Author Archives: Benjamin White

How Long Love Holds 

Only to grow so old in love as these Beloveds in the rest stop parking here! For love that lasts much longer than my knees, For tenderness exceeding vision clear, The chance to prove that I could go so far! A husband who so carefully prepared The chair his wife would wheel in from the car. I watched him get it from the trunkContinueContinue reading “How Long Love Holds “

Of Water and of Wind

After John 3  A long-legged spider  Just descended from the trees  Suspended by her thread,  She dipped her head in water  And rose up  As quickly as she came  Gathering hungrily  With forelegs, the thread  And her body,  Deftly ascending back into the branches,  Cradling between her head and thorax  A single drop of water ContinueContinue reading “Of Water and of Wind”

Hospital Notes #3: What a wonder to be wrong!

I was called to pray for a baby who was dying. When I am on call, I take the Pastoral Care Department cell phone home with me, so I had forty-five minutes to get to the hospital. I told that to the nurse, quickly dressed, and started flying toward I-95. When I arrived in theContinueContinue reading “Hospital Notes #3: What a wonder to be wrong!”

Hospital Notes #2: Children are much harder to hate

People often ask me if my job is hard. I am a chaplain in a children’s hospital and they presume difficulty. “How can you stomach all that suffering?” — the subtext of their honest question: “Do you like your job?” My answer: “I couldn’t say I like it; but I think it pleases God, andContinueContinue reading “Hospital Notes #2: Children are much harder to hate”

Being Mindful of God Being Mindful of Me

You know that famous story by O’Henry called the Gift of the Magi? On Christmas Eve, Della Young discovers that she has only $1.87 to buy a present for her husband Jim. She visits the nearby shop of a hairdresser who buys Della’s long hair for $20. Della then uses the money to buy aContinueContinue reading “Being Mindful of God Being Mindful of Me”

Making Room for the Promise

Expanding Promises Advent is the season of promises — those that have been fulfilled in Jesus and those He gave us himself. Advent means “arrival.” The word comes to us from the Latin, “Adventus”, which is a translation of the Greek, “Parousia.” The fancy words don’t matter to me as much as their difference. HowContinueContinue reading “Making Room for the Promise”

Between Some Birds and Me

Between Some Birds and Me Upon driving past a heron at sixty miles per hour on November 29, 2022  There was a time when herons would arrest Me on my path. For more than moment’s I Would stop to swallow all this beauty’s best Before it loped away. My widened eyes, Too greedy for a goodly view, approached In heart andContinueContinue reading “Between Some Birds and Me”

No Need to Be Jacob Marley

No Need to Be Jacob Marley  for Joel  There is no need for me to be Jacob Marley, no shaking of chains in the night, No cold wandering moon to partake of, No threats to spit nor fatal portent cite.  Because the ghost they have made is much worse Than I could be in my outpour of wrath. No, IContinueContinue reading “No Need to Be Jacob Marley”

Remembered Forgetting

Remembered Forgetting for Briggs How many ghosts live mostly lost in livesLike ours? Some long and lasting, others brief,These friendships, journeys that do not arrive. Ways can divide by pride and bitter grief;Ambition, chance, desire; joy and neglect;And someone who was-is someone is not,Well, not to me………………………………..So I did not expectTo see him dead, forContinueContinue reading “Remembered Forgetting”

How do you know the difference between your intuition and God speaking to you?

When you think of an exploding volcano, what do you think of? Is there a plume of smoke and ash rising into the sky or is there flowing lava in your mind? These are what I think of as the most iconic images of a volcano. And every volcano can do either one. These twoContinueContinue reading “How do you know the difference between your intuition and God speaking to you?”

Becoming a Pilgrim in the Slow Lane

What did the Delaware driver who paid extra for their license plate to say “REMEMBR” want me to recall when they chose those letters for the back of their car? Did they want me to remember Jesus? Because I did. I remembered him like a flood. His face was engraved on the back of thatContinueContinue reading “Becoming a Pilgrim in the Slow Lane”

Glassy Beams: A Corona of Sonnets

Remembering a childhood punishment and dreaming of the pure in heart who shall see God, I wrote this corona of sonnets which hopes to offer a continuous path through the passion of my brokenness, the hope of my human capacity for singleness of will, and the vision of my very self through the loving eyesContinueContinue reading “Glassy Beams: A Corona of Sonnets”

Getting off the Track to Murder

Where did the church get this idea that we needed to be hard — like we’re some teacher with a ruler ready to rap your knuckles if you get out of line? People are scared of the church because it is too often like all the other institutions that are constantly watching us. We’re alwaysContinueContinue reading “Getting off the Track to Murder”

Earth and Sky Making Love Between My Head and Heart

Aggrilacious odor (Greek and Latin concur) Of earth-goddess veins; “Petrichor” numbered and named by Joy (Isabel, “pledged to Yah”), With Homer riding high (Homer, also “pledge”), Receiving tribute From Richard’s study wall (rīk-hardu, “king strong”). The lengths we have gone To know and name all we know; To reign like so many Richards Over everyContinueContinue reading “Earth and Sky Making Love Between My Head and Heart”

Early Dark — A Friday Sonnet

In secret woods, tucked between business parks,The fireflies wake early for their eveningDance, which today begins at noon. The sparksOf yellow-green presaging the lightningWhich gathers above my deepening shade.And I contemplate the early leaving Which severe weather on my way has made–Storms of words which would make clocks deceiving,Calendars fly forward years in a score;ErasingContinueContinue reading “Early Dark — A Friday Sonnet”

A Poem from Galatians Chapter 2 on Peter and Paul’s Feast Day

Today is the feast day of Peter and Paul on the Christian Calendar. I was thinking about their dialogue in Galatians 2 (as Paul tells it), and praying about how my own heart and mind has changed, and hasn’t. This Way of Jesus is a daily discipline. May we be so diligent as Peter andContinueContinue reading “A Poem from Galatians Chapter 2 on Peter and Paul’s Feast Day”

Working With Worry

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. – Jesus (Matthew 6:34) Recently I was talking to a mother in the cardiac intensive care unit and I stumbled across a new insight about worry in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: Don’t forget toContinueContinue reading “Working With Worry”