love as grace gift, fever, eden and wild harmony

February 14, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 14 Comments

On this Valentine’s Day it seems apt to consider how love is a many splendid thing, lifting us to dizzy heights and dropping us down again. It’s full of feeling, driven by emotion, laced with passion, fuelled by lust and desire, sought after and highly prized. Though it is far more than hearts and flowers, lyrics and poetry, chocolates and cards, nice as they are.

Human love is often fickle, variable, blowing hot and cold, prone to alteration and change, seared with sadness and pain. But divine Love is something else entirely—always glorious, unconditional, freeing, totally giving, honouring the other, everlasting, eternal.

In my first magnetic poetry offering today I examine a relationship which isn’t all it could be. I’ve imagined a scenario between two lovers where things once burnt firework-bright then fizzled into little sparks.

Broken fever

This hard-voiced growl from his cool

lips comes out of a broken fever

But she needs more morning peace, and

lingering longer over picturing poetry

like porcelain and remembering when joy

brilliant as fire dazzled like desire;

and warm breath-throb words could melt

her sad, icy heart with a ferocious

laugh—and a ‘let’s celebrate’ kisses embrace

©joylenton2017

Then I imagined a time when love was new, Eden-fresh, bright and brilliant. A morning of mists and mellow mood. A season where the sun shone softly and hearts were united as one. A time of perfect union and wild harmony.

Wild harmony

Above dawn-moist world, behold

beautiful birdsong sanctuary

of soft spring blossom colours

blooming full, warm as Eden

Here we would have strolled,

always following a quiet lake

moss-dark lichen path, as rain

breathes wild harmony like

nature’s deep, watery shade

©joylenton2017

God’s kind of love—pure, unselfish love—is what we are to aim for in our dealings with one another. Yet we fail spectacularly, fall flat on our faces—unless we let God live in us by His Spirit and love others in and through us. Then we have access to God’s rich, full, unlimited ability assisting our weak, limited ability to love as well as we can. And on our best, dependently-leaning-on-God-completely days, love can begin to flourish and look something like this…

“Love never gives up. Love cares for others more than self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first”, doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end” ~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 ‘The Message’

The lovely bible verse heart image above comes courtesy of little birdie blessings, which you can find here.

safe: learning to trust when life feels unsafe

February 12, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 28 Comments

My childhood didn’t fully prepare me to trust or feel safe and secure in the ways I might have hoped it would. But it did lead me to seek for ways to lighten the darkness in my child-heart by enjoying the simple pleasures of life, like blowing bubbles or chasing butterflies.

Not all of the methods I chose were actually safe or helpful, until God shone the light of His presence into my life and I was undone in the best possible way. Because up to then, love had been far from easy, unconditional, lavish or free.

Life can feel less than safe in this dark world, as I still wrestle with demons from my past and deal with myriad challenges in the present. Yet my hope and faith are safe, secure, resting on God’s redemption, goodness and grace, His wild, wild Love and forgiveness that covers all my sin, and His broken heart for a suffering world.

In thinking about the word ‘safe’ for this week’s five-minute-friday prompt, several things suggested themselves. There was even a first attempt poem that didn’t quite feel right, though it may well get shared another day.

I am so grateful God is a God of second chances—as well as second thoughts—and how He has provided this alternative poetic offering unexpectedly today, albeit a bit later than planned.

Safe

The watery womb was my home

I nestled close, listening to thrum

of human heartbeat, soothed again

by its sweet refrain rhythm

And as I stretched my limbs

I sensed the confines of this space

gradually closing in

It was time—time to be born

before my time to die—time

to breathe, live outside this home

I sensed movement, tightening

and squeezing. It didn’t seem safe

but I trusted to my fate

Then a soft night light shone warmly

on my screwed up face. My eyes had grown

unaccustomed to the Light

Hands groped for my body, held me

tight, as lovingly as can be, cradled

me safe, welcomed me to life

And I knew, instinctively, despite

how different this would be, how hard

my Father was still holding me

©joylenton2017

Please click here to join us for the #FMF link up. You’ll be blessed by the beautiful writing and warm, supportive community there. 🙂

how love and light are just within our reach

February 9, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 18 Comments

Does this world’s darkness make you want to weep? Do you feel overwhelmed at times by the brokenness and pain in your life? Me too. But we don’t have to despair, my friend.

