soul's energies toward attempts to secure myself through clarity, control and comfort. I wonder if, or how, these energies can be called back, redeemed and re-directed. After a recent time of prayer spent surrendering to God, I realized what happens when I worry about worst case scenarios. I project or send forth my attention, my focus and my soul's energy into situations and problems that rarely come to pass. This leaves me feeling fragmented, dissipated, weak, strained, torn and weary. In silence I rebuke the enemy of my soul and recall my presence from all the places it doesn't belong. I come home to love. I surrender to God as water poured out in trust (Ps 62:8). Recalling presence gives me my soul back, attention, energy and focus now available to be directed toward God. It's one more piece to God's project, being snapped into place.

The Trinitarian Heart (a Poem)

My heart is Trinitarian

    because of the sweet society who lives there.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

    Beauty, Goodness and Truth

    

ever-expanding circles

    of sufficiency, romance and meaning

enveloping the lovers, partakers and seekers

    passing by the spectators and consumers

    addicted to utility, they are deaf to the song

I am deaf and blind

I need waking

I need resurrection

My heart is lost to me

Where am I to be found?

    Does a home for me still exist?

Expansive and wild 

Free of fear and utility

Free of success and usefulness

Free to run and play, create and dream

    in the house of the Lord forever.