*on how to be a manger

On How to be a Manger (Barbara Germait)

be empty

be sturdy

be soft inside

be still

be ready


Merry Christmas!

*generous vs generative giving

gen·er·a·tive (jen′ər āt′iv, -ər ə tiv)

adjective- having the power or function of generating, originating, producing, or reproducing

I am pretty sure most people want to be generous. I mean, does anyone really want to be a scrooge? I think most people wish they had more money (me included) and many people wish they had more so they could give more of it away. Sharing our blessing does something to us, makes us alive, draws us closer to the core of who we are and closer to the one who created us.

But if you are like many Americans these days, dollars are tighter and pay increases are few and far between. This creates discomfort for us in the US, but it ravishes our brothers and sisters around the globe. It has been said that if the US sneezes the third world gets a cold. What does that mean for the rest of the world when the US gets a cold? Maybe in this time of sneezing and wheezing, our focus in giving needs to move in a new direction?

Through movements like Advent Conspiracy, the Spirit is calling us to consider our Christ welcoming giving and their end result. Is our giving a continuation of the good work that God began in us through the gift of his son? And if it is, what are the outcomes that good work is seeking in us and through us?

Our desire is to learn to give generatively- considering the outcome of our gifts and their ability to create, originate, produce and reproduce life and move forward the good work that is rooted in the coming of Jesus Christ.

200 chickens today will be how many chickens next year? How many eggs will be produced by the offspring of these chickens? In five years how many people will have been fed by the simple gift of a couple hundred chickens?

As the cold of winter creeps in and the snow brightens the landscape, the impact we are having together through growing a third world barnyard warms me more than any new Christmas sweater.

*advent conspiracy 2009- global barnyard

This year, River of Joy will once again be participating in the Advent Conspiracy.

Last year we helped with clean water efforts in Nigeria. This year we are conspiring to stock a global barnyard of animals for unknown brothers and sisters around the world. Care to buy some chickens to help a family in the third world? How bout a duck? A pig? An alpaca? Perhaps a cow to provide milk or maybe a fish pond to kickstart a better life for an unmet friend?

Care to conspire with us this Christmas as we reach around the globe!

Visit the Good Gifts site and make a purchase or visit World Vision for some more options. When your done leave an anonymous comment below indicating what you purchased and we will keep a tally as God's Barnyard grows.

my name is not "those people"

a poem written by homeless advocate julia dinsmore read by danny glover

TransFORM network

TransFORM: Missional Community Formation from TransFORM on Vimeo.

bikes in africa- pedaling together

This is Nenason Msola, an evangelist in Tanzania. Yesterday some missional friends from MN bought him a new bike on behalf of River of Joy. Click here to read more. Thanks Don and Karen!

michael frost on the missional church (part 2)

michael frost on the missional church (part 1)

reconnecting at home

I just read a story in the Pioneer Press that reported that returning servicemen from Iraq and Afghanistan bring aggressive, self-preserving driving habits home with them when they return to the states. A quarter of those surveyed indicated that they had run through a stop sign or driven down the middle of the road without regard to oncoming traffic; not polite (or legal) driving practices in the states but necessary in a war zone.

Haiti is a war zone in God’s war on hunger, poverty and despair. After spending less than a week on this battleground island only an hour and a half south of Miami, I can appreciate the behavior of our returning servicemen and women. The worlds of peace and war do not easily mesh.

It is hard to believe that an hour and a half flight can separates these two radically disparate realities. It truly cannot be understood without stepping foot in both worlds while dragging one’s eyes, heart, and soul along for the ride. The return to the states brings with it changed eyes and a transformed heart with holdover behaviors that follow their lead.

The shock of returning home is often found in the simplest of things. I was not prepared for the sensory overload when I entered the grocery store on Saturday morning. All of the food displayed with its color, smells, and abundance experienced in the shadow of travels among God’s starving children blew me away. Our ready and available access to just about any food we can imagine is something that I hope I will never again take for granted.

