Soul Food

ache, hiraeth, home, life on the foreign field, Lists, Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Someone asked me back in January, “Don’t you get lonely living out there?” Amy and I live in a town with barely any other foreigners, much less Mennonites. We are about 4 hours away from the nearest big city with a substantial population of people with our skin tone and hair tone.

I thought for a bit and said, no. Our lives are packed with relationships, some deeper and more fulfilling than others. We are both fluent in Thai and can connect in Thai on a deep level. The little Karen church we attend has become a family for us. We get hugs when whenever we drop by. We are celebrated and loved more than we deserve. Sometimes there are too many relationships and people, and I feel the need to flee alone into the mountains for a quiet rainy day. (I don’t mean that I don’t miss my friends and church family in Chiang Mai, or friends at home in the USA. But missing people is not the same as being lonely.)

And yet, when I think of it, I do get lonely. Perhaps a better way to say it would be, “I am lonely.” But it’s not the kind of loneliness people think it is. I believe that no matter where I would go and who I would be with, I would still be lonely. Sometimes I blame it on being single, but deep down I think that if I would get married, I would still be lonely. I don’t know. Maybe I should experiment. 🙂

But in the end, it’s that loneliness that drives me back to Jesus and his beauty. It’s Him I am forced to lean on and depend on because nothing else is enough. Yet sometimes it’s the glimpses of His beauty that make me lonely in the first place.

In the past few weeks, I have been struck again by the beauty of the place I live in. Coming out of the dry, brown of the hot season, life is green again and the sky is blue. Sometimes too brightly a blue. It has rained some, enough to color the earth again, but the real rainy season hasn’t started yet. I am ready for the rain, the coolness of liquid falling from the sky all day long. I am ready to be able to take off my clothes at the end of the day like a normal person, rather than peeling them off like I am peeling a potato. But while I wait for those days, I find soul food in the details around me.

And because I love it so much, I can’t stand not sharing it with others. So here are a few pictures of life. (Note: Now that I am ready to hit the publish button, I am surprised at myself. What I planned as a photo post morphed into a full-blown poetry post. 🙂 It makes me smile. Maybe I should have split it up into 5 or 6 posts, but I can always do that some other time. )

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat, looked up. (WB Yeats)

Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes. (Frances Shaw)

Do not hurry as you walk with grief;
It does not help the journey. Walk slowly, pausing often:
Do not hurry as you walk with grief.
Be not disturbed by memories that come unbidden.
Swiftly forgive; and let Christ speak for you
unspoken words. Unfinished conversation
will be resolved in Him. Be not disturbed.
Be gentle with the one who walks with grief.
If it is you, be gentle with yourself.
Swiftly forgive; walk slowly, pausing often.


Take time, be gentle as you walk with grief. (George MacDonald)

I am nobody.
Who are you?
Are you nobody too? (Emily Dickinson)

Four lovely ladies just visited us from Chiang Mai this Saturday and Sunday. They are the current Baanies. The name “Baanies” is a play on Thai/English words meaning the people you live with and is the name used to refer to the girls who work at Wisdom Tree Home in Chiang Mai. Read here about some of the original Baanies. The poem starts like this:

Oh, we live in a house of seven girls
And bonny lassies are we
Seven girls and a dog (who cries when we leave)
All footloose and fancy-free

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 
I have been one acquainted with the night. (Robert Frost)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. (WB Yeats) (I like to listen to this one on Spotify, read byTheWanderingPaddy)

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go (Robert Burns)

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. (Robert Frost)

THE LITTLE Road says, Go,
The little House says, Stay:
And O, it’s bonny here at home,
But I must go away. (Jospehine Peabody)

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. (Wendell Berry)

Some of these I love best read out loud. Often on my drive to Chiang Mai once a month, I listen to them on Spotify: here

Bittersweet: a sort of book review

ache, hiraeth, Poetry, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

At the tender age of 10, I wrote my first poem. It was a truly terrible one. It started off with these words, “I heard the coyotes howling one night. Howling to the moon so bright.” It went on to say something like the coyotes howled like this at the moon before any white men stepped foot in America, and I think it also said something about coyotes howling at the same star that the wise men followed. I am not sure how the star and the moon connect. Like I said, it was a terrible poem.

However, ten-year-olds can be excused for writing terrible poems. I remember I wrote it after waking up one night and hearing the coyotes howling. Hearing the eerie, lonesome sound, I lay there, moved by a longing I could not express. Why were they howling? What did they know that I didn’t know? Why did it move me so much? I needed to express what I felt and so I tried to write a poem about it. I think now what I wanted to say in the poem was that the coyotes knew of things that we didn’t, that they had howled long before I was born, and how it felt like they were steeped in some kind of ancient knowledge that I had no idea of.

