Sparrows, living and reading Small Gods

In the thirteenth and very funny Discworld novel Small Gods, Om says the difference between being a small god and human is that humans are uncertain about what lies beyond death, but gods really know that when they come to the end of their lives/reigns there is nothing more for them, that is the end of their real existence - all that's left is longing for what was. At the end of their magic and belief-fuelled "lives", small gods go into darkness after just a moment of "warmth and light", like a sparrow that flies through a room and out into the black night - and he asks "can't you imagine what it's like to be that sparrow, and know about the darkness? To know that afterwards there will be nothing to remember, ever, except that one moment of the light?" (p277). Enter the debate about whether waiting for death is torture and whether the end is really the end.

In Pratchett's fantasy world gods exist if they have believers, otherwise they fade to barely a whisper, their minds fractured, barely keeping themselves together. Some start there but manage to work their way up to real power through accumulating believers. This means that they have to work out how to manipulate people into following them, which doesn't bode well for the cause of truth, love and justice. Indeed through the course of Small Gods it's a human who teaches the small god Om ethics, a way of leading a people to treat others more fairly and with respect.

Interestingly as with a lot of Pratchett books, the stupidity of humanity is brought out here, because despite the ethical way being the one way free of bloodshed, the people still want war, because of honour, duty, hurt pride, impatient zeal for change, and revenge. Pratchett shows how lucky we have to be for good leadership to win out, when people's hearts are bent like this, and when people are preoccupied by things that don't really matter. The small god points out that people will believe anything, even in the power of an army or god, or in the revolutionary spirit or human philosophy, if it suits them - if they think it will allow them to gain something in the world, if it promises them something they feel they need. Both the religious who hold on to a system and the militant atheists have ambitions and values at fault in this in the book - rushing into their cause without thinking of the consequences in terms of their responsibilities to seek peace for their fellow man. Knowledge is co-opted into making machinery of war. Only one or two characters have the eyes to see the folly of the people.

The hypocrisy of the harsh religious system in Omnia is plain and some are brimming to just escape from the rules, while others find meaning in enforcing them. But when it comes down to it, what do the religious sacrifices they make or the battles fought in the name of honour or revenge gain them?* If this is a kind of bargaining with the gods, it’s a poor deal. I think we need this sort of clarity in thinking about why we do the things we do. Our culture is tied up in pursuits, whether of influence, reputation on- or offline, expertise, deeper relational links, a hoard of commercial products we feel we need, the avoidance of any pain or suffering, the best holidays, and constructed meaning in other ways. What does all of this gain us in the long run? Is the key not to obsess and just find balance? And what does it gain us in the face of death and beyond that eternity? When we realise we are going somewhere next and that we can't take anything with us, why do we get so caught up in so many pursuits which seemingly can continue all our lives?

But going back to the way in this book a "god" can fear the absolution of a pseudo-non-existence: It's very interesting how this is portrayed as happening to one small god who is found as a bodyless voice in the desert that has been roaming there for years and can't even remember it's name. Even Om is lucky to remember who he is after amusingly getting trapped in the body of a tortoise.

If our ultimate destination is to be a kind of wimpy non-physical confused and hopeless half-life, I'd hate it too. Maybe this is what people fear most today: being insignificant, being unfulfilled in this life and withering away. They want to live fully and die young and happy. I can relate to this. But as a Christian I want to challenge the assumptions here - I want to say that living into old age, disability, or insignificance in the eyes of the world and living even in weakness and illness can be real living if it's done in relationship with God. If real love is experienced. If you are getting to know him and trust him better, if you are awaiting his promise to bring a kingdom where you can fully be with him, if you see his goodness no matter your situation, weakness can be a time of blessing. Furthermore if we have a hope beyond this life in the one man who came back from death, Jesus-Christ, the God-man, we do not have to have a fear of death and can get on with living for what really matters.

All in all, a thought-provoking entry into the Discworld series that I could relate to a lot. People are cowardly and create systems that don't work, and forget the value of true liberties in society. Luckily our God is large and will never lose the plot. He cares about us more than many sparrows. Like Om he listens to us, but unlike Om he loves us and knows what is good, and will never get trapped in the body of a tortoise.