Because light and love are all around, seeping into our consciousness. And they are most apparent for those with eyes to see them. If we get locked into cynicism, grief and despair we may fail to see just how much God permeates this world with His light and love.

Our vision can get warped and skewed by circumstances and situations not of our choosing. But if we look with eyes of faith, then we begin to see that life is more than 50 shades of grey, far more than 100 ways of being beige. There is light and life and love and colour just waiting to be discovered by hungry hearts.

Because, filtering softly from dawn to dusk is an invitation to look beyond the immediate, to grasp hold of the eternal right here, right now, in our midst—an invitation to taste holy Mystery.

And even when the darkness descends in such a way that it seems to temporarily blot out the sun, even then the Son of Righteousness Himself will rise in our minds and hearts when we turn in faith to Him.

This is our plea and prayer…

Darkness chokes

This world’s darkness chokes

life and strangles hope. Oh Lord

let your Love-Light shine

And God helps us to view things from His perspective…

Only in the light

Only in the light

of God’s love do we begin

to see our true worth

Then He reminds us how all heaviness of heart is able to be lifted from us as we surrender our burdens to Him and rest in His loving provision for us…

My burden is light

My burden is light

My heart is heavy, full,

holding love for you

Hold on through the dark seasons. Keep the faith when you are faltering and struggling to believe. Because whether you can sense it or not, God is holding on to you and He won’t ever let you go. His greatest joy is to bring His love and light into your life, to turn mourning into joy, heal your brokenness and give you beauty for the ashes of your life.

These words and haiku poems have been inspired by Poet Master Ronovan’s latest weekly haiku challenge of Love&Light. Just click on the link to see how it works and to read the great variety of posts being shared.

change: when life is far from the cat’s whiskers

February 7, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 21 Comments

How do you view the prospect of change? It can seem exciting for many as they look forward with eager anticipation to the next new experience and all it will bring to them. And for others? It can fill them with dismay and become something to be feared, because change has potential to be such an unwelcome intrusion into our lives.

The longer we stay in one place, maintain a fixed mindset or refuse to move with the times, the harder accepting and adapting to change can become. And it’s often those whose circumstances keep them glued to a place, stuck fast in their ways, who need (or are forced to endure) a regular routine, who can become wary and weary of doing things differently.

Though unlike cats, who are thought to be gifted with nine lives, we only have one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver so famously said, and need wisdom in how to live it well. Being overly cautious doesn’t seem the best approach to take if it means we’re living in a limited, less than trusting way.

In my poetic responses to my inventive, creative friend, Kat Myrman’s ‘Twittering Tales’ photo prompt this week, I couldn’t help but focus on the potential challenges facing this imaginary woman with a cat on her lap. I’ve lived long enough to lose quite a few friends and family members, sat with death and disease frequently as a nurse, and come face to face with my own limitations on a daily basis.

Tired, sweetly supine in her

arms, this dear feline friend

remains more faithful than

the rest, whom time and age

gradually removed, dispersed

(140 characters)

She didn’t want to go, leave

this house and home, for who

else would know how to take

care of her darling cat or give

her such loving attention?

(140 characters)

Then I found myself going in a more playful direction here…

She stroked him under the chin

and chuckled deep within, for

none could know this cat now

in sweet repose was none

other than a witch’s familiar

(140 characters)

I’m grateful above all things in this fast paced, ever-changing world for the fact that God changes not. He remains reliably faithful, trustworthy, unchangeable, loving, kind and gracious toward us. We may not always be able to see the way ahead but we can always trust the One who is holding us.

searching: looking for truth, spirit harmony and soul peace

February 6, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 18 Comments

We search through dark, inky nights and bright shimmering days. Yet what we long for so often seems to slip away in the haze. Our searching for meaning and significance are inextricably linked to our humanity.

It’s what we were created for: to know that there is so much more than eyes can see, to long for someone who can truly see everything, teach us who we really are and what our purpose might be. We need soul harmony, a spirit aligned with the divine rather than fighting against itself.

