SIDEWAYS EIGHT PROJECTS

Made for… Connection

Jesse Ziegler

I want to introduce you to Jesse Ziegler… he is Reno’s Poet Laureate, one of our prayer partners, and you have, no doubt, seen him around the Rock. He and his lovely wife Amanda have chosen to make the Rock their church home. I’ve asked Jesse to come and share his interpretation of how we are “Made for Connection”. 

So Jesse, welcome!  I wonder if you might share with us some of your thoughts around this idea: 

Some of us find it really difficult to connect with others because of past experiences that didn’t meet our expectations or because we are just on the shy side. Tell us why you think connection can be so difficult.

Sometimes putting ourselves out there is too much of a stretch for our comfort zone because of being shy or feeling awkward. Sometimes putting ourselves out there brings up previous woundedness and/or disappointment. Sometimes there is simply an assumption of failure to some degree. Sometimes there is a lack of perceived self worth which leads to a fear of falling short of other people’s expectations and/or a feeling of not being good enough to maintain initial connections. Sometimes the difficulties in making connections are rooted in logistical elements such as a busy work schedule, lack of reliable transportation, responsibility for care of others such as children or aging parents or a lack of auxiliary income to be able to meet up at a venue where it’s expected to make purchases of some sort. I’m sure there are other aspects of life which might inhibit connections somehow, but these were the ones I could immediately think of.

How do you find “your people”and how do you make yourself take the risk required for connection?

I find my people through my faith based involvement and my arts based involvement. I have made myself take the risk required for connection by becoming a community leader as the creative director of Monday Night Poetry, a companionship volunteer with Gentiva Hospice, a group facilitator of the True Colors Poetry sessions at Our Center, a prayer warrior as a regular church member of The Rock and an active poet in western Nevada as well as Northern California and Las Vegas.

*So what you’re really saying is connection is something you’ve had to invest in, take risks for and work at! There something really beautiful and important about allowing yourself to be seen.

Absolutely! It is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson but I’m not certain as to the source “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done” I grew up feeling unintended and unwanted due to my own woundedness. This is not to lay blame at the doorstep of my blood family which was always very small. I think it speaks to a deep longing in me at an early age that was never widely satisfied. C.S. Lewis wrote “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” I understood from a young age, after literally nearly dying by drowning on two separate occasions, that if my depression and unsatisfied longings lead to self harm that my mother would never be able to recuperate. As such I realized as a young adult  it wasn’t a viable option for me to merely endure this world and gut it out for the entire duration of my life in the hopes of a better life in the next  world which may or may not even exist. The alternative to causing myself grave harm was helping to do everything I personally could to help create a world in which I’d want to live. This would obviously include a sense of family and friends which would fill up my cup and reciprocally allow for me to pour out to others who would actually appreciate it rather than mock it. Later, in coming to faith, this would be referred to as “Kingdom Living”. As Rumi said “The cracks are where the light gets in” Ultimately I’ve realized my goal all along has been to become an adult who would’ve helped save me as a child. Only God has the power to  truly save or condemn. However, by connecting with others; truly, deeply and authentically beyond surface level, we get to be advocates, ambassadors and agents of change who help set the stage for others to find their light with assistance from the Holy Spirit. That is the greatest sense of purpose, meaning, calling, belonging and chosen family that I’ve personally found in this life in this world. 

I know some of us are asking, is connection really worth it?

Absolutely. The single greatest opportunity and feeling this life has to offer us is being a part of something larger than just ourselves. The utmost example of this is a deeply abiding connection with the source of all life. Everything else flows from that connection. We may often feel lonely but it is important to remember that we are never alone. We were made to be hardwired for community of some kind. People may have hurt us in the past or let us down but (Spoiler Alert) everyone will hurt us and disappoint us eventually if we know them long enough and well enough. It also might mean that they weren’t for us in the long run but rather a specific reason or a season. Comfort zone is the enemy of growth. Happiness is most real when shared. 

Talk for just a minute about how you have been able to connect with God. How did that develop and what does that look like?

I have most consistently and thoroughly connected with God across my entire life by reading, writing and sharing poetry. I did not fall in love with Jesus until I was 28 years old. I realize looking back that God was pursuing me through the art form long before that in addition to my love of nature/creation. I’m still most frequently able to connect with God through reading and sharing scripture, time in nature, prayer, Bible study, community conversations, morning devotionals, all things poetry, group chats with other believers, meditation/listening prayer, podcasts, inspirational music, men’s breakfast meetings, photography group meetings, mentoring and being mentored by chosen family and reading supplemental material.

