Shameless audacity
Just go ahead and ask
You will not regret it
Pour out your words
Coming straight from your heart
What do you need?
What do you want?
Who are you carrying
Close in your thoughts?
Bring it all up
Bring it all out
Pray –
What will it hurt?
You will be welcomed
You will be heard
In this place
Where heaven meets earth
Connection becomes communion
Ask, seek, knock
Believe and receive
The Spirit is yours
© 2017 Julie Clark
I Practiced What I Preached on Sunday. I asked about my new name since battling my third cold of the season I was feeling rather Sick and Tired. The answer is embedded in the following poem as well as some excerpts from the sermon.
“Who are we?”
Asked the Poet King
the Battle Weary Psalmist.
There are days I feel
just like a Breath
or a Passing Shadow
as this Shepherd of Sheep
and a Kingdom felt.
What is my name?
Surely not
Sick and Tired.
If I listen open-hearted
the message will come
With an eye of faith
I can almost see it written
on the wing of the messenger:
Overcoming One
Who Loves My People.
That’s a name I
can grow into.
My identity is not
in how I feel or
how another calls me
or sees me.
No, it is in
How my Maker made me
to be like him
Image Bearer
full of Glory
full Grace.
Bread for life
I ask for daily
Given more than I need
A neighbor comes
He doesn’t have enough
For his weary travelers
Just arrived
After mid-night
Ok, Ok
Stop your knocking
You are waking us all up
Especially the dogs
Here’s your bread
I don’t share well
But since you are such
A pest
And I want to go back to bed
I will give it to you
What if he didn’t have to ask?
What if I had given it to him
Earlier?
How was I to anticipate
His need of my extra bread?
Maybe if I paid attention
And asked
What am I to do with this extra?
I would have known
He was running on empty.
© 2013 Julie Clark
My Auntie was an artist
A painter and a teacher
My favorites were her fabrics
Sewed into billowing curtains and
Textured table clothes and pillows
Scattered throughout the house
In vibrant colors
As the sea breezes breathed in and out
For she always lived by the sea
With her thoughtful face
And twinkling eyes
She loved the child I was
I wished I had asked her
To tell me stories of her beatnik life
And how she adored her policeman father
I was a passive child
Observing life around me
Absorbing some of it
Rather than taking it
In my two hands
And bringing it in close
To examine in the light
I missed so much by not
Asking my questions
Some one kissed that girl
And woke her up
She is learning how to ask
Her questions now
Who and what formed
These beautiful creatures
My Auntie and me
© 2013 Julie Clark
They’ve been waiting
Anticipating
This moment
Ready to move
High alert
Waiting
Anticipating
The feeble prayer
Forms in the heart
Barely makes it
To the lips
If at all
A mere
Seed of faith
Commotion
In the cosmos
“She asked!
We are moving in!”
The cogs begin to turn
Heaven moves earth
Surely help is on the way
© 2013 Julie Clark
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