--------
*You wonder if there was this kind of hotchpotch of mixed motives in the recent march on Tripoli. There must be stories to be found there both of altruism and, sadly, brutish steamrolling over the ones in the way.

Cover image uploaded from Wikipedia to illustrate the book I'm discussing. It's originally derived from a digital capture (photo/scan) of the book cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party). Copyright held by the publisher or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless.

Time machines are not the answer

In this sad and telling passage from the quirky novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe we hear how Charles sees his position living inside a time machine as living “at the origin, at zero, neither present nor absent, a denial of self- and creature-hood to an arbitrarily small epsilon-delta limit.”

Then we get this interesting passage as to why Charles’ missing father created the time machine to have this function:

“Can you live your whole life at zero? Can you live your entire life in the exact point between comfort and discomfort? You can in this device. My father designed it that way. Don’t ask me why. If I knew the answer to that, I would know a whole lot of other things too. Things like why he left, where he is, what he’s doing, when he’s coming back, if he’s coming back.
[…]

I don’t miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately, it’s true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. If you’re not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine; it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.” (All quotes from p.54, Atlantic Books Ltd, 2010)

Aside from this being an interestingly written (though morbid) paragraph of complex prose, what are some of the underlying ideas of the viewpoint portrayed and how might we interact with these?

Charles has made himself unknowable, a kind of island from reality. From this we see the dangers of empowering people with technology like time machines, and how people can be self-destructive due to trauma or depression.

His position is described as being “between comfort and discomfort”. This is where he chooses to live, avoiding living his life in the present. Do we not see people around us doing this psychologically, or practically – avoiding responsibility, or perhaps unable to cope with what is really happening? Or out of a sense of directionless-ness keeping on in the same dead-end situation, rather than making any changes in their lives? And doing all this as they see no end or outcome to their pain or life situation?

I love how the book’s author plays with tenses and scientific terminology and uses it as imagery in this book, but here it adds up to some quite bare truths. Here we see a mathematical methodical explanation of the pain of human experience, just laid out for us to stagger under the weight of it. Charles describes well the paradox of suffering, that we want people to matter to us and yet this could well bring us more pain, so that some suffering, even emotional turmoil, is desired as we seek to maintain our humanity and increase our love for others.

In the Christian faith, the way that pain is taken away is thankfully not for it to become trivialised or merely converted into data. No, instead, when God returns to remake the world it will be seen that all the pain of this world was an aching anguish for him to come. Pain is a profound and deep part of our experience as we wait for the God-man, Jesus Christ, to come again. And he will come and reward suffering people with his presence, wiping away the tears of pain with his love for us (Revelation 21).

Charles loses track of the days through his half- or non-living in the machine, but the experience for the Christian in eternity will be real living. God, who is outside time, promises to wrap up this world and its time, and create a new time, where things grow better and better for believers, every day, as we are eternally blessed by and get to know the depths of an eternal God. This view of time, exclusive to those in Christ’s lasting kingdom, is mind-blowing, purpose-giving and satisfying.

2011 - a year where I hope God is more and more my joy

Happy New Year! In the next week or so, expect a few posts from me on everything from anime film to reasons for believing in God's existence. But for today, here are some of the things I've been learning about God and his ways in the last few weeks and months.

• There are two paths in life, God's one and the way of fools, the latter of which will be attractive to the eye, but only the former both offering and giving things of lasting value and excellence (see Proverbs, where Wisdom calls out offers us true life, prefiguring Jesus and his role in preaching the kingdom of God).

• The Christian life is about responding to God’s goodness and undeserved love towards us by doing God’s will here on earth as part of his family, identifying ourselves with him while we wait for the fullness of the salvation that has been won for us (Romans 12, Mark 3:34-5).

• The end of all history is God’s end, planned from long ago with a special place for us who know and love him (Ephesians 1:4-6, Romans 15:8-13, or read When I Don’t Desire God).

• The call to love others in the church is God’s heart goal for us, that through this love we would show him to the world. Plus there is a great need to pray earnestly for the lost (from a talk on humility by Francis Chan).