As a child and also as an adult, I struggled with the way that beauty hurt. Why did a beautiful sunset dying over greening wheat fields pain me so much? How could a few words from a poem stir me with longing for something I never knew? Why did the stark beauty of November prairie grass framed by barren Osage orange trees haunt me with its images?

Ten years ago, when I was putting together my first book of poetry, Echoes of Eternity, Beulah Nisly kindly let me use her beautiful photos for the book. Beulah is my mom’s spontaneous yet thoughtful cousin, and a lover of beauty. Beulah loves to capture this beauty with her camera, and I first met her when we got together to discuss the photos for the book. After reading through my poetry, she suggested that I read C.S. Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory” and even printed it off for me to read.

I did and my heart leaped for joy when I read this:

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (C.S Lewis, the Weight of Glory)

That, I thought, “the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited”, that was why it hurts so much. It hurts because I can’t get enough of it. I can’t hang on to it. It is only the echo, the scent, the news that reminds me of that “something else” that waits for me.

That is why a road curving into the distance beckons my heart, why the moon rising on an October night over cornfields hurts me, why being alone on a misty mountaintop makes me cry, why rain falling on a gray day brings gives me a deep, delicious sadness, why the sound of the freight train mourning through the night makes me shiver with sadness and joy at the same time, why the words, “The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms,” resonates deep within me, why I listen to sad songs like Fernando Ortego’s “Now That You’re Gone,” or lonesome Chinese flute music or Gregorian chants of the Psalms or ancient Jewish songs. It reminds me of a place that I am going to, somewhere that I have not visited and yet somehow I carry the memory of that place imprinted on my soul.

Because of this, I was eager to read Bittersweet by Susan Cain after waiting for the book for months. Cain put even more words and clarity to what C.S Lewis began to explain for me. She talks about melancholy, longing or the “bittersweet,” how it calls to us, and how the desire it stirs up in us is a desire for the divine, even though she insists she is agnostic. She talks of embracing pain and an imperfect world, in order to find healing. She also discusses how sadness or pain triggers compassion and empathy for others, and how closeness to death makes us realize what truly important.

Cain writes, “We think we long for eternal life, but maybe what we’re really longing for is perfect and unconditional love; a world in which lions actually do lay down with lambs; a world free of famines and floods, concentration camps and Gulag archipelagos; a world in which we grow up to love others in the same helplessly exuberant way we once loved our parents; a world in which we’re forever adored like a precious baby…” This was in response to RAADfest, an event focused on anti-aging, radical life extension and physical mortality in which people who are determined not to die gather together for a seminar on advice on how not to do so, or that is the vibe I got from what Cain said. These people believe that if death were eradicated, then the inner selfish desires that drive us to survival would fade away as well, and humanity could be united. Cain writes, “And I believe exactly the opposite: that sorrow, longing, and maybe even mortality itself are a unifying force, a pathway to love; and that our greatest and most difficult task is learning how to walk it.” Cain argues that the fullest life is experienced when we embrace both pain and joy, death and life at the same time.

Cain also talks how we sometimes carry the pain of the generations past and how studies show pain from our ancestors can affect the way we are wired. I have often wondered about this, if some of the heaviness I feel at times is my own or from others. She talks about her own loss, how her relationship with her mother disintegrated as a teenager, and talks about dealing with loss and grief.

There is more, much more, to the book and I recommend it. I wanted to read it slowly and savor it, but I had it on a 2 week loan from Libby at a time when work and study and life clashed, and I had to read it in gulps. I don’t agree with everything Cain says, but it helped me become more aware of myself and that longing, and realize that much of my own poetry, especially anything printed in the “Heartsong” section of my book Dustbeams comes from that innate longing, that melancholy bittersweetness that Cain talks about.  And perhaps why I even write poetry in the first place.

“All the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor…” of that that source of the longing that we feel (C.S Lewis, the Weight of Glory), the glory that Cain simply called the divine, and I call God. The writers of the Psalms felt it too in their laments of pain and songs of joy, and John when he penned the words, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

William Herbert Carruth wrote a poem called “Each in His Own Tongue”, which I discovered years ago and memorized a part. Some of the verses may be a bit controversial, but here are the ones I consider the best, and that rightly say what I am trying to say.

A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod —
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in;
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod —
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.

I think that the Preacher says it best of all,

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

Delta 7850/KE36

ache, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, travel, , , , , , , , , , ,

Somewhere between Atlanta and Seoul I lost half a day.

