Sell me some hope
I’m in despair.
Life isn’t how I want it.
Take all my cares
I’ll give you my money,
You give me a lie.
As long as I feel better.
A diet that will change my life?
Charge it up, I’ll pay the price.
Sell me some hope
I’m in despair.
Life isn’t how I want it.
Take all my cares.
I’ll give you my money,
You give me a lie.
As long as I feel better.
I’ve got problems with my kids,
They’re not happy and fulfilled.
Obviously the fault of the local public school.
We’ll change that!
Charter school, homeschool, Private school tuition!
Sell me some hope
I’m in despair.
Life isn’t how I want it.
Take all my cares.
I’ll give you my money,
You give me a lie.
As long as I feel better.
There’s some trouble in my neighborhood.
People moving in. Don’t look like us,
We have no room for them.
Government, don’t you care?
Send those people on out of here!
Sell me some hope
I’m in despair.
Life isn’t how I want it.
Take all my cares.
I’ll give you money,
You give me a lie,
As long as I feel better.
There’s a crisis with my government,
I don’t like the way those leaders talk and think
We need some change around here.
Political parties, what are you selling?
We’re ready to buy.
Sell us some hope
We’re in despair.
Life isn’t how we want it.
Take all our cares.
We’ll give you power,
You give us a lie,
As long as we feel better.
Tag: poetry
“The Sky is Low Today”
The sky is low today
Heavy with gray rain
Fine misty water that rests gently
on the earth
Gray wrapping itself around the barren trees
Find shelter, somewhere warm with yellow lights
Shining through a small glass window to the outside
The sky is low today
Soft clouds that rest gently
on the rooftops of the city
The headlights of the cars driving past
Appear to be candles and lanterns bobbing
Through the mist
An occasional red leaf flutters past
The sky is low today
Resting gently
On my shoulders
I hum a carol under my breath
Wrap up in a blanket
Read a book
Drink hot tea
The sky is low today
Rest
Gentleness
Nature’s embrace
The lights shine brighter
Warmth soaks in deeper
As you look out the window into the gray
Flights of Fancy
On a rare warm day in February, I step outside,
Feet squelching through the muddy brown grass.
I pause and look up, the blue sky calling my gaze.
White clouds drift across the sky, and I am mesmorized,
This temporary break from a gray, cold winter.
Suddenly, three birds fly over my head.
Small.
Nondescript.
But they are close. I can see them. Their wings flapping with strength,
Their chests straining as they climb through the air.
I watch them, and I feel the muscles in my arms and my chest,
Straining in rhythm with theirs. And for one moment, I am certain…
I have flown before.
I know this feeling. My body remembers the exertion.
My arms begin to raise, as if, at any moment, they wil be capable of lifting me into the air.
I close my eyes and I can remember the feel of the wind hitting my face.
I can remember squinting through the bright sunlight.
I can remember the exhilarating rush of climbing and falling.
And then I step back.
Silly me.
What flights of imagination.
I am a logical woman. My feet have never left the ground.
I bring my eyes back to earth, continue to walk through the brown grass.
But one part of my mind rebels. It says, No, you are wrong.
You have flown before.
We remember.
I wrote this poem because it showed up in my mind and needed to be written down. But, I sat here puzzling over it. Because, I do have this feeling that I have flown before. What is that all about? And as I have sat here thinking about it, I suddenly have this memory of me, as a small child, on a very windy day, running through a field. Certain that if I just run fast enough, lift my arms high enough, the wind will lift me off the ground and take me away. Maybe if I just take some jumps in the air, that will help the wind along. I remember running for the joy of it, my face turned to the sky, my heart pounding as I pushed myself as fast as I could go. I remember lying on my back, staring, watching the clouds sail past. Dreaming of living in those clouds, how soft they must be! Ah yes. I have flown before.
Oh, to remember how to be a child and fly again.
“Batter My Heart” by John Donne
After high school I attended Biola University for two years. During that time I took Composition 110A and Composition 110B from Dr. Pickett. I enjoyed his class. I learned a lot. I think what has stayed with me the most was his constant teaching that in order to write, you have to have something to say. If your thoughts aren’t in order and you don’t have a clear message, there’s not much point in writing. I have many times written an entire page and then erased the whole thing because I realized I had no idea what I was trying to say. No clear thought. I am very appreciative of the opportunity I had to take Dr. Pickett’s comp classes, and the lessons that have stuck over the years.
I was organizing a giant pile of piano books and folders of music a couple weeks ago, and I found a folder that had some of the papers I wrote in college. I found a paper I had written for Dr. Pickett where we had been told to compare and contrast two poems, “Unholy Sonnet” by Mark Jarmon and “Batter My Heart” by John Donne. It was a good paper. I got a good grade, but what captured my attention was the poems. Especially the poem by Donne. Here it is.