• It's been amazing to understand over Christmas the way Jesus came to live on earth ultimately to die for our benefit, to do a work of God for the glory of God. What gets me is how this precious anointed one of God, loved from eternity by the Father in heaven with the Father and Spirit, this one, the Christ, lived through the daily hard knocks of a life of poverty and frustration and pain and disappointment - and he did it joyfully obeying his Father, he did it to rescue us and be our light and the way to God for all who take up their cross and follow him. He lived this normal life for us, growing up like us, coming under men and women who taught him and berated him. And this life he lived came with all its hurt, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, striving for more, seeing only less; with being treated evil-ly in many ways and by many people; with being shown barely any love in return in comparison to the infinite love and worship he is due. He was committed to us and to God's glory in us with his whole self. He loves us!

• It's no good trying to do something - anything - for God, or for love, without asking God's help. It's an arrogance to try to go it alone. It's a folly not to seek his help with any goal or meeting or event or time with family or with church or time to relax. It's a folly not to seek him for assurance that he cares for us, because he does. It's dumb to not ask to grow in Him. It's silly to not seek his help to become like Christ and to have a good relationship with God.

• God is my exceeding joy. (Psalm 43:4, and taught throughout the book When I Don't Desire God).

I hope you find this helpful. See you I hope during the year, and perhaps we can talk about how God is to shape our lives.

Analysis of hell from Sandman issue 25 (part of graphic novel "Seasons of Mists")

I had the pleasure of borrowing two more volumes of The Sandman recently from the library and I want to talk a bit about Sandman #25 (which is Episode 4 of the storyline “Season of Mists”).

It's an interesting episode in a series that isn't afraid of tackling such subjects as

• what is really real and what is imaginary
• the various prisons we make for ourselves, especially through fear about our appearance
• the perversions that, say, greedy men, serial killers or ancient faeries or forgotten Greek gods enjoy
• where real genius comes from
• and, here, the nature of hell.

Sandman 25 is a story which stands apart from the main storyline about Morpheus, otherwise known as Dream, or the King of Dreams. Instead, it's a parable about letting go of an evil past, which follows a English school-boy who is unwanted by his teachers, left behind at his boarding school by his only surviving parent. This character comes to epitomise the unwanted person who is oppressed and made to fit into boxes for convenience, or bullied for the pleasure of evil-doers.

As he meets the ghosts of past students and teachers he sees them meaninglessly reliving their past unhappy lives, and his eventual “escape” from the school seems to me to be an exploration of leaving behind a history of psychologically damaging abuse.

Wonderfully, in the end, the pattern of others' damaging behaviour does not have to control this boy; he is individual – in a sense, when he leaves the school, he triumphs over the system. Although they have taken a lot from him, the boy is still able to become a man, responsible and engaging in the world more-or-less in a way of his choosing.

The story cleverly shows us the implication of what has recently happened to Dream, who has been duped by Lucifer, the king of hell – because it shows the reversal of nature as the dead haunt the living as damned (or unlucky?) souls are released from hell. As the school-boy and his oppressed (un?)dead companion leave, they talk about whether hell is something we make for ourselves and whether hell is a place or not. They conclude by suggesting that hell is a place (ie. the school) but “you don't have to stay anywhere for ever”.

The positive event of the two companions leaving the evil characters in the school behind faintly recalls the unsettling events of Sandman 23. Here, the Sandman version of Lucifer shows he can leave hell, turfing the demons and evil men and women out into limbo or the world, saying they have suffered enough in hell. This kind of liberation seems wonderful at first, but appears sinister when souls start returning to haunt the world and proud psychopaths, who know they should be punished, are freed.

The role of God in people's lives

The school-boy, Charles Rowland, teaches us about experiencing life and taking action to prevent falling into becoming a victim of depraved patterns of living. But where is God in this story? He acts at points later on to deal with the problems caused by Lucifer. But he isn't shown to take care of the victims, to care for people's souls, to care for the individuals in the story. Here, he is less than invisible: he is absent from the lives of ordinary people!

Instead we have the liberal myth rearing its head saying that expressing oneself and defying authority brings true liberation in life. OK, so I agree that where authority groups are evil they need to be opposed fiercely, and the comic is right that liberation is needed, and broken lives can really be helped by others' love and care and a good environment for healing.