I think it slipped out into the great infinity of sky– time leaking into the clouds, an hour here, an hour there,

The minutes dripping down like condensation pooling together onto the cumulonimbus floor of the sky, the seconds wisping into cloud dust.

I know they’ve tried to tell me many times how time works on international flights, but my mind cannot understand.

Perhaps the hours and the minutes and the seconds all find each other again, like a diaspora coming home, and quietly rain back down on my life later.

Or maybe those twelve hours are stored up somewhere in one of God’s bathroom cabinets behind where He keeps the vitamins in the same place he puts the tears that watered those lost minutes,

Lost minutes that ached of goodbyes, and pain that my hands cannot touch or heal no matter how much I long to span them around all the problems, and heal the hunger of hurting souls and the seduction of spiderwebbed thoughts.

Perhaps he mixes the lost minutes with the tears where they crystalize into jewels in the bottle marked with my name in the bathroom cabinet of God’s house where they wait for sometime when they are redeemed and I dare to clasp my hands around them and learn they were never really lost.

Perhaps so.

Painted Deserts

ache, Adventure, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, travel, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We walk our painted deserts on numbered days

In the shadow of mountains hemmed by time

We carry Your beauty crowned upon us

A tale that is told, a fleeting rhyme

We flourish as grass to fall and wither

Naked under wheeling desert suns

Lost in everlasting, a watch in the night

On captured seconds our course we run.

And this is our cry to the encircling sky

That girds our peregrine ways

Satisfy the yearning of hearts that are burning

And make us glad, oh make us glad all our days. 

For over a month now, I have been trying to give voice to what Psalms 90 means to me. I started to write it when I was still in Thailand in March, but somehow it didn’t seem to come together. Flying home, I traveled through Korea, landed in Los Angeles and then took the train from there to Hutchinson. This saved me money and gave me the time I needed to process and relax. It was just what the doctor ordered. I have irrevocably fallen in love with Amtrak now. We drove through a lot of deserts and grasslands and it served to give a bit of a frame for what I was trying to say. While the desert may seem boring to some, I find in it a wild beauty and tenacity that is impossible to find in most parts of the world. That, coupled with the wide open sky of my own prairie roots, makes it a place I actually find refreshing (for a short period of time, anyway).

Meditations of the Milkmaid

home, , , , , , , , ,

And it came to pass, in the 7th year of the reign of King Vajiralongkorn, in the third month, the Third Daughter of Daniel and the Eldest Daughter of Paul spake to one another.

And they said, Let us arise and go from this Country in which we sojourn, and let us rest for a Time in the Land of our Fathers, for here, the Smoke lies thick and the Heat is Blazing. Let us travel to the Land of our Fathers and return in the time of the rains, lest our Hearts wax Weary and our Brains become as Soup.

And so it came to pass that in the 4th month of the year, the Third Daughter of Daniel returned to her ancestral home. And lo, her journey was Long, for she rode on an airplane from the Kingdom of Thailand to the Kingdom of Korea and from thence to the State of California. And from the State of California, that state which knows so many Dangers to the Health of Man, she traveled by Train to her Home. And as she traveled, she encountered many things and consorted with Amish people on the Train who thought she was rather Strange and Old, and witnessed a forcible Removal of a certain lady on the Train, and had a Great Surprise when the Fourth Daughter of Daniel came aboard the train. And she said to herself that she would record All These Things when she arrived at her Home, but alas, when she arrived at home, her Heart was Weary and her Brain was as Soup, for she had stayed in the Heat of the Far Off Country a little Too Long.

But as the days passed, she revived and her Heart was filled with Joy at the sight of Spring and Flowers and Cows and Cats and Dogs and Nieces and Nephews. And of course, her Mother and Father. And one day she spoke to the Fourth Daughter of Daniel and said, If thou wilt sew me a dress, I will milk Cows for you, for I know how much you despair of Cows and you know how much I despair of Dresses. For long ago, the Third Daughter of Daniel tried her hand at Making Dresses, and many were the times when she lifted up her Voice and wept while picking out Seams.

And the Fourth Daughter of Daniel rejoiced and was exceedingly glad, and so it came to pass that the Third Daughter of Daniel milked the Cows by herself while the Fourth Daughter of Daniel sewed. And it is the Nature of the Third Daughter of Daniel to either meditate deeply when she is milking cows, or to lift up her Voice in Loud Praises, and this was the evening for meditating deeply. And Meditation in the Milkbarn by Maidens is a Worthy Pastime, so long as they do not Meditate too deeply and milk the Bull by accident.