Saying table grace has new meaning. Portion size suddenly matters. Food has become the holy gift that it has always been. The spoils of this war are a valuable treasure- a return home with a renewed heart for neighbors near and far.

blessed to be a blessing lived out loud

We took a two hour journey up into the mountains yesterday and visited a children’s rescue center called Real Hope for Haiti. This center focuses on providing crisis nutritional care for young children. We met a two year old girl (in the picture above being held) who came to the center the previous day. At age two she weighs only 14 pounds.

The name does this clinic well. There is a perseverance and hopefulness in the staff that is infectious. The children seemed to have been infected by this hopefulness bug as well. Their smiles are wide and welcoming and their eyes twinkle and charm you as they meet yours.

There is real hope in Haiti. The director of the program was asked about the sharing of the gospel in this area and specifically through the clinic. She said that they indeed share the gospel but rarely preach it in words. You see, most of these children are brought to the witch doctor when they become sick because it is thought that they have a spell or a curse upon them. As they continue to get sicker and unable to eat, they are finally brought to the rescue center. When the cildren become well through the work of the people who serve at the clinic, the power of Christ is known to all and many of the families of the children become practicing Christians by virtue of the power of healing.

These children are not cursed. They are blessed to meet the power of God through the hands, feet, and hearts of those who do the front line work in the mountains and those who support them from back home in the states. The blessing that is bestowed on them comes through the work of the Spirit that opens checkbooks to provide necessary funding to keep these children alive. Praise to the spirit of Christ who makes us one and calls to action in a world where many feel they are cursed.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Genesis 12:2

hope in the eyes of children

Yesterday we visited three orphanages. The hardship with which life is lived in Haiti is hard to comprehend unless you see it. Yet there is hope in the eyes of children and teens who dream of being doctors and lawyers and making this island a better place. One moment I find myself thinking that there is no future for this island as I see the squalor and poverty and the next I meet a person who is certain to overcome this circumstance and change it for the next generation.

impossible without you

I spent the first half of my employed life working for a big brown delivery company. The challenge of getting boxes from here to there in the most efficient and economical way was amazingly energizing for me. Today we saw God’s fleet of delivery vehicles and met his delivery drivers. Unlike what we are accustomed to seeing, the vehicles aren’t standardized, and neither are the drivers. And the energy of the enterprise could power up all the lights on the strip in Vegas.

The vehicles are all unique and have great character. They are rugged and worn, banged up but beautifully getting the job done. And the drivers? Much the same. Unique. With great character. Banged up and getting the job done in truly inspired fashion.

We spent the morning with these missionaries and heads of orphanages as they came to pick up their monthly supply of FMSC food. The stories were as varied and vibrant as their vehicles. But to the person, every one said that they could not do the work that they do without this food. “ Impossible without it” they said. Impossible without the people in the states to pack it, pay for it, and pray over it. Impossible without you.

In God’s economy, we know that the impossible becomes reality. Challenges of economics and efficiency that we see as insurmountable obstacles mean nothing to a God who desires His people to live and be fed. These hurdles become nothing more than testaments to God’s power and expansive love.

Later in the afternoon we took food to a nearby village where hundreds of people were awaiting our arrival. (They wait very patiently down here). Each person standing in line represented a family of 6-10 people that would be fed for the next month by the box of food that they received.

“Merci.” “Merci.”

sorrow, stories, and songs

Before I left MSP I stopped at a cash machine and withdrew $300 for travel expenses during the trip. As we left the airport in Port Au Prince traveling in a steel mesh enclosed truck the level of poverty that the people of this country wrestle with every day became all too evident. The $300 dollars I had stashed in my luggage and in my wallet is nearly equal to a year’s wages for the average Haitian. With an 80% unemployment rate, the story of this island seems bleak and bleaker.