Does connection with God affect your connection with others?

For sure. Knowing that I’m connected to God, knowing that relationship is rooted in love and being sustained by it allows for me to have a home base in everything I do. My home is wherever I roam. As such it’s like the difference between a circus performer with a safety net below versus one who works without one. If I know I’m loved and I know I don’t have to fear dying then I am free to love others with abandon and brave vulnerability. I’m free to serve and encourage others without being too concerned with rejection or disappointment. I’m free to risk everything because I know my life is in God’s hands. It makes it easier to stretch well beyond my personal comfort zone mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually when I know that I’m being lead by the spirit. Also, as I step fully into my authentic self, finding my deepest identity in Jesus, answering my calling to be a poet and a counselor, I give others permission around me to step boldly into the fullness of their truest selves. This, in turn, makes it easier to find my people. My tribe. My chosen family. 

Inscription (edited)

Your story is not finished.

The author of life is helping you

write it each and every day.

This journal is for your questions.

Of God and of people.

This is for your prayers.

For the answers you find,

the answers you’re given,

and all that you wish to remember. 

This journal is for the things you notice,

big and small, which give you inspiration 

and bring you joy.

For your ideas and aspirations,

for your hopes and dreams,

your innermost thoughts,

and your wildest adventures.

This journal is for your sketches, lyrics

your quotes and your notes, 

your short stories, poems, 

verses and daydreams.

This is for you.

As you are.

As you are becoming.

As you will be.

This journal is a gift,

just as you are to this world.

FULL BIO FROM WEBSITE:

Brynn Saito (she/her), MA, MFA, is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Under a Future Sky (Red Hen Press, 2023). A 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow, Brynn is the winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She coedited with Brandon Shimoda The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration (Haymarket Books, April 2025). Brynn also co-authored with Traci Brimhall the poetry chapbook, Bright Power, Dark Peace (Diode Editions, 2016) and co-produced with Koji Lau-Ozawa the short documentary Cactus Blossoms Revisited. She teaches in the Creative Writing program at California State University, Fresno, located on the traditional lands of the Yokuts and Mono peoples.

Brynn is a Kundiman Asian American poetry fellow and a two-time recipient of the California State Library’s Civil Liberties Public Education grant for her work with Yonsei Memory Project (YMP). Founded in 2017 with farmer, artist, and writer, Nikiko Masumoto, YMP awakens the archives of Japanese American history through arts-based, intergenerational, and intercultural public programming.

Brynn was featured in Vogue magazine’s “Memory Keepers: Japanese American Internment Survivors and Descendants Speak Out.” She is a recipient of a Densho Artists Initiative grant, a Hedgebrook Residency, and was an artist-in-residence at the Santa Fe Arts Institute’s “Truth and Reconciliation” program. Brynn provided the voice-over narration for the Emmy-winning Valley PBS documentary, Silent Sacrifice: Stories of Japanese American Incarceration. Along with Koji Lau-Ozawa and Brandon Shimoda, she was awarded a grant from The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation for programming related to Cactus Blossoms Revisited and The Gate of Memory.

Brynn is a fourth generation Japanese American and Korean American from Fresno, California. She was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been anthologized by Helen Vendler and Ishmael Reed; it has also appeared in American Poetry Review, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. Along with Traci Brimhall, Brynn also co-authored the chapbook Wild Recovery, published in Four Quartets: Poetry in the Pandemic (Tupelo Press, 2020).

Brynn has taught in Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Writers Lab for emerging writers of color and has facilitated workshops for Kripalu and the Spiritual Life Foundation. She has been a visiting writer in the MFA programs at University of San Francisco, UNR Lake Tahoe, Saint Mary’s College of California, and California Institute of Integral Studies. Brynn holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College (MFA, creative writing), New York University (MA, religious studies), and UC Berkeley (BA, philosophy). 

Part I

Awake to the dimming of your doubt,

shout praises skyward as the thunderclap shortens in the storm,

trusting lightening could not possibly strike you twice.

Bow your head while lifting your arms

in defiance of wickedness,

resistance to force or subjugation,

wholehearted surrender

to the manifest goodness of joy unbound.

Sit back-to-back with me

on the edge of the stone wall overlooking the river,

eyes closed,

listing things however small or large

that make us happy,

bring us peace

or give us hope.

Keep going until one of us is tapped out,

and then pretend to laugh

from the bottom of the barrel until we really do.

