Thoughts

This will be my third year going to Haiti. The first two trips were very different from one another, so I'm curious about this one. This is my support letter, which will go out with the letters of the rest of the team on Monday, February 18th. Because the Haitian government has closed orphanages in the country for not adequately taking care of their children, officials have asked the Hands and Feet orphanage in Jacmel to take in some of the displaced children (some of those not returned to their parents). As a result, the number of orphans with Hands and Feet has increased. Informal conversations with the missionaries there show that they genuinely care for these kids. Dear Sir or Madam: Over the past two summers, Quail Lakes Baptist Church has sent teams to an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, called the Hands and Feet Project. This small compound, along with a second orphanage in southern Haiti, cares for over 100 Haitian children who have either lost or been given up by their...

One of my dreams is to have something I've written published. I've submitted a number of poems to a poetry magazine, but all of them have been rejected. This was my latest effort, which I learned today was rejected, too. Structured poetry seems to have lost its allure ever since Robert Frost passed. Free verse is more popular today. The poem I submitted today was a free verse poem. Maybe I'll have more luck with that one. Anyway, this one isn't too bad, though the first stanza could be clearer. If you can understand the meaning behind the poem, then I've improved! That's all that matters, I suppose, to grow and see improvement. I think this poem reflects that for me. Beyond the distance chasms wide Rest battles’ long-since counted cost Whose soldiers’ souls now left for lost Lie locked alone to wait release From forth their tortured silent state Their calls for final rest ring loud Above the din of busied crowd Both heard and shunned from memor...

I'm not normally dark, but I'm responding to the following prompt I found on a journaling site. There's no hidden meaning. "In a nightmare, you've encountered three doors. Choose one, and let us know what you find on the other side." I find a millenia-old oak tree perched comfortably atop a grassy knoll, drinking in the new spring sun. Under it is set a picnic with a girl seated and leaning back on hands, facing away from me in a blue-white checkered dress. In front of her is a lake, and on her left, a mountain alive with run-off. I approach the girl from behind, walk to her fore and turn. To her right, something I had not seen, is a variegation of flags, each one torn and threadbare, waving softly on slanted poles planted on a patchwork of grass and upturned earth. The nearest of these is red with a single yellow block in its center. I creep closely and crouch. Though I do not touch it, the ground is warm. I pick from a nearby pine and toss its branch ...

The first "first" day of school I can remember was my first day in junior high school. I was more afraid than years earlier when my dad took me to a Boy Scout meeting to see what I thought, and equally afraid to the time my mom enrolled me in a basketball camp when I knew I was a wretched basketball player. I knew one person, a nice guy named Michael, but I also knew that I couldn't latch onto him, lest I be seen as a leech and a wimp. No, I had to face it alone. My solution was to keep my mouth shut. I was socially awkward and felt myself unintelligent, so anything I said or did to draw attention to myself would have been no better than negative publicity. It turns out that things weren't as bad as I thought they'd be. As far as I can recall, the teachers were nice, and no one went out of their way to mock me. Of course, no one went out of their way to talk to me, either, so I suppose I got what I wanted: a neutral day with nothing to speak of in ...

When you look back at yourself many years from now, and ask whether you lived the way you determined you should, do the thing expected and ponder whether life could have been greener; but do this with the knowledge that there is more to you now, as then, than you realize; and whatever you do, do not look too deeply, for the life you chose was just that: a choice. It was given to you. You did not earn it, and you will not keep it, so do from here on the things you were afraid to do, and say from here on the things you wished you had before. Then, when you've finished wandering the broad halls of regret, look then straight ahead, into your own eyes, and know that you were and are a gift from the Father, whose life gave meaning to those around you, whether you knew it or not. Every life is a life of substance, whose value will become all the clearer when you stand with the one who made it. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror," Paul declares. "...