There is garbage strewn everywhere and the best road in Haiti makes the worst road during Minnesota pothole season look like a freshly paved highway. On the side of the road there are people gathering what wood they can find for cooking and the hills are barren and nearly treeless. The collective story is one of many many people on an island with fewer and fewer resources.

The frustration of the social climate is quickly laid to rest though as you meet the children at the Love a Child orphanage. For sure they share the collective story of poverty that inflicts this half of the island, but their personal stories and the way God has interceded through the work of the missionaries here shouts over the top of the island’s darkest days. As I sit here writing, the children are filling the air with songs of joy and praise lifting an alleluia that beckons to the surrounding mountains. Children who lost their mothers during childbirth sing. Children live who were so malnourished that at nine months one weighed only nine pounds. Children who were literally in the grasp of death now find themselves joyfully held in the palm of God’s hand as He writes a different story for their lives.

waiting patiently for a new song

Waiting. Patiently. Not a strong suit for many of us. I just spent three hours waiting in a plane parked at a departure gate for the repair of a radio. Would have been easier to wait if the captain had not told us that the radio that they needed to fix was for international use (we were on a domestic flight) but it needed to be fixed per FAA regulations nonetheless.

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

U2
40
from (you guessed it) Psalm 40

Yes sometimes our waiting bears fruit. Sometimes it causes us to sing a new song. Earlier in the day as I was waiting in the airport to hook up with the other 7 people heading to Haiti with Feed My Starving Children, I leaned against a pole beside an adjacent departure gate. What turned out to be the members of our flight crew were standing at the gate conversing as they waited for the plane to arrive so we could board the flight. My ears perked up as I heard the flight attendant raving about a recent trip to Feed My Starving Children with her eight year old son. She was going on and on about the amazing work that FMSC does and how fulfilled she felt every time she packed food. I wondered how long I should wait before interrupting her and telling them I was on my way to visit the children she had been packing food for.


Just as the flight attendant started telling the story of baby Moses that is included in the FMSC orientation video, Mark Crea, the executive director of FMSC walked up to greet me. We said hello to each other and I promptly interrupted the flight crew’s conversation to introduce Mark and share in a moment of serendipitous divine interuption. The crew was blown away. We spent the next few minutes in one of those high energy I can’t believe what just happened conversations. It was a whirlwind of spirit that needed no interpretation as to its meaning. (The flight attendant even took a picture to capture the moment!)

Sometimes, while we are waiting, we see that we are an integral part of something that is way bigger than we can imagine. Sometimes, while we are waiting, we can see God’s mission clearly and know that we belong to that mission in a very important way. And sometimes, after this period of waiting, God intercedes mightily and we begin to sing a new song.

A song that is filled with passion and purpose and harmonies of our connectedness. A song that is hidden deep within all of us longing to be sung.

A song that gives us life. A song that gives the world life.

A song that brings our waiting to a quiet end.

theology- public, private, shared, done

It has been an interesting week. A week ago, we gathered in a park with some friends from neighboring faith communities to raise awareness (and money) around the issue of hunger in our local and global community. We did it because Jesus asks us to care for those who are hungry. We did it because to do so gave us life and connected us to something much larger than ourselves. Last Wednesday, we visited our friends at Redeemer in north Minneapolis for their annual block party and shared music, food, and rockin’ 'Jesus is king hip hop' in the empty lot behind the church with a few hundred new friends. The folks at Redeemer engaged their entire neighborhood (and us) because Jesus asks them to welcome strangers. It connected them (and us) to something bigger, brighter, and more alive.

This week was also marked by the church wide assembly of the ELCA and deliberation around issues related to human sexuality and the ordination of clergy. Without going into the details of the decisions that were reached, (you can click here to visit the ELCA website for results and social statements adopted) the assembly voted and adopted statements related to theological opinion around a number of issues. The assembly was marked by great debate (most of which was quite civil), prayer and thoughtful deliberation, joy for some and sadness for others. Even with such a heated topic, people behaved like, well, like Lutherans.