Keep laughing until it hurts,

that is how we best learn 

to find purpose in the pain somehow,

for wounds are inevitable 

yet so are music and dancing.

Walking in the rain can feel like a baptismal

filled with fireflies and happy tears.

We are not meant to remain in grief,

it must run its proper course of recognition 

and then be enshrined in a place of honor

to commemorate its existence,

giving that love somewhere to go when needed.

Remember that shaking hands can be moved into shaping and service

by steady hearts,

and that shaking hearts

can be calmed into peaceful balance

by determined souls.

Awake to the shining of your light,

sing hymns of brokenness glorified

and abandonment healed.

Meet neglect with tenacity and 

harsh winters with warm embraces.

I wish I could listen to you forever,

hands open on each others backs,

easing burdens by the power of touch,

alleviating spoiled cargo

with each breath

in a joined holding of communal space.

I see you crying in the darkness,

I feel you on the precipice of enlightenment 

not knowing which edge to step from

for the signs marked “abyss” and “paradise”

cannot be read or understood without a proper light.

Stillness can only be maintained for so long.

The very act of continuing to live

is worship of something.

Relief comes soonest to those who welcome the truth.

There are things which cannot die,

there are things which cannot be bought or sold,

things which cannot be coerced or controlled.

There are sacred things.

There are things worth living for

and things worth dying for.

There are things which bring both happiness and peace, 

but the only thing on each of these lists

is love.

Part II

And love cannot be completely contained,

fully accommodated or recklessly restrained.

It isn’t entirely encapsulated by pithy aphorisms,

Disney film plot lines, after school specials

or terse verse in Hallmark cards,

although it is grand enough to exist in all of these spaces.

Love is in the staying late and the getting up early,

the holding of hands bedside in the hospital,

the embracing of an ex on their wedding day,

and continuing the conversation after the lights go out.

Love is pulling weeds from the garden together,

and going out for breakfast on a whim.

It is laughing together in thrift stores picking out the evening’s attire for a fancy date night. 

It exists in genuine connections on blind dates,

and kindred spirits not being bothered by age differences.

Love is in keeping the program from the show that moved you,

permanently rippled on the cover from catching your tears in both acts.

Love is horse riding bareback and barefoot on the beach

and sitting silently together staring at the stars.

It is the genuine smile and warm greeting,

beyond awkward social pleasantries, 

when turning to your neighbor

between the worship songs 

and the needed message.

It is the removal of your shoes and your coat at the door,

knowing you’re going to stay a while.

Love is helping your friend take out the garbage

even when it isn’t your chore that week,

and letting everyone know it’s starting to rain,

in case they left their windows cracked,

or in case they’d wish to open them all the way. 

Love is biker buddies riding up on the curb,

just to give strangers a high five, 

completely unaware they were just coming from an epic poetry and music gathering,

on a Monday in the Biggest Little City,

rapidly becoming the perfect way to punctuate the evening,

and a funny story to tell for the rest of our lives. 

Love is making snow angels before the last run of the day,

climbing trees with our children,

swimming in lakes with our dogs,

and bonfires near the ocean with our chosen families.

Love is wanting to pick the other person up and swing them in the air, 

eyes gently closed

holding onto each other for dear life,

never wanting to let go.

Live music at the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings,

and at the local coffee shop on Thursday afternoons.

Love is you and I getting along the way we do, 

in spite of our differences,

sometimes because of them.

Love is far too big,

too filled with wonder,

too all encompassing 

and too mysterious

to be contained or held 

within a single attempt,

but that is also why

so many of us try.

“here is your gentle reminder that there are dandelions growing through cracks in the sidewalk. there is a fence lizard on the porch who is growing a new tail. there are trees growing through an abandoned house, branches tearing through the ceiling, ferns carpeting the floor. there is life pushing forward, pushing through.”

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“Because I carry it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”

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“You lived

two decades

with nothing but your spine holding you up. the way light does not care if shadows follow you do not have to be wanted

—to prove you are real.”

– natalie wee, never been kissed

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“The south is so amazing. Just talked to an old man by the river about micro plastics and he said “There’s glitter in our veins that will long outlast our bones” then he just walked away from me.”

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A three-year-old brought me a bit of

black paper. “Look”, she said, “I found a

piece of night!”

We’re all born poets, but slowly we

forget.

