When you need a new rhythm
Old one not working
Wearing you out
Step off, step out and away
Find a quiet place
A lonely place
To think
To listen
Make the changes
To save yourself
© 2020 Julie Clark
Poetry
A Blessing for those Waiting for Justice and Deliverance
A Blessing for those Waiting for Justice and Deliverance
(for those imprisoned in NW China)
In this waiting
Which feels so long, too long
When despair nags at our heels
Bless us with hope,
Bless us with prayers to pray
With names of precious people we know
And do not know
Names and faces of captives and prisoners
We can hold before you
And honor them and honor you, their creator
Bless the space, the time
Between now and their deliverance
May they know your presence,
Your love, your goodness
May they know you hear
The cry of the afflicted
Even if the cry comes
Silently from their hearts
Bless them with
Lifting the heavy burden
With healing their
Broken bodies
Their broken hearts
Lift their heads
Lift their hearts
To hope, to wait, to know
You are coming
and have not
forgotten them
Categories: borderlands, Faith, God, Hope, lament, pain, Peace and Reconciliation, Poetry, Prayer
Tags: burden, cry, deliverance, despair, hearts, hope, justice, waiting
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Do the Hard Work
Do the hard work
Take the time to listen
To another
With a different voice
A different belief
A different color of skin
A different culture
A different story
Take the time to learn
Find your new teachers
You won’t be disappointed
You will be enlarged
You will expand
You will grow
You will receive
A true gift
© 2019 Julie Clark
Categories: borderlands, growth, Hospitality, Peace and Reconciliation, Poetry
Tags: different, find, hard work, learn, listen
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Lectio Divina Poem
Lectio Divina Poem on
Mark 7:24….
Jesus on the move
One place to another
Sent to the lost children
Of Israel, yet…
Why is he here
Where the Gentiles live?
Like a magnet pulls
He draws the hungry,
The thirsty, the sick
The poor, the desperate
The greater the need
The louder they call
His meal disrupted
A noisy, needy
Foreign woman
With a child
He heard her cry
And turned his attention
Questions and answers
“Even the dogs eat
The children’s scraps”
For this answer
She is rewarded
Her child is healed
Her faith commended
Do we see these
Women? mothers?
These men, fathers?
They will do anything
To save their child
Do we hear them?
Or do we turn away
From the disruption
And finish our hearty meals?
© 2019 Julie Clark
Categories: Autumn Poems, borderlands, children, Dogs, Faith, God, lament, Peace and Reconciliation, Poetry
Tags: children, disruption, fathers, lectio divina, women
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Watching and Waiting
Sorrow follows close
To shroud me
When my gaze
On love wavers
The impossibilities
Of hope
Too much to hold onto
At times
When justice and peace
Slip away
In a mudslide
What I cannot see
Calls me
To look closer
Do you see the courageous ones
who faced
Down their fear
The generous ones who share
What once they hoarded
Do you see
The peacemakers plowing fields
with what once
were weapons
The trusting ones letting go
Of all they thought
They needed to control
Change is happening
In incremental steps
Think of what happens
With seeds
Or yeast
Explosion of life
About to happen
All around us
Keep doing good
And growing
Into the person
You are and truly want to be
© Julie Clark 2019
Questions I Have
What is this division you bring?
What about peace on earth, goodwill towards all?
Is it about our choice?
To love and serve
Or horde and kill?
Do you come to us at our borders in T-shirts and flip flops
Or camped out in our city parks?
One more opportunity to choose
As you ask, “Who will you serve?
Me or mammon?”
Ok, I choose you.
Now I have enemies.
What did you say about enemies?
I have to love them too?
Now that is hard to do.
Oh, you did that.
I see. Is that how this works?
Love changes everything.
Love is the force that brings peace
Far and near and finally
Everywhere.
How long?
“Until all is changed and all submit
To love
Singing praises!”
Your ways are better
Your ways are higher
Than ours.
What is impossible for humans
Is possible for you.
Now we must
Get up on the highway
Of your ways
Watch and see
What you can do with love-
The strongest force there is
Moving mountains and
Raising valleys.
May we make the choice
To love
Rather than continue
This madness.
© 2019 Julie Clark
True Self Knows
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
We all suffer
When one suffers
Like ripples on the water
Tracing it back
To the original stone
Shattering the calm
It all makes sense
Our connections
All fractured
All hearts broken
Let us go easy
Be gentle
Let the drops bead up
With Holy Oil
And roll
Rather then
Added to the burden
Of offences
We all carry
True self takes no prisoners
And knows
We will be welcomed home
With love
© 2019 Julie Clark
Locked In and Locked Out
Photo by Life Of Pix on Pexels.com
(This poem is dedicated to those imprisoned in concentration camps and their families in Northwest China.)
What else can I do
But continue to speak up and out
For the ones locked in
And the ones locked out
They are separated from family
From community and their beloved land
From health and safety
Their hearts are tormented
And their bodies are broken
They are in anguish and pain
Can you hear them and lend your voice?
What else can I do
But pray and cry out
For the ones locked in
And the ones locked out
For the ones I know and do not know
To ask the One whom death could not hold
Who razor wire and prison gates
Cannot keep out
To walk among these people
Locked in and locked out
To call them by name
To comfort
To give courage
To give hope
To heal
To restore
To lift up
To set free
To rise like the sun
And bring a new day
© 2019 Julie Clark
Categories: borderlands, Faith, God, grief and death, Hope, lament, Poetry, Prayer, Uncategorized
Tags: community, family, heal, imprisoned, locked in, pain, pray, restore, voice
5 Comments
The Mysteries
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com
The mysteries
Of all we do not know
They are more than
The riches some heap
While others go without
They are more than
The wars against body and soul
The what ifs and the whys
The pit of sorrows we fall into
The crushing weight of grief
The mysteries
Of all we do not know
The greatest is love
That holds us when all is gone
That leads us to treasure
At the end of a dark tunnel
It runs through us and to us
Lifting us and helping us
To breathe and to live
And one day hope again
© 2019 Julie Clark
Categories: grief and death, Hope, Love, Poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: hope, live, love, mysteries, sorrow
2 Comments
Signs and Wonders
Signs and Wonders
Hidden away
For me to find
To discover
Secret treasures
Or surprises
Early spring buds and flowers
The haron circling me
Then landing on the beach below
The sea lion
Lifting head from the water
Barking greetings to all
The fog laying down
On the water
Surrounding the island
Like a blanket
Majestic Volcano
Radiant in white
All call me to pay attention
To notice the beauty
Of Creator
Signs of love
Wonders to ponder
© 2019 Julie Clark
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