And as she meditated, she remembered with Nostalgia her Life as a Child. And she marveled at the House of Daniel that each of the Children of Daniel, from the Eldest to the Youngest, still lived to speak of their Growing Up Years, for they had run with Scissors and drunk out of Hoses and Skinny-Dipped in the Water Tank and played with Fire.

And she meditated of the Eldest Daughter of Daniel, who rode the Copper-colored Pony when she was young, and when she saw her Father driving the Massey Tractor along the Road, she said to her Pony, Come, let us arise and race my Father. And she went like the Wind and her Father was astounded when the Maiden and the Pony swept past them at 30 miles an hour. And it was her that fell from the Wild Horse that no one could rightly tame and it was her that drove down the newly dug sides of the Lagoon on her bicycle and landed with a Resounding Crash at the Bottom. And it was also her when she was a Maiden milking Cows, who saw the Son of Lloyd coming to the door of the Barn, and said loudly, Get Out! And she knew not then that it was the Son of Lloyd, but thought it was One of the House of Daniel. And thankfully, the Son of Lloyd did not listen to her, but instead fell madly in Love with her and they are married to this day with many Flourishing Olive Plants and Arrows.

And as the Third Daughter of Daniel milked, she also meditated on the Second Daughter of Daniel. Now the Second Daughter of Daniel did not race Horses like the Eldest did, but drove a Wicked Lawnmower. And it came to pass as the Second Daughter of Daniel mowed the Lawn, she sang with Joy in her Heart and did not mow around a Newly-Planted Tree, but instead drove straight over it. And another time as she warbled on her Lawnmower, behold, her Lawnmower caught on the Swing and the Rear Tires of the Lawnmower kept on moving, and the front part of the Lawnmower went up towards the Heavens. And the Second Daughter of Daniel screamed, and the Screaming of the Second Daughter of Daniel is a Fearsome Thing indeed. And the Second Daughter of Daniel was also Fearless. For in those days, there was a Strange Milkman who liked to come into the House to ask to use the Phone. And as the Milkman used the Phone and the House of Daniel watched, the Second Daughter of Daniel sneaked up behind the Strange Milkman and stood on a Lunchbox and put her Fingers into Bunny Ears and gave the Milkman Bunny Ears as he unwittingly chatted on the Phone. And behold, grievous was the Shock to the Wife of Daniel as she watched.

And now we come to the Son of Daniel. And here lieth the Greatest Mystery of All, that the Son of Daniel survived to this day. For the Brain of the Son of Daniel sprouted many Great and Strange Ideas for Inventions and Things to Do. And he made a Chopper and a Silage Wagon for the Lawnmower, and he created a Sail for the Wagon to sail in the Wind on Windy Days and a Boat from an old Bicycle and Barrels. And he terrorized the Cats and used the Flower Garden for a Toilet, to the Consternation of the Wife of Daniel. And he built a Fire among the Trees and hunted for Treasure in all the Corners of the Old Farmhouse and made Teepees in the Tree Belt and Tree Houses in the Osage Orange Trees and hunted Sparrows and put them into Mud Pies. And he had many Grand Money-making Schemes and bought Guinea Hens and Dachshunds and Pigs and Rabbits. And lo, one day, his Rabbit was sick and it had Diarrhea. And the Son of Daniel gave the Rabbit Pepto Bismol to alleviate the Rabbit’s suffering and the Rabbit was then constipated and so the Son of Daniel gave the Rabbit a laxative. And then the Rabbit had Diarrhea again and it said to itself, This is Too Much, and gave up the ghost.

And it is only fair that the Third Daughter of Daniel think of herself. And in the days of her Youth, the Third Daughter of Daniel wanted a Donkey. And the Son of the Brother of the Wife of Daniel bought her a Donkey and the Third Daughter of Daniel loved the Donkey and she christened him, Jorge. And behold, the Donkey was stubborn and had two Speeds—Very Fast and Very Slow. And the Son of the Brother of the Wife of Daniel trained the Donkey and he spake to the Third Daughter of Daniel. And he spake thus, When thou drivest the Donkey, thou shalt not drive alone, but shalt drive with another Person who shall hold another Rope to the Donkey’s Halter to help when the Reins attached to the Bridle are not enough, and this Person shall be called your Emergency Brake. And so it came to pass that one day, the Third Daughter of Daniel and Fourth Daughter of Daniel drove the Donkey, and the Fourth Daughter of Daniel was the Emergency Brake, and they set forth on an expedition. And as they went, the Donkey heard a Fearsome Noise and waxed Sore Afraid and lo, the Donkey went like the Driving of Jehu. And the Emergency Brake flew off towards the South onto some very Rough Stones and the Third Daughter of Daniel steadfastly continued on the expedition and searched her heart and prepared to meet her Maker. And when the Donkey turned to go to its Home, the Third Daughter of Daniel did not and she flew off the Cart Towards the Going Down of the Sun and landed in a Soft Sand Pile. And the Daughters of Daniel lay where they landed for a Long Time and great was the Mirth of the Daughters of Daniel.

