Author Archives: backfromtheborderlands

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About backfromtheborderlands

These writing pieces and a few photos are from my experiences and messages I have gathered from living in the borderlands.

Flood the Zone

Posted on September 29, 2025 by backfromtheborderlands

Flood the Zone

Darkness is a vacuum, a void

Light is life

What would our world be

Without the sun

You are the Light of the World

Flood the zone

Fill the dark haunts 

With light

Fill the violent place

With life

Fill the hard hearted

With love

Fill the areas where evil abounds

With acts of goodness

Be anchored in Love 

Don’t get swept up

Into the vacuum

Caught in the net

Of darkness and dark deeds

We know what they are

We have a conscience

We have a soul

Instead let us tap into

The streams of light and life

Love is the strongest

Of all powers

May our lives be

Lit by the light

Of love

© 2025 Julie Clark

Categories: Faith, Hope, Life, light, Love, Poetry | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Get Ready Be Ready

Posted on February 7, 2025 by backfromtheborderlands
Photo by Todd Trapani on Pexels.com

Hope always raises its head again

Even after disappointment

The alternative is too bleak

Despair helps no one

The soul longs to hope and believe

That good will overcome evil

But history is littered with

The crushed bodies of the innocent

The harsh mechanisms of the powers

March forward unabated for awhile

Mr. Rogers would tell us to

“Look for the helpers”

Look for them and follow their example

Prepare ourselves to

Be the helper of the oppressed

Don’t just watch and wring our hands

Jump in and pull people

Out of the rubble 

Our personal suffering does not have to stop us

From doing good to others we can still help

Look for those on the edges about to fall off

Help them

Look for them

They might be too afraid or

Not know how to find you.

February 2025

Categories: Faith, grief and death, Hope, pain, Poetry, Prayer | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Where Are You?

Posted on October 18, 2024 by backfromtheborderlands
Photo by Philippe Donn on Pexels.com

There are times when I scream at the sky

Where are you!?

When I witness the mothers who have lost their children

When I see what the bombs have done to their homes,

Their hospitals, their schools and playgrounds

Their tents on fire

What kind of people are doing this?

What kind of god is letting this happen?

Why is no one stopping this?

In the silence I hear the answer:

“Where are you? What are you doing to stop this?

You have a voice, you have hands and feet

You are alive, you can do something.”

Why do we blame God

When it is people who choose

to love or harm

to nurture life or destroy it?

Categories: Faith, Gaza, God, grief and death, lament, Poetry, Prayer | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Standards

Posted on July 11, 2024 by backfromtheborderlands

What standard will you use

When it comes to others?

Will it be the one you learned

In the building

Under cross and steeple

From the preacher

Thumping and waving

His Bible?

From the evangelist on

On the street

Sending everyone to hell?

Or will you listen

To the One they claim to follow

“Be compassionate,

Judge no one,

Condemn no one,

Forgive and give”

The standard I use

Will be the one

I am measured by

So best to go easy

Be kind, and patient

Learn the art of Love

Directly from the Master

2024 Julie Clark

Categories: Faith, God, growth, Life, Love, Paths, Poetry, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Actions of Love

Posted on May 27, 2024 by backfromtheborderlands
Photo by Jasmine Carter on Pexels.com

The actions of Love

Love is active

 lived out

Worked out

Grown, nurtured,

Planted, tended, watered

Takes thought

Planned 

And spontaneous

Springs from a well tended heart

Ready to take action 

When needed

Love can be interrupted

Change course

Find a new way when blocked

Always finds a way

Love says yes

Love says no

Depending on what is needed

It listens

It calms

It protects

Love provides a nest

A home

Opens the doors

And all the windows

Love gives a little push

Out the door

A gentle pull

And goes with you

Wherever you go

Love grows

Like a seed or a cedar

Love spins like a spider

Or a planet

Love is at the center

Of all

Love is everything. 

Categories: growth, Love, Poetry, Trees | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Jesus left out

Posted on January 15, 2024 by backfromtheborderlands

,

Have you ever noticed how

Jesus left a few things out?

Like when he picked up a scroll

And started reading

Isaiah 61

In the synagogue?

He left out the vengence of God.

How he wouldn’t stick to the script?

Or stay within the rules of protocol

Or status quo?

Remember how 

He didn’t pray for God

To slay his enemies

But prayed

Father forgive them

At the cross?

He even taught us

To love not only God, neighbor, and ourselves

But also our enemies

He wasn’t afraid of stepping

On anyone’s toes or

Provoking their anger

He disrupted their narratives

And challenged their self-assurance.

He wasn’t afraid of anyone,

The truth, or even death.

He wasn’t just being contrary

Remember he loved these people

And wept over them

He must have hoped

His shaking and poking holes in

Their thoughts and prayers

Would wake them up

Move them to action

Turn them around 

To follow him.

Julie Clark © January 2024

Categories: Faith, God, Hope, Love, Peace and Reconciliation, Poetry, Prayer | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Broken Open

Posted on December 4, 2023 by backfromtheborderlands
Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

There is nothing like grief

To break open your theology

Which just might need to be broken open

It is too small

Has not made room for suffering

Which the world is full of

Has made God into a tribal god

Instead of the Creator of all

Whose name is Love

Who holds us all together

Every one of us and every living thing

Hold this grief and broken theology

Until it lands in a more spacious place

That includes all

Send no one to hell

Only into the arms of Love

Categories: Advent, Faith, God, grief and death, lament, Love, Poetry | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Threads of Life

Posted on October 1, 2023 by backfromtheborderlands
Photo by Teona Swift on Pexels.com

Look over your shoulder

And you will see

Threads intricately woven

Into a tapestry

Of color, light, and shadow

A trail behind you

That brought you 

To this day

Look ahead

With faith and hope

That this woven fabric

Will continue throughout

The rest of your life

See the faint glimmer

Of golden threads

Dream and plan

Then bravely make

That next step

Along the path

You are already on

Categories: Autumn Poems, dream, Faith, Hope, Life, Paths, Poetry | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sorrow and Love

Posted on October 1, 2023 by backfromtheborderlands

Woke up to an ache in my heart 

An old friend lost her granddaughter 

Weepy all day

feeling grief for my friend

Have you noticed 

When you open your heart to grief

All the sorrow of the world 

Comes squeezing in?

And the world is full

And the earth groans

Loss and love are holding hands 

The loss of a precious one

Is too vast for one person to hold

Maybe when we grieve with others

We help carry that heavy load

Categories: Autumn Poems, grief and death, Love, Poetry | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

What is Good News?

Posted on April 24, 2023 by backfromtheborderlands

(A poem for Earth Day in response to the words of Jesus where he says in Mark 16:15 proclaim the gospel to all creation.)

What is Good News?

To a river

To the sky

To a forest

To the trees

To the ocean

To the birds

To the bugs

To the bees

To the lakes

To the mountains

To the critters

In the seas

To all people

To the planet

To all creatures

You and me

So let us turn 

Instead of burn

Let us listen

Let us learn

Let us practice 

Let us preach

Until renewal

Is within reach

Categories: Birds, Faith, Hope, Poetry, Trees | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

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