a really bad day.

just like the bad old days,

woke up at1a.m. 

nightmare

not frightening

is what was frightening.

people killing

beheading

changing places.

all seemed to represent, 

i.e. re-present

the previous day.

gruesome commentary  of a

seemingly 

innocent event.

nothing innocent.

thoughts and actions

are one for the spirit,

the soul.

cleanse the soul.

confess;

i committed murder in my head yesterday.

cannot undo

must

confess

do penance 

then repent.

act of what?

no sincere remorse.

feel righteous and justified.

forgive another.

do not punish self.

forgive.

let the other be

without judgement.

turn off the mental

chatter.

it is ok to notice.

it is not ok to judge.

accept judgement on self

made by self toward another.

i am self righteous.

i am rigid.

i am controlling.

i am obnoxious.

i don’t think i am

and that is the rub.

i am and don’t think i am.

that is the rub.

i am ok,

you are not.

i am not ok,

neither are you.

i am not ok,

you are.

traveling through my head is a circuitous route

going in circles.

leave the head,

go to the heart.

the heart knows the pain,

the isolation in the midst of people.

the self inflicted loneliness.

saw the pain.

did not respond with compassion.

not willing to risk being paternal.

too caught up to ignore.

could not move on during event,

chose to leave,

hence the judgement.

need more stamina,

tolerance, patience.

did not practice my virtue.

result:

inflicted pain on self via eating

too much, wrong things.

indigestion, nightmare.

bad old days 

not nightmare

but 

judgment, arrogance, and self-deception

including anger 

leading me into a prolonged day of self examination.

the work of the soul

can be done more efficiently.

stop and reflect

 before engaging in self destructive behavior.

delay activities and repent.

activities will then create

not destroy.

© ben l somerville ii mar. 9,2016

Merry Christmas.

 May you know a bountiful life.

A Lesson From Judith

She called.

“I want to meet with you.”

I’ve heard about you, I thought.

We met not for lunch as planned.

She was sick with the flu or some such thing.

She called.

“We’ll do this later.” 

“That’s good,” I said.

The later was not for lunch,

Instead in a hospital bed.

She was readying to leave the hospital.

She had to leave so she could get treatments for cancer just discovered.

Some kind of hospital rule.  

Rules are strange things,

Sometimes they are boundaries

Sometimes barriers.

 “Come see me--we have something in common.”

Jim, a loving husband, said, “That’s true

And it would be important to her.”

Judith has died since.

I miss her.

I was nothing more than a blink of an eye in her life.

If my presence did for her what she said,

I am awed.

I believe her.

I am awed.

My presence with her got turned around soon.

When I visited,

Her presence with me marked my life.

She was nothing more than a blink of an eye in my life.

A blink that turned into a wink that graced my soul.

The lesson from Judith is

The courage to be is bountiful.

Thank you, Judith.

©Ben L Somerville II 1999

Expressions in poetry

WORK OF A POET

The work of a poet is to absorb what happens.

Digest it.

Create with words the impact.

What happened may or may not be recognizable.

The task is to take the piece of life that happened

Convert it into language that others can comprehend

With as little interference as possible.

A Friend Brings Hope

A chickadee flies into our hearts.

Moving through the air we breathe.

The sun brightens.

The wind supports.

Food is energy dancing.

Somehow life is lighter.

We say thank you.

It is not enough.

The chickadee flies on.

We take up our cross.

Somehow life is lighter.

© Ben L. Somerville, II 1998

Vacation Bible Brought Me Back

I have been absent from my blog for a number of years because adjusting to retirement has been a long process but not difficult.  Not ever having done it before I explored every facet that arose and they are still coming.  My personal perspective has shifted, but am not sure how much has changed but refined and lots of the anger is gone.  In fact most of it.  I still have some and I am more in control of it that it is of me now.  A big shift. My work was not so demanding, but I overworked myself as I can now see.

To start back with my blog, I will share some reflections on a recent Vacation Bible School that Saint John's Episcopal Church, Bisbee, Az. participated in via a grant from the Episcopal Community Services.  The program was done in cooperation with an independent evangelical congregation in Naco, Sonora, Mexico.  There were about 150 children involved ages from about 2 years to 16.  They all came dressed as if going to special event and the program didn't start until 4 pm because the parents had to work.

There was staff from the church in Naco and St. John's and other American congregations when other staff members brought them along.  I presented a bible story one time and then observed from location and also from a distance listening to other staff talk about it.  It was a whopping success from fun to learning to relationships.  There was no whining, no crying nor glum faces.  A lot of gratitude expressed through the eyes, and mouths and behavior of participants and staff.  It was a model of community at its best.  Hard work and the staff was energetic and then tired at the end of the day.  

It was a success but we will not know the results because life lived like that impacts each individual in specific and subtle ways.  They may know what they are now, later or much later.  What I got from the experience is that this was faith at work.  I trusted what we were doing was going to have a graceful impact on all who took part.  I am so glad that a formal evaluation was not taken because it would not tell us anything worth.  How do you evaluate faith or works of faith.  I don't know.

New Things

This season of the year and I meant ADVENT stirs many feeling of hope within me.  I should never act on anything leaning toward the negative or depressed until I run it through Advent.  This is the season to consider the ends.  The end of the past, the end of now and the end of the future.  The past is gone.   I can live a new now.  The now is fleeting so get on with it.  The future is not ever here so make the now the best you can and rejoice.

Self-God

On reflection, it has occurred to me that in my 40 years working in the church that my serious conversations about God came after exhausting a discussion about the person.  Start with us then go to god.

I encourage you to write your own.

Faith Statement of Ben Somerville

12/16/11

God is a name;

and I believe in God.

I use the name to express the source, being, or non being, creator, sustainer, redeemer, forgiver, lover, abstainer, and judge;

and everything which is in charge of life animate and inanimate that we know or don't know about.

I intend to cover all bases, good and evil because this understanding of God is the only way that my faith statement makes sense;

And any limiting or confining statement of God makes God less than God.

My faith is what I trust to be true as if there were no question about it;

and I question a lot.

My faith allows and encourages me to question;

and my faith depends on the truth as it is, not as I want it to be.

When I have illusions;

and I am disillusioned, I come closer to the truth.

I believe Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew who became the Christian Messiah, is the best expression of God being fully present in a human being;

and a witness to God's full presence within each human being.

I believe God is present where there is life of any kind;

and everything contains life.

I believe that every human contains the gift of the full presence of God;

and we are responsible for how we live out that gift.

We are all in this together;

and the way we treat one another is the actual way we treat God.

Our struggle is to have our behavior be congruent with our words;

and the way we feel will fall in line.

We will know the joy of compatibility, even if it takes years;

and we are free to choose the way we live.

We are within the sovereign reign of God;

and loves abounds.