Some look to the stars, the moon and all created things, because they whisper secrets of God’s essence. He shines in shades of glory human eyes can contemplate, marvelling as they do at liquid beauty light and hints of magnificence in creation’s outpouring.

What window do we choose from which to view life’s deep secrets? Many are opaque, effectively concealing more than revealing. But the mirror of God’s Word is crystal clear, translucent and transparent, though seemingly hidden at first glance.

In searching the Scriptures we develop a growing awareness of the answers to life’s thorny questions. We gradually discover just who we are, what we need to do and why we are here for such a time as this. Our true identity becomes revealed.

Though there are other ways of searching, understanding our life’s deepest meaning and purpose is best discovered if we ask the Creator and Author Himself to reveal them to us, and come to His Word with a reverent, receptive mind and heart.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” ~ Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

When we look out this window

May a sad fool-heart always

remember vast night stars sailing

like brilliant ice through the sky

And how dark, delicious morning

coffee melted as liquid smile, with

kisses of our velvet poetry—for

only secret desires lie prisoner

when we look out this window

©joylenton2017

Spirit harmony

Come follow pure, fresh, fertile grass;

behold quiet rustle of peace bloom

bright like Eden’s sacred song,

cycling thick as summer sun

Wander long, wild and deep,

and soft, murmuring breeze will

be a world’s spirit harmony

©joylenton2017

My way of searching for meaning and significance in my youth led me down some dark and dismal corridors before I found what I was looking for. Thankfully, when I was 17, God opened my eyes to His presence and shone the brilliant beam of His love-light into my heart.

It had been there from the very beginning, of course, but I didn’t know it, because God doesn’t force entry into our lives. Instead, He waits patiently, gently opens windows of opportunity and invites us to enter in.

How have you discovered meaning and significance in your life?

Can you relate to times when God has revealed Himself to you more powerfully?

breathe: when it’s time to breathe freely again

February 3, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 21 Comments

Is it just me, or do you also find that the more outwardly busy you become, the more your thoughts tend to spiral out of control? It’s as if we try to get a handle on our lives by mentally processing and digesting stuff, so that we can sort and sift what to retain or ditch.

And in doing this we also hope to wrestle with our worries, and maybe even banish them, forgetting how giving our concerns a lot of head space usually achieves the opposite effect, making them multiply instead.

Finding (and maintaining) a calm core to our days in the midst of life’s busyness, storms and demands, calls for awareness, deliberation and decisiveness. It requires us to still ourselves body and soul and to pause long enough to listen to what our life, and God, is saying to us.

I find that prayer, especially of the centering kind, is a marvellous and needful pause during life’s busyness. It helps me to remember to breathe… and yield my cares to God, leading to a deeper soul peace. Though it can often get sidelined when I’m feeling overwhelmed by extra demands being made of me, as the five-minute-friday poem below suggests.

Time to breathe

I wonder, is there time to breathe?

Yes says the flourishing flower stretching

her growing beauty out of tiny seed

The race is not to the swift, nor

battle to the strong, but to those who

learn to wait patiently—enduring long

Yet I take such small, sharp, shallow breaths

and I sense a tight constriction

within my chest. For it seems that I

have somehow forgotten how to breathe

in synchrony with life’s rhythms

or go gently into each season

Instead, I mentally rush headlong

into each day, barely pausing to breathe

or pray, pushing a body so fatigued

and sore to do Just One Thing More

And it’s no wonder I feel all out of

sorts, stressed and harassed, of course

Because I’ve forgotten to stop and sit

with stillness, or simply stay in tune

with Holy Spirit—and calmly rest myself

in Him, rather than in my easily

exhaustible, all too human limits

©joylenton2017

I think I should have heeded the words I wrote here last week about feeling out of control and needing to breathe!

But I’m glad I listened to inspiration coming, so I could share my thoughts with the fabulous #FMF writing crew gathering over at Kate Motaung’s site to write about this week’s prompt of ‘breathe’. Come join us?

home: our universal ache and longing to belong

February 1, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 12 Comments

Home is where the heart is, our place of safety, solace and security—or at least it could and should be. Though for many, home is far from a haven. It can often be the very place they long to escape from.

