Sea chanty. To be sung in Bloggers' Harbor.

Sea Chanty , 2011.
(Inspired in part by a recent, very-decent, read, Against the Machine, by Lee Siegel.)

Travelers in the blogosphere,
Oh, tell me what we're doing here...
Are we treading seas of introspection,
Or sailing strong in some direction ?
Does your being blogborne turn a profit?
Are you as worthwhile if you're off it?

Do you find yourself disoriented
By tides of 'thought' that we've invented ?
Wave on wave on chattering wave,
We call our self-expression 'brave,'
And sail on link to link to go where
Everyone has been – it's nowhere.

Round and round past slightest switches
Of the same old themes and pitches;
What we think's a glorious ocean
Is just a whirlpool set in motion;
And we the rubber duckies swelling
On the waves of what they're selling.

Jump in quick and make your name in
The 'uniqueness' game we're all the same in.
Publicize your style and choice
In hopes a name may buy your voice.
If you hoist a flag that's hip,
And reference every other ship...

Did you start out to share what's true
And find the hearers shaping you?

Though all the world be sponsored, hosted,
Please know: you're more than what you've posted.
You're called to journey farther, longer
You're called to oceans wider, stronger

...Than “today's most read” could ever reach,
...Than “new for you” will ever teach.
The depths of minds and thoughts that haunt them
Can't be turned on just when you want them.
To sail to realms of tested treasure
Takes time, takes patience, wind and weather.

And in the waiting, courage forms
And perseverance in the storms;

A sailor's wisdom built with time,
May sing the world a mariner's rime.
....Or may find his joy in sailing so
'The world' may never need to know.

February 17 in new York.

whispers of summer in the 60degree breeze.
I remember you! I remember you, Bronx of July, of June.
You left
but you return.
You return!

I, new to changing seasons (whole seasons, longer stories than I ever knew,
each
so separate from the others),
I marvel that the place of last year's story
ever comes back.

The blue, blue sky,
the echo of laughter of source and cause unknown
rebounding off apartment buildings --
we're outside again! ..
the stifling snowhush lifted,
and the kids call out again.

It is, today,
a February's temporary reprieve,
a warning that this setting we've complained about
for months,
this grim gray cave we ride the subway through,
that wets our boots and buries cars and holds us all inside,
it's heard the knell,
has numbered days.

drip
drop
drip drop,
if you listen, you will hear the passings of a dying world;
if you have anything to do
before it falls,
best get it done -- a new world waits,
is peeking in from stage's wings
while snow dissolves.

Prepare the new!
We shall reset and start again
on a new scene.

This says the breeze today on the platform
over 183rd and Jerome.

Blessed, blessed, blessed and so blessed.

“Never allow your heart to deceive you, saying: ‘the Word of God cannot be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ … Don’t pray anything less than the Word of God. Don’t pray anything that is less than the size of God Himself.” ...thus, slowly, thoughtfully said Dr. Pravin Moudgill. (Or, as he asks that we call him, Pravin Uncle.) And he meant it. I do not know quite how to convey to you how much I saw the Word of God treasured, used, reflected on, revered and BELIEVED in word and in deed over the past week.

being the wordsmith, and not the photographer, I haven't visual snippets to share with you yet. But I can tell you that the Spirit of God is alive and well and has many very good homes inside the believers of India. True devotion is whole-life devotion; true belief in the Word of God is complete and unconditional belief.

I praise God for the men and women I have met this week who have shown me the heart of Jesus. In the time they have taken to speak to my heart, in the hospitality they have shown and the stories they have shared, they have been Family, in the truest, the eternal, sense.
My thanks to Wycliffe India. My thanks to our Father.