Fourth place

Stalk the woods and name the places

Third place, you said, meaning I don’t work here

And I don’t live here,

But I’m home here.

Fourth place, I am seated there.

Heavenly space,

divine pace,

realm with no need of sun.

Concrete yet unseen, city

designed and build by God.

Foundations immovable, indivisible,

Far above all rulers and authorities

under One whose dominion knows no end,

everlasting enduring, 

engaging in unfinishing

I will live there.

I am there.

I am home there, even now.

Never been

but known there,

A place with my name on it, prepared.

This year: fight, flight, write

This year I will
Believe
This year I will
Sail
I will, said,
My will
“I will say”
This is my year for fulfillment
I will N O T wait.

This year, I will
This year I will I will get
This year
I declare
I will embark—
Bon voyage.

Set type
This year I will write
I will set myself right
To receive.

Set course
This year I will sail
To lean into sterns, notch rope, and wind;

Set heart
This year I will sow
I will soak in love, beautified;
To ring, union

This year
To flesh: oneness, yes
To jibe and tack
To sink deep into words;
This rest.

This, year.

Love expressed

Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own.

To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them. John Calvin