But as a Christian I know that God's role is more. He loves us! And he is good. And we are to mimic and follow him. It's his role to oppose evil, to liberate people from evil through his Son, to work in power to bring justice one day by judging the living and the dead. God holds the key to hell and God says who goes there because of their sin. God goes out of his way to call people into his kingdom of light, to be able to enjoy eternity with him in heaven and ultimately in a new perfect, brilliant creation. God loves the marvellous people he has made and acts in the lives of the broken or oppressed people who make up his church – granting true comfort, peace, joy, relief, material help and a caring community which becomes a family and a help to those who are lost.

People do evil things and that's a problem. But God cares about us and brings help and freedom from sin for those who ask. Amen to that.

The hope of the Christian

Just read this fantastic outline of the message of the book of 1 Peter! Find the book towards the back of the Bible, and read below to get a sense of what it's about.

Facing impending assaults on the gospel, Peter witnesses to the grace of God, the overwhelming reality of what God has done in Jesus Christ. The apostle knows that Jesus rose from the dead; he saw him ascend to heaven. He knows, too, why Jesus died, and what his death accomplished, as he writes: ‘Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed’ (2:24).

The reality of what Christ has done makes sure the hope of the Christian ‘brotherhood’. Christians can not only endure suffering for Christ’s sake; they can rejoice, for in their agony they are joined to Jesus who suffered for them. Their very sufferings become a sign of hope, for, as Christ suffered and entered into his glory, so will they. The Spirit of glory and of God rests on them (4:14).

Whether their neighbours attack or respect them, they can bear witness to the grace of God by their Christian lifestyle. Quietly and humbly they can live holy lives, not seeking to claim their own rights, but honouring others. Such humble living is in no way servile or demeaning, for Christians know themselves to be the royal people of God’s own possession, the chosen heirs of the new creation. They need not avenge themselves, nor need they claim for themselves what is their due; their trust is in the judgment of God. Christians are ‘resident aliens’ in [their towns and cities], but they are members of God’s own household.

The gift of God’s love, the blood of Jesus Christ, has redeemed Christians from the corrupt and empty lifestyle of their God-less past; that grace now unites them in fervent love for one another. They serve and help one another, using the rich spiritual gifts with which God’s grace equips them, ... [Jesus watching over them].

By the victory of Jesus Christ over all the powers of darkness they are freed from the power of Satan. They can repulse the roaring lion; in the fires of trial their faith will not be destroyed but purified like gold in the furnace. They may cast all their cares on God, knowing that he cares for them.

The grace that already fills Christians with joy will be brought to them fully at the appearing of Jesus Christ. The Lord, whom they love but have not seen, they will see and adore. Knowing well the doom and darkness from which they were delivered, the new people of God sing forth his praises. Their hallelujahs ring from their assemblies, their homes, even from the prison cells where their fear of God has set them free from the fear of man. Their witness is a witness of praise. Nourished by the unfailing Word of God, they taste already the goodness of their Saviour. The true grace of God has called them to his glory: everything, even their sufferings, will serve his purpose who redeemed them at such a price.

Some may scorn the comfort and triumph of Peter’s letter as unpractical theology. His answers are answers of faith. But Peter knows that his witness is true, that Jesus Christ is real. He has tasted that the Lord is good, and that his goodness will not fail. ‘This is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it’ (5:12).

Clowney, Edmund P.: The Message of 1 Peter : The Way of the Cross. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA : Inter-Varsity Press, 1988 (The Bible Speaks Today), S. 23

Praise the Lord! Praise Him for Peter's witness to us and for the certain hope of being saved by Christ, if we ally ourselves with him and his people on earth. Amen.

No longer "lost"

The other day I got to speak at a local church about how Jesus can bring salvation to people who are lost (from Luke 19:1-10). This was a big part of what Jesus came to do, by his own admission: When people ask why he has gone to spend time with Zacchaeus (who had been, basically, a sneaky, selfish swindler, a loser, who everyone hated), Jesus says he has brought salvation to this man then and there, and then explains why he didn't just go to all the best and brightest people: "The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost".

This is wonderful news! Jesus came from God his Father for people who are lost in living wrong ways of life (like Zacchaeus was), ways of life that God hates. He came to save them, and make a way for them to be forgiven! And He came for those who are written off, to be their light and rescue.

