Lamar Howell's Weblog

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4310969/Jesus_Christ_verbs_etc

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I come to Vrindivan

not to live, but to die.

My head is shaved,

my jewelry sold for rice

and a white sarape.

I am one of ten thousand widows here.

They say those who die in Vrindivan will not return

to live again and suffer.

I want this deliverance

Next to rice

it is my greatest desire.

I remember my old life in the village

I had my home and a husband

my mango tree

Ponds, all full of fish.

I had everything

Now, I am forgotten

But I have my dignity

I am worth a hundred of my relatives

I am happiness itself

Happiness is my other name.

O Lord, help me

Hare, Hare Krishna

What am I to do?

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I must love you my God more than sin, more than secret lies, more than false relationships. Launch a probe into this mystery cloud of nebulous humanity that is me, neutralizing every signal of carnal energy emitting from the force of ego. Change my time-warped insides and make space for you. I open this dark lost ship to your search party. I’m sending out a beacon in this prayer, a homing signal to Abba, my God and friend.

. . . boarded, somewhere in the asteroid belt.

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The bus stopped near the train station in Warsaw, Poland. As I struggled to carry my toddler son and an umbrella stroller while navigating through the exiting crowd, someone behind me slipped my wallet from my pocket. My credit cards, license, cash– all gone.   We went into the train station with only a US quarter to our name. I had to go to the restroom but had no money to use the sink to wash my hands.  I was breathing in trust, breathing out hope.  As I was leaving the bathroom I saw a metal bucket on the floor, catching drips from a leak in an overhead pipe. I stopped to stick my hands under the transparent living flow–falling in freeze-frames from heaven–and looked up just in time to see the Holy Spirit do that slo-mo swan-dive.

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No one I know was born today, none met their fate. No war started nor any treaty signed. No one sworn into an office or invented or created a thing–that I know of.

But today marks a place in time and in my personal history where I stopped. To listen to God. To contemplate the highest good and deepest truth, the purest speech from the most assured source–and weakly ask for change, to be awakened to it all, or to any worthy part, a kernel to plant in my heart. A stirring, a blowing, a brush of His finger across the brow of my soul.

I wish I could be real, for once, completely and irreversibly bare and naked and childlike–and totally longing before my God. Christ was stripped, poured out, abandoned for me, but . . . for my pitiable safe, cool response?

Save me! If I were crucified beside him, would I then feel, and understand? If all I could say is “remember me,” could I say it with a crushed heart? Why, my dearest God, can’t I?

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Sometimes I dont have energy. Im too tired to put in apostrophesandsometimespushthespacebar.

I feel like a deflated balloon, pflupflupfwtruuuulllllpluhoop. Augh, I must put the lid back on the jars i opened, push my shoes up under the bed, change from my Sunday khakis into my summer shorts. I’m too tired to eat a chip, so I let it turn to mush on my tongue. Maybe it’s not me, it’s the heat. It’s 104 in Texas today. What’s 4 more than 100? Phhffft! I can take it. When it gets so hot, you’re conscious of every move, every turn of the head, every labored breath.  The grass is dying here. I remember a phenomenon called rain? The heavenly stuff that can form beads on my car and glasses. No wind, no air, it’s a vacuum here. My Kia is sunburnt and peeling, the grass turns a strange aqua color before dying, the irrigation system spurts and gasps, afraid to expose their sprinkler heads. They used to go ‘chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-ckk-fdrrrrr-fdrrrrrr-fdrrrrrrr-chk-chk-chk. Now they just go flp-fl-f.

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THE LOST-AND-FOUND CORVETTE

Today a man with the water dept was working across the street. When he saw me he yelled out “Do you want to sell that corvette?” I couldn’t believe that he had recognized my son’s 77 midnight purple Corvette 90% of which was hidden underneath the gray cover and the random things I had piled on it. There’s a reason he recognized it–he was the guy who sold it to my son eight years ago. I cleaned off the car, took off the cover, and he stood there marveling at his long-gone treasure. “I’ve never seen another one like it anywhere,” he said.

That’s how God sees each of us today. Under the careless deposits of things left unfinished, things tossed, maybe forgotten, lies a self-made defensive cover over the priceless irreplaceable treasure of a devoted life. It is something we’ve protected from the dust of disappointment, and the inactivity of lost opportunities. But someone still sees and values it. It’s God. He can recognize it even from a small exposed corner by its color, its contour. He recognizes it because it is the design of his dreams.

Men, underneath the embarrassing load of non-related things piled onto our dreams lies a reserve of head-turning, explosive, tree-uprooting power. Underneath the garage dust of spiritual neglect is the hard shiny luster of the true extension of our personalities – a spirit-empowered true warrior, or darkhorse, of God. My wish and I believe God’s desire is that we will all find our true passion again and rehearse it every time we meet together as men, by the way we honor and respect the real man of God who may be undercover.

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when His is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

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I want to own
a piece of the river where I grew up,
just so I can be on my own land
near the water’s edge.
There, to touch the smooth stones,
to listen to the water breaking over the dam
and cascading into waves and suds.

I want a build a cabin, a retreat near that river
where I can be a child again.
This time I’ll be care-free,
and rediscover its wonders.

What is drawing me back to that river
in a homely nearly-abandoned town?
Once I’m settled in
this longing may pass.
Then I may yearn for the place of my birth,
to go back there
and see the grasses blowing in wide fields
resting, held fast by orange clay.

There is no river, only springs
my father once told me about-
Coffee springs was the name.
Perhaps the water is brown
like the name of the county
‘Coffee County’
But for now I have no sentiment
for Alabama.

I want to go back to Deep River
and feel its pulse in the heart of North Carolina

That’s how old the child
trapped inside me is right now.
But, the child is getting younger.

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I just got my book DEEP RIVER: The Little League Years into print. It’s available at http://www.lulu.com for about $17 including taxes and shipping and handling.

You can also call my cell 817.247-2215 and request a copy

or email joneshowell@yahoo.com

Pay me by PAYPAL or a personal check.

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Call me Ishmael

Hate me if you will

Wish me into oblivion

I will not go like a hidden son

Because I am meant to exist

I feel my destiny

You call me a mistake

I am not

I am the fruit of the designs

of the great-grandmother of Judah,

I was mocked by her jealousy

She embittered her husband’s very son

I was undone by her

while my father looked away

I was mocked and rejected

but found by Yahweh in the rocky desert

He followed the hollow sounds of abandonment,

gave me sweet water

To wash down the sharp iron dust of rejection

There God gave me a destiny

a hope toward which I must plod

The Angel of the Lord

promised me greatness

progeny

Kings and Princes

among my descendants

His presence guided me in my youth

God gave me skill

made me an expert archer

To find the mark

and bring down the prey

As if to say

He wants my life sustained

God gave me a wife

and children

The best of Egypt

The richness of the Nile

I will find my way back

to Abraham

To the God of Abraham

and my God

Embraced as a worthy son

Dying to live and forgive

and be forgiven

Hate me if you will

But do not ignore me

Call me Ishmael.

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