Holy Sonnet 14
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captivated, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
As I was reading through my paper I was impressed with how much I had been able to get out of the poem. Really good analysis. But, what struck me was, I read this poem when I was eighteen years old. I wrote this paper when I was eighteen years old. At that age I did not understand the true angst that comes from failing again and again. I did not understand the desperation that leads you to call out to God, “That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new…”, “for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free…”
I find myself in this place today. Insecurities that I thought I had conquered, haunting me again. Evidence of long term strongholds, staring me in the face, bending me down with discouragement. Old patterns I thought I had broken still tapping me on the shoulder. “Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, But am betrothed unto your enemy…”
And this evening, as I retreat from everyone, hide myself away, I read this poem again, and I am encouraged. “Divorce me, untie or break that knot again; Take me to you, imprison me…” I come again and say, Here I am God. Help. And his Word assures me.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2
I find myself standing on the firm foundation of the promises of God. Romans 8 pretty much says everything that needs to be said. If you have time, go ahead and read the whole chapter. Romans 8
And I end with this prayer, “Batter my heart, three-personed God…”
Switched Off
Today marks one month of no tv for the family and no devices for the younger kids. Supposedly the teens and I have reduced our phone usage to two hours. But I haven’t got a good handle on how that’s going yet.
I decided that I had a tv/device habit that needed to be kicked. So, the tv has been removed to my husband’s shop and the devices are put away in a drawer.
Things I have learned since turning everything off…
I have been seriously dependent on the tv to calm my kids down, entertain them, give myself quiet time, babysit them when I’m gone, and just basically fill any gap that pops up in our day.
It has definitely helped me to be lazy in my parenting.
Let me just state for the record, there have been seasons where tv has saved my life. Even the last season we just came out of, I don’t know how I would have done it without being able to turn the tv on. Our devices have been a motivational tool during this pandemic that have gotten us through a lot of school work and chores with minimal pain. Tv and devices are good tools. As long as you are controlling the tools and the tools aren’t controlling you.
I think what has mainly been the deciding factor for turning everything off this time (cause, yes, I’ve done this before), is that I want to change the culture of our home. I want us to have a reading culture. I want my kids to know how to get creative when they’re bored instead of just whining to watch a show. I want us to have family time in the evenings where we have devotions and read books and poetry out loud and do music together. And somehow, I had let the tv take over the house and we had lost those things. So, we’ve turned everything off.
Mentally, it’s been a big adjustment. I am having to learn that instead of just sending everyone off to watch a show when they’re driving me crazy, I can send everyone to their rooms, or send everyone outside. In the evenings, instead of retreating to my room, I am learning to settle on the couch with a giant pile of books that we read out loud. During the day I am offering piano lessons to bored children, crafts, learning games, trips to the library. I am also trying to turn a blind eye to random forts and clubhouses that are popping up all over the house, toys littering my bedroom floor, kids digging around in my drawers cause they need paper to write a book or a play.
Honestly, I think turning the tv off has hurt me the most, not the kids. I have to be more engaged. Put up with more chaos. Deal with more messes.
But, overall, we’ve had good results.
My five and seven year olds have been keeping a list of all the books they’ve either read themselves or had read to them, and they are close to 100. The older kids have significantly increased the number of books they’re reading. My older boys have gotten very creative with their legos. My nine year old wrote a play. The three year old is sitting with books, pretending that he is reading, pointing at the words, making up the story as he goes. And, best of all, all the kids are desperately anxious for school to start. Me too.
I told the kids we would do this for four months. We’ll see how it goes.
A Poem by My Daughter
Something a little different today. We just found out that my thirteen year old daughter won a prize in a writing competition held by the Knoxville Writer’s Guild this past May. I’m so proud of her. She finally let me read her poem and I thought it was beautiful. I asked her if the poem proceeded from an in-the-moment emotion or if it was a place that she stayed in. She said it started off as an in-the-moment emotion and then it just morphed into describing other girls she knew and Middle School.
She’s a Girl
by Ruth Heneise
This day
That the lord made,
She needs first aid
Cause she’s dying
Of fright
She lives in the dark of night
she lost the spark of light
And of potentiality
She no longer wants to be
A doctor, dancer, astronaut
she stopped tryin to dream, stopped tryin to flaunt
Her body and her vocals
You wonder why the locals
Don’t know she exist
Its cause she didn’t persist
They think she’s thirteen and lean
But she’s lanky and she’s cranky
Her feelins
Are wheelin
Out
And about
She’s beat on the street
Beat down she’s gonna drown
Cause she’s sinking
Cause she’s always thinking
Trapped
But overlapped
By the hope
That she could cope
With humanity
But that future is grim
As dim as
The light (that ain’t bright)
Behind the eyes
Of the girl in disguise as
A person
But the truth is worse than
The fear.