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“Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again”

———————————————————————

“if no art makes you feel anything, make your own art and feel something”

———————————————————————

“Why do you people feel profound thought has to come from high places? The gutter looks at the stars too”

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“They fall from the sky sometimes, looking for a place to grow”

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“How liberating it is to pursue wholeness instead of perfection”

———————————————————————

“of course i feel too much, im a universe of exploding stars.”

– S. ajna

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“In Simberg’s garden the humble Death-like figures struggle against harsh conditions; the landscape around the garden has burnt yellow, it is dry and barren. The cherished flowers grow in exotic shapes, slowly, requiring constant care. The black-clad figures love their nurslings.

The garden is a place where Death is allowed to realize its feelings of affection. The Garden of Death can be seen depicting the impossibility of this love; maybe the flowers are tender and fragile because they can not handle the love of Death. Love has two faces: one of them is the face of devastation.”

———————————————————————

“Wasn’t that the definition of home?

Not where you are from, but where you are wanted.”

Abraham Verghese

———————————————————————

“if it was good, it would have stayed”

“and do you cry over that which has passed? i swear to you, if there was any good in it, it would have stayed.”

———————————————————————

“i am not brave but sometimes i am made brave by my friends which is to say i am made brave by love”

———————————————————————

“It’s a fitting punishment for a monster. To want something so much— to hold it in your arms and know beyond a doubt you will never deserve it.”

———————————————————————

“HEALING INVOLVES

DISCOMFORT, BUT SO DOES REFUSING TO HEAL.

ANU, OVER TIME REFUSING TO HEAL IS

ALWAYS MORE PAINFUL.”

———————————————————————

“And when you no longer explain yourself, not out of pride but exhaustion

is that strength, or quiet surrender?”

———————————————————————

“And when the mirror no longer reflects who you were

is it growth, or are you simply gone?”

———————————————————————

Haiku:

yes bacon makes the

world darker so the cat needs

more light to see by

———————————————————————

art never comes first.

first came the blood, the nights, the fever,

the lonely walk in the park.

-vesmir

———————————————————————

“They’re going to bury you three feet deep, because you’ve only ever been half a man” sounds like a raw ass line from Shakespeare or something buts actually from me yelling at my cat for stealing my sandwich while I was getting a drink.

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—

Bio From Dani’s Website:

https://daniputney.com/

Proudly in Collaboration with:

Thistle & Nightshade Bookstore

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Dela TorreDani Putney

BOW

Epigraph: “The dancer Ginger Rogers did everything that her partner Fred Astaire did, but ‘backwards and in high heels’”

— Frank and Ernest Cartoonist Bob Thaves 

I could’ve written a piece about the fierceness of the fire breathing divine feminine. I could’ve easily scrawled some lines about the sacred sanctity of sisterhood or the goodness of goddesses across the globe. I could’ve focused on the individual testimonies I hear constantly that have taught me with terrifically tantalizing tributes and terrifyingly terrible tellings at places like Sierra Arts Foundation with the Sierra Arts Literary Community, Artech with the Nevada Poetry Society, Our Center with True Colors Poetry, Shim’s with Monday Night Poetry, Black Rabbit Mead Co with Poetry and Jazz and Sexy Grown Folks Poetry and The Laughing Planet for UNR/Brushfire.

There I go mentioning fire again.

Such a piece would’ve written itself. It could’ve held butterflies, rainbows, angel’s wings and pristine sunrises somewhere in its body. It could’ve held heads high, connected authentically in a completely safe and predictable way focusing on the bountiful bevy of beauties I personally know who are intentionally bound to light the stage on fire (that’s three) in their chosen crafts. All of it would’ve been true. All of it could’ve touched you on the surface and beneath. But I felt lead to write a piece more from my gut with some teeth. So please, if I say something that offends and you’re unwilling to make amends don’t take it out on the queens. Take it out on the court jester JJZ. With this, I’m not speaking for the city or all women. I’m just speaking for me. We came here to warm up, so let’s let the fire breathe.

Men,

Demand more of yourselves

Raise the bar on beckoning and behavior

Be better

The women of our lives are carrying

the brunt of the load, while we stand aside and gawk.

Read those books gathering dust on the shelves 

We need to be saved, we’re not the savior

take care with each spoken word

and written letter

I’ll see y’all on down the road, if you have the courage to walk the walk.

In the ancient time honored game of chess my favorite piece has always been the black queen. Because, although her side is made to go second according to instructions, she’ll always remain the most powerful piece on the board. Too many queens have been forced to go second or not at all. We’re going to address more than a few of those here and now.

In the game of life we must each play the cards we were dealt. And that’s if we can even get a seat at the table. 