The crucial thing then is to respond to Jesus as Zacchaeus does - gladly receiving Him, joyful that he has come to save us.

This requires more than just occasionally thinking of God. Like Zacchaeus, we must turn our lives around and follow this Jesus. He is the one who saves us and rules us. This means changing the way we think and speak and act and committing to Him, above other things we are committed to. Above money, our dreams, the ways we want to live which God says are wrong.

Because Jesus is Lord, and can bring us salvation too if only we recieve Him.
So the question is - will we respond as Zacchaeus did?

If you'd like to think this through a bit more, you can listen online to the talk here - it's called "The right response" (from 16.08.09). Also, a second talk by me will soon appear online on the website for my home church http://www.aechurch.org.uk/ on the hope Christians have for the future because of what God has done for us to rescue and save us. Let's set our sights on the Lord we have, the saving one, Jesus!

Update: the second talk mentioned here took a while to appear online, but you can find it, entitled "Peter 1 23.08.09"

"Pause" - a review

Here are my thoughts on an inspiring evening titled “Pause” by the Christian drama and arts group Acts 29. As one Reading student pointed out, it’s a way into evangelism that isn’t purely middle class! (That’s one thing about the arts – they can work on lots of levels.)

OK, so here’s what you need to know about Pause.

The idea? To run an evening of intimate entertainment which does more than entertain – which aims to stir up thought about the deeper issues of life and to provide a conversation starter, through a variety of high quality acts, from an R&B/Soul singer to a hip-hop duo, from impressive, rousing rock to probing poetry to sharp, engaging monologue. I particularly enjoyed the cleverly layered guitarwork, the way you were made to feel at ease during the monologues, "down the pub" style, the classy, funky keyboard-accompanied songs - and the way the poetry brought a sense of place and roused feelings about situations and systems, and yet had the power to get us to think. For instance at one point our enigmatic poet recasts tube passangers as silent beings frozen on their "pillar arms". Where has the life gone out of this picture? It is in the poet, who is there, it seems, actively questioning the situation.

The writers behind the project clearly see the power of great art to raise our eyes from the things of everyday to the Maker of everything, and I can imagine the performance nudging non-Christians to respond to these attitudes and ideas, and to take time to consider where their lives are heading in the middle of all the messages and ideas in our society. All this will provide a chance to speak about our message of hope “in season”.

What makes it good?

Well, on New Word Alive, I learned about the value of shared life experiences in the dialogue between Christians and our largely secular culture. These experiences are made possible because of God, who made us in His image. We have emotions and hopes, because we were built for good things, and we have, like God, the capacity for joy and love - and brilliant thoughts, which we can think “after His thoughts”. He dreamed every creative thing up before we even thought it, as He (specifically Jesus) is the source of everything good (cf Colossians 1:16-17).

"Pause" connected with us as it sought to evoke and reflect on important life experiences and feelings in our culture - helping us relate to the characters involved, and also (sometimes more directly) pointing to the one who designed us to enjoy such experiences. Here’s a quick list of issues which were suggested or came up in the evening:

Our sense of humour about all kinds of things,
peer pressure, and group behaviour,
the way we can’t escape media and information in a non-stop TV world,
the way we hide behind masks, looking good but being broken inside,
the way we often refuse to be vulnerable in front of someone,
the joy that someone’s love can bring us when they make incredible sacrifices for us, and how we treasure them,
the way we build our lives, and the direction for them,
the idea of not being real, or the feeling of being out of place in the world, or the idea that we are just cogs in a vast impersonal machine, and related questions about the value of working,
the way we tell, and love to hear, stories (even tall stories), the way we feel threatened in our society when asked about religious things, unless it is in the pub, or very casually discussed,
and finally, the wonders of creation and expression, demonstrated in music and rhythm and in the way we experiment with sound and words.

Many of these themes and ideas celebrate what is good about mankind, and face us with our huge aspirations in life, filling our horizons with new perspectives, some right, some foolhardy. The acts suggest that we long for authentication, love, friendship, expression, freedom, and to be taken seriously, and that we are frustrated in many ways and have reason for sorrow. More than once I heard a biblical strand of thought suggested, that we should seek God's help, and that His love is there for us if we come to Him - really the only answer to humanity's real problems.