Right from our earliest memories, home remains a place we are either joined together by strong ties of deep love and affection, or feel a sense of disconnection to. Because not all of us are loved well or treated right in our formative years. Not all of us desire to stay or return to where we began our days.

It is natural to develop independence and want to spread our wings when we get to a certain age, but some of us have an inner longing to flee a place where we don’t feel cherished, a home where we don’t seem to fit in or truly belong, a need for a different shelter of sorts.

That’s why God offers us all an eternal Home, a place of grace and loving kindness, a haven of perfect love and peace, an abiding sense of safety and stability and an anchor for the soul of true acceptance and rest. We have a taste of its beauty in this world and glimpses of its magnificence to come.

Meanwhile, His arms are all the safe place and shelter we seek. His love is unconditional, overwhelming and free. His mercy and grace help us to make changes in how we perceive our lives and His healing touch helps us to forgive and move forward again.

Here are 3 aspects of home in 140 characters or less….

He feels a tug to look back

calling him homeward

His eyes realise how vast

the universe can be

He aches to stay as he

breaks the cord to leave

(139 characters)

A window seat is a way

to see more clearly, get

a fresh perspective, because

home is anywhere at all

No more or less than

a place to lay his head

(140 characters)

“Are you ready for this?

He nods, gulps back tears, turns to take another look outside, where home shrinks small while he faces new horizons. (140 characters)

The thoughts, poems and prose above, were inspired by my creative friend, Kat Myrman, and this week’s ‘Twittering Tales’ photo prompt she has provided. Just click on the link to read more. You’re warmly welcome to join in if you’d like to.

What does the word ‘home’ conjure up for you?

Do you feel ready to take a step of faith toward the next thing God has planned for you?

seeing: thoughts on art, life and poetry

January 30, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 18 Comments

It is said that seeing is believing. But what if those things we’re seeing are obscured somehow? Can we trust our eyes? Or do we require an inner knowing, a new perspective to override our senses?

The image above is my attempt to take something prosaic and make a new form of it. Would you believe that hidden beneath the vivid colours are some faded sweetpea flowers, a wire fence and a recycling bin? Yes, really.

We’re all artists at heart, creatives to the core. Because how could we not be when our Creator God made us that way, to reflect His ability to take, shape, mould and make something from nothing?

Though sometimes we don’t consider ourselves as such. But with the right type of media that suits us, a hefty dose of courage, encouragement, faith, patience, persistence and perseverance we can all discover just how to be our uniquely creative selves.

And even if that is restricted to our own pleasure in the process, it’s absolutely fine. I happen to love messing about with photographs and creating word art. If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you are treated/subjected to my imperfect attempts in those areas!

We have a choice to share or not to share, to tear up and try again if need be. We also have a choice on who gets to view our work and if we feel able to cope with a degree of public scrutiny.

With today’s #magneticmonday magnetic poetry offerings, I hope your seeing will be more than simply absorbing the words as they come. I trust the creative spirit in you will find some resonance with the poetic storyteller in me. There’s no pressure, because like all works of art, there is no single way of interpreting them. Let’s compare notes when you get to the end, yes?

A swim of light

You ask why these pictures

lie and have languid,

lazy, elaborate lives

Watch through blue fingers

as the urge is all

You never cry time

on sweet sleep symphony

and summer forest trudging,

as those red bared rose

petals crush luscious as honey

and a swim of light shows

Our shady peace

Gentle winter-wet breeze

and dark moistened air

cycle soft above pure

love’s moon, and wild

grass grows like a sweet

blanket between lonely tree

Behold, earth is our shady

peace, as we relax beneath

and feel more alive here

I love how photo editing apps can make such a difference with their ability to completely alter an image into a new work of art. Here’s a selection of some of the best editing apps for i-phones and these are great with an android device. I use picmonkey and canva to help me create blog post images. You probably know of more inspiring apps and editing sites to explore.