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to solo the Atlantic, and the first human of any gender to cross the Atlantic in an airplane twice.  For her effort, she won the Distinguished Flying Cross, the French Legion of Honor, and the Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society.

Queen of Spades.

At the age of only six, Ruby Bridges was the first student to integrate William Frantz Elementary in NOLA. One of the dangerously pale onlookers caught a glimpse of her whispering to herself while walking the red target to enter the school and later asked her about it. “I was praying for the people who were cursing me and threatening me.” An angel capable of blessing the demonic attacks with words of praise. 

Queen of Diamonds.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Notorious RBG, had the incredible privilege of being named among a list of women who “show up, speak up, and get things done” in whatever personal and professional spaces they choose to occupy. A most excellent jurist who had a lifelong battle with injustice.

Queen of Clubs.

Ashlee Haze wrote the poem “Hymn” which tore my heart open and sewed it back together better than ever. 

Queen of Hearts.

Dolly Parton is believed to have written “I will always love you” and “Jolene” in the same day.

Frida Kahlo learned to love even in the midst of pain and helped human beings everywhere regain their sense of wonder through her art and the life she was bold enough to live.

Maya Angelou voluntarily gave up speaking for five whole years to prove a point, after a tremendously traumatic experience believing her own voice powerful enough to have killed the man who attacked her and still managed to polish off gems like “if you are always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.”

Hedy Lamarr, An actress and inventor, she co-invented a technology that is the precursor to modern Wi-Fi

Indira Gandhi, daughter to India’s first Prime Minister, later became Prime Minister herself of one of the most misogynistic populated countries in the world.

Sasha Colby, an American beauty pageant competitor won the Miss Continental competition in 2012 and she was crowned the winner of Season 15 of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2023. I’ve heard she’s more than a queen. She’s a Goddess. 

Before the world blessed us with Venus and Serena Williams, it gave us Althea Gibson who won 11 Grand Slam titles including five in singles and six in doubles, reaching an astounding 8 Grand Slam event Finals in the year 1957 alone.

Marie Curie, The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.

Joan of Arc, born into the thick of the Hundred Years War, was utterly fearless mentally and verbally, an astounding warrior physically, superior to her male counterparts emotionally and on a mission from God spiritually.

At the age of sweet 16, Zinaida Portnova poisoned the food of over 100 Germans, killing them. She was apprehended by the Gestapo, and while being questioned, she disarmed the detective and shot him in the head. In her haste to flee, she killed two more soldiers. As a single teenager, she did more to defeat the Nazi party than the entire MAGA movement has done in its lifetime. Bad Ass.

Rosa Parks said “Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” To paraphrase, today’s Wonder Woman is yesterday’s dismissed little girl who refused to back down to the bullshit. Forming a golden lasso of truth out of tattered pigtails, Bracelets of submission from the ropes intended to bind her wrists and the Gauntlet of Atlas yielding ten fold strength from the insults of fe-Fi-fo-fum-males who would rank on the inadequate scale of one to anything.

Monte Mader and Heather Cox Richardson are daily speaking truth to perceived power in real time pointing out the countless flaws and ethical shortcomings of this would-be fascist regime.

While the other disciples fled and scattered in fear the women stayed and put in the work.

Queens. All of them.

I’m trying to become the man who might’ve saved me as a child

The best thing any man can do for a child is to love their mother

not become the helpless hapless insolent child who needs to be mothered again and again by human beings with far better things to do, who are already tired and oftentimes laboring for free without the recognition and flowers they deserve 

I was dealt a fantastic hand, trying to make the most of it. Raised by a chosen family of cocktail waitresses, older and younger sanctuary sisters, my mother’s friends, grandmothers, aunts, teachers, librarians, and other neighborhood moms who were also trying to corral the endangered species known as teenaged boys in the early nineteen nineties. 

The first place I learned about Hope was peering over my Mom’s shoulder watching that character’s namesake on Days of Our Lives. Soaps were the first operas I was exposed to and the first bars in my mouth for ever speaking disrespectfully as a kid.

Placed in childcare with Oprah, Ricki Lake, Sally Jesse Raphael, Velma from Scooby Doo, Judge Judy and The Golden Girls.

I’ve been uplifted and encouraged along the way by so many other women it makes my head spin and my heart do cartwheels. We’ll call them heartwheels which far surpass the Hot Wheels of my boyish youth. Since edified and supported by divinely feminine friends, damn fine poets, counselors, mentors, coaches, exes, cougars, silver foxes, pastors and slam queens,

oh my!

