AN ETERNAL GIFT

As we think of Christmas gifts,
The gifts that are of greatest worth
Are those which bring spiritual lifts
From womb-like slumber to glorious birth.

Ideal peace, conceived through Christ
Seems to sleep in fetus hearts
Though we know Christ sacrificed
To inbreed peace and pattern parts..

How long must we await our birth,
Full blown, at work for human good
To bring sweet peace to all the earth
As Jesus Christ has said we should?

Lord God, help us to haste that day
When spears shall turn to pruning hooks
When swords are plowshares, which really pay
The price prescribed in gospel books.

Man was meant to love and lift;
Not to be “worms in the dust”
Royal priesthood is Christ’s gift
To fashion peace, AND WE MUST!

PEACEFUL COMMUNICATION

So often psychic pain
Settles upon us
And we suffer, so in vain
Over pain we don’t discuss.
Te rationalize our silence
Seeing self as private soul,
Which can create violence
And destroy our life goal.

In strong desire to maintain peace
We hold our pain deep inside
Our souls then find no release;
Fear, hurt, anger still reside.
How often foe becomes a friend
When humbly, with a loving heart,
We bring our difference to an end
Which helps true friendship make it’s start.

Weakness fears confessing need;
It tries to flex it’s “would be” muscle!
Which incites fear in foe indeed,
And brings about a needless struggle.
Our world, like we, must voice it’s need,
Openly, as friend to friend,
And thus broadcast peaceful seed,
And bring world violence to end.

AFRAID OF NOTHING TO FEAR

Why, for fear of Old Ben Ladden,
Is our world now so downtrodden?
Of all the world, he owns so little
His wealth is neither jot nor tittle
Compared to wealth our nation owns,
So why sits he on war lord thrones?

To fear his strike fulfills his goal,
So we put terror on a roll
When we gird up to repell
His improvised troops of Hell.
Much better we should build a following
Than in world paranoia wallowing!

Rather than fear the Taliban,
Which Ladden builds because he can
Among the people who have no chance
By education to advance,
Let us provide opportunity,
And so to terror have immunity.

BEST WE CAN; SEE WHAT HAPPENS

They who really “have the goods”
Have gone to school until they learned,
Have not regretted side lines spurned,
Have taken humbly what they earned,
Projected future like Tiger Woods.

“I’ll do the best I can,” says Woods,
“And see what happens,” we hear him say.
He knows sun, wind or rain can change his play
On any given golfing day.
If we don’t think like Tiger Woods - perhaps we should?

For sun, wind and rain come in our lives,
Illness, breaks, competition,
All bring life to its fruition;
So we are wise to make admission
That life can “happen” though man strives.

Maturity will always say
That all things work toward our good,
Poor ways show better ways would
Change poor “can’t” to positive “could”
As we learn to look, learn, laugh and pray.

A PARALLEL

The game of golf is much like life;
Some shots easy, some fraught with strife.
So much depends upon the winds,
And fairway slopes around the bends.
Will your ball pass protruding limbs
Which form irregular fairway rims,
Or sands that form dangerous places,
Lying in wait with hungry faces?

It’s the thrill of shooting through such places
Which keeps us going through the paces,
Always looking for a better score
Though we have improved, we want much more.
There are those days when the hole seems small,
Or we just can’t get there from here at all,
So we must pitch out to mid fairway
For and easier shot and a much better day.

DON’T BELLYACHE

If I should cry about my knees
Which ache in changing weather,
Or be disturbed each time I sneeze
When I and pollen get together,
I’d spend my time just wiping tears
Lentimenting aching joints,
Poking at my stopped up ears
And other tantalizing points;
So I’ll just roll with every punch,
And thank the Lord I’ve lived this long,
And maybe aches will cease a bunch
And leave me with a happy song.

A SECOND LOVE

The longer I live with my sweet wife,
The more I value our great life.
Though grief brought us to our first talk
It also brought us to this pleasant walk
In our growing garden of heavenly love
Which we recognize as a gift from above.

Losing life partners, it seemed love had ended,
Though hundreds stood by and often befriended,
Nor did we plan to be more than friends:
A friendship based on romantic ends.
But that great heart I met that first night,
Stayed in my heart and brought me delight.

Wherever she goes, I want to be;
The more together, the more we can see
That we were meant to love each other,
And denying that love we both would smother
New life that came from our grief to lift
Us right into heaven through God’s precious gift.

We have not forgotten those partners we love
We’re sure they rejoice as they watch from above,
The joy we feel through what they taught
About how to love as lovers ought,
Nor do they resent our love for each other,
For Dorothy’s a sister and Buddy’s a brother.

So it will be with Mary and Me
When we arrive in Eternity.
“No marriage in heaven,” is Christ‘s comment.
Brides of Christ will never resent
The mighty works that God has done
Once Eternal Life is begun.

A TOUGH OLD DOG

Old Buster was a mixed breed dog,
As tough as any old Oak log;
He worked with horses, cattle, goats,
And just as well with Grandpa’s shoats.

At night he bayed to moonlit skies,
On summer days, he fought the flies.
With trust, he worked at his ranch life,
And seldom flinched when there was strife.

One day when he was feeling punk,
And from the smell, had killed a skunk,
We saw he had a swelled up head,
And wondered that he was not dead.

A snake had struck him on the nose.
His mouth was swelled and would not close,
But he survived that fateful day;
A tough old dog is what I say!

Would that men were as tough
When life gets hard and really rough;
Then maybe men, as well as he,
Could make life what it’s meant to be.