How do you express your creativity best? What apps do you use to aid your artistic ability? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

control: relinquishing outcomes into God’s hands

January 28, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 13 Comments

Control is a slippery customer. The more we try to grasp it, the more it slides through our fingers. And yet we still try to hold on to those things we perceive we have a sense of control over.

They can become a mirage of sorts, shapes in a mist made material in our eyes. Control is a longing stemming back to Eden. Our souls seek to cling to it, and in the process we soon discover how ethereal and insubstantial it really is.

Maybe we’ve had control wrested from us in the name of love, leading to a lasting distrust of feeling decidedly out of control. Because it initiates primal fears, makes us nervous to realise we’re not running the show, that deep down there’s some insufficiency within.

Perceived lack and insecurity are strong motivators for tenaciously hanging on to the thin threads of our thoughts, clinging to desires, people and possessions, as though they could all be taken away somehow, unless we hold on hard.

When we reach out to God instead, we begin to relinquish control of our lives—one small step at a time. We learn to rest in, rather than resisting, His work in us. We develop a relationship based on trust in Someone faithful beyond compare.

And we soon discover that the freedom and liberty we gain in Christ is more fulfilling and meaningful than living a controlling life where self-control is the hardest thing of all to achieve.

Control

I need to breathe, because I feel out of control

though it’s a human illusion to have complete

ownership over it all. How easily we

forget how our very breath is a gift from God

and every step we take or decision we make

fits within his eternal plan. And His prescience

precedes our existence, like his purpose

outlasts our earthly lives, our desire to build

empires, to dream, to daily survive and thrive

So I still my soul, as life spins me sideways

I seek to surrender these cares and concerns

these hoped for outcomes—release them all

into God’s safe hands. I choose to trust, just

because we can wear ourselves out on the wheel

or turn toward the One who’s moulding you and me

We’re lumps of clay being shaped by a gentle

Potter’s hands. We’re all potential works of art

to grace this world with our Maker’s mark

We’ve been given freedom to slip away

from his grasp, or yield to a touch that

only wants the best for us. There’s nothing

keeping us stuck—apart from a willingness

to become all we can be in the hands of Love

I’m sharing these free-flowing, imperfect poetic #FMF thoughts with fellow wordsmith friends at Kate Motaung’s place, where this week’s prompt is ‘control’. You can read the amazingly diverse posts being shared and come join us here.

storytelling: haiku, time and tides of life laced with grace

January 26, 2017 / Joy Lenton / 12 Comments

Let me tell you a story. It’s as short as can be, though it encapsulates life, time and eternity, encounter and surrender to a higher Power—no less than God Himself.

It’s a story of how we seek to define our days and soon discover we are a slave to them, a slave to time itself and to our plans and ideas.

Then we cannot help but compare and contrast our efforts with those of others, see our flaws, faults and failings, even as we admire their seeming mastery of things, their coherence compared to our stumbling efforts to speak.

As a poet, I’d like my words to flow well but sometimes they just find a rhythm of their own. A cadence. A voice. A way to break free of the straight-jacket I often want to constrain them in. Like this week’s prompt from #RonovanWrites which I had three thoughts about.

In thinking about ‘Flow&Tear’ I soon saw how each haiku followed sequentially from one another, eager to speak as a haiku vignette story rather than three separate solo acts. Though I offer them to you individually, because that’s how they first came to me and how poetry often speaks best—one small, singular offering at a time.

Tear up the plans

Let’s tear up the plans

set a watch over our hearts

Life flows in God’s hands

©joylenton

Comparison steals

Comparison steals

our joy—stilled by silent fear

the flow slows, halts, tears

©joylenton

A fast flowing river

Grace wipes away fears

It’s a fast flowing river

running like my tears

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Poetry Joy

sensing the sacred in the everyday

love as grace gift, fever, eden and wild harmony

safe: learning to trust when life feels unsafe

how love and light are just within our reach

change: when life is far from the cat’s whiskers

searching: looking for truth, spirit harmony and soul peace

breathe: when it’s time to breathe freely again

home: our universal ache and longing to belong

seeing: thoughts on art, life and poetry

control: relinquishing outcomes into God’s hands

storytelling: haiku, time and tides of life laced with grace

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