Many moments
across a lifetime
we will be probed
by the God of our becoming,
“Who do you say that I am?”
Do not cheat—
give someone else’s answer.
Choose honest words…
the ensuing conversation leads to
living water.
Keep answering…
the concentric rings of your
determining
will become a
sturdy trunk.
jfig 2025
for context, John 4:7-42 and the blunt vulnerability of Habakkuk
Requiem is the song we sing
No dirge, this...but
Beauty blown from the ashes
Psalm of loss and longing
'When will I see you again?'
jfig 2025
NC, FL, LA
A requiem is a song of remembrance, typically written long after the initial shock of loss is over. They are extraordinary pieces of music composed of all the love and longing one’s notes can recall. The compositions are brave, passionate, and determined—stories that dream to continue giving, distilled by heart and mind.
As the fires burned this winter in LA, I observed as through a telescope; lens trained on my daughter’s physical address, mapping the movements of her and her coworkers. Two things stood out to me in high relief: the way they functioned as a family, acknowledging their own loss as a business, while at the same time resolving to be a resource of help and hope in their community. And two, the reality that entire neighborhoods were dismantled, reduced to rubble. Yet in those spaces breathed the histories of families, neighbors, schools, the local corner shop. People lost not only their belongings and aspects of livelihood, but they lost their people, in broad encircling swaths. The same could be said of North Carolina and Florida midst the effects of Helene. People one saw everyday would no longer be present; for weeks, or months…or perhaps forever. This remembrance, of what once was and might never be again, is a requiem.
I have penned a simple verse. But the stories of those who lived it, will last forever. I pray they have the necessary time and space, and love’s fortitude to say the words. That what to some of us are pinpoints on a map: Loma Alta Elementary School and Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Penland School of Craft and Burnsville, NC; find both their own resilience and fortifying compassion of humanity surrounding them.
Requiem II
Saturday, I saw you at the park
pup wagging his tail in recognition, for
you are known to us.
Sunday, winding our way to worship
we saw your daffodils - the first this spring.
Your smile was just as bright.
Dad called the mechanic:
ten years
you have been fixing our car.
Suddenly, our car is no more
awash...
in ash and memories.
The church has a high water mark
musty smell
and zero hymnals.
There are new daffodils
planted willy nilly on newborn hillocks
next to tires and trestles, all askew.
Our smiles are some days plastered in weariness.
Thursday at the donation center; yours
was real.
I hope you and your dog
Mechanic Mike's grease rag, and my 3rd grade teacher's smile
are all planted somewhere in my future.
At night I dream: when will we see you again?
jfig 2025
Requiem III
My heart is lodged, somewhere...
like this rock, but
in my throat
...not knowing.
When will I see you again?
jfig 2025
If one would climb the heights…
I. Oh to dwell
Between a Rock and a Redeemer
To find oneself secure
Against life's storms.
To live
Within reach...
Of One powerful to rescue;
Mercy in his grasp.
This then, is salvation; not merely from, but into...
II. If you would climb the heights
First bend low; not before men
But before the One who will stack
Your vertebrae for strength.
Curve upon curve
Inclining toward the One
Who both gives and sustains
Life.
This then is living...inclined toward all of life's source
jfig 1/2025 a meditation on Isaiah 40; Psalm 19
III. To the shape-shifters, and the adrenalin junkies, the ones who will not be bound by life's conformities...this is the edge of Infinity, the door of all that breathes Eternal. This is Yahweh - too holy for our understanding; too gracious for our remorse. j
Random thoughts…
Brienne has baptized her baby doll at least 15 times in the past month…
Obviously this is important.
One week, there were 5 different species of berries ripe in our semi-wild landscape…
Creator is extravagant???
Being a nice neighbor is necessary…
Sharing tools and surplus and expertise is sustainable practice.
This week, a man died...toward protecting his wife and children
You can protect others in a single heroic moment; or incrementally—month by day by year.
She waits for someone else to spill the water
Then she cups her small hand over the baby’s head and waits…
Blessing
We ate and the neighbors ate and the birds ate. Till our chins ran red. This week there are thimbleberries…
Blessing
Today, midst ‘drought’ of a kind, we are receiving water from the neighbors' hose bib...
Blessing
A father spilled his blood.
Blessings flow and flow...and flow
jfig 7/2024
We’re in a Leviticus teaching series at church. Among other WOW moments lies this nugget: Having received what to us seem laborious instructions (AKA rules); the people received this assurance: the offering you bring will be pleasing to God. Having wondered long exactly what differed between Cain and Abel’s gifts of worship; and considered my own fresh loaves basketed with surely-smelly fish; this assurance seems no small thing. Anyway, all that is only to invite you, if interested, to listen in: hcbellingham.com.
