If Unseen Man turning around on the street, What did you forget? Unaware I’m watching, You skip The show that lets us know You aren’t a lunatic. No finger to your temple, No shoulders shrugged, Or arms outstretched, No palm to the forehead, Or even an expression. You just turn around To get your keys,ContinueContinue reading “Master, where are you staying?”
Author Archives: Benjamin White
Sleepwalkers – a Friday Sonnet
Sleepwalkers for George MacDonaldWhen darkness burns a hole in all our views,And knowledge-ash-curled edges seed dismay,Can we know anything we know we knew?Will you show us all and call this today?We see few truths with heartless, burned out eyes;Twice-seared with every disappointment first,And second by the fire’s condemning lies.These leave us twice blind with nothingContinueContinue reading “Sleepwalkers – a Friday Sonnet”
How do Yoga and Christianity Intersect?
I would liken the technique of yoga to the gold or silver or stone in Paul’s speech, but not in a dismissive way (I don’t think Paul is being dismissive either). I see yoga as an amazing means for personal well-being made by human design and skill. At its best it brings people very near to an understanding of themselves as people who are in God — living and moving and having their beings. But the means of salvation which is Paul’s proclamation, and, according to Paul, God’s command, is that we need to repent — turn around. I think among the plurality of yogis I know, this repentance is turning from trusting the technique that they can control to trusting the living God that gives them the breath that leads their focused movement.
Is Love Enough? A Poetic Meditation
Will the simplicity of loving my neighbor communicate everything I want to tell the world about Jesus? Will it communicate the same to me? It seems too small, and my particular love seems especially too small. Can love be enough? Jesus says so, but wondering never hurt. This is a bit of a ditty withContinueContinue reading “Is Love Enough? A Poetic Meditation”
A Poem for New Creation
A fourth dimension that’s more than math,And more than hypothetically true,New Creation makes a walkable pathThrough actual me and actual you,Here and now revealed by an ancient holy one whoLet old things go and look! — everything has become new. A feeling on the edge of what is known,And always approximated by our speech;There’s aContinueContinue reading “A Poem for New Creation”
New Birds — a poem
New Birds The low, pink-gold lightof an evening in winterMade new birds in the treeBehind my house. Standing underneath and looking up,I was astonished byTheir tropical candescence,Bright bursts of feathers on their breastsWhich glowed like embersAs they flitted westward,Following the pull of the Brightnesswhich had lain itself bareupon their transformed bodies. A sharing of brilliance,UnassumingContinueContinue reading “New Birds — a poem”
Four Advent Sonnets
Four Advent Sonnets for my 2019 Christmas Story Ever since I was seven years old I have written a Christmas story with my family. This is a cherished tradition. I invite you into my living room to share in what I wrote this year. Advent has traditional characters that help us walk through the activeContinueContinue reading “Four Advent Sonnets”
Top 5 Posts of 2019 on “Today, if You Hear My Voice”
Dear Readers, The year, of course, is winding down so let’s look back on the past twelve months of “Today, if you hear my voice:” I named my blog after Hebrews 3 in which the author meditates on the necessity to tend our hearts to keep them soft. It seems that hearts harden so quickly.ContinueContinue reading “Top 5 Posts of 2019 on “Today, if You Hear My Voice””
Try as you might, you can’t take Christ out of Christmas (so don’t worry about it)
(This post was originally posted at circleofhope.net on our main blog) Have you noticed that they keep churning out Christmas movies that make no mention of Jesus? America’s holiday gods have a different mythology, but I don’t think they have escaped the Good News despite their best efforts. No matter the situational comedy of theContinueContinue reading “Try as you might, you can’t take Christ out of Christmas (so don’t worry about it)”
Long for the Light Like a Marine Iguana Must
My family has a tradition of writing Christmas stories. Here’s one of mine from a few years ago. Christmas in Cold Blood Santa Fe Island in the Galapagos 4:48am GALT (GMT -6hrs) An hour and five minutes before sunrise on December 25, 2011 The sun is rising. It is still dark but he knows theContinueContinue reading “Long for the Light Like a Marine Iguana Must”
Living from the Future
Something terrible happens — you get in a car accident but you’re okay, you lose your job, a loved one gets sick or even dies. In these moments, why do people say, “Everything happens for a reason?” This is a bit of conventional wisdom that has a staying power that we, the Circle of HopeContinueContinue reading “Living from the Future”
A New Sonnet: Facing the Eternal Word
Channeling Something True I’m slowly memorizing 1 John 3. Some scholars doubt that the same person who wrote the Gospel of John also wrote the letter of 1 John. They cite Greek grammar differences for this assertion. Pseudopigraphy is the fancy word for false attribution in ancient texts. It was not uncommon in ancient communities.ContinueContinue reading “A New Sonnet: Facing the Eternal Word”
The je ne sais quoi of following Jesus (and Tyra Banks)
You won’t be able to think your way into relationship, you will have to DO your way into it. Which is already true for many of the things we value. To know the je ne sais quoi of following Jesus, you might be tempted to start with “What is it?” But I suggest you begin with “What can I do now?”
It’s ok to say the Bible is unbelievable
At my weekly Bible Study in the cafeteria of Rowan College of South Jersey, a community college near me, we are studying the Gospel of John. This week we were reading about when Jesus feeds five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes. (John 6) It’s a pretty incredible story. And by “incredible” IContinueContinue reading “It’s ok to say the Bible is unbelievable”
A Short Story for All Saints Day
Remembering Peter A short story for All Saints Day As the elevator door slid open I instinctively started to step off but quickly balked as I realized we were only at the second floor. I shuffled my forward step sideways and made room for a familiar faced man to sidle into place in the frontContinueContinue reading “A Short Story for All Saints Day”
We Know More Than We Comprehend
I was on retreat trying not to question my instincts too much, because retreats are basically practice for listening to the Spirit and your instincts and the Spirit often sound the same. Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” came to mind. I’m a big Gerard Manley Hopkins fan and there are kingfishers onContinueContinue reading “We Know More Than We Comprehend”
A Vocabulary of Blessing
What I learned form Spiritual Gifts month and how I hope we continue to talk to each other about who we are and what we have been given in Circle of Hope.
Yo, Mountains Are Big, Even Bigger Than Me
We need to get smaller. It’s dangerous to be too big. It’s dangerous to live in a human scale mental landscape. The pilgrimage to the big places in my world is made for right sizing, which is to say diminishing me. The physical space of the impossible scale robs me of my illusion of control in a happy way.
Bieber and Sheeran Channel Our Loneliness to Number One
Our ears long for something that resonates like a body with a vitamin deficiency. Something in our animal brain knows what we might not be able to say and we are drawn to Ed Sheeran and Justin Beiber (again) saying what we don’t know we want to hear. We are alone and we don’t want to care. But we do. Jesus helps us care more.
Call God the Pulse: New Language from a New Anthem
“If/When” by the Tea Club Cover Art by Kendra McGowan My friends Dan and Pat McGowan have created a masterpiece. The newest album from their band, The Tea Club (Pat McGowan, Dan McGowan, Jamie Wolff, Dan Monda and Joe Dorsey), is a gift to the world. I can’t stop listening to the almost 28 minuteContinueContinue reading “Call God the Pulse: New Language from a New Anthem”
Today, if you hear his voice 