Saturday, October 25, 2025

Meditation on 2 Corinthians 13 v 11

"Finally brethren, farewell. Become complete.

Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace,

and the God of love and peace will be with you."

Become complete.

It is a high calling,
and far reaching,
and totally impossible
by myself.

It is a striking challenge,
a shout across
rooftops of lives
lived in half measures
and almost there's.

Become complete.

I want to
and need to
and part of me
agrees totally.

The other parts
are still counting
the costs
and doing the math's.
(Something I have
always found
an insurmountable task.)

Become complete.
I get it
and I don't get it.

It's simple profundity
causes me confusion,
as with all matters
of life and faith
that appear startlingly
straightforward,
until you begin
to attempt them.

Live in love and peace.

What does it mean,
to be willing to lay down your life?

Meanwhile my self preservation
makes bookings for a bunker.

Become complete.

Give up
and give in
and give out
and receive in
and flow out
and I'm not quite sure
if I'm up for that today.
(Yesterday was a challenge.)

Become complete.

It wouldn't have been said
if it wasn't possible.

How do I become complete?

Monday, October 13, 2025

Southern Israel

National parks

welcoming curious visitors,

ambling among antiquities

imagining centuries old existence.

Masada, cultural icon
and top tourist spot,
sits in frighteningly barren desert,
hostile
harsh
and unforgiving.

Settlements on
the dizzying heights,
vertigo inducing palaces
clinging to cliffs.

Tragic tales of trials
and sacrifice,
death chosen before slavery.

At Ein Gedi
streams in the desert
move from biblical metaphor
to spectacular reality,

as creature and nature
hug the edges of
its life giving flow,

and David's waterfall
sings as grace tumbles
through the scorched earth.

In Qumran's caves
ancient scrolls found
by shepherds.

God's Word to man
preserved in desert air
thick with history,

joy of generations
past and future,

held in this
beloved land.