It’s clear
To see
Cause,
She doesn’t
Just
Have fear of isolation
She isolates herself
Removed from the shelf
Of comfort
which is dirt
Dirt cheap
She got her clothes from her bros
And her charm from karm
karma(if she believed in stuff like karma)
Would be on the down side
Of good to
AT LEAST I TRIED
But she’ll pause this ramble
Cause you stopped trying to unscramble
The message behind
This waste of your time
So she’ll give the explanation
To satisfy your expectation
And she is
A poem
A world
the essence
The presence
Of words so beautiful
Words so tactful
Words so thesaurical
The world is a poem
The poem is a world
She’s the world
She’s a poem
She’s a girl
A Love Poem of Sorts
It is our 20th Wedding Anniversary this week. I thought that perhaps I would search the internet high and wide and find a poem that would immortalize our love. A poem that I could point at and say, Yes, that is what we have. I am not a poet. I read through these poems. These amazing works of art. My soul jumped at the beauty that was portrayed. Love displayed as passion, as longing, as yearning. As a lifelong quest. I am not a poet. I can’t create these airy pieces of lace, strung together with words. And I searched and searched. But I couldn’t find a poem for us. I am not a poet. But I long to gift you with an arrangement of words that would express our love for each other.
Our love is not the kind that is celebrated by poets.
Our love was Slow. Solid. Practical.
In a world of French Cuisine, we are meat and potatoes.
Our marriage was never about You and Me. It was always about You, Me, and the children we made. Always children present.
And yet, somehow we have managed to lift our gazes high enough, to look over the tops of our children’s heads, and still see each other.
Our love was never about extravagance and ease. It has been a constant pushing, striving, scraping, saving. Somehow, miraculously taking the small amount we have, and turning it into enough. And more than enough.
Our love has never contained long romantic getaways, stealing away to be alone. No, our love has been about installing a lock on our bedroom door. Whispering to each other in the middle of the night when all the children are asleep. Exchanging flirtatious glances across the dining room table. Snuggling on the couch together as small toddlers crawl all over us. Kissing and hearing a chorus of “EWW YUCK!” from the nearby children.
The most dramatic moments of our marriage have come in the form of conversations. Where I reveal to you a secret part of who I am, and you reveal to me hidden parts of who you are. And the conversation slowly dies out and we stare at each other. Amazed that it is possible to know another human so deeply.
And always, the most romantic part of our week is to go to church on Sunday morning. Sit close together. Hands clasped. Stand together, lift our hands in worship. Heads bowed together in prayer. Our shoulders brushing together. Exchanging knowing looks when something significant is said that touches the problems we happen to be facing that very moment.
Ours is not a love of fireworks and showy bonfires. Ours is the slow, steady burning of coals that light the kitchen fires and cook the meals and provide a constant, steady source of warmth.
Ours is not the story of two puzzle pieces that perfectly fit together. Rather we are two rough-edged, world-scarred people who chose each other. We chose to wrap our two mismatched pieces of iron, jagged and sharp, and twist them together into one piece. Two separate, infinitely different pieces of metal, twined together by divine hands into one strong piece that cannot be broken…Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate…
I don’t have the money or the creativity to show my love in large flashy banners. Instead I show you my love in small ways. I try to leave enough hot water for your shower. I serve you a plate of food at supper instead of making you serve yourself. I speak highly of you to our children, even on days when I am irritated with you. I don’t give you any grief for staying up late to watch Fast and Furious #37. I keep your Louis L’amour books in one, easy-to-find spot on our bookshelves. I not only wash your clothes and fold them, but I also put them away. I have developed the habit of not talking about money or bills or other stressful topics right before you go to bed.
Nothing big. Just daily little considerations to let you know you are important to me. I’m thinking about you. I want you to be happy.
You do the same for me.
Our love is not the love of flowery poems. Our love is Plain. Simple. Steady.
And yet, something tells me. Something says, generations from now, our children’s children’s children, will still speak of us. They will say, That is the kind of marriage I want to have. That is the family legacy we want to pass down.
Maybe one day, my love, we will be legends.
But, the far distant future doesn’t concern me. Right now, I will simply enjoy the pleasure of sharing your bed every night. Cooking your meals. Parenting our children together.
Here’s to simple, unadorned love.
Here’s to us.
Life With Esther 