Such public declaration of theological position is what we would probably imagine if someone asked us the question ‘what is public theology?” Yes it is a geeky pastor type question I know. But an important one. We might imagine that public theology is what happens when we stand and say a creed during worship, or what a pastor does when he/she preaches a sermon. Within such a framework, public theology is an exercise in reasoning about God and proclaiming our beliefs publicly, either as an individual or collectively.

And here is where I am stuck. See I am not sure about this thinking and speaking framework for defining public theology. I am coming to believe that such a framework largely misses the point. Thinking is overrated and talk is cheap.

Over the last few years I have come to understand that public theology is not wholly about what we think or what we say but is rather about what we do. Not because our doing saves us or makes us better than anyone else, but rather because our doing extends and gives life and motion to our theology.

We do theology. Publicly. Everyday.

I am leaving later today to do theology as an extension of a community of public theology doers. I invite you to travel along for the next few days as I extend our doing into one of the poorest countries in the world. Do pray for me this week as I go. And know that your hands are extended in life giving doing this week.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being stained by the world.” James 1:27

*eternal truth in an eternal prayer

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place
I look at the meadow
And stare at the flowers
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day

So why do I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need



Our God in heaven
Hallowed be
Thy name above all names
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us wicked sinners
Lead us far away from our vices
And deliver us from these prisons

Let it be so in our lives. Now and forever.

finding our place in God's story

The story continues and invites all who hear into it's life-giving movement and rhythm...

*every story whispers his name

Lloyd-Jones and Jago have team up to bring a truly inspired gift to the world in this amazing children's Bible. Every story they share through word and art indeed whispers the name of Christ.



An excerpt:

"God looked at everything he had made. "Perfect!" he said. and it was.

But all the stars and the mountains and oceans and galaxies and everything were nothing compared to how much God loved his children. He would move heaven and earth to b near them. Always. Whatever happened, whatever it cost him, he would always love them.

And so it was that this wonderful love story began..."

And understanding that this story is for us and about us is where truth and life begins for each of us.

*belonging to the mission of God

Somtimes we can get lost and think that the mission of God somehow belongs to us as Christians and to us as the church. It is comforting to know that the opposite is actually true. We as Christians, and collectively as the church, belong to the mission of God.

We belong to it. It is not ours. We are its.

In this truth we should find peace and hope beyond measure.

do you know where your soul is?

"I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

"I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.
“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea..."

Click here to continue reading this OP ed piece from the NY times by U2's Bono. His use of imagery is worth the read.

*oh me of little faith (but a little is enough)

easter as a season

I was on Facebook today and a friend noted that Easter is not a single festival day but a season of new life and re-creation in Christ. It made me think of the quote below and the gift we have been given- to participate in this season of newness and life that has been passed down from sinner/saint hybrids through the ages. Resurrection living was here before we were born and will move forward after we are gone. What will we do with it in the meantime that we call our life?



Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

*saints and sinners- Palm Sunday and the approaching King

\

Jesus and his rag tag band of misfit soldiers are laying seige to Jerusalem. Within a few days, they will betray, desert, and deny their commander leaving one casuality...an apparent defeat...then VICTORY.

saints and sinners- a new monastic order

saints and sinners- St Augustine

St. Augustine (354-430) lived in what is now modern day Algeria. Probably the most influential philospher/theologian of the early church. Click here to read more about Augustine.

“This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.”

*saints and sinners- Ignatius and the Jesuits

With a catalyst of Ignatius and his six friends who founded the Jesuit order, the gospel and it's freeing for the sake of love of neighbor has (and continues) to shape and challenge our collective life together on this blue boat we call earth.

Probably one of the best films ever produced about spiritual life and the struggles of church, culture, and personal freedom and responsiblity. Certainly one of the best musical scores for film ever written.

saints and sinners- St Ignatius of Loyola

Another saint of Spanish origin who lived at the time of the reformation. Founder of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, the largest of Roman Catholic monastic orders.

