All I Need

Some nights all I need is the

neighbor’s porchlight to dance

through nervous aspen leaves.

Seeing this morse code causes me to

fall asleep with hope as the

last thing on my mind.

Thinking that jim-dandy word causes me to

dream of my children’s future,

and of my place in it.

(~John Blase, "The Beautiful Due" blog)

Solitude shows us the way to let our behavior be shaped not by the compulsions of the world but by our new mind, the mind of Christ.
(~Henri J.M. Nouwen, "The Way of the Heart")

"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well..."

(~Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write. 
(~Annie Proulx)

What the future held for her she didn't know. Of two things only she was certain. There would be children-her own or other people's-and there would be books. 

(~Alice Dalgliesh)

"When I Think of My Father"

It is akin to the guilt

the survivor feels at being

the one who

somehow someway

endured the accident that thieved

the lives of so many others.

That’s how it sometimes

feels when I think of my father.

Why can I give testimony

of this man’s unbroken worship

when so many others are

wrecked again and again

by the men who gave them

their legal names?

I have no answers. I simply limp

along a witness pulled

somehow someway

from the flames

by a flawed good man.

This is not only my story.

This is my song.

(~John Blase: The Beautiful Due Blog)

Even mourning takes practice: resisting the distractions that insulate us from facing up to the tragedy of the world in which we find ourselves, we need to teach our children to mourn for neighbors who bear the brunt of injustice, even though we grieve as those with hope (I Thess. 4:13). Sometimes in this fallen world the best thing we can do is teach our children how to be sad.

(~James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love)