Not to mention at least three multipliers of life, I’m quite convinced were angelic beings disguised as strangers sent to me at the perfect times to keep me alive. 

And when it comes to spiritual adoption, taking people under my wing,

keeping an eye out for

and my heart with, 

I’m a proud girl Dad mostly.

There are some boys who’ve fought their way into my heart.

Unfortunately several of those have fought their own way out of this world too soon. 

Hopefully they’re waiting for me somewhere in the next so I can introduce them to their royal siblings. 

So whether B.O.W. stands for 

Beauty of women

Badassery of Women

an entity that’s elegantly curved, strong as a tree, meant for shooting arrows of truth at targets of inadequacy,

the rightful front end of an entity hearty enough to sail the seven seas,

or what you’d put atop any gift to the entire world,

we as men ought to bend the head and upper body at the waist as a sign of respect in greeting.

Check the line-up.

Buy the tickets.

Support the artists, this weekend

and all year round.

Give the flowers.

Spread the word. 

Be in awe as I am. 

In short, I’d be absolutely nothing without the women of my life. 

Queens. All of them.

And this house of cards we’re living in

isn’t a game to me.  

It’s why I stand for who (and what)I believe in,

why I stand by my friends, loved ones and chosen family

why I stand up for the beauty and badassery of women

because when faced with a queen

it’s hard to bow from a seated position 

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Written and Performed by Jesse James Ziegler

5/2/25 At Underworld Distillery

An exhibit at the Metro Gallery inside City Hall in downtown Reno, NV. Running March 17th through May 9th 2025. Poetry and photography by City of Reno Poet Laureate Jesse James Ziegler

“Hello to the power of belonging.

Hello to the power of the responsibility of belonging.”

— Padraig O’Tuama

It is written of Two Edens: Upper and Lower

at first glance a well formed riddle

In the black and white duality we are left to search out the way

Yet God in their wisdom sets us perfectly smack dab in the middle

The Resurrection provides us pathway to live in the gray

The in between. The Golden mean,

where we currently work and rest.

Though striving for utmost of two extremes

the tension of already but not yet.

The other being least we attempt to wean,

rather than subscribing to a version less

of our selves and our heart’s given dreams,

hoping the source of all to have met. 

As image bearers we seek, climb, dig, deep dive, and delve

In every crevice, around each corner in the overlap of this magical place

As we read in 1 Corinthians 13:12

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.”

Reflection as in the mirror of a continuous crucible by silver refinement,

Redemption as in purification through pressure like coal to diamonds.

These ancient yet childlike lands have porous borders,

Some with despair and bitter belonging,

others with lively celebration and feast.

The sacred cartography has a key for the orders,

Greatest doesn’t become by wronging,

rather by allowing ourselves to be least.

May we incline our heads toward each other fully,

that we may see the image of God more clear,

in the face of an enemy, a refugee or a stranger.

Choosing wholehearted love as greater than empty fear,

and compassionate hope greater than potential danger.

Moving precious and turbulent time with botanical interests and dreams of creation,

Tending to the garden isn’t just a novel way to pass the time, It’s an act of faith.

We sift the soil of the earth and each other’s hearts in every presented situation, 

Called to cultivate and patiently wait.

We each have unique skills to share and gifts to give,

a particular place in the choir, a special role on the team.

We sing and play better freely imparting what we’re given to live,

As the very beginning foretells the mouth of the stream.

Trusting the master gardener to bestow breath

into the seeds we have sewn,

and the deeds we have shown, 

conquering death because love’s worth it.

Using our gifts and powers, knowing light and song, 

the fervent way, and the word to disperse it.

We are but sunflowers growing in Babylon,

filtering out the curse from the earth to reverse it.

Those on the wide and crooked may try to speed through

While continuing on down this mysterious unknown road

are the straight and narrow which the world may despise 

May we live out the tales we tell of ourselves which are more than true

The gentlest horses become burdened to carry the heaviest load

Thus they must let loose and lay down the weight of the lies

We are works in process of progress seeking the next best thing to do

In all that we execute and say day by day striving for a heavenly abode

Noting when we miss the mark in spite of well intentioned tries

The ways to less are many but the ways to more are few

With gracious gratitude we praise the one able to crack the code 

For we’ll fly one day only because Jesus was first able to rise.

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Title taken from a combination of Mark 12:31 and Luke 10:37

Written for The Rock Church Easter Service 4/20/25