“Teach us to give and not to count the cost”

*saints and sinners- St Patrick's Breastplate

saints and sinners- St Patrick

Irish saint of great reknown who was a missionary at the end of the 4th and start of the 5th century. Click here for more history.

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.

saints and sinners- St Teresa of Avila

Laughter Came From Every Brick

Just these two words He spoke
changed my life,

"Enjoy Me."

What a burden I thought I was to carry--
a crucifix, as did He.

Love once said to me, "I know a song,
would you like to hear it?"

And laughter came from every brick in the street
and from every pore
in the sky.

After a night of prayer, He
changed my life when
He sang,

"Enjoy Me."

saints and sinners- St Teresa of Avila

Not Yet Tickled

How did those priests ever get so serious
and preach all that gloom?

I don't think God
tickled them
yet.

Beloved--hurry.

*saints and sinners- St Teresa of Avila

Clarity is Freedom

I had tea yesterday with a great theologian,
and he asked me,

"What is your experience of God's will?"

I like the question-
for the distillation of thought hones thought in others.
Clarity, I know, is freedom.

What is my experience of God's will?

Everyone is a traveler. Most all need lodging, food,
and clothes.

I let enter my mouth what will enrich me. I wear what
will make my eye content,
I sleep where I will
wake with the
strength to
deeply
love

all my mind can
hold.

What is God's will for a wing?
Every bird knows
that.

saints and sinners- St Teresa of Avila

Another Spanish mystic/poet(1515-1582), Teresa's work is marked by a deep desire for unity with God in all things to be realized through prayer and meditation.

From a distance all want to enter His house.
Once near, watch out for the guard dogs--
both four-legged and two.
Some of them are
crazy as
hell.

*saints and sinners- St John of the Cross

St John of the Cross was involved in the reform movement in Spain among his particular monastic order, the Carmelites. Kidnapped, imprisoned and beaten by a group of rival monks he penned the poem found below about this experience.

St John of the Cross was excommunicated by one pope during his lifetime for his work of reform but subsequently canonized by papal decree 131 years after his death.

I Cobbled Their Boots

How Could I love my fellow men who tortured me?

One night I was dragged into a room
and beaten near death with
their shoes

striking me hundreds of times
in the face, scarring me
forever.

I cried out for God to help me, until I fainted.

That night in a dream, in a dream more real than this world,
a strap from the Christ's sandal
fell from my bleeding
mouth,

and I looked at Him and He
was weeping, and
spoke,

"I cobbled their boots;
how sorry
I am.

What moves all things
is God."

History, and the realization of Christ's kingdom among us ultimately prove us all to be both saint and sinner. How else can a man be found the most egregious of sinners (excommunitcated) only to be named as the noblest of saints (canonized)? How else can one pope defame in the name of Christ and another acclaim as the purest of instruments of Christ? Is one wrong and one right? Or somehow, in some mysterious way where God moves all things, are they both wrong and right?

And in the middle of all history, we have a Lord who IS Truth Itself, who weeps for cobbling their shoes, apologizes for their actions, and dies for their (and all of our) sins.

saints and sinners- St John of the Cross

Arrogance

The weight of arrogance is such
that no bird can fly
carrying it.

And the man who feels superior
to others, that man cannot dance,

the real dance when the soul takes God
into its arms and you both fall
onto your knees in
gratitude,

a blessed gratitude
for life.

saints and sinners- St John of the Cross

The Essence of Desire

I did not
have to ask my heart what it wanted,
because of all the desires I have ever known just one did I cling to
for it was the essence
of all desire:

to hold beauty in
my soul's
arm.

saints and sinners- St John of the Cross

Spanish mystic poet (1542-1591) who was forcibly converted to Christianity as a child and would eventually become Carmelite friar and reformer. More history.

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

heading home, leaving home, and thankfully praying the journey would be both.

Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.