The following is a sermon response to Leviticus 16
Day of Atonement; Entrails I wonder if a Levitical priest ever were squeamish; averse to blood, fat lobules, entrails… Life’s most vulnerable parts—offered up. And if we bend to lay this fragile offering, We will tumble all the way down Into be-longing. Are we squeamish? Reluctant to engage our most vulnerable place-holders Let alone hold them open for other eyes— To gawk, scorn, press us into shame. We are practiced at slinging shame. Will you let holy fire lick your wound? (Tho cauterizing will not stop the pain) You will surely feel it when nerve endings begin regrowth: When we, on our Day of Atonement— suddenly brave with Christ— Exhale on, “Why have you abandoned me?” Perhaps if the whole congregation holds these words… Communal hands; Then grace will flow that leads to healing. jfig 10/2023
Day...and night there is light. Dance its gilded celebrations. But do not bathe in the light. Drown in the awareness there is One who brings the light... and this One is holy faithful. jfig #ps—Almighty
Luke 12:1 states, ” …when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another…” Metaphorically speaking, this sounds like society today—the public arena. One tries to take it in cautiously measured doses. Otherwise, the rhetoric is simply too overwhelming. But this passage helps.
When there were so many people hungry, hoping for healing, and crying out—because they had seen him do a miracle— Jesus warned, beware of hypocrisy.
2020 flashback: Perhaps it is not ‘privilege’ that is to be feared; cringed away from as if one could shed this dreaded ‘skin.’ Perhaps privilege is simply a gift—to be stewarded. Perhaps it is hypocrisy with which we must wrestle long into the night; the unearthing of which does not begin with others (in spite of how much we like to look elsewhere), but with careful digging to examine the soil in one’s own heart.
Among gardening tasks, digging (shoveling of any kind), is the one that leaves my muscles sorest. Just like weeding, one cannot complete the task without bending a bit. There is much work yet to be done…
[Luk 12:1 ESV] 1 In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. “Luke 12 (ESV) – In the meantime, when so.” Blue Letter Bible. Web. 1 May, 2023. https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/luk/12/1/s_985001.
Repentance rests upon the threshold...waiting soft gleam of redemption’s warmth beckoning— just across the sill. It is good to tarry, empty pockets afore measured steps across this unlikely beam. Just landing here required effort— bushwhacking through, disentangling. One might tarry yet, catch breath from the climb, unweight again. Then, whether you leap, or dive... The Father’s net will catch you, as if you had simply walked. But you will experience the dive. Shachah Jfig 2/2023 Surrender…is an unlikely word, or practice. There is nothing in our current social milieu that advocates for such. It is beyond high risk, whether you are an adrenalin junkie, or not. Surrender, leaves everything behind. As a follower of Jesus, it is sometimes good practice to return to the deep edge, and once again make the leap. Fairest Lord Jesus, this feels a bit like 'double dare.' You surrendered everything. Whose turn is it now? The precipice is high; the fall terrifying. It will take all of you: Father, Son, Spirit to catch me this time. But trust runs deep... I’m leaping. J
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
“Hebrews 12 (NIV) – Therefore, since we are surrounded.” Blue Letter Bible. Web. 28 Feb, 2023. https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/heb/12/1-3/p1/s_1145001.
Perhaps Lent... is about sinking into the depths of redemption, receiving sacrifice and allowing all our carefully crafted idols to fall-- disappear beneath the waves of God's goodness and mercy. Endless waves, the sea gate held open. Perhaps this is the way we get to our knees-- by accepting the buckling weight of so great a love as this-- that One Holy would lay down his life awash in shame for my pitiable state-- and hold the gate Open. jfig 2/2023
Solstice The darkest night still waits for morning… even when it feels no ‘welcome.’ Wind sighs— collapses in exhale leaving room for rhythms— ribbons of air… serpentine currents when felt in cavernous dark. Our Lord met us here—in the cave. Allow the dawn, its light to creep slowly—not jarring into the place one’s soul wanders, and wonder… Is there a God, God of goodness who made the light? If you must hold your breath— hold it with the wild possibility that hope—tightly balled into winter’s fist— may find The Child and yet survive. jfig 12/2022 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. he chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created." "James 1 (NIV) - Every good and perfect gift." Blue Letter Bible. Web. 21 Dec, 2022. <https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/jas/1/17/s_1147017>.
If I wrote this poem for no one else, Lord, I would write it for my friend, who wanders in the dark, knowing that you are God. We all wander, and wonder. And wait…for your faithfulness, which finds us again, and again, and again. You find us, because you are here, waiting as well, breathless with the expectation that we will look up. Thank you…from the humblest of hearts, that you would creep low; tarry that we might bump into you often enough to become familiar…old friends for the journey; and company us safely home. Amen
Roasted Words 