Sometimes I look up and say “HOLY SMOKES!” I think this is what it means to be in awe.

* * *

THEY RESONATE with me,
Ann’s words about coming back from Guatemala,

changed and changing,
but now -
a month later -
she wonders exactly HOW,
so much of life seeming to continue on as before.

And there is something there for me.

I have not been to Guatemala,
but I have been
PLACES

from which I have
emerged.
changed and changing,
sensing a call
for a response not yet clear to me,
but there, nonetheless…

worlds not everyone gets to walk
or would even want to.

Having seen, what response will there be?
What role played?

* * *

TIME PASSES.
The place recedes
and tucks in
somewhere safe.

It is safe from me.
I am safe from it.
We pose no threat to each other.

And in that,
coming at me strong
is the word FAILURE.

* * *

But
white hair on me now
there are moments
when I look up,
catch a glimpse,
am shocked to find
some work about which I felt passionate -
a journaled-about, but long forgotten cause -
there it is in front of me!

I played a role
all along
only didn’t realize,
so sure was I
that it would look somehow different,
my involvement,
if ever I had one.

And the myriad
seemingly insignificant and unrelated
little ‘next steps’
of my life
had that goal stirred through and through.
I hadn’t seen that.

Speechless, always
I am when this happens,
except for the whispered
“Holy smokes!”

“…being confident of this,
that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion…”
Philippians 1:6  (NIV)