And we must not forget the Fourth Daughter of Daniel, who is of Small Stature, but of Great Spirit. And the Fourth Daughter of Daniel cultivated a Tendency to Fly, not only on Donkey Carts with Emergency Brakes but also on Bicycles without Brakes. And it came to pass that the House of Daniel and the House of Jacob and the House of Glendon and the House of Dean and many other Houses had a Holiday and they spent their Holiday on a Bike Trip in the Park. And behold, there was a Hill and a Road, and a Curve in the Road on the Bottom of the Hill, and a Creek after the Curve at the Bottom of the Hill. And lo, as the Fourth Daughter of Daniel coasted down the Hill, her Brakes gave out and at the Curve on the Bottom of the Hill, the Fourth Daughter of Daniel spread out her arms like that of a Great Eagle and she flew into the Creek at the Bottom of the Hill. And after her Extrication from the Creek, she was covered in Mud from the Top of her Head to the Tips of her Toes. And to this day, when the Second Son of Dean sees the Fourth Daughter of Daniel, he will ask her if she has flown into any Creeks lately.

And thus was the Manner of the Meditations of the Third Daughter of Daniel as she milked the Cows. And she marveled thus, that even with all the Flying and Speeding and Crashing and other Sundry Disasters,  the Children of the House of Daniel have every Bone intact and every Nose unbroken. And thought to herself that the Children of Daniel turned out Mostly Ok. While they may not be fat, they are flourishing and this Thought gave her Peace as she meditated and milked.

Thus end the Meditations of the Milkmaid, recorded in the 7th year of the reign of King Vajiralongkorn, in the 4th month of the Year.

Evening Palette

ache, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The mountain swallowed the sun tonight

Tugged it down from the sooty sky

Into the smoky red of horizon’s shade

And west into the shadows of Burma

And for a moment there was a fire in the town

Titian on the water, low and light

Between the sandy banks of the Yuam River

Rain-thirsty in the smoggy gloaming

Then the sun slipped into the mountain’s pocket

And all was gray again, until the kindly dusk

Purpled the world and wrapped my town in its arms

And with an indigo lullaby, rocked her to sleep

When the Cat Prowls at Night

Poetry, , ,

It is 10:48 and the cat perches on the dresser and talks to me


Great and golden in the glooming of Saturday night, he prowls,


Eyes wild and yellow, he stalks in feral glory from the desk to the shelves, a jungle king


And then climbs the white chair and balances on books stacked precariously,


Asking me in a plaintive voice, too plaintive for a king, “Why?”



I do not know the question, cat. It is time to sleep.

Please, go to bed.

Let Peace Slip Down

home, Poetry, , , , , , , , ,

Yellow cat is a pool of gold spilled on the blanket   

In the shadowed light of morning that fights the stony dark  

Black coffee is a bitter liquor brewed in the dark   

In the gray minutes of the dawning hours

Words are pale honey and scalding ebony, coursing hot

Down to my soul, settling deep and warm

Let peace slip down into my soul

Down between the fragments of yesterday’s hours,

And into the fragile bubble that is today.

Taste the silence—

Let peace slip down, let peace slip down into my soul.

When I See You Again

ache, life on the foreign field, Poetry, , , , , ,

There are some things about heaven I don’t understand

But some things I know to be true

That I will meet God when I get there

And that I will run races with you;

Maybe we’ll run to the green, green meadows

Tasting the fresh, clean air

Or walk by the river and talk of old times

And catch the bright butterflies there.

I know they say that you’ve gone far away

But I think it’s just through that door

That door where the shadows have been chased out of sight

Right beside the long river’s shore.

And it won’t be long till I see you again

Just a sunset and sunrise away

So, wait for me there on the edge of the water

Where the dawn of heaven breaks into day.

My Aunt Miriam passed away a few days ago from a 4 year long battle with cancer. Miriam had lived with my grandpa in the house next door for the past 10 years or so. Miriam contracted polio at a young age, so she always wore a brace for walking, and in later years, a walker as well. When I would go home for visits from Thailand, one thing I really enjoyed doing was going with her to her doctor and chemo visits. I look forward to running races with her in heaven.