Without being in relationship with Him, forgiven freely through the death of Jesus, and accepted into His family, our lives our ultimately futile, and fragile, something that can sometimes be sensed in art. The Bible clarifies this, teaching that man is "like breath" without God, quickly fading away, and having no hope - without Him we are not ultimately heading towards great things but towards death, after which we will have no hope to produce or to experience anything good at all: In fact we will reap the rewards for living bad lives, by facing God’s punishment in hell.

Sobering words, but necessary ones: life is meaningless without the hope of a future, and this is reflected in the way the working life can become a drudgery, and things seem to keep going round and round; we were designed for somewhere better (as CS Lewis suggested, cf Ecclesiastes).

**************
Other reflections: For what is effectively a pre-evangelism event, there was a lot of talent on show, and great production values (good work, team) – and this made me think more broadly about the state of things in the UK. We are so fortunate to have all these resources for an event targeted brilliantly to a certain audience, a certain type of friend, who is up for discussion and who enjoys stimulating art.

But why do we need pre-evangelism in the UK? Part of me tends to think it’s because we are now either too afraid or unimaginative to develop good relationships with those who are not Christians and to speak up to let them know about our wonderful gospel message, and so we want to rely on a packaged resource like this one. Or perhaps we are just too unconcerned for our friends’ eternal future? Whatever, we really need more creative ways to raise questions and starting points to speak about the true and triune God of Christianity, as our society has become increasingly reluctant to discuss Him and increasingly unaware of what the Bible has to say about Him. I’m all for more projects like this one!

Anyone else got any views on Pause?
http://www.myspace.com/pausetour

Getting perspective on what the church is here for - part one

This could be the start of my very own blog-athon, as I want to make several posts following a trip last week to a big Christian conference called “New Word Alive”. Not only was I encouraged by being able to receive high quality teaching and meet together with lots of other Christians to worship and share our lives, we also had great weather (yes, and in Wales!) and I was able to enjoy chilling out with old and new friends.

Altogether a seriously encouraging, motivating, empowering experience that built us up both in terms of our thinking, and emotionally, as our hearts were stirred to greater love of God. It has helped me get a number of things into perspective:

• Our direction for life. There is an eternal heaven for believers, and great security and hope as we look forward to that, while there is eternal punishment for those who don’t follow Jesus – who Himself warned people about this in stark terms. What does this mean? For one thing, it is utterly appropriate for us to weep with a heavy heart for those who face hell. And it is our responsibility to love others enough to share our great message about Jesus, the only way to heaven. Truth, and good teaching, are meant for spreading, not leaving with believers or in comfortable places!
• Prayer. What an amazing privilege! May we continue in prayer for spiritual life and growth in the hearts and lives of those around us. It is God who brings the growth (1 Cor 3:6). Thus prayer is essential gospel work.
• Service. The vital ministry of caring for others doesn’t just happen. No ministry does. It is a struggle, and we need to ask God for help with it, and involve the church too – all the time, remembering that God is with us and it is God who wants to do good in the lives of our friends/family, and we are His servants.
• Joy. Here is what should be my greatest joy: I have Christ! Not that I have a comfortable life, or friends, family, intellect, things to do or watch or enjoy here on earth – but that I have been united with the Son in death to sin, new life and the promise of a rich eternal future. All else is from Him anyway!

More tomorrow, and yes, I actually mean tomorrow.

The future

“Tortured feet break away from threadbare shoes”
- that’s all.
Yellow-parched skin, now brushing against the wind.

Hard-lined mouths which put lives into cruel focus -
Frustrated by answers, and unexpected new managers.

Watery eyes, wistful through the entirety of generation Y -
Find hope to relate again, drawing out vitality through sockets of gold,
Creative minds and legs which bend and reach and go.

Babies stand their personalities up-right, and shine.
Mother’s wisdom cares for them, without strain.
Shout it out: “A family is well again!”

Aching remembered, we cry “Worth it, all worth it!”
Music climbing, broad sounds filling out our clothes,
Activity unhindered, progress never unmade
- people purposed, concentrating, thinking, relaxing;
Growing.

Rushing of air, as solid trees walk towards one another
- as if, at first.
Hopes that return, from the crown laden down.