Henry Van Dyke

Cain, Abel, the beginning and the end

I appreciate the public proclamation of theology and scripture immensely as it is expressed on the side of this building in the lower ninth ward in New Orleans. And the image above captures a pain that is unknowable for someone who has not lived in one of the most violent cities in the United States. But in fairness to the scripture, it needs to be noted that there are two chapters of Genesis that proceed the story of Cain and Abel. Two chapters of scripture that tell us that what God created was 'good' and 'very good' before the distrusting actions of Adam and Eve in chapter 3 and the murder over religion that we find in chapter 4.

And on the last page of most Bibles, just before we reach the final 'amen' at the conclusion of the the book of Revelation, we are again brought back to a garden-like vision of goodness and light where a river of life flows clear and clean and the leaves on the tree of life are for the healing of the peoples.

In a world living in the now and the not yet, where killing over religion, ethnicity, and disrespect seems to be out of control; in a world where the waters rage killing hundreds of thousands through a single tsunami, millions through its dirtiness that brings disease, and hundreds via breeched levees...

we keep our eyes on the beginning and the end

and we live our lives as those shaped by the one who calls us to action

in the middle

of

it

all

choosing our better history

" Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.

They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

Every generation has its shared defining moments in history that we personally tag and remember where we were and what we were doing as particular monumental events unfolded. My parents talk about remembering where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor being bombed and the assassination of JFK. I remember where I was when I heard about the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the tragic events of 9/11.

As I heard the words above spoken by new president Barack Obama as part of his inauguration speech, I was sitting in a 15 passenger van with a handful of folks preparing to get to work in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans 40 months post Katrina.

The degree of devastation that remains here is almost beyond belief.

But the hope... it will not die among those who live and labor here.

Out of suffering, an enduring spirit continues to choose hope over fear and walk a long and rugged path that defines us as a nation.

words of wisdom for the wayfaring

Thought I would share a poem that a friend wrote recently that I found to be inpsiring as we move into the new year.

anger aggravates, accommodates, advocates abuse.
authenticity awakens action.
beatitudes bear burdens with bold, brave, beautiful belief.
condemnation consumes, confines, confuses, cancels, quenches.
charity cheerfully choses changeless truthful chance.
desolate isolation destructs, depresses, represses.
darkness doubts and disguises.
dissatisfaction deters, destroys, defiles, defies, denies.
Daddy's divine detox and definite decisions define- directing daily dancing destiny.
eternally expressive encouragement enables courage.
foolishness and fraud ferment & fester, fool, fail & frustrate.
forgiven fearless freedom flows from firmaments' faithful, founding Father.
faith followers find friendship, family and favor.
humanity hoards and harbors hate, humiliating humility.
hurting, hungry hearts hide.
holy happiness harbors holistically healthy harmony.
ill, illegitimate, irreverent, irrelevant impermanence interrupts.
eternal, ingenious, insightful, innovative intelligence inspires.
jubilance joins justice, joyfully judging junk jurisdiction.
kindred kindness kindles and cultivates compassionate community.
love listens and laments.
life liberates.
mankind misunderstands and miscommunicates.
miracles & mercy mend mistakes.
neighborliness nurtures.
honest opportunity overrules ostracizing oppression.
plentiful plans pervade, persuade personal pursuits.
Prince of permanent peace paves, preserves, prepares, protects, provides perfect paths.
purity portrays passionate potential.
patience perseveres.
quiet confidence confides, communicating candidly.
rage ravages with revengeful rampant regret.
real, righteous wisdom refreshes, reflects, respects, requests right, relevant routes.
spiritual sickness soils saliva.
stubborn, stained sentiments send sharp shattering signals.
sweet, simple, soulful sincerity shares.
tongues torture.
truth trusts.
understanding observes.
wise warmth restores, redirects waywardness, reawakening wild, refreshing, reflective wonder.


Thanks Arli for a beautiful bit of bold purposeful prose!